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Published on: May 10, 2016
E-synthesis for carcinogenicity assessments: A case study of processed meat
Francesco De Pretis1, Saana Jukola2,3, Jürgen Landes4,5
1Department of Communication and Economics, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Reggio, Emilia, Italy.
Rationale, Aims And Objectives:
Recent controversies about dietary advice concerning meat demonstrate that aggregating the available evidence to assess a putative causal link between food and cancer is a challenging enterprise.
Methods:
We show how a tool developed for assessing putative causal links between drugs and adverse drug reactions, E-Synthesis, can be applied for food carcinogenicity assessments. The application is demonstrated on the putative causal relationship between processed meat consumption and cancer.
Results:
The output of the assessment is a Bayesian probability that processed meat consumption causes cancer. This Bayesian probability is calculated from a Bayesian network model, which incorporates a representation of Bradford Hill's Guidelines as probabilistic indicators of causality. We show how to determine probabilities of indicators of causality for food carcinogenicity assessments based on assessments of the International Agency for Research on Cancer.
Conclusions:
We find that E-Synthesis is a tool well-suited for food carcinogenicity assessments, as it enables a graphical representation of lines and weights of evidence, offers the possibility to make a great number of judgements explicit and transparent, outputs a probability of causality suitable for decision making and is flexible to aggregate different kinds of evidence.
Insights
Assessing food carcinogenicity is complex. A new tool, E-Synthesis, uses Bayesian probability to evaluate the causal link between processed meat and cancer, offering transparent and flexible evidence aggregation for decision-making.
Area of Science:
- Environmental Health
- Toxicology
- Nutritional Science
Background:
- Dietary advice controversies highlight challenges in assessing food-cancer links.
- Aggregating evidence for food carcinogenicity requires robust methodologies.
Purpose of the Study:
- To demonstrate the application of E-Synthesis for food carcinogenicity assessments.
- To evaluate the putative causal relationship between processed meat consumption and cancer.
Main Methods:
- Utilized E-Synthesis, a tool for assessing drug-adverse reaction links, for food carcinogenicity.
- Employed a Bayesian network model incorporating Bradford Hill's Guidelines as probabilistic causality indicators.
- Determined causality indicator probabilities based on International Agency for Research on Cancer assessments.
Main Results:
- Calculated a Bayesian probability for processed meat consumption causing cancer.
- The Bayesian network provided a probabilistic representation of causality indicators.
Conclusions:
- E-Synthesis is well-suited for food carcinogenicity assessments.
- The tool offers transparent evidence representation and explicit judgments.
- Outputs a decision-making-ready probability of causality and flexibly aggregates diverse evidence.
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