The World Cancer Research Fund and the American Institute for Cancer Research recently released an update report to their colorectal cancer research. Though the new report still recommends limiting one’s consumption of red meat and avoiding processed meat, it also highlights the detail that the association between consuming those foods and increased colorectal cancer is weak and weakening as the body of evidence grows. The report examined 13 studies conducted since the last update report that compared the incidence of colorectal cancer in high and low consumers of red meat. None of the studies observed statistically significant associations. This means that the test conditions (high versus low consumption of red meat) could not be separated out from other confounding factors like total diet and lifestyle in connection with the incidence of colorectal cancer.
“It is important to note that in categorizing colorectal cancer risk, the report downgraded the strength of the evidence on red meat from their 2010 report from ‘convincing’ to ‘probable,’” noted Shalene McNeill, executive director of nutrition research for the Beef Checkoff Program.
Most cancer research groups, including the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer—the group that released the report in late 2015 that implicated red meat and processed meats as carcinogens—rate potential cancer-causing substances on the confidence of the association, not on the relative potency of the carcinogen.
