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Diet and food › Red Meat, Cancer and the Heart › Studies

Population study: cases vs controls

400 Polish bowel cancer patients vs 400 without: more red meat went with cancer

Lewandowska and colleagues · Cancer control : journal of the Moffitt Cancer Center · 2022

Original title: Risk Factors for the Diagnosis of Colorectal Cancer.

Under review. A person has not yet checked this summary against the paper. It is written from the PubMed abstract. Until a person checks it, search engines are asked not to list this page.

What the study found

Points to harm

Higher red meat and fat intake went with more bowel cancer (P < .01). Smoking, obesity, low activity and high salt were also linked.

The study at a glance

Type of study
Population study: cases vs controls
Who or what was studied
800 people · 400 Polish patients with bowel cancer and 400 people without it
What was tested
Comparing habits of people with and without bowel cancer, including red meat
What it measured
The question itself: cancer, heart disease and death
Who has a stake
No stake declared
No competing interests declared.
Journal
Cancer control : journal of the Moffitt Cancer Center, 2022
Source
PubMed record 35000418. This page is based on the abstract only.

How much this study counts

  • –Shows a link, not a cause. It compares people who already had the outcome with people who did not, and may rely on memory.
  • •800 people.
  • ✓Measured the question itself: cancer, heart disease and death.
  • ✓No competing interests declared.
  • •Summarized from the PubMed abstract only. The full paper may hold details the abstract leaves out.

✓ Strength– Limit• Note

These points come from fixed rules about the type of study, its size and length, what it measured, and who has a stake. Every study on Digestery gets the same rules.

Where this study sits

Each dot is one on-topic paper on this question. Steps near the top answer the question more directly.

↑ Stronger evidence

  1. Trials in people: cancer and heart disease

    0

    Not done yet. This is the step that would answer the question.

  2. Trials in people: other measures

    0

    None among the papers we read.

  3. Trials in people: lab tests or safety

    6

    2 benefit, 4 harm

  4. Population studies

    12

    1 benefit, 2 mixed, 1 no difference, 8 harm

    ↑ This study is the ringed dot

  5. Blood levels and genes

    0

    None among the papers we read.

↓ Weaker evidence

  • Points to benefit
  • Mixed
  • No difference
  • No direction
  • Points to harm

How it fits with the other research

The short answer to “Does red meat raise cancer and heart disease risk?”

Linked to higher risk, especially processed meat.

Confidence: low. Based on 30 on-topic papers.

Read the full answer

Of the other 11 papers on the same step: 1 benefit, 2 mixed, 1 no difference, 7 harm. This one found harm. It agrees with most of them.

  • Counted on the ladder, but not quoted in the page’s main findings.

Other papers on the same step

See all 30 studies on this question

How this page was made

Label

First read of the abstract
Claude Sonnet
Independent second read
Claude Haiku
Differences settled
The two reads agreed on every checked field. Claude Opus 5.5.
Headline
Claude Sonnet, from the checked study record. A script checked its numbers and wording.
Numbers
Checked against the abstract by a script
“How much this study counts”
Fixed rules, the same for every study
Source check by a person
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