Meat and Cancer

Hi guys, I thought this was relevant to what we talked a little bit about in lecture today regarding the correlation between meat consumption and cancer. It's called Chemicals in Meat Cooked at High Temperatures and Cancer Risk. The article is short and has a lot of interesting facts - it also was reviewed in 2010 so it's pretty recent information. There are a lot of studies out there on this topic, which makes it hard to find a definite answer since so many factors play into it. However, all of the studies I looked at show a definite correlation between red meat consumption and poor health ranging from cardiovascular issues to a greater risk of death in general. When muscle meat is cooked at high temperatures polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are produced, which have carcinogenic effects when consumed and are thus found to be cancer-causing. 


We also talked about whether or not the significance of health risks associated with red meat is the same with other meats such as chicken and seafood. A Harvard study (documenting 23,926 deaths) released this year showed, "One daily serving of unprocessed red meat (about the size of a deck of cards) was associated with a 13% increased risk of mortality, and one daily serving of processed red meat (one hot dog or two slices of bacon) was associated with a 20% increased risk." However, "Replacing one serving of total red meat with one serving of a healthy protein source was associated with a lower mortality risk: 7% for fish, 14% for poultry."


I am not sure if anyone is doing their cancer project on environment/food and cancer but both of these studies show that meat consumption leads to a variety of cancers. I would also note the amount of PAH's given to animals in the experiments and compare that with how much meat/what type of meat the average person is consuming and the concentration of PAH's in it because it may be cancer-causing in much higher amounts than what people actually consume.