Half Of Americans Don’t Know This Food Increases Colon Cancer Risk

You’ve probably seen the headlines about colon cancer rates rising steeply in the US. with increasingly younger people getting it.

So, what’s driving it?

There are likely a set of intersecting factors, but here’s a major one that’s very modifiable:

Don’t be too quick to meat your end

A recent nationwide poll found that, amongst other things:

• Nearly half of Americans (45%) don’t know that eating processed meat increases colon cancer risk
• More than half of Americans (54%) don’t know that eating red meat increases colon cancer risk

As an encore, more than half of Americans (59%) don’t know that drinking alcohol “in moderation” increases colon cancer risk

We put the “scare quotes” around “in moderation”, on account of the World Health Organization’s declaration that the only safe amount of alcohol is zero: WHO: No level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health

As for the associated cancer risk specifically (i.e. aside from the many other ways alcohol can kill you), regular 10almonds readers may remember our article on this topic:

How Much Alcohol Does It Take To Increase Cancer Risk?

But, today we’re focussing on the meat issue, because we did say “food” in the title, after all!

In the words of the International Agency for Research on Cancer,

❝each 50 gram portion of processed meat eaten daily increases the risk of colorectal cancer by 18%❞

But that’s processed meat (well-established as a Group 1 carcinogen); what about red meat? The researchers concede that as well as being a group 2 carcinogen, red meat does have nutritional value, before concluding:

❝These findings further support current public health recommendations to limit intake of meat❞

If you want to skip straight to doing that, than check out: The Whys and Hows of Cutting Meats Out Of Your Diet

You may be wondering how those two things (processed meat and red meat) are defined:

• Red meat refers to all types of mammalian muscle meat, such as beef, veal, pork, lamb, mutton, horse, and goat.
• Processed meat refers to meat that has been transformed through salting, curing, fermentation, smoking, or other processes to enhance flavour or improve preservation.

As for the public awareness issues, you can see graphs of the data here!

As for what to do instead of eating the meat:

• Plant-based diets rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes are associated with a 22% lower risk of colorectal cancer
  • See: Vegetarian Dietary Patterns and the Risk of Colorectal Cancers
• Higher fiber intake is strongly protective, with one study showing up to a 72% lower risk of colon polyps in those consuming the most fiber. There’s a dose-response effect, with each additional 10g of dietary fiber decreasing cancer risk by 10% from the previous dose.
  • See: Dietary fibre, whole grains, and risk of colorectal cancer: systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis of prospective studies

And for more on this in general, see: Eat To Beat Cancer

Want to learn more?

To make your cooking especially anticancer, you might like this excellent book we reviewed a while back;

Beat Cancer Kitchen: Deliciously Simple Plant-Based Anticancer Recipes – by Chris Wark & Micah Wark

Enjoy!