Red meat pigments may boost colorectal cancer risk
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The British government has recently issued dietary guidelines to recommend that U.K. food consumers should reduce their red meat consumption because the meat may increase risk of colorectal cancer.
According to the new guidelines, British consumers should not eat more than 500 grams or about 1 pound of red meat per week or 2.5 ounces a day.
Still this recommendation does not mean eating that amount of red meat is risk-free as Ed Yong at Cancer Research U.K. said there is no known safe level of red meat consumption.
Nadia M. Bastide of Université de Toulouse in France and colleagues meta-analysed studies of colorectal cancer involving 566,607 people and 4,734 cases of colon cancer and there is an association between red meat consumption and increased risk of colorectal cancer.
The researchers found those who had the highest intake of heme iron, which is found high in red meat, were at 18 percent increased risk of colon cancer, compared with those having lowest intake.
They also reviewed lab and animal studies and found dietary hemogblobin and red meat promote aberrant crypt foci in rats with chemically-induced colon cancer.
The possible reason for red meat to increase colorectal cancer is that heme iron cataloizes the endogenous formation of carcinogenic N-nitroso compounds and cytotoxic and genotoxic aldehydes derived from lipoperoxidation.
The study was published on Jan 5 2011 online in Cancer Prevention Research.
A study cited in an early report by foodconsumer.org that shows that eating a diet rich in calcium, olive oil and antioxidants may negate the carcinogenic effect of red meat on the risk of colorectal cancer.
David Liu
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