Introduction:

the diet plays an important role in the origin and prevention of multiple chronic degenerative diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases or cancer.

Objective:

the main objective of this paper is to analyze the studies that are focused on researching the relationship between the consumption of the particular groups of foods and its importance on the increase and for prevention of the risk of cancer appearance.

Methods:

a bibliographical review was carried out in the main international databases (PubMed, Scopus and Nutrition Reference). The results were structured in two main sections: those related with the increase of cancer risk and food related with the increase of cancer risk. In the present review, 104 scientific articles have been evaluated.

Results:

the results have shown a positive association between red meat and colon cancer, alcoholic drinks and liver cancer, and salt and gastric cancer. The Mediterranean diet was associated in a preventive way with digestive and respiratory tract cancer. Conversely, no statistically significant association was found between dairy products and ovarian cancer, carbohydrates and sugars and pancreatic cancer, and tae and breast cancer.

Conclusions:

as a result, healthy eating guidelines, such as the Mediterranean diet, based on lower consumption of red meat, alcoholic drinks and salt, might contribute to reducing the incidence of colon cancer, liver cancer and gastric cancer.

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