A study has established a weak link between eating more fruit and vegetables to protect against cancer.

The study of 500,000 Europeans states that pushing five portions of fruits and vegetables might slash Western cancer rates by around 2.5 per cent.

Experts however still say that fruit and vegetables is still key to good health.

The World Health Organization In 1990 had recommended that to prevent cancer and other chronic diseases, everyone consume at least five portions of fruit and vegetables every day.

However, research could not give a nod to this stating that nothing significant was established that could state that half of the cancers could be prevented by boosting the public's consumption of fruit and vegetables.

The team, led by researchers from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, in New York, said, “It could not be ruled out that even the small reduction in cancer risk seen was down to the fact that the kind of people who ate more fruit and vegetables lived healthier lives in many other respects too.”