Researchers from the Karolinska Institute of Sweden have posited the theory that eating processed meat could cause pancreatic cancer. They considered the results of 11 studies in reaching this conclusion. Their findings were published in the peer-reviewed British Journal of cancer and, with varying degrees of accuracy, in the Press, including the Guardian, the Daily Mail, the Daily Express and BBC News. Are the researchers right and, if so, what does it mean for your patients?
The research was carried out with funding from the Swedish Cancer Foundation, and investigated earlier studies that included 2,307,787 people in the USA, Europe and Japan, of whom 6,643 (
The studies considered by the researchers variably measured other possible factors in the development of pancreatic cancer, such as smoking, physical activity, age, BMI, a family history of cancer, other health problems such as diabetes, or other dietary considerations, making a true relationship between these factors and pancreatic cancer hard to discover.
There were also discrepancies between the studies in how they measured meat consumption: some lumped all red and processed meat together, others divided the two, while yet others had individual figures for beef, lamb, pork etc., so again the correlation is hard to prove. Amounts eaten were taken from participants, who may well have estimated rather than measured the amounts consumed, so the figures may not be 100% accurate.
The Karolinska Institute researchers did not feel that their results were conclusive, and suggested that further studies were necessary to establish without doubt a link between processed meat consumption and pancreatic cancer in both sexes, and between red-meat eating and pancreatic cancer in men.
,p>The NHS (www.nhs.uk/news) says: “There was no overall association between red meat and pancreatic cancer, and the researchers only found a risk for men. There was an overall association between processed meat and cancer, but no separate risk for men and women. Therefore, interpreting whether there is a true risk – and with what food in particular – is difficult”. They pointed out that the absolute risk of developing pancreatic cancer is in any case limited, so “even if the figure of 19% is accurate it is a 19% increase on a small risk of this cancer”.
The best advice for your patients is that the link with pancreatic cancer is not conclusive but that they would be safer eating a balanced, healthy diet. The Department of Health recommends that people who eat more than 90 gr per day of either red or processed meat should reduce their intake to 70 gr at most, as these foods are often high in saturated fat and salt.