Glasgow University team links increased use of nitrate fertilisers to rise of gullet cancer in UK (Please note this article was first published in 2002)

Eating vegetables could cause cancer. Researchers have linked increased use of nitrate fertilisers to an alarming rise in gullet cancer in Britain.

The disease - which affects three times more men than women - kills more than 3,000 people in the UK every year, a threefold increase over the past 20 years. It is more common than stomach cancer.

The increase has puzzled researchers. But Glasgow University researchers, led by Professor Kenneth McColl, have discovered a link between nitrates in fruit and vegetables and gullet cancer.

'We are still carrying out this study, and are certainly not saying people should stop eating vegetables,' McColl said. 'But our investigations have shown that there is definitely something happening here.'

'It appears that the mass production of vegetables in the Western world since the last world war may be the underlying factor that has led to such huge increases in this form of cancer,' he added.

'We now want to determine if the permitted levels of nitrate fertilisers, which has fallen somewhat in recent years, may be partly to blame.'

McColl said it was unlikely that organic food would be any healthier, because it also contained substantial levels of nitrate, some of which came from natural fertilisers such as manure.

His research has so far revealed that green and root vegetables contain the highest levels of nitrate.

Gullet cancer also affects people in Scotland more than any other part of the United Kingdom, he revealed. In the last 20 years Scottish cases have risen from 450 to more than 1,100.