Does sausage cause cancer?

The World Health Organization has included processed meats (eg sausages, ham, canned goods) on its list of foods that “definitely” increase the risk of cancer. And red meat is on the list of foods that “probably” increase this risk. WHO is an extremely authoritative organization, so their message became one of the main news for the world's largest publications. Everyone panicked and the markets reacted immediately.

This meat is high in myoglobin protein. But it’s easier to understand the phrase literally: meat that, when raw, has a reddish tint. These can be parts of beef, veal, lamb, lamb, pork, horse meat, goat meat, etc. As for processed products, we are talking, in fact, about any semi-finished products. WHO mentions hot dogs and jerky as examples.

This is the problem: from a layperson's point of view, the WHO has said very little concretely. Experts have traced a clear statistical connection between the consumption of certain types of meat and the risk of developing certain types of cancer. The report states that consuming 50 grams of processed meat daily increases the risk of colorectal cancer (colon and rectal cancer) and some other cancers by 18%. And this is clearly confirmed by research. The effect of red meat consumption on the risk of cancer has not yet been clearly proven, but if this is true, then the statistics are approximately as follows: if you eat 100 grams of such meat every day, the risk of getting sick will increase by 17%.

Unknown. WHO experts admit that they do not have answers to such questions - the connection between meat consumption and the risk of cancer has been studied very little. In fact, all that is clearly known is that this connection exists. Therefore, experts recommend that states consider reducing their consumption of processed and red meat, but avoid strict guidelines for ordinary citizens.

This is unknown because the risk of getting sick depends not only on meat consumption, but also on many other factors. According to WHO, 34 thousand deaths from cancer every year are associated with the consumption of processed meat. And 50 thousand - with the consumption of red meat. For comparison : smoking leads to a million deaths, and alcohol leads to 600 thousand deaths.