Red meat linked with bowel cancer

03/02/06 New study suggests that eating a lot of red meat could damage the body's DNA and raise the risk of bowel cancer.

Previous work suggested that regular meat eaters are significantly more likely to develop bowel cancer but what caused this was not known.

Researchers led by David Shuker at the Dunn Human Nutrition Unit and the Open University, Cambridge, found it could be caused by the presence of substances called N-nitrosocompounds, which form in the large bowel after eating red meat.

They suggest that these compounds combine with DNA, and alter it so that it is more likely to undergo harmful changes or mutations that increase the likelihood of cancer, reported the online edition of BBC News.

http://news.webindia123.com/news/showdetails.asp?id=237606&cat=Health