Recently researchers from The Cancer Institute of New Jersey found that the link between eating meat and developing breast cancer actually varies by race. In the group of Caucasian women studied, those with the highest consumption of unprocessed red meat and poultry had an increased breast cancer risk compared to Caucasian women with the lowest red meat consumption. But for black women, the risk may not be of too much a concern.

“Being that this study may be one of the first to examine this association in [black] women, results from this group are not conclusive, and more investigation is needed to replicate these findings,” said study lead author and research teaching specialist Urmila Chandran in the research press release.

The researchers surveyed 976 black women and 873 white women white women with breast cancer. Additionally 1,165 black women and 865 white women without cancer were surveyed. No association between red meat and breast cancer was found among black women other than a possible relationship between red meat consumption potentially reducing the risk of certain kinds of tumors.

This news may encourage researchers across the board to include race-specific investigation into future links between cancer and other diseases based on ethnicity.

Other links to high red meat consumption include heart disease, prostate cancer in men, and premature death.