A groundbreaking new study from the World Health Organization has suggested that consumption of bacon every day can give you colorectal cancer. This is a message that could make you realize that yesterday's hot dog might have been a bad decision than you originally thought.

As per an announcement published in The Lancet Oncology by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), part of the World Health Organization (WHO), in terms of cancer risk, consumption of processed meat is as risky as smoking. The study is going to be published in Volume 114 of the IARC Monographs.

The meat that had been preserved or flavor-enhanced using salting, curing, fermentation, smoking, etc is called processed meat.

The IARC invited a working team of 22 scientists, and the scientists reviewed around 800 epidemiological studies in which they examined the global habits of red- and processed-meat consumption. They concluded that processed meat was 'carcinogenic to humans' because of the associations observed with colorectal cancer, which is a cancer of the large intestine, and causal linkages that are concerned with the chemistries of both the cooking and digestion of meat.

The IARC classified the suspected carcinogens into 5 groups on the basis of the evidence that supported how likely a substance or activity can lead to cancer. After the IARC evaluation, now the processed meat was classified into 'Group 1', and is placed in the similar category like cigarettes and other tobacco products that are 'carcinogenic to humans'.

The evidence placed red meats like unprocessed beef, veal, pork, lamp, mutton, horse, or goat in the 'Group 2A' category, which means their levels of cancer risk were on par with UV rays, glyphosate, and inorganic lead, all things that are 'possibly carcinogenic to humans'.