April is bowel cancer awareness month. With this in mind we talk to Dr Alan Desmond, consultant gastroenterologist, about how to reduce our risk of developing bowel cancer, one of the commonest cancers in the Western world, and how diet and lifestyle can improve prognosis for people already living with this condition.

Alan is a practising clinician, author of 'The Plant-Based Diet Revolution', a well known speaker and now a successful podcaster with his new podcast - ‘Eat This with Dr Alan Desmond’, as well as being an Ambassador for Plant-Based Health Professionals UK.

For many years Alan has been advocating for a high fibre whole food plant-based diet, for gut health and to reduce the risk of many chronic conditions.

To connect with Alan:

https://www.alandesmond.com/

https://www.instagram.com/dr.alandesmond/

Details and tickets for the Nutrition and Lifestyle Medicine Conference:

https://nlmc.org.uk/

Details for joining Plant-Based Health Professionals UK:

https://plantbasedhealthprofessionals.com/membership

Factsheets from Plant-Based Health Professionals :

https://plantbasedhealthprofessionals.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Bowel-Cancer-Prevention.pdf

https://plantbasedhealthprofessionals.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Colon-Cancer.pdf

https://plantbasedhealthprofessionals.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Colonoscopy-on-a-vegan-diet-231208.pdf

Studies discussed:

https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/cancer-carcinogenicity-of-the-consumption-of-red-meat-and-processed-meat

https://www.bmj.com/content/378/bmj-2021-068921

https://eatforum.org/eat-lancet-commission/the-planetary-health-diet-and-you/

https://www.ceu.ox.ac.uk/research/epic-oxford-1

https://adventisthealthstudy.org/studies/AHS-2/findings-lifestyle-diet-disease

https://www.bluezones.com/

https://www.wcrf.org/preventing-cancer/cancer-prevention/our-cancer-prevention-recommendations/

https://ascopubs.org/doi/full/10.1200/JCO.21.01784

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-55219-5