Anyone giving up bacon?

[Where's Bruce?]

Meanwhile...I'm having elk chili.

 

[COlineman78]

The WHO has classified processed meats as a group one carcinogen given the strength of scientific evidence

I find this hard to believe as nowhere in the cited report have I found anything more than correlation. Also, I don't know how you find a diverse enough control group even to make such conclusions. I challenge you to find a single person who can guarantee that they have never consumed processed meats. There are certain ethnic groups for which this may be true such as native Americans, 3rd world countries and some 2nd world countries. The problem with that is that these ethnic groups have other correlations and lack genetic and lifestyle diversity. In general you could say that these groups die younger due to a lack of 1st world heath care and a harsher lifestyle and also have a lack of diagnostic capability. When someone dies of "old age" in the US the cause is still usually cancer. If they could prove ethnic, genetic, geographic and environmental diversity in their control group I would be very interested because I don't know of a single person who has NEVER eaten processed meats. The problem lies within the two following statements:

The IARC report labeled processed meat a carcinogen — cigarettes are similarly labeled — and said red meat is "probably carcinogenic to humans."

“Red and processed meat are among 940 agents reviewed by IARC and found to pose some level of theoretical ‘hazard," institute spokeswoman Betsy Booren said.

The second statement says the magic words: "theoretical hazard". Labeling it as a carcinogen in a single report doesn't mean that it has been officially accepted by the scientific community as such. The point of a scientific paper is to present an argument to be either accepted, rejected or debated by the community at large. This is where I think the public at large misinterprets the information in that it's cleaner to assume that one person or group is an authority on something; well that's not how it works in science.

 

[COlineman78]

If they stopped feeding the critters GMO corn and grains that would solve the problem but are they? Hell no. I'd rather die than give up bacon.

Please... Effects of GMOs have even less correlation than processed meats.

Niel deGrasse Tyson has the best response:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ecT2CaL7NA

 

[mmw194287]

Labeling it as a carcinogen in a single report doesn't mean that it has been officially accepted by the scientific community as such. The point of a scientific paper is to present an argument to be either accepted, rejected or debated by the community at large. This is where I think the public at large misinterprets the information in that it's cleaner to assume that one person or group is an authority on something; well that's not how it works in science.

I understand how it works in science. I'm not sure that you understand what yesterday's development was. It was not a single "study"--it was the issuance of a report on a review of the accumulated scientific literature ("more than 800 studies" conducted "in many countries and populations with diverse diets") by 22 experts from the world's leading international agency concerned with public health. Your arguments that they couldn't have found the right control group, etc., don't apply here. Yesterday's news was not about a specific experiment or study. To be sure, there are a ton of really stupid news "reports" about one study or another relating one behavior or another to cancer--this was not one of these.

I'm not sure what the problem is with the first statement that you've cited. Red meat and processed meat were classified differently based on the strength of scientific evidence. Processed meat was classified Group One, meaning that, according to the panel of experts, the accumulated literature presented "sufficient evidence" to establish a link. Red meat was classified as 2A, meaning that, again, according to the panel of experts, it is probably carcinogenic but there is limited evidence that it causes cancer (although there is strong mechanistic evidence supporting a carcinogenic effect). Again, these are not scientific studies--they are the conclusions of a public health agency based on the accumulated evidence.

 

[5MilesBack]

THIS JUST IN -----SMOKING MAY OR MAY NOT CAUSE CANCER.

I always find it interesting when people smoke their entire lives and never get cancer, yet someone smoked a pack of cigarettes 20 years ago and dies of lung cancer.

My dad died this year at 86 (young for the men in our family), and he smoked a pipe almost nonstop for 60+ years. Sure, his lungs are what got him, but he never got cancer. And a very high percentage of what he ate his whole life was red meat. He also used several packs a day of Sweet & Low (cancer causing saccharin) in his multiple cups of coffee every day.

I'm really beginning to believe that we either have a cancer gene or we don't.

 

[mtswampfox]

Grandparents on moms side ate fatty red meat. Fatty pig meat. Fatty poultry meat cause they raised them on a farm. Both healthy to the end but big diff was they were up and busting ass before dawn to after dark. Not sitting on couch stuffing down chips and sodas watching oprah in their spare time.

 

[jmez]

Definitely a genetic link with colon cancer. If you don't have the genetic predisposition for polyp formation you aren't going to get colon cancer. If you have it, you better be getting scoped our you will end up with colon cancer, vegetarian or not.

There is a problem with the studies involved with the determination. They are all going to be retrospective in nature. As far as I'm aware there has never been a prospective study done to gain this type of information, it would be nearly impossible. Retrospective studies aren't worthless but they really don't provide much evidence.

 

[COlineman78]

There is a problem with the studies involved with the determination. They are all going to be retrospective in nature. As far as I'm aware there has never been a prospective study done to gain this type of information, it would be nearly impossible. Retrospective studies aren't worthless but they really don't provide much evidence.

Exactly my point about finding a control group. Those studies (supposedly more than 800) that mmw194287 mentioned can't have had completely isolated datasets. First of all, you are relying on the person to tell the truth whether they have ever eaten processed or rare meats and even if they truly believe they are telling the truth they may not know or remember (like those who claim to not eat GMO; it's practically impossible: even your tofu was made from genetically modified soy). There are so many hidden variables that without a prospective approach to isolating your control groups none of these studies will be conclusive. Similar to cell phone's link to cancer: there are just as many studies saying they don't as they do and it's impossible to find someone that doesn't or has never used a cell phone so how are you going to find a control group to do a study. There is some anecdotal evidence suggesting that the non-ionizing radiation could damage DNA, but nothing worthwhile. I just don't see how chopping up and curing meats with some seasonings and consuming it could cause cell mutation and therefore fail to see how any anecdotal evidence could make up for a lack in isolated empirical evidence. I believe that with a few exceptions of true known causes to cancer, the genetic predisposition, environmental factors, improved diagnosis and fact that humans, especially in 1st world countries, are living longer are going to be near impossible to isolate out to get a truly reliable dataset.

 

[Where's Bruce?]

Please... Effects of GMOs have even less correlation than processed meats.

Niel deGrasse Tyson has the best response:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ecT2CaL7NA

I specified GMO corn. http://www.foodmatters.tv/articles-1/gm-corn-linked-to-cancer-tumors

 

[mmw194287]

There is a problem with the studies involved with the determination. They are all going to be retrospective in nature. As far as I'm aware there has never been a prospective study done to gain this type of information, it would be nearly impossible. Retrospective studies aren't worthless but they really don't provide much evidence.

There are so many hidden variables that without a prospective approach to isolating your control groups none of these studies will be conclusive. .

Straight from the WHO's report: "The most influential evidence came from large prospective cohort studies conducted over the past 20 years."

Has anyone else actually read the IARC statement? It's only two pages long.

 

[COlineman78]

20 years isn't long enough to do a prospective study. You'd have to do it over someones lifetime isolating them from processed meats for their entire lives. My grandma quit smoking 20 years ago and still died of lung cancer, therefore by this supposition smoking didn't cause her cancer.

 

[mmw194287]

20 years isn't long enough to do a prospective study. You'd have to do it over someones lifetime isolating them from processed meats for their entire lives. My grandma quit smoking 20 years ago and still died of lung cancer, therefore by this supposition smoking didn't cause her cancer.

First it was that there was only one study. Then it was that the studies weren't prospective. Now the prospective studies aren't long enough. I don't think I'm going to convince you, so I'm signing.

I think the better analogy to yesterday's development (instead of the anecdote about your grandma) would be that 20 year prospective studies on the link between smoking and lung cancer didn't prove anything, so public health agencies were stupid to jump the gun and declare smoking a carcinogen after consulting hundreds of peer-reviewed studies.

 

[Schnagelbagel]

Thats about the truth. Bought a piece of unfinished oak that had a warning on it saying "this product is known in the state of CA to cause cancer". All the warnings make me think that CA causes cancer.

Only causes cancer if you have the item in CA. Anywhere else your fine!

 

[COlineman78]

First it was that there was only one study. Then it was that the studies weren't prospective. Now the prospective studies aren't long enough. I don't think I'm going to convince you, so I'm signing.

I think the better analogy to yesterday's development (instead of the anecdote about your grandma) would be that 20 year prospective studies on the link between smoking and lung cancer didn't prove anything, so public health agencies were stupid to jump the gun and declare smoking a carcinogen after consulting hundreds of peer-reviewed studies.

Well, my argument all along has been that it is impossible to isolate a study group from enough external influences to come up with a reasonable result. It is much simpler with cancer studies as it is much easier to isolate people from tobacco and find people who have chosen not to use it with enough diversity to create a meaningful study. There is another issue here in the observer effect (a more generic term for quantum physics' Schoedinger's Cat). Simply asking a group to not eat something makes them more cognoscente of what they eat then those who you allowed to eat whatever they want.

Besides the above, where I was playing devils advocate but I do truly believe that too many studies are being done where results are being claimed without enough control of the experiment, they seem to have a theory about the actual chemical that they believe is causing the increased cancer risk and I can accept that it could be plausible. However, it bugs me so much that theory and hypothesis get misstated as fact, even by this scientific body in using such strong terms as to give it the rating "causes cancer" (an increased probability from 5.2% to 6.1%). I am always open to reason and will never be unconvinced so I appreciate the debate, I just feel too many in our society give into authority to easily (especially in my generation) even within the scientific community. While I am by no means a biochemist and am unqualified to question their reasoning I feel I am qualified and it is every scientist's duty to question their methods. I believe every person in the US should be made to study the Milgram Experiment and taught to question authority within reason. You wouldn't believe how often at work I come across someone telling me I have to do something some way and when you start to dig down into the reason why it was because of some past performance or hardware constraint that has long since been overcome.

For anyone looking for an actual analysis putting the results of this into perspective and not the typical sky is falling reporting you get from traditional news outlets check out this site:

http://scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.org/2015/10/26/processed-meat-and-cancer-what-you-need-to-know/

This is the most telling quote:

To take an analogy, think of banana skins. They definitely can cause accidents, explains Phillips, but in practice this doesn’t happen very often (unless you work in a banana factory). And the sort of harm you can come to from slipping on a banana skin isn’t generally as severe as, say, being in a car accident.

But under a hazard identification system like IARC’s, ‘banana skins’ and ‘cars’ would come under the same category – they both definitely do cause accidents.

 

[COlineman78]

I specified GMO corn. http://www.foodmatters.tv/articles-1/gm-corn-linked-to-cancer-tumors

Once you ignore the anti-gmo spin in that article this is the main takeaway:

We conclude that these data highlight signs of hepatorenal toxicity, possibly due to the new pesticides specific to each GMO corn. In addition, unintended direct or indirect metabolic consequences of the genetic modification cannot be excluded.

In other words, the cancer in the rats was caused by making them drink the weed killer that the corn has been modified to resist. They were too lazy to feed the rats genetically modified corn without roundup (or maybe they did with inconclusive results that didn't fit their agenda). Also, they didn't properly scale (from what I can tell) the amount of residual roundup on the corn to account for the decreased body mass of the rats in contrast to cattle and humans so liver failure in that case isn't surprising. So, in conclusion don't drink weed killer and make sure to wash your corn before you eat it and you'll be fine.

 

[MTarrowflinger]

I'm screwed. On Sunday I cooked 2 pounds of bacon for breakfast so I could have enough bacon grease to make the roux for my gumbo that I've been eating for the past 3 days.

 

[bobhunts]

With this new info and climate change life is gonna be hard in the future. Can't burn fuel and just eat raw fish. There will be study making even that bad! Not to mention that too much sun is bad! Maybe one day they will come out with a study about how our grandparents that did everything wrong actually lived just as long or longer. I know my great grand mother lived to 103 years old with nothing but hard work and bacon and eggs and the potatoes she grew along side all of the other things no one bought back then.

 

[jmez]

Straight from the WHO's report: "The most influential evidence came from large prospective cohort studies conducted over the past 20 years."

Has anyone else actually read the IARC statement? It's only two pages long.

There any links to these studies? I searched pub med and didn't come up with much.

 

[jmez]

The experts concluded that each 50 gram portion of processed meat eaten daily increases the risk of
colorectal cancer by 18%.

How do you come to a conclusion like this from a meta analysis?

A. No, processed meat has been classified in the same category as causes of cancer such as
tobacco smoking and asbestos (IARC Group 1, carcinogenic to humans), but this does NOT
mean that they are all equally dangerous. The IARC classifications describe the strength of the
scientific evidence about an agent being a cause of cancer, rather than assessing the level of
risk.

Seems to be a direct contradiction of what their conclusion was as it lists actual risk.

The consumption of processed meat was associated with small increases in the risk of cancer
in the studies reviewed. In those studies, the risk generally increased with the amount of meat
consumed. An analysis of data from 10 studies estimated that every 50 gram portion of
processed meat eaten daily increases the risk of colorectal cancer by about 18%.

800 studies looked at, data from 10 studies ESTIMATED the conclusion that is stated as fact?

 

[mmw194287]

COLineman,
Again, some of your objections are addressed in the publicly accessible FAQ: "For instance, carcinogenic chemicals that form during meat processing include N-nitroso compounds and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons."
I think we're in agreement on most points--processed meats aren't actually scary, the media does a terrible job of reporting scientific developments, and standalone claims of X causes cancer are far too common and tiresome.

Jmez,
It seems to me that the IARC is perfectly capable of issuing a formal classification based on association, and then at the same time arrive at some conclusions regarding the risk factor. They haven't contradicted themselves at all--although the quoted text makes perfectly clear that the classification is entirely unrelated to risk factor, it does not say that the panel did not give some thought to it in the course of their review.

I would also guess that they derived their conclusions regarding risk factor from the studies that the panel found "most influential"--i.e., those prospective studies that, as you noted in an earlier post, are far more difficult to pull off. Your earlier argument was that not all studies are created equal, and that the most valuable studies are really uncommon--but here you take issue with the fact that they relied most heavily on a handful of studies to make their most specific claims. To be fair, as well, the 800 studies aren't all specific to colorectal cancer and processed meats--they looked at associations between a variety of meats and types of cancer.

Take a look at the short report in Lancet Oncology, which is annotated with some of the studies most relevant to the larger conclusions. The full 800 references I'm sure will be included in the forthcoming monograph.

I just want to be clear about one thing--I don't think that there is a significant carcinogenic risk posed by processed meat or red meat. Neither, it seems, do these scientists. I just think it is a disservice to the scientific community and to expert knowledge when a report like this, misrepresented by the media, is dismissed as headline-grabbing sensationalism. I'm confident that the panel that produced this report (google their names and credentials; it's not some crackpot team) has at least the same level of scientific literacy that the members of this forum do.

I don't think we'd be having this disagreement if the headlines yesterday had been accurate: "Intergovernmental health agency, after reviewing existing literature, concludes that there is strong evidence that processed meat has a relatively insignificant carcinogenic effect."