Looking for an easy New Year's resolution? Eat less meat. You might just stave off cancer, finds a new study in the journal Nutrients.
The author reviewed cancer rates in 157 countries and compared those with food consumption patterns for those countries collected by the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization. He also looked at other potential cancer risk factors, including gross domestic product, life expectancy, lung cancer incidence (an index for smoking) and latitude, a marker of vitamin D exposure.

His conclusions: If you want to stave off the widest variety of cancers, stop smoking, eat fewer animal products and get more vitamin D. Countries with high rates of animal product consumption—meat, dairy, eggs, and fish—also saw high rates of 12 different types of cancer, including breast, kidney, liver, ovarian, prostate, testicular and thyroid cancers. Low solar UVB exposure, a marker for vitamin D absorption, was associated with six different types: bladder, brain, kidney, lung, melanoma, and Hodgkin’s lymphoma. And lung cancer incidence rates also correlated to 12 non-lung varieties of cancer.