The many health issues with excessive intake of red meat have been discussed thoroughly over the past decades, as scientists dig deeper into the health risks associated with this; now, a new study shows that red meat and cancer may be closely related due to a particular sugar molecule.
Nutritionists all over the world have spent the last decades advising their patients not to consume excessive red meat, as it has been proven to work against the body in matters like blood pressure and heart disease; now, it seems like red meat and cancer may be more closely related than previously thought.
According to Science Daily, the new study about the relation between red meat and cancer was first created in the state of California, in an alliance between the University of California and San Diego Health Sciences. The name of the research paper is "A red meat-derived glycan promotes inflammation and cancer progression" and it was published in the December issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
In the red meat and cancer study, it was found that the reason that red meat and cancer are related is the fact that beef actually contains a chemical component that's unnatural for the human body, according to The Daily Mail, which is why there's a bad reaction in the body to it.
According to Tech Times, the study goes even so far as to claim that any form of consumption, however small, of red meat, will actually lead towards inflammation, because Neu5Gc, the sugar molecule in red meat that's unnatural to the human body, will actually lodge in body tissues; as the immune system sees the chemical as a possible threat and produces antibodies to fight it.
"The final proof in humans will be much harder to come by," said Ajit Varki, one of the lead investigators, about the red meat and cancer findings in mice. "But on a more general note, this work may also help explain potential connections of red meat consumption to other diseases exacerbated by chronic inflammation, such as atherosclerosis and type 2 diabetes."
