Eating Chicken May Actually Decrease The Risk of Breast Cancer, According to New Research

The study was conducted by examining the health and diet data of over 42,000 women, factoring in age, physical activity, body mass index, and calorie consumption, over a period of about seven years. Researchers found that women who consumed a lot of red meat were about 23% more likely to develop invasive cancer, while those who consumed the most poultry were 15% less likely to develop invasive cancer.

RELATED: CUTTING INFLAMMATORY FOODS FROM YOUR DIET CAN DECREASE CANCER RISK 

To put it simply, red meat is red in color when raw and comes from a mammal. Poultry, or white meat, comes from a bird like a chicken, turkey, duck, or goose. Red meat is classified as a probable carcinogen by the WHO — and red meat in its processed forms, like hot dogs, bacon, and sausage, is a classified carcinogen.

In a conversation with The New York Times, study author Dale Sandler, an epidemiologist with the National Institutes of Health, pointed out that there have been studies in the past that looked at the link between meat and breast cancer risk, but this is the first one to produce such consistent results.

“Here, we show that eating white meat decreases your risk, and eating red meat increases it by a small amount,” he said. “If women reduced their consumption of red meat, it would reduce their risk for cancer.”

In an abstract for the study, authors suggest substituting red meat for white meat for an overall health benefit.

In a previous conversation with SurvivorNet, Dr. Stephen Freedland, the Director of the Center for Integrated Research in Cancer and Lifestyle at Cedars-Sinai, said that he doesn’t believe meat must be avoided altogether, but that people should instead be smart about how they are consuming meat.

“If you want to eat your steak, to me that’s fine,” Dr. Freedland said. “So grass-fed steaks, free-range chicken, wild-caught fish … you want to make sure it’s not over-cooked, because the way we process the meat and cook it and create those charred lines, that can actually cause cancer as well. I think this concept that animal meat is the enemy and is awful, I don’t think is true. I think part of the problem is how we process the meat, how we cook the meat, what we eat with the meat. There probably is not a single right answer, but multiple paths to a healthy diet.”

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