Vegetables could protect against acute pancreatitis

Diets rich in vegetables could be the key to staving off the development of acute pancreatitis, researchers now claim.

A study published in the journal Gut found that those who eat more than four servings of vegetables a day are 44 per cent less likely to have acute pancreatitis than those who eat less than one serving.

The discovery was made when scientists investigated if an imbalance of antioxidant levels associated with dietary factors made the pancreas more sensitive to the effects of free radicals, which, when produced excessively, lead to acute pancreatitis.

Researchers tracked the health of 80,000 adults living in central Sweden over an average period of 11 years.

Subjects completed a comprehensive dietary questionnaire in 1997 and the study observed that those who ate the lowest amount of vegetables were at an increased risk of developing acute pancreatitis.

It is hoped that if the findings are confirmed, doctors will be able to recommend boosting dietary intake of vegetables to prevent the condition.

A previous study also found that the inflammatory protein interleukin-6 has a role in the duration of acute pancreatis, which offers another target for development in the fight against the syndrome.

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