Processed meats can cause cancer

Risk of pancreatic cancer is enhanced by eating processed meats, said the researchers of Cancer Research Center at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu.

Previous studies have tried to relate meat with pancreatic cancer, but this is the first time processed meat have been proved to enhance carcinogenic growth in the pancreas. Scientist have said that it is not the meat itself, but the chemical agents that process the meat for long time preservation that causes cancer of the pancreas.

The study was conducted across multiple races with the total number of participants running over 190,000 people in the areas of Los Angeles and Hawaii. The participants were tested for establishing a relationship between diet and risk to cancer.

The study results say that people who consume most amount of processed meat have a 67% more chance of having pancreatic cancer than the people who consume such food in the least. Eating pork and red meat regularly also increases the risk of having pancreatic cancer about 50% more than those who stay away from these foods the result showed no association between regular intake of chicken, fish, eggs or dairy products with pancreatic cancer.