Processed meat, such as frankfurters and bacon can cause bowel cancer said the World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday, while red meat is likely to cause the disease.
The cancer agency of the WHO, The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), has classified processed meat as “carcinogenic to humans.” This category already includes tobacco, mustard gas and formaldehyde. The agency found that eating 50 grams of processed meat – meat that has been salted, cured, fermented, smoked, or processed in another way– each day increases the risk of colorectal cancer by 18%.
Red meat, which includes beef, lamb and pork, was deemed “probably carcinogenic to humans” and has associations with colon cancer, pancreatic cancer and prostate cancer.
