The World Health Organization has recently announced that processed meat –notably bacon and hot dogs – can increase the risk of cancer. A new study has added to the WHO’s concerns by announcing that common meat cooking techniques also increase the risk of cancer.

Red meat has long had a bad reputation of leading to cancer, however, now it is joined by any meat cooked at high temperatures.

“This study, and others like it, suggest that the way we cook our meat could potentially impact kidney cancer risk,” said lead researcher Dr. Xifeng Wu of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

It is now believed that when meat is cooked at high temperatures, certain cancer-causing chemicals are released, some of which have been shown to increase the risk of kidney cancer by as much as 50 percent.

“Our study provides additional evidence for the role of red meat, white meat in kidney cancer. Cooking meat on high temperatures results in the formation of carcinogens, including 2-amino-1-methyl-6-phenyl-imidazo (4,5-b) pyridine (PhIP) and amino-3,8-dimethylimidazo(4,5-f) quinoxaline (MeIQx). These can be termed as real culprits in this phenomenon,” said Wu.

However, the study has not proven that eating meat prepared in this way directly causes any cancers. In order to prove the causality, for research is necessary.

“This study offers some clues that meat cooked at high temperature might increase the risk for cancer, especially among people with certain genetic mutations,” said Susan Gapstur, vice president for epidemiology at the cancer society.

It is a widely held belief that the so-called Western Diet (a diet that includes eating a lot ofmeat, starches, and processed foods) is linked to the rise in kidney rates over the past several years.

The recent study, which was published in the medical journal Cancer, involved 650 kidney cancer patients and 700 cancer-free patients. The participants were asked to complete a questionnaire that asked specifics about what meat they ate and how they prepared the food.

The results demonstrated that those patients with kidney cancer ate more red and white meat than the non-cancerous patients. Moreover, the meat the kidney cancer patients ate tended to be cooked at high temperatures with methods including pan-frying, grilling, and barbecuing.

“Processed meat and red meat, in particular, are carcinogens and are linked to a higher risk of colon cancer — the third most commonly diagnosed cancer in the United States. So, limiting consumption continues to be important,” said Gapstur.

“Limit the amount of time the meat is cooked at really high temperatures or over an open flame resulting in burning, smoking, or charring of the meat,” said Wu.