RETRACTED: Associations between Christian Orthodox Church fasting and adherence to the World Cancer Research Fund’s cancer prevention recommendations

The Nutrients Editorial Office retracts the article “Associations Between Christian Orthodox Church Fasting and Adherence to the World Cancer Research Fund’s Cancer Prevention Recommendations”.

Following publication, concerns were brought to the attention of the publisher regarding a lack of appropriate permission to publish content presented within this article.

Adhering to our standard procedure, the Editorial Office and Editorial Board conducted an investigation that confirmed that appropriate permission to publish a portion of the content presented in this publication had not been obtained. As retroactive permission could not be obtained from the intellectual property owner and the content could not be removed without impacting the overall findings, the Editorial Board and the authors have agreed to retract this article, as per MDPI’s retraction policy (accessed on 23 October 2024).

This retraction was approved by the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Nutrients. The authors agreed to this retraction.

Original Abstract:
Objective: Studies regarding the health effects of religious fasting have increased in the last decade. The aim of this research was to investigate the relationship between Christian Orthodox Church (COC) fasting recommendations and cancer risk, with a specific focus on fibre, fruit, vegeta-bles, and red and processed meat consumption.

Methods: In this cross-sectional study, participants included 361 individuals from Northern Greece. One hundred and seventy-six participants followed the COC fasting regime for more than 10 years, and 185 participants did not follow any restrictive dietary patterns. Diet was assessed using a 114-item food frequency questionnaire.

Results: Fasters had a more favourable dietary intake compared to non-fasters, with fasters having a higher consumption of fruit and vegetables (p = 0.009) and a significantly lower consumption of total processed meat (p < 0.001) compared to non-fasters. No significant differences were observed in the consumption of fibre and red meat consumption between the two groups.

Conclusions: Following the World Cancer Research Fund Cancer Recommendations, fasters are at a potentially lowering risk of developing colorectal cancer than non-fasters due to their more favourable dietary intake. Furthermore, higher consumption of fruit and vegetables with a lower consumption of total processed meat contributes to lower the risk of metabolic syndrome. Public health strategies based on following the structured COC fasting recommendations might hopefully contribute to the prevention of metabolic syndrome and colorectal cancer.