WHO’s International Agency for
Research on disease is expected to announce concerns next month
EATING just a steak or two a week
could give you cancer, World Health Organisation (WHO) scientists are expected
to announce next month.
WHO’s International Agency for
Research on Cancer (IARC) is forecast to make the bombshell ruling after
scientists meet in France to discuss the matter.
British farmers and food
manufacturers are bracing themselves for the decision, which they fear will
devastate the industry. The IARC evaluates different substances according to
their cancer risk, ranking them in one of five groups. Group 1 is ‘carcinogenic
to humans’; 2A is ‘probably carcinogenic’; 2B ‘possibly carcinogenic’; 3 ‘not
classifiable’ and 4 ‘probably not carcinogenic’.
The IARC has so far evaluated 982
substances – and found only one to be ‘probably not carcinogenic’. Of the
remaining 981, it has found 117 to be carcinogenic, 74 probably carcinogenic
and 287 possibly carcinogenic.
The other 503 it found to be not
classifiable. The meat industry is fearing the worst because the 22-member IARC
panel will look at recently published studies which have suggested that there
is a link between consuming lots of red or processed meat and bowel cancer
risk. The disease, Britain’s second-biggest cancer killer, claims 16,000 lives
a year.
In 2011, the UK’s Scientific
Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN) published a report, which found that
people who ate a lot of these meats were more likely to get bowel cancer.
The Department of Health
subsequently issued guidelines advising people to limit their consumption of
red and processed meat to just 70 grams a day – or roughly 500g a week.
Insiders believe the IARC is
considering setting the bar even lower – by saying that eating any more than
300g a week could be a cancer risk.
This is about the size of a large
steak. The meat industry is also concerned because many of the panel members
have been associated with studies suggesting a link. Dr. Carrie Ruxton, a
nutritionist to the United Kingdom (UK’s) Meat Advisory Panel, said: ‘I hope
that the panel members give the matter the objectivity it deserves.’
She added: “A recent update of the
Epic study (European Prospective Investigation of Cancer) found vegetarians had
the same risk of bowel cancer as meat eaters, when averaged out.”
An IARC spokesman said: “We can
understand why the meat industry would be concerned but the meeting has not
taken place and no decision has been made. It is impossible to say what the
outcome will be at this time.”
Sheep farmer Charles Sercombe,
chairman of the National Farmers’ Union’s livestock board, said: “The impact on
farming would be devastating if any link was categorically proven. But I don’t
believe that is the case – and with science there’s always two ways of reading
the results.”
VIA : GUARDIAN NG
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