According to a new study, eating red meat and poultry increases the risk of breast cancer among white women.
In the study conducted to take a better look into the fact, 976 black women and 873 white women with breast cancer, and 1,165 black women and 865 white women without cancer answered some questions to help the researchers.
"Most breast cancer studies have been conducted in [white] women," senior study author Dr. Elisa Bandera, an epidemiologist at the Cancer Institute of New Jersey, said in an institute news release.
The investigators initially studied white women especially those who hadn't reached menopause, who consumed mostly unprocessed meat and poultry. It was found that those who ate the most amount of meat had a higher risk of breast cancer than the ones who ate the least.
"This research supports encouraging [white] women to limit their intake of both red meat and poultry in order to reduce their risk of breast cancer, which is in line with the American Institute for Cancer Research's recommendation of limiting red meat intake to less than 500 grams per week," Urmila Chandran, study lead author and research teaching specialist, said in the news release.
During this study there was no connection found among black women and a higher risk of breast cancer with consumption of red meat and poultry. Although it was suggested that reducing the consumption might reduce the risk of one kind of tumor.
"Being that this study may be one of the first to examine this association in [black] women, results from this group are not conclusive, and more investigation is needed to replicate these findings," Chandran said.
