


For example, if a study is looking at air pollution and lung cancer, it should also look at whether participants smoked. Studies should take known risk factors into account. There are lots of factors that can affect someone’s risk of cancer. Did the study account for other factors that could affect someone’s cancer risk?.So we mainly look at studies that follow thousands of people over many years. And studies that only follow people for a short amount of time can miss long-term effects. Studies on small numbers of people aren’t as reliable, because results are more likely to happen by chance. How big is the study and how long did it go on for?.Studies in animals and cells can help scientists understand how cancer works, but they can’t always tell us how it’s relevant to humans. Did the study look at cells, animals or people?.These are some of the things we consider: Some studies are better than others at telling us about how different factors affect cancer risk. So, although new research comes out all the time, it is unlikely that one new study would change our position on a topic. We develop our information by looking at lots of research carried out over many years. We regularly review new research on the causes of cancer to make sure our information is up to date and based on the best quality evidence. Find out more about processed and red meat and cancer risk. So it’s a good idea to cut down on how much processed meat you eat. And eating processed meat, no matter how it’s cooked, increases the risk of bowel cancer. How you cook meat like bacon and how crispy you make it does not affect your cancer risk.īut bacon itself is processed meat. But some foods with acrylamide are high in calories, so can make it harder to keep a healthy weight.ĭoes eating burnt meat, including bacon, cause cancer? You don’t need to avoid acrylamide to have a healthy, balanced diet. A healthy diet is low in processed and red meat, and low in foods that are high in sugar, fat and salt. This is one with more fruits and vegetables and foods high in fibre, like brown varieties of bread, rice and pasta. Good quality studies have not shown that acrylamide from food causes cancer in humans.īut there are other things you can do to reduce your risk, such as eating a healthy balanced diet. For example, some studies aren’t able to accurately measure the amount of acrylamide in people’s diets. But there isn’t enough good quality evidence to show this. You might’ve read about a possible link between acrylamide and cancer. Acrylamide from burnt toast, burnt chips, or crispy potatoes is unlikely to increase the risk of cancer. You can also find it in other foods such as biscuits and coffee.ĭo acrylamide or burnt foods cause cancer? This includes baking, barbequing, frying, grilling, toasting, or roasting. Acrylamide is a chemical that’s found in starchy foods like bread and potatoes, if they’re cooked at high temperatures for a long time.
