Do you want to reduce your risk of developing breast cancer? Avoid sausages, hams, bacon, pates, and other highly processed meat dishes. “These products should fall out of our diet or be very rarely present in our diet,” says American researcher Dr. Maryam S. Farvid. A study has just been published that confirms that a meat diet promotes cancer, and more than previously thought.
Already three years ago, the World Health Organization (WHO) published a list of dishes that may affect the formation of cancer. It indicated the great importance of red meat and processed red meat as particularly carcinogenic (i.e. carcinogenic).
New research conducted in the United States confirms this thesis and extends the list of cancers whose development may be promoted by a meat diet to another position. They found that, in addition to cancer of the colon, stomach, pancreas and prostate, processed meat also promotes breast cancer.
A team led by Dr. Maryam S. Farvid of Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health looked at 15 studies to date involving over a million women in total. Their analysis showed that a diet containing large amounts of processed meats increases the risk of breast cancer by as much as 9 percent.
The author of the publication, Dr. Maryam S. Farvid, believes that women should significantly reduce the amount of meat they eat. However, it does not state what amounts are considered safe.
As Agnieszka Surwiłło points out, a dietitian from the Oncology Center – Institute of Maria Skłodowskiej-Curie in Warsaw, the cited studies have so far not been reflected in the recommendations of opinion-forming organizations regarding cancer prevention or in specific recommendations regarding meat consumption in the prevention of breast cancer.
Nevertheless, doctors should advise their patients to minimize or even eliminate highly processed meats from their diets. – If we want to follow preventive recommendations, we do not do it selectively, we do not protect ourselves only against breast cancer. Since we know that consuming processed meat is carcinogenic and dangerous for humans, since its avoidance is included in the recommendations for the prevention of colorectal cancer, we gain a double benefit by following these recommendations – says Agnieszka Surwiłło.