By Steven Reinberg HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, March 9, 2015 (HealthDay News) -- A vegetarian diet might cut your risk of colorectal cancer by 20 percent, a new study finds.

For fish-eating vegetarians, the protective link was even stronger, researchers said.

Colorectal cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in the United States. Screening efforts, including colonoscopy, have helped save many lives by detecting precancerous polyps, said the study's lead researcher, Dr. Michael Orlich.

"However, it is even better to prevent cancers from forming in the first place. We call this primary prevention," said Orlich, who is an assistant professor of preventive medicine at Loma Linda University in California. "Diet is a potentially important approach to reduce the risk of developing colorectal cancer."

The new study, which involved more than 77,000 adults, found that people consuming healthy vegetarian diets may have a lower risk of colon and rectal cancers than non-vegetarians, Orlich said.

"Our vegetarians not only ate less meat than the non-vegetarians, but also less sweets, snack foods, refined grains and caloric beverages," he said. And they ate more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans and nuts, he added.

Prior evidence has linked eating red and processed meats to a higher risk of colorectal cancer, and consuming fiber-rich foods to a lower risk, Orlich said.

Nevertheless, Dr. Alfred Neugut, professor of epidemiology at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City, said no one has identified with certainty why a vegetarian diet would reduce the risk for colon cancer.

It's not known whether there is something in vegetables that is protective or whether something in meat is harmful, he said.

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Vegetarian diet may lower colon cancer risk