Meat, Especially If It’s Well Done, May Increase Risk Of Bladder Cancer

People who eat meat frequently, especially meat that is well done or cooked at high temperatures, may have a higher chance of developing bladder cancer, according to a large study at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center presented at the American Association for Cancer Research 101st Annual Meeting 2010. This risk appears to increase in people with certain genetic variants.

“It’s well known that meat cooked at high temperatures generates heterocyclic amines (HCAs) that can cause cancer,” said study presenter Jie Lin, Ph.D., assistant professor in M. D. Anderson’s Department of Epidemiology. “We wanted to find out if meat consumption increases the risk of developing bladder cancer and how genetic differences may play a part.”

Meat-eating habits examined

According to the American Cancer Society, almost 71,000 new cases of bladder cancer were diagnosed in this country last year, and more than 14,000 people died because of the disease. Men are at much higher risk of developing bladder cancer than women.

HCAs form when muscle meats, such as beef, pork, poultry or fish, are cooked at high temperatures. They are products of interaction between amino acids, which are the foundation of proteins, and the chemical creatine, which is stored in muscles. Past research has identified 17 HCAs that may contribute to cancer.

This study, which took place over 12 years, included 884 M. D. Anderson patients with bladder cancer and 878 people who did not have cancer. They were matched by age, gender and ethnicity. Read more

Bladder Cancer Risks Increase Over Time For Smokers

Risk of bladder cancer for smokers has increased since the mid-1990s, with a risk progressively increasing to a level five times higher among current smokers in New Hampshire than that among nonsmokers in 2001-2004, according to a new study published online November 16 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Furthermore, researchers found that among individuals who smoked the same total number of cigarettes over their lifetime, smoking fewer cigarettes per day for more years may be more harmful than smoking more cigarettes per day for fewer years.

It is well known that cigarette smoking causes bladder cancer, but the influence of various parameters of smoking history, including trends in risk over time, is unclear.

Dalsu Baris, M.D., Ph.D., of the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, in Bethesda, Md., and her colleagues from NCI, Dartmouth Medical School, and the departments of health for the states of Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, examined bladder cancer risk in relation to smoking practices based on data from a large, population-based case-control study conducted in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont from 2001 to 2004. To examine changes in smoking-induced bladder cancer risk over time, the researchers compared odds ratios for New Hampshire residents in this study with those from two, case-control studies conducted in New Hampshire by Margaret Karagas, Ph.D., of Dartmouth Medical School in 1994 and in 1998. Read more