Should meat be excluded for cancer patients?
The consumption of red meat by patients with stage III colon cancer does not increase the risk of recurrence and does not reduce overall life expectancy.
Based on a number of studies, it is known that eating red meat in any form increases the risk of colon cancer, but it has not yet been known whether this affects the prognosis after diagnosis.
This question was partly answered by an observational study begun in 1999. It involved 1011 patients with stage III colon cancer. Participants were divided into groups according to the number of servings of meat consumed per week (from 1 to 7 servings).
As a result, after a mean follow-up of 6.6 years, there were no significant differences in the number of relapses and deaths between groups with different amounts of meat consumed.
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We thank E.F. Satirova, head of the department of antitumor drug treatment, oncologist K+31 West, for the up-to-date information.
