How Does Red Meat Affect the Risk of Cancer?

Research shows that consuming red meat increases the risk of bowel cancer by up to 20%

CEO of medical technology firm – ANCON Medical – discusses the importance of reducing cancer risk through diet

The 17th – 23rd June marks Meat Free Week, where Brits are encouraged to make a simple swap to at least one meat-free meal to reduce the impact we are making on the planet and our health. Whether is it for environmental, animal welfare or health reasons, there has been a big trend towards meat alternatives over the past few years.

It is hugely important to mitigate risk factors where possible and with bowel cancer being the third most common type of cancer in the UK, with around 23,000 diagnoses annually, reducing risk of this could save hundreds if not thousands of lives. Scientists recommend cutting intake of red and processed meat to no more than twice a week.

One of the best ways to treat cancer is to prevent it from occurring in the first place. An effective way to do this is to reduce the risk of developing a form of cancer. It has long been recommended to quit smoking and reduce alcohol consumption and news such as this should be taken seriously.

After prevention, early diagnosis is the best way to combat cancer especially bowel cancer, which if diagnosed at stage 1 has a 93.4% effective 5-year survival rate. Whereas if diagnosis at stage 4 the survival rate falls to just 10.7%. Effective screening and reducing the risk of developing cancer could save a large proportion of the 16,000 deaths a year from this deadly disease

Wesley Baker, CEO of ANCON Medical discusses how a combination of reduced risk factors and medical technology could save lives:

“Research and initiatives such as Meat Free Week are helping to raise awareness of the effect that an individuals actions can have on their long-term health. As with many diseases, prevention really is far better than the cure, so it is important that these studies are taken seriously to help prevent cancer occurrences.

A combination of a healthier lifestyle and effective disease screening for the critical mass of society could truly revolutionise how we treat cancer and other serious illnesses. This could not only save thousands of lives each year but reduce the strain on and cost for the NHS in treating late stage cancers. Technology such as Nanoparticle Biomarker Tagging will in future be able to diagnose these diseases at the earliest stage in as little as 10 minutes changing the way that they are treated and their survivability.”