meat -- cancer

December 20, 2001

New article linking meat consumption to cancer. Share the love by telling

all your carnivore friends!

--Jeff

New research links meat with cancer

Double or triple the risk for some forms

WASHINGTON, Dec. 20 - People who eat a meat-laden diet have more than

triple the average risk of esophageal cancer and double the risk of stomach

cancer, while people who eat a lot of dairy products had double the risk of

both, researchers reported Thursday.

THE REPORT, to be published in the January issue of the American

Journal of Clinical Nutrition, adds to several studies that link eating

meat, especially red meat, with certain cancers. Colon cancer has been most

strongly linked with a high-meat diet.

A study of people living in Nebraska found that those who ate the

most meat had 3.6 times the risk of esophageal cancer and double the risk of

stomach cancer when compared with people eating what the researchers

considered a healthy diet.

Mary Ward, Honglei Chen and colleagues at the National Cancer

Institute, Tufts University in Boston and elsewhere surveyed 124 people with

stomach cancer, 124 people with esophageal cancer and 449 people who did not

have cancer.

'HEALTHY DIET' TRACKS U.S. GUIDELINES

They asked detailed questions about their eating habits, then

characterized their diets as being " healthy, " " high meat, " " high milk, " high

in salty snacks, heavy on desserts and heavy on white bread.

The so-called healthy diet had the highest amounts of fruits,

vegetables and whole grains and generally matched the government

recommendations that people eat at least five servings of fruit and

vegetables a day; up to 10 servings of grains, breads and pasta; and just

two to three small servings of meat.

The healthy eating group - 21 percent of those surveyed - also

generally ate the fewest calories.

" In contrast with this healthy dietary pattern, the high-meat dietary

pattern included much higher intakes of meats and much lower intakes of

fruits, bread and cereals, " the researchers wrote in their report.

They said 33 percent of stomach cancer patients and 35 percent of

esophageal cancer patients ate either the high-meat or high-milk diets.

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