Study bolsters charred-meat link to pancreatic cancer
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WASHINGTON - People who regularly eat burned or charred meat, like that cooked on a grill, have a 60 percent higher risk of pancreatic cancer, US researchers reported yesterday.
The finding is one of the strongest yet linking very well-done meat, especially red meat, to cancer.
"Our findings in this study are further evidence that turning down the heat when grilling, frying, and barbecuing to avoid excess burning or charring of the meat may be a sensible way for some people to lower their risk for getting pancreatic cancer," said lead researcher Kristin Anderson in a statement.
Anderson focused her research on pancreatic cancer "because treatments are very limited and the cancer is often rapidly fatal," said Anderson, of the University of Minnesota.
Charred meat contains several known cancer-causing chemicals, including heterocyclic amines. Many studies have linked these compounds to cancer risk, though they have mostly been based on people remembering what they ate. Anderson's team started with 62,000 healthy people and documented what they actually ate. Over nine years, 208 were diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. When divided into five groups based on how much charred meat they ate, those with pancreatic cancer were far more likely to be in the top two groups.
