A study in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (11/18) reports that consumption of well-done meats may play an important role in breast cancer. The primary result reported is that women who consistently ate well-done hamburgers, beef steak and bacon had a statistically significant 3.6 times more breast cancer than women who consumed these meats rare or medium done.
The analysis was performed on 273 breast cancer cases and 657 controls selected from 41,836 cohort members of the Iowa Women's Study -- a group of 55-69 year-old women followed since 1986. The women were asked their preference for "doneness" of meat from pictures of meat in varying stages of doneness.
The conjecture is that cooking meat to a "well-done" state produces compounds called "heterocyclic amines" that have been associated with cancer in laboratory animals.
But:
- Since exposure is based only on "preference for level of meat doneness," no one really knows the "doneness" of meat actually consumed by these women. In the best light, this study reports an association for doneness preference and breast cancer.
- The primary result (i.e., 3.6 times increase in breast cancer among consumers of well-done meat) is based on only 12 cases -- an exceedingly small sample.
- Of the six categories of doneness greater than "rare" for all three types of meats, only one category (well-done hamburger, bacon and beef steak) was statistically significant -- and this is the category with only 12 cases.
- None of the results for hamburger and bacon consumption were statistically significant -- a hole in the biological plausibility. If well-done beefsteak increases breast cancer risk, why doesn't well-done hamburger/bacon consumption?
- Data was collected on a number of types of meat, including hamburgers, cheeseburgers, beef steaks, pork chops, bacon, breakfast sausage links, breakfast sausage patties, other sausages (bratwurst, hot dogs), white meats (chicken and turkey), and fish. But results were only presented for hamburgers, bacon and beef steak. Why? What does the other data say? Cooked chicken and fish can have relatively high concentrations of heterocyclic amines, but no associations were reported.
As the accompanying editorial pointed out, consumers should be more concerned about eating undercooked, rather than overcooked meat.
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