You know that assertion (since the World Cancer Research Fund's 2007 report, and others) that too much red meat comsumption can give you bowel cancer? It's come under attack from scientists. An Oxford based study (EPIC-Oxford) that followed 65,000 people throughout the 1990s found that vegetarians, far from being protected from bowel cancer as you might expect from non meat eaters, actually displayed a slightly higher incidence of the disease.

And last year, in a letter to the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Professor Stewart Truswell of the University of Sydney asked why several large studies which found no link between red meat consumption and bowel cancer had been rejected by the WCRF panel. He also found mistakes in its data reporting.

Of course you can always count, in any study that might adversely impact a powerful industry, on a group that will support any evidence it can that discredits negative findings. In this case beef growers, processed meat manufacturers and the meat industry at large have pointed to the evidence of a number of independent studies that also questioned the determination with which the WCRF linked red meat and cancer in their report.

Consequently, the WCRF has acknowledged and published a list of  "minor errors", some of which relate to their findings on red meat and bowel cancer. Nevertheless, it insists it has no intention of altering their expert panel's conclusions.

So on one side, you have Professor Martin Wiseman of the WCRF saying, “Looking at all the research, the evidence linking red and processed meat and bowel cancer is overwhelming,” and on the other,  Professor Tim Key, the epidemiologist who led the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition-Oxford (EPIC-Oxford) study, who says, "Our findings did come as something of a surprise. At the simplest level if meat causes colorectal cancer you would expect to see lower rates in the vegetarians, and we didn't." This despite the fact that an earlier EPIC study had suggested that very high levels of red and processed meat consumption - more than two pork chops every day - was, when compared with those who rarely ate red meat, associated with a 35 percent higher risk of bowel cancer.

Confused? As a non-scientist who's just as alert to her fiscal health as her physical health, may I suggest you take as your guide Michael Pollan, who recommends you eat more plants than meat, more fish than meat, that you use meat more as a flavoring than as a protein source. Like those cany - and healthy - Mediterraneans, those cany - and healthy - South East Asians do...

1 Comment

1. carnivore

   I seem to remember reading that the argument for why red meat caused bowel cancer was to do with it being more difficult to digest, and if eaten without the compliment of one's 5 a day, contributing to constipation. Given the cost of red meat, I'd assume people try to pack their plates out with veggies to get them full more cheaply. However, what I always wondered was the effect of what they put in the meat. We all know cattle are injected constantly with hormones and antibiotics. If there is a link between any food we are eating and things like cancer, surely it would be more to do with chemicals and drugs created for animals and plants not reacting well to the human body.