The verdict is out. The World Health Organization (WHO) announced Monday that processed meats like sausages, bacon and ham do cause cancer, officially classifying it as "carcinogenic to humans." The agency also said that red meat can possibly cause cancer, officially classifying it as "probably carcinogenic."
WHO's cancer research agency, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), formed a working group of 22 experts from 10 different countries to investigate the carcinogenicity of processed meat and red meat. The research group looked at over 800 studies that examined how eating processed and red meats was associated with different types of cancer.
They found that processed meat does cause cancer and belongs to the group of the most carcinogenic substances, together with arsenic and cigarettes. Apparently, eating even just 50 grams of processed meat daily is enough to increase one's risk of developing colorectal cancer by 18 percent.
"For an individual, the risk of developing colorectal cancer because of their consumption of processed meat remains small, but this risk increases with the amount of meat consumed," Kurt Straif, head of the IARC Monographs Programme, said in a press release. "In view of the large number of people who consume processed meat, the global impact on cancer incidence is of public health importance."
The researchers also found that red meat could be a possible cause of cancer, saying that there is a "strong mechanistic evidence supporting [red meat has] a carcinogenic effect."
"This association was observed mainly for colorectal cancer, but associations were also seen for pancreatic cancer and prostate cancer," IARC said in the press release.
The American Cancer Society agrees with IARC and recommends that people eat more vegetables and less processed and red meats. World Cancer Research Fund also recommends the same diet, saying people should stay away from processed and red meats in the midst of growing evidence that these can cause colon cancer, The Consumerist reported.
However, not everyone is happy with what WHO is saying. As expected, meat industry giants quickly rejected the report.
"Cancer is a complex disease that even the best and brightest minds don't fully understand," Shalene McNeill, executive director of nutrition research at the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, told Time. "Billions of dollars have been spent on studies all over the world and no single food has ever been proven to cause or cure cancer."
Some groups also questioned the reliability of the report, saying the results of the study were manipulated to arrive at a desired conclusion.
"It was clear sitting in the IARC meeting that many of the panelists were aiming for a specific result despite old, weak, inconsistent, self-reported intake data," Betsy Booren, vice president of scientific affairs at the North American Meat Institute, said. "They tortured the data to ensure a specific outcome."
The study of the IARC working group about the carcinogenicity of processed meat and red meat was published in the Oct. 26 issue of the journal The Lancet Oncology.
