Red Meat Intake, Prostate Cancer Not Linked

A meta-analysis of epidemiologic investigations of the link between meat intake and prostate cancer revealed that there is not an independent positive association between red or processed meat intake and prostate cancer.

The analysis included 26 studies—15 studies of red meat and 11 studies of processed meat. High vs. low intake and dose-response analyses were conducted using random effects models to generate summary relative risk estimates. No association between high vs. low red meat consumption and total prostate cancer was observed. Similarly, no association with red meat was observed for advanced prostate cancer. A weakly elevated summary association between processed meat and total prostate cancer was found, although, according to the study abstract, “heterogeneity was present, the association was attenuated in a sub-group analysis of studies that adjusted for multiple potential confounding factors, and publication bias likely affected the summary effect."