World Health Organization: Processed meat can cause cancer

PROCESSED meat—including ham, corned beef, bacon and beef jerky—can cause cancer, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced Monday, Oct. 26, putting the meat in the same danger category as smoking or asbestos.

The agency’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in Lyon, France reached the conclusion after analyzing decades of research. It evaluated more than 800 studies across several continents about meat and cancer, which looked at more than 12 types of cancer in populations with a wide spectrum of diets throughout the last 20 years.

Among its findings suggest that consuming 50 grams of processed meat per day, equivalent to about 1.75 ounces or two slices of bacon, heightens the risk of developing colorectal cancer by 18 percent.

“This is an important step in helping individuals make healthier dietary choices to reduce their risk of colorectal cancer in particular,” said Susan Gapstur of the American Cancer Society, according to The Associated Press. The organization has recommended limiting the consumption of red and processed meat since 2002. It suggests opting for fish or poultry, or cooking red meat at low temperatures.

Processed meat, which is modified either to extend shelf life or enhance taste, is smoked, salted, fermented, smoked, or cured. Among chemicals used to cure meat include nitrates and nitrites, which the body converts into cancer-causing compounds. The IARC has labeled processed meat as a carcinogen, similarly to how cigarettes are labeled.

Still, this is not to say processed meat and smoking are equally dangerous: smoking remains worse than eating a bacon sandwich.

The IARC’s findings state that the chance of individuals developing colorectal cancer because of their consumption of processed meat is small, Dr. Kurt Straif of the IARC said in a statement. However, the risk increases with the amount of meat consumed.

In the United States, the overall lifetime risk of developing the cancer is about 5 percent, according to the American Cancer Society. But the WHO says eating a cold-cut sandwich on a daily basis would only raise the risk to about 6 percent.

In the United Kingdom, approximately 6 percent of individuals develop bowel cancer in their lives. If, in the UK, people ate an additional 50 grams of bacon every day for the rest of their lives, their risk for would rise by 18 percent to about seven in every 100 people developing bowel cancer.

“This is still very relevant from a public health point of view, as there are more than 30,000 new cases per year [of colon cancer],” said Gunter Kuhnle, a food nutrition scientist at the University of Reading, according to the AP. “But it should not be used for scaremongering.”

The IARC found that red meat – defined by the WHO to include beef, goat, horse, lamb, mutton, pork and veal – is “probably carcinogenic to humans.”

Despite the linkage established in these findings, the agency did not make any specific dietary recommendations and said it did not possess sufficient data to indicate the amount of processed meat to be considered too dangerous. Furthermore, doctors are not all advising against completely eliminating meat from the diet.

“It’s not that you can’t have any,” ABC News Chief Health & Medical Editor Dr. Richard Besser said. “But you want to reduce the amount of processed meat that you’re taking in. Go with broiling, with baking, those things will not release some of the chemicals.”

Red meat does have nutritional value and is a major source of iron, vitamin B12 and zinc. The WHO said there was limited evidence that 100 grams of red meat per day boosts the risk of cancer by 17 percent.

“People should limit consumption of red meat and avoid consuming processed meat, but they should also have a diet rich in fibre, from fruit and vegetables and maintain an adequate body weight throughout life and limit the consumption of alcohol and be physically active,” Dr. Teresa Norat, an advisor to the WHO report, told BBC News.

After the new pronouncement from the WHO, the North American Meat Institute pointed out that the report ignored “numerous” studies with findings indicating no connection between meat and cancer. The new findings could impact the American meat industry, which is arguing against the linkage between their products and colorectal cancer, citing the illness involves other lifestyle and environmental factors, the AP reported.

Yet shares of the majority of meat companies experienced little change on Monday.

“I’m not expecting that [IARC] report to be a big issue going forward,” said Brian Weddington, a vice president of Moody’s Investors Service’s corporate financial group, according to Reuters. “I think there’s still going to be a lot of hot dogs sold tomorrow.”