Red and processed meat and risk of colorectal cancer: an update



Dear Editor,

Colorectal cancer is the third most common malignancy worldwide and the fourth most leading cause of cancer deaths. Colorectal cancer has become a real public health issue in both developed and developing countries (Ansa et al., 2018[4]; Favoriti et al., 2016[12]). Several risk factors are associated with colorectal cancer such as obesity, smoking, alcohol, advanced age and high intake of red and processed meat (Nasrallah and El-Sibai, 2014[19]). High incidence of colorectal cancer risk factors including red and processed meat has been reported in different countries such as Jordan (Tayyem et al., 2017[30]), Slovakia (Spáčilová et al., 2018[27]), and China (Gu et al., 2018[14]).

Numerous studies have demonstrated that high intake of red and processed meat could be linked to an increased risk of colorectal cancer (Bernstein et al., 2015[5]; Oostindjer et al., 2014[20]). It seems that red meat may activate Toll-like receptors at the intestinal epithelial surface and triggers the NF-κB inflammatory pathway, resulting in colorectal cancer (Kopp et al., 2018[15]). In addition, carcinogenic compounds such as heterocyclic aromatic amines, N-nitroso-compounds, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are produced when meat is cooked at high temperatures (Domingo and Nadal, 2017[10]).

High intake of red and processed meat has been also linked to an increased risk of several cancers. Recently, Rosato et al. (2017[22]) analyzed all the case-control studies carried out in Italy from 1982 to 2006. They found that high intake of processed meat (≥ 20 g/day) was associated with increased risk of breast, ovarian and endometrial cancers. Similar findings were reported in the UK (Anderson et al., 2018[2]). In a prospective study, Diallo et al. (2018[9]) found that high intake of red and processed meat was associated with a higher risk of overall cancers and breast cancer. In addition, increased intake of red and processed meat was found to be positively linked to a higher risk of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (Salari-Moghaddam et al., 2018[24]).

In the present letter, we summarize the recent studies carried out to investigate the association between red and processed meat intake and colorectal cancer risk (Table 1(Tab. 1); References in Table 1: Gigic et al., 2018[13]; Shin et al., 2018[26]; Gu et al., 2018[14]; Wada et al., 2017[34]; Wei et al., 2017[35]; Carr et al., 2017[7]; Torres Stone et al., 2017[31]; Rosato et al., 2017[23]; Vieira et al., 2017[32]; Farchi et al., 2017[11]; Vulcan et al., 2017[33]; Lippi et al., 2016[16]; Zhao et al., 2017[36]; Angelo et al., 2016[3]; Aithal et al., 2017[1]; Tamakoshi et al., 2017[29]; Brenner et al., 2017[6]; Lourenço et al., 2018[17]; Rada-Fernandez de Jauregui et al., 2018[21]; Tabung et al., 2017[28]; Schwingshackl et al., 2018[25]; De Vries et al., 2017[8]; Mehta et al., 2017[18]).

Table 1. Recent studies of the association between red and processed meat-colorectal cancer risk.

Conflict of interest

The author declares no conflict of interest.