Red meat & the pancreas cancer

People who eat more beef or pork, especially in processed meats like hot dogs, sausage, and bacon, have a higher risk of pancreas cancer, says the largest study that has tracked healthy people for years before they were diagnosed with the deadly illness.

The Multiethnic Cohort Study followed more than 190,000 residents of California and Hawaii for seven years. Those who reported eating the most beef or pork (but not fish, poultry, dairy foods, or eggs) had a 50 percent higher risk of pancreas cancer than those who reported eating the least.

Those who said they ate the most processed meats (roughly one ounce a day for a 2,000-calorie diet) had about a 70 percent higher risk than those who said they ate the least (no more than around an ounce a week).

The researchers calculated that the pancreas cancer rate was about 40 out of 100,000 for those who ate the most processed meat in this study, but only half as high for those who ate the least.

They suggest that carcinogens caused by cooking red meat at high temperatures or the nitrites in processed meats may explain the link.

What to do: Until more studies are done, it's not certain that processed or red meat causes pancreas cancer. But it's worth cutting back anyway to reduce the risk of heart disease and colon cancer.
Journal of the National Cancer Institute 97: 1458, 2005.
COPYRIGHT 2005 Center for Science in the Public Interest
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