Researchers said on Tuesday they were disappointed to find that Americans who eat more fruits and vegetables do not seem to have a lower risk of colon cancer.

But they stressed that a diet rich in vegetables and fruit has been clearly found to protect against other, more common diseases such as heart disease and diabetes and urged people to eat more of them.

Karin Michels of Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard University in Boston, who led the study, said she feared people would interpret her findings to eat junk food.

"The most important thing I want to get out is they should eat a diet rich in fruits and vegetables in spite of all these findings," Michels said in a telephone interview.

"Even though we couldn't find an association with colorectal cancer, fruits and vegetables definitely protect for other important diseases such as cardiovascular disease, stroke, diabetes and potentially other cancers. These are some of the best foods we can eat -- there is no doubt about it."

Colon cancer is the second-biggest cancer killer in the United States, after lung cancer, affecting 130,000 new people every year and killing 56,000.

Michels and colleagues used two long-term, ongoing studies -- the 88,000-member Nurses Health Study, which follows various health issues, and the 47,000-man Health Professionals' Follow-Up Study.

The participants answered page after page of questions about what they ate, and then were watched for 16 years to see who of the 135,000 people developed colon cancer. The results are reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Andrew Flood and Arthur Schatzkin of the National Cancer Institute noted that the nurses and health workers ate an average American diet for the most part.

(From ChinaDaily)