Grilled Meat

[Martha_05]

Scientists Link Grilled Meat To Breast Cancer
ULYSSES TORASSA
c.2000 San Francisco Examiner

SAN FRANCISCO - With barbecue season just around the corner, scientists are offering new evidence that grilled, charred and fried meat may pose a risk of breast cancer.

The culprit appears to be a compound called PhIP, produced when meat is cooked at high temperatures. Rats fed high doses of PhIP develop tumors in their mammary glands, studies have shown.

Now scientists meeting here this week for the American Association for Cancer Research conference are hearing about additional evidence from a study of more than 900 women, a third of whom had breast cancer. Those who said they ate lots of charred and grilled meats had a two-fold greater risk of getting breast cancer as women who rarely or never did.

Furthermore, another study by German researchers reported at the conference on Monday found that PhIP weakly mimics the female hormone estrogen. That could explain why the chemical would do most of its harm in breast tissue.

Moreover, a group of scientists at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore are reporting that women were at a greater risk for breast cancer if they carry a gene type that speeds up activation of PhIP and its chemical siblings, which are called heterocyclic amines.

Like so much new research coming out, the findings bolster the idea that cancer is a complex disease triggered and prevented by many different forces inside and outside the body, said Kala Visvanathan, a research fellow at Johns Hopkins and lead author of the study.

``It's not completely what individuals are exposed to, but the combination of what they are exposed to and their genetic profile,'' she said.

Scientists studying this potential link to breast cancer cautioned that research in this area is fairly new and more work needs to be done to confirm their findings.

Indeed, the evidence so far doesn't indicate that the risk of breast cancer from eating grilled meat would surpass the risk associated with obesity, alcohol consumption or forgoing pregnancy.

Heterocyclic amines are compounds produced when amino acids - the building blocks of protein - react with creatine, a substance found in muscles. The higher the temperatures, the more the substances react.

When meat is grilled, fat often drips onto the hot coals and sends up flames, subjecting it to very high heat, said Rashmi Sinha, an investigator with the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics at the National Cancer Institute. Similar high-heat cooking methods like broiling and frying can have the same effect.

Sinha recommended braising, stewing or baking meat. If something is to be grilled, she suggested cooking it partially first so that it spends less time exposed to flames

We hope this information will be useful to you.

Kindest regards,


William Baker
Cancer Information and Support International
Web Address: http://www.cancer-info.com
E-Mail: support@cancer-info.com
Office Phone Numbers:
U.S. and Canada Toll Free: 1-888-349-7477
International: 905-852-5596
Fax: 905-852-4838




------------------
~Capricorn~

[delgado25]

I don't eat red meat, but the rest of my family does. I will tell my mother and cousins.