Meat raises lung cancer risk: study

[Rosebud]

People who eat a lot of red meat and processed meats have a higher risk of several types of cancer, including lung cancer and colorectal cancer, US researchers have reported.

The work is the first big study to show a link between meat consumption and lung cancer. It also shows that people who eat a lot of meat have a higher risk of liver and esophageal cancer and that men raise their risk of pancreatic cancer by eating red meat.

"A decrease in the consumption of red and processed meat could reduce the incidence of cancer at multiple sites," Dr Amanda Cross and colleagues at the US National Cancer Institute wrote in their report, published in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS Medicine.

The researchers studied 500,000 people aged 50 to 71 who took part in a diet and health study completed in conjunction with the AARP, formerly the American Association for Retired Persons.

After eight years, 53,396 cases of cancer were diagnosed.

"Statistically significant elevated risks (ranging from 20 per cent to 60 per cent) were evident for esophageal, colorectal, liver, and lung cancer, comparing individuals in the highest with those in the lowest quintile of red meat intake," the researchers wrote.

The people in the top 20 per cent of eating processed meat had a 20 per cent higher risk of colorectal cancer, mostly rectal cancer, and a 16 per cent higher risk for lung cancer.

"Furthermore, red meat intake was associated with an elevated risk for cancers of the esophagus and liver," the researchers wrote.

These differences held even when smoking was accounted for.

"Red meat intake was not associated with gastric or bladder cancer, leukemia, lymphoma, or melanoma," the researchers added.

Red meat was defined as all types of beef, pork and lamb. Processed meat included bacon, red meat sausage, poultry sausage, luncheon meats, cold cuts, ham and most types of hot dogs including turkey dogs.

Meats can cause cancer by several routes, the researchers noted.

"For example, they are both sources of saturated fat and iron, which have independently been associated with carcinogenesis," the researchers wrote.

Meat is also a source of several chemicals known to cause DNA mutations, including N-nitroso compounds (NOCs), heterocyclic amines (HCAs) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs).

Jeanine Genkinger of Georgetown University in Washington DC and Anita Koushik of the University of Montreal said the findings fit in with other research.

"Meat consumption in relation to cancer risk has been reported in over 100 epidemiological studies from many countries with diverse diets," they wrote in a commentary.

- Reuters

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/12/11/2115679.htm

[IronMike87]

"Meat consumption in relation to cancer risk has been reported in over 100 epidemiological studies from many countries with diverse diets," they wrote in a commentary.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/12/11/2115679.htm

ie. sugar...

[pbowers]

These differences held even when smoking was accounted for.what is this? are they really trying to tell me that they looked just at people who didn't smoke who get lung cancer? what other confounding factors did they control for? how about exposure to asbestos, second-hand smoke, air pollution, or radon gas? this is comical!

[Rachel1]

Write 100 times on the blackboard: Correlation does not imply causation. Correlation does not imply causation. Correlation does not imply causation ...

[ojoj]

FFS, WHY DO THEY CONTINUE TO "LUMP" TOGETHER RED AND PROCESSED MEAT AS THOUGH THEY ARE THE SAME THING - THEY'RE NOT! Any study that does this is a total waste of time and money and proves nothing! Not worth even reading!

[Angeline]

Why is that old chestnut still coming back to haunt us. (wohoo mixed metaphors)

[CheeseSand]

They talked about this on NPR today - the person interviewed said that in particular, it was the high temperature cooking that synthesized the carcinogens. So, for example, barbecuing, grilling (where the fat drips off & cuases hot flareups), etc, was more risky. Partially pre-cooking at lower temps to minimize high-temp duration was also mentioned.

...of course, they also got the usual "choose lean red meat if you must eat red meat" plugs in as well. :)

[Rachel1]

They talked about this on NPR today - the person interviewed said that in particular, it was the high temperature cooking that synthesized the carcinogens.

I wonder if anyone's done a study on the health risks of grilling veggies? Deep frying potatoes? Browning onions? Eating toast, for that matter?

Rachel

[Zei]

And did they check the levels of all those "healthy" carbs the study participants ate? Of course not. That would be like conducting a study to analyze the harmful effects on children of fathers who work outside the home. Thinking outside the box not permitted?

[probiotic]

The way the summary of the study is presented, they make it sound as if they had separate correlations for processed meats and cancer on the one hand, and simply red meat and cancer on the other, but I'll bet the two were lumped in again as usual. I am concerned about the researcher saying "this fits in with what we already know" as that sounds like a predetermination, but I'd like to see the full study design to really know.

[swingdance]

I was just coming to post the link to this..it gave me a good laugh!

http://health.yahoo.com/news/reuters/cancer_meat_dc.html

See you already beat me to it!

[mike_d]

I wonder how many ARRP's eat pork rinds and subsequently get cancer?

[pengu1]

How many of these people lived next to fairy dust factories? Did they think of that?

[rightnow]

Well, maybe the numbers did come out that way. However given what we know of science in this genre, we'd better ask just how significant that was, and whether other factors were accounted for (eg if you added in sugar and carbohydrate intake, and then chose with the lowest of that, would the 'effect' of red meat's correlation with cancer vanish? Bet it would).

[kneebrace]

I wonder if anyone's done a study on the health risks of grilling veggies? Deep frying potatoes? Browning onions? Eating toast, for that matter?

Rachel

Excellent point rachel. Pyrolytic byproducts are probably all carcinogenic or mutagenic to some degree, whatever tissue they come into contact with, be it lungs or digestive tract. They're both pretty sensitive surfaces.

Stuart.

[pbowers]

you can read the entire article here (http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0040345) .

pertaining to our interest is the following paragraph:
In interpreting the findings from studies of meat intake and cancer, it should be noted that individuals who consume a diet high in red and processed meat typically also consume large amounts of foods such as butter, potatoes, refined grains, and high-fat dairy, all components of a westernized diet [60]. Thus red and processed meat intake might not be solely responsible for higher cancer risk. Additionally, meat intake is usually correlated with higher energy intakes [61,62] and obesity [63], so residual confounding may be present. Research aimed at understanding how foods and nutrients interact to promote or prevent carcinogenesis may provide a better understanding of potential etiological pathways and may explain some of the heterogeneity of published results.

[waywardsis]

So in effect what they're saying is the study was pretty useless and didn't actually show anything, since they didn't control the diets of those under study. Mmm-kay.

Meat intake is usually corrolated with obesity?? Right after they say that ppl with high-meat diets (at least those that they looked at) also tend to eat a lot of processed/refined grains? They should visit us here and see what happens when you take the grains, potatoes, sugary foods and processed junk out of the equation.

It's sort of like saying that people who have a high alcohol intake are at greater risk for lung cancer. Oh and by the way, they also happen to smoke more and hang out in more in smoky bars. But it's the booze, really.

[JL53563]

They talked about this on NPR today - the person interviewed said that in particular, it was the high temperature cooking that synthesized the carcinogens. So, for example, barbecuing, grilling (where the fat drips off & cuases hot flareups), etc, was more risky. Partially pre-cooking at lower temps to minimize high-temp duration was also mentioned.

...of course, they also got the usual "choose lean red meat if you must eat red meat" plugs in as well. :)
I have felt for a long time that if there is a increased cancer risk from eating meat, it is because of this. So, it's really not the meat.....it's the cooking method.

[BoBoGuy]

Perhaps Rosebud's article explains The Bears's Throat Cancer. (http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?t=287013&page=11&pp=15) It's the third post down from the top.

Something to think about!

Bo

[teaser]

There was an article on nitrites and nitrates link on the Protein Power site claiming that nitrites and nitrates were good for you because they could form nitric oxide in the body. Increased levels of nitric oxide lead to increased numbers of and increased vitality of mitochondria, and also improved bloodflow, and probably lots of other stuff.
There was an article about vitamin c and nitrosamine formation in the stomach posted on this site a month or two back. The article referred to a study where vitamin c decreased the formation of nitrosamine in the stomach by diverting the nitrite into nitric oxide.
In a high fat environment, however, the vitamin c had the opposite effect, increasing the formation of nitrosamine, presumably inhibiting the formation of nitric oxide. The high fat environment was defined as ten percent. I think they're talking ten percent of total content of the stomach, but I'm unsure.
I'm starting up intermittent fasting again (hopefully for longer than three days this time :lol: ) so maybe during the non eating phase I can pop nitrites and vitamin c constantly. (Almost serious.)

The article, or one like it... (http://www.healthcentral.com/diet-exercise/news-159692-31.html)

[wyatt]

It occurs to me that disease and death are a consequence of being alive aren't they?

Do I hear a study forming?

[teaser]

"BACKGROUND: Obesity has increased > 20% in the past decade in the United States, and more than one-half of US adults are overweight or obese. OBJECTIVE: Our objective was to further elucidate the nutritional etiology of changes in body mass index (BMI; in kg/m(2)) and waist circumference by dietary intake pattern. We hypothesized that a healthy dietary pattern would lead to smaller changes in BMI and waist circumference than would other dietary patterns. DESIGN: Subjects were 459 healthy men and women participating in the ongoing Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging. Diet was assessed with the use of 7-d dietary records, from which 41 food groups were created and entered into a cluster analysis. RESULTS: Five dietary patterns were derived (healthy, white bread, alcohol, sweets, and meat and potatoes). The mean annual change in BMI was 0.30 +/- 0.06 for subjects in the meat-and-potatoes cluster and 0.05 +/- 0.06 for those in the healthy cluster (P < 0.01). The mean annual change in waist circumference was more than 3 times as great for subjects in the white-bread cluster (1.32 +/- 0.29 cm) as for those in the healthy cluster (0.43 +/- 0.27 cm) (P < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Consuming a diet high in fruit, vegetables, reduced-fat dairy, and whole grains and low in red and processed meat, fast food, and soda was associated with smaller gains in BMI and waist circumference. Because foods are not consumed in isolation, dietary pattern research based on natural eating behavior may be useful in understanding dietary causes of obesity and in helping individuals trying to control their weight."

The above is the abstract of the study given as evidence of meat causing obesity in the quote above by PBowers.
Notice mention is made of the white bread diet correlating with a high waist circumference, while the correlation with the meat and potatoes diet quoted mentions BMI, not necessarily fat gain. Also notice the prebias of the researchers--one of the diet classes is labelled "healthy". Also notice that people eating the "healthy" diet still had expanding waistlines.
Is anyone here eating a meat and potatoes diet? This study's supposed to prove a high meat diet causes obesity?


Maybe the Bear's throat cancer was caused by his occupational exposure to tobacco smoke and his intentional exposure to pot smoke.

[Dodger]

The 'and potatoes' is a dead giveaway that none of the categories were low carbers. It is just as reasonable to blame the potatoes as it is the red meat.