Want to lower your risk of cancer? Eat healthy.

food.
(Image credit: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images)

Eating foods like fruits, vegetables, and whole grains has been touted as a great way to stay healthy. It's said to help prevent everything from diabetes to the common cold to visiting the doctor at all. But a new study has found that your diet can have a real impact on your likelihood of getting cancer, too.

The study, published on Wednesday in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute: Cancer Spectrum, found that about 5.2 percent of all new cancer diagnoses in the United States in 2015 were linked with a poor diet. That figure is "comparable to the proportion of cancer burden attributable to alcohol," said Fang Fang Zhang, a cancer epidemiologist at Tufts University and the study's lead author.

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Shivani is the editorial assistant at TheWeek.com and has previously written for StreetEasy and Mic.com. A graduate of the physics and journalism departments at NYU, Shivani currently lives in Brooklyn and spends free time cooking, watching TV, and taking too many selfies.