Bacon causes cancer

[Brian Peacock]

Processed meats rank alongside smoking as cancer causes - WHO

http://gu.com/p/4djav

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 (IARC), said there is enough evidence to rank processed meats as group 1 carcinogens, because of a causal link with bowel cancer.

It places red meat in group 2A, as “probably carcinogenic to humans”. Eating red meat is also linked to pancreatic and prostate cancer, the IARC says....

[Strontium Dog]

You are what you eat, so it follows that eating death leads one to become death.

This much has been apparent to me since I was a child.

I found Cancer Research UK's response extraordinary:

Cancer Research UK said this was a reason to cut down rather than give up red and processed meats.

And added that an occasional bacon sandwich would do little harm.

Can you imagine them saying that people don't need to give up smoking, and that an occasional cigarette would do little harm? Not in a million years.

It rather just confirms how deeply held the meat mindset is.

[mistermack]

This is sooooooooooooooooooooo like manmade global warming.

On no new evidence whatsoever, they've gone from "could" to "causes". The same data has been looked at again and again, and nobody has been able to prove a link.

Now, out of the fucking ether, like a magician pulling something out of his hat, they say "causes" and not just causes, but it's in the same bracket with asbestos and smoking.

They pulled exactly the same stunt with climate change. No new evidence, it's just because "we say so" so it must be right.

And if climate change is anything to go by, people will probably swallow it. Or stop swallowing meat.
Mind you, if it hurts Macdonalds, I don't give a fuck.

[cronus]

Many people eat bacon and come to no harm. They should not eat bacon who have a history of cancer in the family. You will die of something, why let it be old age and no teeth or marbles?

[laklak]

All people who get cancer share one salient characteristic - they're alive. Therefore life causes cancer.

[Hermit]

The biggest cause of cancer is birth.

Crap. Ninjaed by the florid Floridian.

[NineBerry]

Unborn embryos can also develop cancer

[laklak]

Life begins at conception, or some such shite. Chuck Norris told me that, and you don't fuck with The Chuck.

[Brian Peacock]

A sausage a day increases your cancer risk by 19%, apparently. Luckily cheese is perfectly harmless.

[laklak]

So if I stop eating meat I might (lets stress the might, here) live a bit longer. A miserable, baconless, steakless, slow smoked pork ribless bit longer. A constantly craving, never satisfied, drooling whenever I smell someone's BBQ bit longer.

Fuck that for a game of soldiers.

[Hermit]

Looking at overall average life expectancy, Australia ranks equal second at 83. It is also ranked first in terms of per capita annual meat consumption (90.2 kg) in the world. Bangladesh ranks 117th at 70. It is also ranked last in terms of per capita annual meat consumption (3.2 kg).

That said, mapping cancers against meat consumption, the two most common in Australia are prostate (18%) and bowel (13%). Pancreatic cancer ranks tenth (2.3%). In Bangladesh bowel (3.5%) ranks ninth, prostate (0.8%) 18th and pancreatic (0.7%) 20th.

It would be interesting to see a scattergram illustrating the relationship between meat consumption and life expectancy.

I can't find the original WHO report on the matter, but the BBC article about it gives a rather less hysterical view on what it says than the Guardian. Among other things it says:

The WHO did stress that meat also had health benefits.

Cancer Research UK said this was a reason to cut down rather than give up red and processed meats.

[JimC]

They can prise my bacon sarnie from my cold dead hands!

[laklak]

And once you're dead - long bacon.

[NineBerry]

A sausage a day increases your cancer risk by 19%, apparently.

It seems to increase the risk for bowl cancer. Maybe it matters where you put the sausages.

Luckily cheese is perfectly harmless.

The chemicals causing this seem to be the one that are the result of heating the meat. I'd suggest that probably heated cheese (as for example on the pizza, toast or in Lasagne) has the same problems

[Brian Peacock]

Shhh. Don't tell tattuchu.