Another Red Meat Cancer Warning

[Guest guest]

November 24, 2003

NUTRITION NEWS FOCUS

" Nutrition news is important. We help you understand it! "

 

Today's Topic: Another Red Meat Cancer Warning

 

We have lost count of the number of ways eating red meat is supposed

to kill us. The latest alarm is based on the discovery of a type of

sugar found in cells of sheep, pigs and steers, but not produced by

humans. When eaten, people produce antibodies against this molecule.

The news media reported that this immune response could cause heart

disease and cancer.

 

A carbohydrate produced by other animals, but not humans, is the

sialic acid, N-glycolylneuraminic acid. It is high in animals we call

red meat, found in milk, but low in poultry and fish. The research

was published in the October 14, 2003 Proceedings of the National

Academies of Science USA.

< http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/100/21/12045 >

 

HERE'S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: The senior author stated

that the molecule was almost certainly not toxic - he and others

swallowed samples of it to measure its clearance from the body. He

also suggested that humans had built up tolerance after hundreds of

thousands of years eating meat. But most obvious was the omission

from the discussion that we eat many other carbohydrates in plant

foods that our bodies do not produce. This sugar is important in

rejection of transplanted organs from other species, but we simply

have no idea about its importance as a cause of any conditions in

people.

 

 

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