Want Bladder Cancer? Eat Processed Deli Meat

Researchers examined the diets of 300,000 adults in eight U.S. states, and used that data to estimate participants' intake of nitrates and nitrites, which are used to preserve processed meat and have been implicated as carcinogens.

"Nitrate and nitrite are precursors to N-nitroso compounds (NOCs), which induce tumors in many organs, including the bladder, in multiple animal species," the researchers wrote.

Participants were aged between 50 and 71, and were followed for eight years. The researchers found that while consumption of non-processed meat was not linked with bladder cancer, higher consumption of nitrates from processed meats increased the risk by nearly 30 percent.

High consumption of red meat (both processed and unprocessed) was associated with a non-Hispanic white ethnicity, being a current smoker, having a high body mass index (a measure of obesity), having a higher beverage and daily calorie consumption, less physical activity, lower educational level, younger age, and a lower intake of fruits, vegetables and vitamins C and E.

The study is only the most recent in a long chain of studies linking processed meat consumption to an elevated risk of numerous cancers.

"A recent study conducted at the University of Hawaii shows that even moderate consumption of processed meats causes a 6,700 percent increase in pancreatic cancer (that's a 67-fold increase in cancer risk!)," writes Mike Adams in Spam Filters for Your Brain.

"Thus, consuming these foods causes cancer. Yet, these packaged meat products appear to be perfectly healthy, thereby distracting you from their true nature, which is that of chronic disease."