People who consume red meat cooked over high heat or through an open flame might be more vulnerable to kidney cancer, according to a recent study from the University of Texas.
The study revealed that when an animal with red meat is cooked with high heat, it's muscles manufacture substances such as heterocyclic amines (HCAs) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) that alter some part of the DNA that could possibly result in an elevated cancer risk, the National Cancer Institute discovered, according to the Journal of Cancer Research.
Researchers from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center studied the specific diet and genetic background of 659 patients that were newly diagnosed of renal cell carcinoma (RCC), one of the typical forms of kidney cancer, and compared them to 699 healthy patients. There was still no definite connection found with regards to cooked or barbecued red meat towards cancers such as colon, pancreatic and prostate.
They found out that those that are diagnosed with renal cell carcinoma consumed more meat than those of the healthy patients.
"We found elevated RCC risk associated with both meat intake and meat-cooking mutagens, suggesting independent effect of meat-cooking mutagens on RCC risk," Dr. Xifeng Wu, an author of the study, said, according to the MD Anderson Cancer Center.
"Our findings support reducing consumption of meat, especially meat cooked at high temperatures or over an open flame as a public health intervention to reduce RCC risk and burden," she added.
The study is in line with the recent announcement of the World Health Organization that processed meats can cause cancer. WHO revealed that 34,000 cancer related death can be highly caused by hot dogs, bacon and other processed meats.
"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," said Kurt Straif, official for the WHO's International Agency for Research on Cancer, the Washington Post reported. "In view of the large number of people who consume processed meat, the global impact on cancer incidence is of public health importance."
