[cruise02]

It's important to understand what "increased risk" means.

From the linked article:

> The IARC’s experts concluded that each 50-gram (1.8-ounce) portion of processed meat eaten daily increased the risk of colorectal cancer by 18%.

From a related article:

> To put this in perspective, the lifetime risk of colon cancer is 5 percent. If you have a hot dog every day, your risk goes to 6 percent.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/cancer-sausage-red-meat-world-he...

[mvanvoorden]

/me thinks of English breakfast. Sausage and bacon. Combined with ham sandwiches for lunch, and some 200g piece of processed meat with dinner.

Plus pesticide-laden, nutrition-lacking supermarket veggies and, deep fried (>180C) crisps as an evening snack, high fructose corn syrup soft drinks in the daytime. And mouldy coffee and spice mixes. Inflammation galore.

How does it all add up?

[Someone1234]

The way the 18% figure is used in THIS article is extremely misleading/unhelpful. Thank you for clarifying exactly what they mean by that (the 5-6% thing puts it into perspective).

[cruise02]

Also note that an increase from 0.5% to 0.6% would be the same amount of "increased risk." Always look for the base rate.

[tkyjonathan]

Meat has been linked with colorectal, prostate and breast cancer not to mention heart disease. So if you take more of an holistic view.. it is quite damaging to yourself.

[abandonliberty]

Good point, many of the health scares we have can be appropriately rationalized by examining it this way.

The impact on socialized medicine is still significant when you consider an additional 1% of colon cancer cases in the population.

[cruise02]

Yes, the impact of a 1 percentage point increase is significant, but it's nowhere near the bloodbath that an increase of 18 percentage points would be, which is how I think most people would read "increased risk by 18%."

[blacksmythe]

A more relevant way to look at risk is reduction of life expectancy.

If your adult life expectancy is 78 years old (http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/your-life-expectancy-by-a...) and a hot dog a day gave you a 1% chance of dying at a median age of 52, that would be a life expectancy reduction of 3 months for eating a hot dog a day. If it were a 1% chance of dying at a median age of 69, that would be a 1 month life expectancy reduction.

[tkyjonathan]

Is the risk 6% per day? So everyday you eat processed or red meat you have a 6% of getting or further growing cancer in your body?

[mfoy_]

I'll take those odds.