High intake of ingredients known as nitrite and nitrate added to processed meats to aid preservation may be tied to bladder cancer -- but the relationship appears to be tentative, researchers say.
In a study that followed more than 300,000 men and women for seven years, dietary nitrite and nitrate, as well as nitrite alone, were associated with an increased risk of bladder cancer among individuals with the highest consumption of processed meat -- but the connection was of borderline statistical significance, according to Amanda J. Cross of the National Institutes of Health and colleagues.
In other words, the findings may have more to do with chance alone than with an actual causal link.
Consumption of processed meat itself was not associated with an increased risk of bladder cancer, Cross and colleagues reported in the journal Cancer...
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