<p>Are you sure she was actually a vegetarian? Some people erroneously call themselves ‘vegetarian’ because they don’t eat red meat. Vegetarian means no meat of any sort, including poultry and fish.</p>
<p>We’ve all heard the stories of heavy smokers & drinkers who lived to 100 and were never sick.</p>
<p>That doesn’t mean that heavy smoking & drinking don’t dramatically increase the risk of lung cancer & liver disease.</p>
<p>There could have been other factors contributing to your cousin’s cancer. No one is saying that vegetarians have ZERO chance of getting cancer; just significantly less chance.</p>
<p>She was a devout buddhist and that means no meat of any kind, no egg even and she did not drink milk. I believe her diet is mostly soy based. She also did not smoke. Yes, I don’t think her cancer was caused by the fact she was a vegetarian but rather because she had a personality of a true buddha. She rarely said any mean things to anybody, she did not learn to say no to anyone who needed her help. That must caused some internal stress. Nice people die young. At least that is the only theory I can come up with.</p>
<p>That’s a sad story. I agree that being unable to say no can cause internal stress, and internal stress can contribute to disease. There is no way to know what is going on in someone’s head, their inner emotions, fears, stresses, etc. and of course genetics, exposure to environmental pollutants, etc. who knows what caused it; we can only speculate.</p>