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Advisory Group recommendations on priorities for the IARC Monographs

Research Roundup

Advisory Group recommendations on priorities for the IARC Monographs

24 April 2024

The recommendations of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) Advisory Group have published the priorities for the IARC Monographs from 2025 to 2029 (1). IARC periodically convenes such advisory groups to ensure that the “agents” evaluated in the Monographs are selected based on the latest scientific evidence relevant to carcinogenicity. 

The Advisory Group recommended a broad range of agents for evaluation with high, medium, or no priority. Along with sugar-sweetened beverage consumption, ultraprocessed food consumption has been listed as a high priority to evaluate. The rationale is cited as “relevant to human cancer, and mechanistic evidence”. The full report will be published later this year. 

Reference 

  1. Berrington de González A, Masten SA, Bhatti B, Fortner RT, Peters S, Santonen T, et al. Advisory Group recommendations on priorities for the IARC Monographs Lancet Oncol, Published online 12 April 2024; https://doi.org/10.1016/S1470-2045(24)00208-0 

Note: The AFGC does not support the NOVA classification nor the use of the term ‘ultra-processed’ when classifying foods and beverages. Currently, there is no proven correlation between the nutritional composition of food and the level or amount of food processing. The AFGC has developed resources on food processing and processed foods.