Plant-based Diets and Risk of Cancer in the Adventist Health Study-2

Cancer Epidemiology in Seventh-day Adventists

Status

Active, not recruiting

Phases

Unknown

Study type

Observational

Source

ClinicalTrials.gov

Registry ID

NCT03615599

Acronym

AHS-2

Enrollment

96000

Registered

2018-08-06

Start date

2002-02-01

Completion date

2028-12-01

Last updated

2026-01-30

For informational purposes only — not medical advice. Sourced from public registries and may not reflect the latest updates. Terms

Conditions

Cancer, Breast, Cancer, Colorectal, Cancer, Prostate

Keywords

Seventh-day Adventists, vegetarian, mortality, cancer, dietary pattern, soy consumption, dairy consumption, plant-based

Brief summary

The Adventist Health Study-2 is a long-term study, exploring the links between lifestyle, diet, and disease outcomes among Seventh-day Adventists. More than 96,000 church members from the U.S. and Canada are participating in the current study, AHS-2, conducted by researchers at the Loma Linda University School of Public Health.

Detailed description

The Adventist Health Study-2 (AHS-2) is a large national cohort of 96,000 Seventh-day Adventists in the U.S. and Canada. The study is searching for associations between diet and risk of common and medium frequency cancers (breast, prostate, colorectal, lung, uterus, pancreas, melanoma of skin). This cohort is unusual in that about half are vegetarian, many eat soy at Asian levels, and many have very low or absent dairy intake while others eat normal amounts of dairy. Thus observations on these people, many of whom have contrasting dietary habits, may provide insights about diet and cancer, so supporting dietary changes that could be readily adopted by many.

Interventions

None listed

Study design

Observational model

COHORT

Time perspective

PROSPECTIVE

Eligibility

Sex/Gender

ALL

Age

30 Years to No maximum

Healthy volunteers

Yes

Inclusion criteria

* Member of a Seventh-day Adventist church \>30 years of age Ability to read English Live in the US or Canada

Exclusion criteria

* Less than 30 years of age * Church members who did not complete the baseline questionnaire. * Incarcerated or institutionalized people * Non-English speakers

Design outcomes

Primary

Measure	Time frame	Description
Incident cases of breast cancer among subjects with documented dietary habits.	Linkage with state cancer registries occurs periodically for 9 years, with first linkage at year 04 of study enrolment.	Incident cases of breast cancer as found by linkage with state cancer registries will allow calculation of hazard ratios comparing extreme quintiles of dietary intakes. The focus is on meats, soy, and dairy intakes.

Secondary

Measure	Time frame	Description
Incident cases of prostate cancer among subjects with documented dietary intakes.	Linkage with state cancer registries occurs periodically for 9 years, with first linkage at year 04 of study enrolment.	Incident cases of prostate cancer as found by linkage with state cancer registries will allow calculation of hazard ratios comparing extreme quintiles of dietary intakes. The focus is on meats, soy, and dairy intakes.

Countries

United States

Contacts

PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATORGary E Fraser, MD,PhD

Loma Linda University

Outcome results