Bacon Causes Cancer

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! D-:

Bacon, ham and sausages rank alongside cigarettes as a major cause of cancer, the World Health Organisation has said, placing cured and processed meats in the same category as asbestos, alcohol, arsenic and tobacco.

The report from the WHO’s cancer arm, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, said there is enough evidence to rank processed meats as group 1 carcinogens, because of a causal link with bowel cancer.

Full Story on MSN

But here's a potentially comforting addendum: My brother is a university-qualified dietitian, and he claims that vitamin C is enough to offset the carcinogenic effects of processed meats. So, just knock back a glass or two of orange juice with your hot dog or your bacon breakfast and you should be OK. :-)

Misleading thread title is misleading. You are just as bad as all the nutrition alarmists that take one article and think that the world will end because of bacon. Moderation, folks. You can still have your bacon, just don't over do it.

Think of how many people will eliminate bacon from their diet because of this and still go out and smoke or drink heavily.

@jimkabrhel

Agreed, even though I'm not a big fan of pork, I'm in total agreement!

Orange Juice has little to ''NO" nutritional value! You have to take a nutritional supplement.

@Stesilaus: Does orange soda count ? Lol ..

How is the title remotely misleading? It says pretty much exactly what the World Health Organization said.

Here it is again:

Bacon, ham and sausages rank alongside cigarettes as a major cause of cancer, the World Health Organisation has said, ...

:-)

Actually, the Daily Mail upped the ante by adding burgers to the list ...

Everything gives you cancer these days. Even starlight.

Taste bad as well.

@themajormayor: Monicca.

@MarcRecon:

Oranges are good for you, but agreed Orange JUICE (even freeshly squeezed) minus the pulp is not good for you.

'NO'' and you know better!!!! lol

lol....I like this clip....gonna have to link it!!!

So be it. Everyone has to die of something.

Bacon (and pork in general) is disgusting. Haven't ate it in a while anyway.

WHO? This must be another Illuminati conspiracy to take away your guns.

Love that "bad as cigarettes" some people smoke and live to be 90.

Don't subscribe to all this horse shit. One week eat this, the next it contradicted by someone else saying nay or yay. Simple way to stay healthy. Eat the right foods, drink the right fluids and have loads of fun doing it. Member of family fell to cancer, was as un healthy as Vader. Dad got cancer in the same place, yeah more than likely genetic, he survived and is in remission still. Decided to change his lifestyle years ago and it paid off big time.

@thehig1: Well... Did you know that you will die? :P

Actually there is a CNN posting today about this being true. Apparently its due to all meats, especially red meat. I honestly don't know anyone who eats red meat everyday.

Yeah seen this earlier, processed meats are not good for you but damn are they tasty. :(

if we gave up meat we could significantly cut down on the number of deaths attributed to heart disease

@horgen: at some point, unlikely to be because of bacon lol

Seriously, reading about that this morning was pretty damning news. I mean we all know that processed foods and red meat are maybe not the best thing too eat too much of, but for there to be research that says, "Yup, eat too much salted, cured or smoked meat, or too many hotdogs or ham or sausage - and you will likely get cancer.", that is kind of alarming. "Oh and we can't say that red meat causes it, but... It probably does, too."

I'm already thinking about what I should do differently to avoid so much of it. According to what I read, having as much as 3 1/2 servings of this stuff per week resulted in no negative signs, anymore than that and you're in the danger zone. I guess moderation is key. But it's a tricky key, because I love corned beef, jerky and steaks as much as the next guy.

If we gave up meat, we would be able to turn millions of acres of farmland dedicated to the support of cattle into farmland that has a better purpose. And we've save a lot of energy in the process.

But meat happens to be delicious.

Everything causes cancer nowadays it seems.

• Meat.
• Dairy
• Fish
• Flour
• Non-organic grown vegetables
• Salt
• Sugar
• Nuts
• Berries

Might aswell just adopt a diet of bird seeds in a glass of water at this point, or you know eat things in moderation.

Welp, guess I'll just start smoking now... I give up trying not to get cancer.

When I think of greedy companies, I think of this doctor lying to the public.

Bacon Causes Cancer

Totally worth it.

Well it is a matter of time if you live long enough.

the WHO statement said that processed and red meats "are associated with an 18% increase in risk for colorectal cancer" (TIME)*....

correlation does not mean causation. tell the news to go **** themselves.

*note: time didn't understand this basic facet of statistics either and also succumbed to making a misleading headline.

You are going to die anyway so what's the diff?

Thing is, we all die. Some of us, will just die happy. Enjoy bacon.

No.

Nothing "causes" cancer besides ionizing radiation.

According to this single study, heavily processed meats slightly (18%) increase the RISK of getting cancer. That's what all this talk is about with regards to even things like smoking. All it does is increase the RISK of getting it. Sometimes drastically, sometimes not.

Personally, I've been avoiding salt and refined sugars as much as possible lately and haven't missed most of the foods they are associated with.

Unfortunately, deli meats are one of them.

At this point traffic cones will cause cancer.

Everything causes cancer.

Mhm. There's still many more questions to be asked, a la "why do some people live into their 100s smoking every day while others die of lung cancer".

Even then smoking is many times more highly correlated than meat (CDC, 2015) comparing the two is ridiculous.

Even more curious is skin cancer. Some studies say childhood exposure to prolonged sunlight increases the risk of skin cancer, whereas newer studies do not (NIH, 2008).

Our 'health behaviours' to avoid cancer have unintended consequences as well. e.g. sunscreen appears to increase risk of cancer (BBC, citing USNCI 1999), and it also appears to kill coral reefs (UCF, 2015 - go knights).

What unintended consequences will there be from avoiding meat? What confounding factors are associated with this increased risk? Maybe these people, who consume processed meats, are also likely to do other unhealthy things in relation to the GI tract, like drink soda and not eat fibre. I'm guessing this information being thrown around is a correlation study. Until I see otherwise I seriously doubt that they did a full bayesian analysis on all the potential causes.

No matter how healthy one is, shit still happens. One of my bffs got lymphoma. She drinks and smokes, yet this particular case was a matter of shit happens. Cells that have high turnover - e.g., skin, B cells - have higher incidence of harmful mutation and there's really nothing anyone can do to prevent it at this time.

Well we're all gonna die eventually so what the hell? Anything can happen. For the record, Bacon has too much fat and grease, so I don't eat Bacon anyways.

Not like I eat them everyday, nor are they addictive like tobacco.

Everything causes cancer but it's ultimately up to your genes and how susceptible one is to whatever he or she is exposed to.

@Treflis:

Well increases your CHANCE of getting cancer:

Eggs, non-organic dairy = yes, eggs increase a man's chance for deadliest form of prostate cancer

Sugar substitutes = most are yes, stevia and maybe Splenda may be ok

Sugar itself feeds cancer, one of the worst things when you have cancer.

Nuts, wild Salmon, and Berries don't cause Cancer, not sure where you got that info. In fact things like Blueberries, Strawberries, Blackberries, and Matcha Green Tea DECREASE your chances of getting Cancer. Wild Salmon is rich in Omega-3's and Vitamin D, both major important, almonds and walnuts are great for you also.

Trust me, I've researched this, since I had and beat Cancer. I had Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma Stage 2. Lymphoma is a blood cancer, cousin to Leukemia, its a cancer of the white blood cells. Went through months of chemo and nasty anti-nausea medication. Fortunately for me, this is one of the Cancers that responds best with Chemo, thanks to a miracle (but VERY poisonous) chemical called Rituxin. But that's what you deal with in Cancer, you are playing hardball, you agree to be injected by nasty poison to beat a deadly disease. Uggh.

It should be noted that these things increase the CHANCE of getting cancer, they don't cause it if you beat the odds. This is why people can smoke til age 90 and not get cancer because they had lady luck on their side, but chances are higher that you will. I've seen too many friends die too young of lung cancer from smoking.

Words of advice: if you ever detect a painless lump anywhere on your body that sprouted from nowhere go see the doctor immediately. Also night sweats and losing weight rapidly (cancer cells eat up the calories) without trying are big signs of cancer.

I'm never giving up on meat.

Food chain FTW!

@AFBrat77: I deem your perspective very valuable, and I sincerely appreciate your adding it to this thread. Congratulations on defeating the beast!

The amount of denialism in this topic is astounding; I had no idea bacon is such serious business. I always regarded deli meats as carcinogens, in spite of how much I love them. I'm glad I almost eliminated them from my diet.

People need to understand that moderation isn't a cure-all. If you moderate your consumption of a carcinogen, then it just means you'll increase your chances of getting cancer moderately. Then you have the scientific denialists: "bacon doesn't cause cancer; it only increases your chance of getting it". Well, genius, nothing causes cancer except for bathing in nuclear waste. But does that mean it's O.K to increase one's chances of getting cancer?

Well...most people aren't extremists. You can take extreme stances against small risks - but most people would just argue that you're taking irrational measures and failing to really live life. There are risks associated with everything - we all just have our own cognitive bias as to what's dangerous or not. You're far more likely to die in a car crash than get cancer from eating some processed meat here and there. Does that mean you completely avoid cars too? That would really surprise me. Approaching subjects with extremism isn't necessarily a cure-all either you know? Even the article itself doesn't suggest that quitting red meat isn't necessarily more protective against cancer than just limiting your consumption.

Diet-wise if you approach things with balance and exercise regularly, you'll be fine.

K.

Let's just add bacon to the thousands of other things that increase cancer risk.

And that is all they are. Merely potential risks hinging on a number of variables (that may or may not be beyond our control).

Meanwhile, I'll keep having a toasted bacon and egg sandwich and OJ before work.

I agree I don't eat all that stuff anyway if I do its once in a blue moon

Why do experts care? Why do they care if people die of cancer is it the bills for all the meds? I dont get it to be honest!