By David Liu PHD

Sunday Dec 2, 2012 (foodconsumer.org) -- Eating meat including red meat may increase risk of lung cancer, according to a meta-analysis in Annals of Oncology.  

W.S. Yang at Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine in Shanghai, China and colleagues meta-analysed data from  about three dozens of studies and found men and women who ate highest amounts of meat and red meat was associated with 35 and 34 percent increased risk of lung cancer, respectively, compared with those who ate lowest amounts.

For the study, researchers identified 23 case-control studies and 11 cohort studies and after adjutsment for smoking or when studies of only never smokers were considered, the risk of lung cancer was found 35 percent higher among those who ate highets amounts of meat and red meat, compared to those who ate the lowest amounts.

Eating processed meat or total white meat was associated with 6 percent increased risk of lung cancer.

However, eating the highest amounts of poultry was associated with 9 percent reduced risk for lung  cancer while eating fish did not seem to affect the risk.

The researchers concluded "the relationship between meat intake and lung cancer risk appears to depend on the types of meat consumed. A high intake of red meat may increase the risk of lung cancer by about 35%, while a high intake of poultry decreases the risk by about 10%."

Lung cancer is expected to be diagnosed in 220,000 men and women in the United States in 2012 and the disease is expected to kill 168,000 in the same year, according to the National Cancer Institute.

In assition to its association with lung cancer, red meat consumption has already been associated with a number of cancers including colorectal cancer, advanced prostate cancer, esophageal cancer, breast cancer, pancreatic cancer, kidney cancer, stomach cancer, and bladder cancer among others.