Kidney Cancer Linked to Meat Intake and Preparation

Meat intake, as well as how it’s prepared, may be linked to kidney cancer risk, according to a new study.

Researchers examined dietary intake of meat-cooking mutagens and genetic risk factors associated with kidney cancer in 659 kidney cancer patients and 699 matched healthy controls from the community.
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They calculated the intake of several carcinogens—including 2-amino-1-methyl-6-phenyl-imidazo(4,5-b) pyridine (PhIP) and amino-3,8-dimethylimidazo(4,5-f) quinoxaline (MeIQx)—produced when certain types of meat are cooked over an open flame and at high temperatures resulting in the burning, smoking, or charring of the food (for example, during barbequing or pan-frying).

“We found kidney cancer patients consumed more red and white meat when compared to healthy individuals, and they also had higher intake of these cancer-causing chemicals created through the meat-cooking process,” said study lead author Stephanie C. Melkonian, PhD, postdoctoral fellow in the department of emergency medicine-research at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. “Additionally, we found individuals with certain genetic variants were more likely to be susceptible to the harmful effects of the cancer-causing mutagens created during the process of cooking meat.”

Previous studies have linked these carcinogens that resulted from the meat-cooking process to other sites, such as colorectal cancer, she said. Other research has looked at kidney cancer and these carcinogens as well.

However, Melkonian’s study marks the first time researchers saw an association between one of these specific mutagens (MeIQx) and kidney cancer risk. It’s also the first to look at genetic variants along with consumption of these carcinogens in relation to kidney cancer risk, she said.

“This study, and other like it, suggest the way we cook our meat could potentially impact kidney cancer risk,” Melkonian said. “Our findings support the dietary recommendations for cancer prevention currently presented by the American Cancer Society: Limit the intake of red and processed meats, as well as the amount of time that meat is cooked at high temperatures or over an open flame.”

-Mike Bederka

Reference:

Melkonian SC, Daniel CR, Ye Y, Tannir NM, Karam JA, Matin SF, Wood CG, Wu X. Gene-environment interaction of genome-wide association study-identified susceptibility loci and meat-cooking mutagens in the etiology of renal cell carcinoma. Cancer. 2015 November [epub ahead of print] doi: 10.1002/cncr.29543.