The study into processed meats and red meats was conducted by the worldwide Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), an intergovernmental agency forming part of the World Health Organisation. In particular, processed red meats – cured meats like bacon and smoked sausages – now fall into the IARC’s “Group 1”, high as tobacco smoking and asbestos exposure. If you don’t eat bacon every day, you are probably OK.
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Not a huge risk, then.
In our evaluation, the evidence of association between processed meats and cancer risk was more consistent than the evidence for unprocessed red meat. The most influential evidence, it said, came from the past 20 years.
Forbes, in its report, however noted that just because tobacco and processed meat are both classified in “Group 1 carcinogenic to humans” does not mean that both are comparable. Aside from bowel cancer, eating processed meat may also cause pancreatic and prostate cancer.
The agency made no specific dietary recommendations and said it did not have enough data to define how much processed meat is too risky. But it said the risk rises with the amount consumed.
Whether Americans will stay away from hot dogs, bacon and other meaty treats remains to be seen. To sum up tables from the National Cancer Institute, men men 60 and younger face nearly 5 percent chance of getting colorectal cancer in their lifetimes, and a greater than 2 percent chance of dying from it. For women it’s about 4.5 percent and 1.9 percent. “By the WHO’s calculations, having a cold-cut sandwich every day would only raise that to around 6 percent”. “This is not really new news, but it really is dramatically put”, said Dr. Meyers in-between patients at NYU Langone’s Perimutter Cancer Center in midtown.
Meat is now in the same category as smoking and asbestosnot to say that it is equally unsafe, only that evidence against it seems to stack up in the same ominous way. The initial absolute risk of developing colon cancer is quite low, in the single digits, therefore an increased relative risk of 18 percent from daily consumption of processed meats still leaves you with a pretty low absolute risk.
“Processed meats are high in saturated fat”.
The IARC does not compare the level of cancer risk associated with different substances in a given category, so does not suggest eating meat is as risky as smoking, for example. In an era that has shifted the responsibility for healthy decision making onto the patient, combined with an endless supply of “information” and “research” via social media, it is easy to feel overwhelmed. Most processed meats contain pork or beef, but processed meats may also contain other red meats, poultry, offal, or meat by-products such as blood. A definite cause of colorectal cancer, the World Health Organization study says.
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Now that a World Health Organization agency has classified them as carcinogenic, bacon, ham and other processed meats could require warning labels in California. It was our task to evaluate the potential role of consumption of red and processed meats as cancer-causing agents.
