Newswise — Today (Nov. 9) the journal CANCER published an online paper by researchers at MD Anderson Cancer Center that indicates a meat-rich diet may increase the risk of kidney cancer through mechanisms related to particular cooking compounds. Also, these associations may be modified by genetic susceptibility to kidney cancer.

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center geneticist Dr. Ulrike “Riki” Peters, who was not involved with the study, is available to comment.

Last year she published research that found processed meat combined with a common gene variant may increase the risk of colon cancer, and in 2013 she published a paper that found gene-diet interactions may be responsible for colorectal cancer risk in those who eat red meat.