Like smoking, and exposure to asbestos, it’s considered beyond doubt that eating processed meat increases your risk of developing cancer.
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The World Health Organization report says that processed meats, such as sausages and ham, cause cancer, while unprocessed red meat may also be carcinogenic.
The report was released after a team of 22 public health, cancer and other experts from 10 countries, reviewed 800 studies on the disease in humans, and sifted through epidemiological data on the consumption of processed and red meats.
If you eat a hot dog a day, your cancer risk goes up to about 6 percent.
Processed meat Processed meat was classified as carcinogenic to humans (Group 1), based on sufficient evidence in humans that the consumption of processed meat causes colorectal cancer.
“When the meat is processed or curing the chemicals form in the meat or body, that may increase the risk of cancer”, said Le Marchand. It said red meat contains a few important nutrients, but still labeled it “probably carcinogenic”, with links to colon, prostate and pancreatic cancers.
The WHO’s global Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon, France, researched this for years and put processed meats in the same danger category as smoking. Examples of processed meat include bacon, hot dogs, hams, sausages, corned beef, beef jerky, canned meat and meat-based sauces.
“The IARC classifications describe the strength of the scientific evidence about an agent being a cause of cancer, rather than assessing the level of risk”, it stressed.
The normal risk across the population for such cancers is 5%, thus eating processed meats could raise this to 6%.
Meanwhile, the North American Meat Institute (NAMI) said that classifying red and processed meat as cancer “hazards” defies common sense, and numerous studies show there is no correlation between meat and cancer.
The IARC included beef, lamb and pork under red meat and classified as a “probable” carcinogen in its group 2A list that also contained glyphosate, the active ingredient in many weedkillers.
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As many as 34,000 deaths from cancer every year are being connected to diets high in processed meat.
