Bacon, burgers and sausages were this week deemed to be as big a cancer threat as cigarettes, according to global health chiefs.
The warning saw processed meat added to the list of items classified as carcingogenic to humans by the World Health Organisation.
It means dietary favourites, including salami, chorizo and smoked ham, rank alongside arsenic and asbestos, when it comes to the potential cancer risk.
Officials said just 50g of processed meat a day – less than one sausage – increases the risk of bowel cancer by almost a fifth.
Bacon, burgers and sausages were this week deemed to be as big a cancer threat as cigarettes, according to global health chiefs.
The warning saw processed meat added to the list of items classified as carcingogenic to humans by the World Health Organisation.
It means dietary favourites, including salami, chorizo and smoked ham, rank alongside arsenic and asbestos, when it comes to the potential cancer risk.
Officials said just 50g of processed meat a day – less than one sausage – increases the risk of bowel cancer by almost a fifth.
The report also classified red meat as ‘probably carcinogenic’ – one rank below – but added that it had some nutritional benefits.
Experts are now urging the public to avoid processed meat where possible and to have a bean salad for lunch rather than a BLT.
Processed meat has been preserved, for example by smoking, and includes ham and pate, as well as burgers and mince if they have been preserved using salt or chemical additives.
Experts think the substances added during processing cause cancer.
These include preservatives such as nitrates and nitrites – as well as substantial amounts of salt.
Fresh red meat is also strongly linked to cancer and the WHO categorised it one level below processed meat, as ‘probably carcinogenic’.
But it also provides many nutritional benefits and is high in protein, iron and vitamin B12, which prevent tiredness and infections.
Twenty-two experts at the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer, from 10 countries, took the decision after reviewing more than 800 studies that investigated the links between red meat and processed meat and various different types of cancer.
Processed meat was classified as carcinogenic, based on sufficient evidence in humans that consumption causes specifically colorectal or bowel cancer, they concluded.
The classification of red meat as ‘probably carcinogenic to humans’ was observed mainly in relation to colorectal cancer, but links were also seen for pancreatic and prostate cancer.
The experts concluded that each 50 gram portion of processed meat eaten daily increases the risk of colorectal cancer by 18%.
‘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 Dr Kurt Straif, head of the IARC Monographs Programme.
‘In view of the large number of people who consume processed meat, the global impact on cancer incidence is of public health importance.’
Dr Christopher Wild, director of IARC added: ‘These findings further support current public health recommendations to limit intake of meat.
‘At the same time, red meat has nutritional value.
‘Therefore, these results are important in enabling governments and international regulatory agencies to conduct risk assessments, in order to balance the risks and benefits of eating red meat and processed meat and to provide the best possible dietary recommendations.’
But, in light of the news, which has attracted widespread reaction, the IARC has revealed its list of 116 things that can cause cancer.
The list features the known obvious culprits, tobacco smoke, secondhand smoke, alcohol, asbestos and arsenic, to name a few.
But, there are also a number of everyday activities and items that feature that are almost impossible to avoid, including the air we breathe.
And the list also features various health conditions, such as hepatitis B and C as well as HIV.
Here, we reveal all those things, which are classified alongside processed meat in the IARC’s group one, carcinogenic to humans category – those that definitely cause cancer:
- Tobacco smoking
- Sunlamps and sunbeds
- Aluminium production
- Arsenic in drinking water
- Auramine production
- Boot and shoe manufacture and repair
- Chimney sweeping
- Coal gasification
- Coal tar distillation
- Coke (fuel) production
- Furniture and cabinet making
- Haematite mining (underground) with exposure to radon
- Secondhand smoke
- Iron and steel founding
- Isopropanol manufacture (strong-acid process)
- Magenta dye manufacturing
- Occupational exposure as a painter
- Paving and roofing with coal-tar pitch
- Rubber industry
- Occupational exposure of strong inorganic acid mists containing sulphuric acid
- Naturally occurring mixtures of aflatoxins (produced by funghi)
- Alcoholic beverages
- Areca nut – often chewed with betel leaf
- Betel quid without tobacco
- Betel quid with tobacco
- Coal tar pitches
- Coal tars
- Indoor emissions from household combustion of coal
- Diesel exhaust
- Mineral oils, untreated and mildly treated
- Phenacetin, a pain and fever reducing drug
- Plants containing aristolochic acid (used in Chinese herbal medicine)
- Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) – widely used in electrical equipment in the past, banned in many countries in the 1970s
- Chinese-style salted fish
- Shale oils
- Soots
- Smokeless tobacco products
- Wood dust
- Processed meat
- Acetaldehyde
- 4-Aminobiphenyl
- Aristolochic acids and plants containing them
- Asbestos
- Arsenic and arsenic compounds
- Azathioprine
- Benzene
- Benzidine
- Benzo[a]pyrene
- Beryllium and beryllium compounds
- Chlornapazine (N,N-Bis(2-chloroethyl)-2-naphthylamine)
- Bis(chloromethyl)ether
- Chloromethyl methyl ether
- 1,3-Butadiene
- 1,4-Butanediol dimethanesulfonate (Busulphan, Myleran)
- Cadmium and cadmium compounds
- Chlorambucil
- Methyl-CCNU (1-(2-Chloroethyl)-3-(4-methylcyclohexyl)-1-nitrosourea; Semustine)
- Chromium(VI) compounds
- Ciclosporin
- Contraceptives, hormonal, combined forms (those containing both oestrogen and a progestogen)
- Contraceptives, oral, sequential forms of hormonal contraception (a period of oestrogen-only followed by a period of both oestrogen and a progestogen)
- Cyclophosphamide
- Diethylstilboestrol
- Dyes metabolized to benzidine
- Epstein-Barr virus
- Oestrogens, nonsteroidal
- Oestrogens, steroidal
- Oestrogen therapy, postmenopausal
- Ethanol in alcoholic beverages
- Erionite
- Ethylene oxide
- Etoposide alone and in combination with cisplatin and bleomycin
- Formaldehyde
- Gallium arsenide
- Helicobacter pylori (infection with)
- Hepatitis B virus (chronic infection with)
- Hepatitis C virus (chronic infection with)
- Herbal remedies containing plant species of the genus Aristolochia
- Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (infection with)
- Human papillomavirus type 16, 18, 31, 33, 35, 39, 45, 51, 52, 56, 58, 59 and 66
- Human T-cell lymphotropic virus type-I
- Melphalan
- Methoxsalen (8-Methoxypsoralen) plus ultraviolet A-radiation
- 4,4′-methylene-bis(2-chloroaniline) (MOCA)
- MOPP and other combined chemotherapy including alkylating agents
- Mustard gas (sulphur mustard)
- 2-Naphthylamine
- Neutron radiation
- Nickel compounds
- 4-(N-Nitrosomethylamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanone (NNK)
- N-Nitrosonornicotine (NNN)
- Opisthorchis viverrini (infection with)
- Outdoor air pollution
- Particulate matter in outdoor air pollution
- Phosphorus-32, as phosphate
- Plutonium-239 and its decay products (may contain plutonium-240 and other isotopes), as aerosols
- Radioiodines, short-lived isotopes, including iodine-131, from atomic reactor accidents and nuclear weapons detonation (exposure during childhood)
- Radionuclides, α-particle-emitting, internally deposited
- Radionuclides, β-particle-emitting, internally deposited
- Radium-224 and its decay products
- Radium-226 and its decay products
- Radium-228 and its decay products
- Radon-222 and its decay products
- Schistosoma haematobium (infection with)
- Silica, crystalline (inhaled in the form of quartz or cristobalite from occupational sources)
- Solar radiation
- Talc containing asbestiform fibres
- Tamoxifen
- 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-para-dioxin
- Thiotepa (1,1′,1′-phosphinothioylidynetrisaziridine)
- Thorium-232 and its decay products, administered intravenously as a colloidal dispersion of thorium-232 dioxide
- Treosulfan
- Ortho-toluidine
- Vinyl chloride
- Ultraviolet radiation
- X-radiation and gamma radiation
Source: Dailymail