For all malignant cancers, both fish eaters and vegetarians and vegans combined had significantly lower mortality than regular meat eaters [HR: 0.76 (95% CI: 0.63, 0.91) and HR: 0.82 (95% CI: 0.72, 0.94), respectively]. Vegetarians and vegans combined also had significantly lower mortality than did regular meat eaters for pancreatic cancer [HR: 0.47 (95% CI: 0.26, 0.86); P-heterogeneity = 0.065] and cancers of the lymphatic/hematopoietic tissue [HR: 0.43 (95% CI: 0.27, 0.70)], and low meat eaters had significantly lower respiratory disease mortality than regular meat eaters [HR: 0.69 (95% CI: 0.49, 0.97); P-heterogeneity = 0.14].

For specific causes of death, compared with regular meat eaters, low meat eaters had ~30–45% lower mortality from pancreatic cancer, respiratory disease, and all other causes of death, fish eaters had ~20% lower mortality from malignant cancer and ~20% higher circulatory disease mortality, and vegetarians and vegans had ~50% lower mortality from pancreatic cancer and cancers of the lymphatic/ hematopoietic tissue. These findings were essentially unchanged on further adjustment for BMI, and generally were robust across categories of sex, smoking, and BMI for the 6 most common causes of death.

In contrast to the positive associations for total and dietary calcium, there was no association with intake of nondairy calcium. This result might have suggested that other components of dairy products than calcium contribute to [prostrate cancer] risk.