Burden of cancer attributable to excess red and processed meat consumption in Japan in 2015.

Summary: We often hear that eating too much red or processed meat can cause cancer. But is it a big problem everywhere? Researchers looked at the diets of people in Japan to see how much cancer was actually caused by eating these meats. They found that very few cancer cases—less than half of one percent—were linked to red or processed meat. Because people in Japan generally do not eat huge amounts of these meats, cutting back on them won't do much to lower cancer rates there.