People who often eat salt-preserved vegetables have a higher chance of death from digestive tract cancer or a stroke from bleeding on the brain, according to researchers involved in a decade-long study in China.
But no such harm was found in preserved vegetables made with vinegar or between salty preserved vegetables and other kinds of cancer or chronic diseases, they said.
The study, by researchers from the eastern province of Zhejiang, was published in the peer-reviewed journal BMC Medicine earlier this month and based on data on hundreds of thousands of people enrolled in the China Kadoorie Biobank.
The biobank is a collaboration between China and Britain, and is the world’s largest prospective cohort study examining how lifestyle, environment and genetics are associated with common diseases.
A total of 440,415 participants free of major chronic diseases, aged 30–79 years, were enrolled from 10 diverse regions in China between 2004 and 2008 and were followed up for an average of 10 years.
The researchers sifted through the data as part of the first large-scale study looking into the link between the consumption of preserved vegetables and deaths caused by specific illnesses.
They found that people who ate preserved vegetables at least four times a week had a much higher chance of dying of a stroke or esophageal cancer compared with non or occasional consumers of the food.
“Our findings suggest limiting preserved vegetable consumption might be protective for premature death from haemorrhagic stroke and digestive tract cancer,” the paper said.
But the team also said frequent consumption of preserved vegetables and pickles was only marginally associated with deaths caused by heart disease.
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China is the world’s biggest exporter and producer of preserved vegetables, and the food is an important part of the diet throughout the country.
The scientists said the harm caused by the food was mainly due to the high content of salt in the preservation process and not associated with other kinds of pickling.
“The consumption of pickled vegetables preserved by soaking in vinegar or brine and then fermenting in a concealed container for at least two weeks was not associated with higher risk of esophageal cancer,” they said.
“The discrepancy of the associations for the consumption of high salty food and pickled vegetables may be due to different [preserving] methods and the use of condiments other than salt.”
That could be because pickled vegetables soaked in vinegar in a sealed container produce a large amount of Lactobacillus, a kind of bacteria good for the intestines, they said.
“The benefits of Lactobacillus and its production may offset the detrimental effect of preserved vegetable consumption on risk of cancer incidence and/or mortality,” according to the paper.
Other studies also show that preserved vegetable consumption may lead to higher blood pressure and consequently to higher risk of stroke.
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