Meat and
Cancer
It has long been thought that eating processed and red meats increases your
risk of disease. This year two large studies prove that these meats do cause
some cancers. These recent studies are the largest of their kind to show a
direct link between eating red and processed meats like hot dogs, luncheon
meats, and hamburgers and increased risk of colon and pancreatic cancer. People
who reported eating the most processed and red meats have about twice the risk
of getting colon or pancreatic cancer compared to those who reported eating the
least amounts of these foods.
The well-controlled studies involved over 150,000 people and took over seven
years to complete. The colon cancer study is published in the Journal of the
American Medical Association and the pancreatic cancer findings were
reported at the 96th annual meeting of the American Association of Cancer
Research. The researchers think that it is not merely the high fat content of
these meats that causes the cancers because other high fat foods did not show
the same links to cancer. The research points to dangerous cancer-causing
agents formed during the processing and cooking of these meats.
SOURCES: American Association for Cancer Research; The Journal of the
American Medical Association
http://www.aacr.org/default.aspx?p=1066&d=436
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/293/2/172