A new national campaign to encourage people to eat more fresh fruit and vegetables is drawing on recent research by scientists at the University of Cambridge.

The Five a Day campaign, launched today (Monday 27 May 2002) by Cancer Research UK, is based on the work of EPIC-Norfolk, the main UK arm of the European Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition, an international study which involves more than 500,000 people in 10 countries.

The EPIC-Norfolk team are based at the University's Strangeways Laboratory. Last year they published research in The Lancet which suggested a clear link between daily vitamin C intake and risk of death. The research findings support previous research which has suggested that vitamin C may be protective for several chronic diseases.

The Cambridge team, led by Kay-Tee Khaw, Professor of Clinical Gerontology in the Department of Community Medicine, looked at the relation between plasma vitamin C concentrations and death due to all causes, cardiovascular disease, ischaemic heart disease, and cancer.

Data for the research came from a large cohort group of 19,496 men and women aged between 45 and 79 years living in Norfolk. The participants completed a health and lifestyle questionnaire and were examined at a clinic visit. They were followed-up for causes of death for about four years.

Plasma vitamin C concentration was inversely related to death from all-causes, and from cardiovascular disease, and ischaemic heart disease in men and women. The risk of death among individuals with the highest vitamin C concentrations (top 20 per cent) was about half the risk compared with individuals with lowest concentrations (the bottom 20 per cent).

Speaking at the launch of the campaign today (Monday 27 May 2002) Professor Kay-Tee Khaw said: "The findings indicate that modest increases in fruit and vegetable intake of just one or two servings a day may be associated with large benefits for health."

Sir Paul Nurse, Interim Chief Executive of Cancer Research UK, said: "These early results are promising and add to the growing evidence that increasing the amount of fruit and vegetables that we eat may have a protective effect from cancer."

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