Consuming burned or charred meat could raise the risk of pancreatic cancer, a new study has found.
Researchers at the University of Minnesota state meat that is fried, grilled or cooked on the barbecue may develop cancer-causing carcinogens. These are not formed when meat is baked or stewed.
During a nine-year period, US researchers studied the eating habits of more than 60,000 people with an average age of 63.
They discovered 208 cases of pancreatic cancer and found a link between those who preferred their meat well or very well done, compared to those who cooked it for less time.
Those people who ate the highest amount of charred meats had a 70 percent greater chance of pancreatic cancer than those who ate the least charred meat.
“We cannot say with absolute certainty that the risk is increased due to carcinogens formed in burned meat,” said Anderson.
“However, those who enjoy either fried or barbecued meat should consider turning down the heat or cutting off burned portions when it’s finished; cook meat sufficiently to kill bacteria without excess charring,” Anderson said.
if this is true then this should translate into hard figures in Korea , with an increse in cancer there
Early humans probably died in great numbers from pancreatic cancer. CMON PEOPLE! Get real….
I’m going to call BS on this one.Got to go,have to get the grill going. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA.
Seriously, is there anything that doesn’t cause cancer? I’d rather enjoy my life than sit there worrying away my days in anxious fright over what might give me cancer next.
Beef! It’s what’s for dinner.
All the antibiotics and hormones injected into animals do no harm but cooking on a grill on high flame would give you cancer….
The caveman I am sure had high cases of pancreatic cancer and hard arteries that is if he lived past the age of 35. I know a lot of “I make my living off livestock” and the “this is another vegan scam” will scream conspiracy, but meat is not the healthiest thing for you, taste great, but it will kill you quick. All things in moderation.
Some say you can protect yourself from ‘free radicals’ (cancer-causing by-product of burnt meat) by taking a daily multivitamin or eating some fresh garlic w/ that delicious steak. How’s that sound? Garlic + Steak = win+win
C’mon people. This “research” is so stupid. Out of more than 60,000 people only 208 got the specific type of cancer the researchers were looking for? That’s less than 4 1,000ths of 1 percent. Plus, the average age of all the 60,000 people was 63. Go out and grab 60,000 63 year olds at random without knowing anything about what they eat and you’re likely to get similar results.
who paid for the study?
Carol’s calculations are wrong. 208 out of 60000 is around 1/3 of 1 percent, not 4/1000 of 1 percent.
Most of the other commenters seemed to miss the point of the study: it wasn’t saying that eating beef was bad, it was saying that well done or charred beef was bad. Don’t eat burned meat. Eat it medium or rare, and no risk was detected.
They did not specify if there was a difference in propane grilling vs charcoal grilling vs real wood. If they are truly going to “study” this, it would be interesting to know if there is a difference - and if it is just the charring, or the charring w/ charcoal that is causing the issues.
The science:
It is true that when you burn any organic material it produces Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons. Wood, charcoal, meat, fat, pretty much anything that has to do with barbecue. Some of these compounds do cause tumors in mice and rats when fed at extremely high doses. The most carcinogenic of these compounds is benzo(a)pyrene (BaP). When fed at artificially elevated dose rates of >40-45ppm/diet for about six months, a statistical difference in tumors from the control (healthy subjects not fed BaP) was noted when testing on mice.
The reality:
A typical well done quarter pound flame grilled burger contains upwards of .004ppm (tested quantity) for a total of 400 ng of BaP accounting for fat weight loss. This is 10,000 times less concentrated than what was fed to the mice.
Let’s recreate the lab mice test using fire grilled hamburger containing .004ppm as the food and humans as the test subjects. If all you ate was 1 flame grilled burger per day for the duration of the test, it would have to weigh approximately 2,200 lbs. I don’t think you would die of cancer from the benzo(a)pyrene.
It is possible to find levels of BaP >.060ppm in meat by testing only the burnt part. This is 15 times greater than a typical burger.