Eating nitrate-rich foods might seem to protect against stomach cancer, but it's probably not the nitrates themselves. When researchers accounted for vitamins and other healthy stuff in vegetables,...

Eating more nitrate-rich foods might lower your chances of getting stomach cancer by about 20%, based on a big review of many studies, especially in European countries.

Researchers followed nearly 10,000 Finnish adults for 24 years and found that eating foods with nitrates or nitrites didn't increase their chances of getting stomach or intestinal cancers.

Eating a lot of pickled veggies (more than a half-pound per week) might triple the risk of stomach cancer in Chinese adults from certain areas, even when considering how much fresh fruits and veggies they eat.

Research has not found that eating vegetables protects against specific types of colorectal cancer in a way that is different from other foods. The overall effect of vegetables on colorectal cancer risk appears to be similar to other dietary components.

Eating more than a small amount of pickled veggies each week might make Chinese adults over 6 times more likely to get stomach cancer, and the more you eat, the higher the risk.