Well-done meat may be a cancer risk

Regulary eating meat, especially if it's well done or cooked at high temperatures, may increase your chances of developing bladder cancer, according to new research.

Past research has shown that meat cooked at high temperatures can generate cancer causing chemicals called heterocyclic amines (HCAs).

In this study, scientists wanted to find out how cooking meat, meat consumption and HCAs affected a person's risk of developing bladder cancer.

Researchers analysed data from over 1,700 people over a 12 year period, 884 with bladder cancer.

Patients were separated into four groups, according to how much red meat they ate as part of their diet.

After adjusting for factors such as age, gender and ethnicity, the scientists found that the group who ate the most red meat were one and a half times more likely to develop bladder cancer compared with those who ate the least.

Eating steaks, pork chops and bacon raised bladder cancer risk significantly, they said. And even fried chicken and fish were found to "significantly raise the odds of cancer."

And people whose diet included well-done meats were almost twice as likely to develop bladder cancer as those who preferred their meats rare.

The scientists also found that three specific HCAs were associated with the highest risk of bladder cancer.

In addition to diet, the scientists also analysed the DNA of patients to look for any genetic variations which may interfere with the way people metabolise red meat and increase their risk of cancer.

They found that some gene variations could increase your chances by as much as five times if they ate a lot of meat as part of their diet.

"This research reinforces the relationship between diet and cancer," said Professor Xifeng Wu, from the University of Texas and lead author on the study.

"These results strongly support what we suspected: people, who eat a lot of red meat, particularly well-done red meat, such as fried or barbecued, seem to have a higher likelihood of bladder cancer."

The research was presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research held in Washington DC.

This article was published on Tue 20 April 2010