Meat cooked at high temperatures or even over an open flame, pan-fried, grilled or barbecued, they all end up increasing likelihood of kidney cancer as claimed by the lastest report. It futher revealed that cooking mechanism may play a factor.
The study involved comparing the diet and genetic makeup between 659 cancer patients from the University of Texas MD Anderson cancer patients recently diagnosed with renal cell carcinoma and 699 healthy individuals.
Results revealed that kidney cancer patients consumed more red and white meat than those cancer-free individuals. In addition, they found that the former group ate more carcinogenic compounds produced when meat is cooked at high temperature over an open flame. And those with certain genetic variants were more vulnerable to these chemicals.
"Our study is the first to evaluate the impact of RCC susceptibility variants, identified via genome-wide association studies, on the association between intake of mutagenic compounds and RCC risk," lead author Dr. Xifeng Wu, epidemiology professor at MD Anderson, said. " We found elevated RCC risk associated with both meat intake and meat-cooking mutagens, suggesting independent effect of meat-cooking mutagens on RCC risk." It can be drawn from these findings that the cooking process may play a role in associating meat consumption and kidney cancer.
Researchers made clear that they only found a link but does not find concrete evidence that it can cause cancer. Further research needs to be conducted. In additiom, they do not say that consumers should stop eating meat but rather serve in moderation and highly recommending to avoid charring or burning.
