While processed meat is now classified in the same category as smoking and asbestos based on its certainty of a link with cancer, the World Health Organization stressed that it does not mean that they are equally unsafe.
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The World Health Organization says if you fill up on processed foods like bacon, sausage and hot dogs you face a real risk of colon, stomach and other cancers.
A group of 22 scientists from the WHO’s global Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon, France, evaluated more than 800 studies from several continents about meat and cancer.
“There is sufficient evidence in human beings for the carcinogenicity of the consumption of processed meat”, the group concluded in its statement.
The meat industry calls the new findings “alarmist” and argues cancer isn’t caused by a specific food, but also involves lifestyle and environmental factors.
Cancer Council Australia estimates that red and processed meats are associated with around one in six bowel cancers diagnosed in the country. Eating red meat causes 21% of bowel cancers, so 1325 Australians will die this year from cancer caused by eating red meat.
The WHO’s report also stated red meat “probably” causes cancer, but had “limited evidence” supporting the determination. Therefore, anyone who eats a full Subway sandwich with processed meat (or makes something similar at home) daily could potentially have up to a 54 percent higher chance for colorectal cancer.
That means 166 out of every 100,000 Aussies who will die of cancer this year, 4.5 of those deaths can be attributed to eating red meat, which accords with WHO’s assessment that the risk remains low. As we’ve reported, studies show that the heaviest meat eaters tend to have the highest risk.
“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.
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Dr. Kurt Straif, head of IARC monographs program, said that a person’s risk of having colorectal cancer from eating processed meat was relatively small.
“At the same time, red meat has nutritional value”.
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The Irish Farmers’ Association is warning against an overreaction to new research linking a few meats to cancer.
