Data from the Nurses’ Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study from Harvard School of Public Health was examined to look at the eating habits of people and the risk of developing cancer.

Researchers used data including 47,422 men and 88,471 women. and found that people who ate bacon frequently (5 times a week or more) had a 59% greater chance of developing cancer of the bladder.  When researchers filtered out people who made significant changes in the amount of meat they ate, the risk of developing bladder cancer more than doubled compared to those who did not eat bacon.

Increased risk of bladder cancer was also found to be 52% higher in women eating skinless chicken regularly.  The researchers speculate that it is the nitrosamines and heterocyclic amines found in bacon and skinless chicken that may be causing the increased cancer risk. The heterocyclic amines are formed in the meat during the cooking process, and bacon and skinless chicken are two meats with the highest amount of these substances formed.

Because this is a new finding, the researchers advise that more research needs to be done.

However, since bacon is one of the fattest meats, cutting back on your consumption is healthy anyway.  In fact one of the American Cancer Society guidelines is to limit the consumption of processed and red meats.

Source: Michaud, D.S., Holick, C.N., Giovannucci, E. & Stampfer, M. J. (2006). Meat intake and bladder cancer risk in two prospective cohort studies. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 84:1177-83.