Fed2 Star - the newsletter for the space trading game Federation 2

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by ibgames

EARTHDATE: November 1, 2015

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REAL LIFE NEWS: SEE, I TOLD YOU BACON WAS BAD FOR YOU!

by Hazed

There have been rumblings for years about how processed meat such as bacon and sausages might be a cancer risk, and now the World Health Organization (WHO) has come out and declared that they do cause cancer.

But before you panic and chuck away all the processed pork products, this needs to be put into perspective.

First, this isn’t based on any new studies, and it doesn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know. All it does it bring together the results of many different studies done over decades, allowing scientists to come to some fairly definite conclusions.

Secondly, while the report basically says that processed meats are a definite cause of cancer, and red meat is a probable cause, it is not quite as simple as that.

What the WHO said is that eating 50g of processed meat (that’s equivalent to two rashers of bacon) every day increases the chance of developing colorectal cancer by 18%. In the UK, about 6 people in every 100 get bowel cancer at some point in their lives; if they all had an extra 50g of bacon a day for the rest of their lives then the number would rise to around 7 in every 100.

That doesn’t sound so scary, particularly since eating bacon less often than every single day reduces that risk. So there may be grounds to cut down on the bacon, but not to give it up completely.

Which does make it strange that the WHO has classified processed meats in the same group as cigarettes, asbestos and plutonium! I think that category needs to be defined a little less broadly. See the third link below for all the things lumped in together as “carcinogenic”.

As an illustration, it is thought that 21% of bowel cancers are caused by processed or red meat, but 86% of lung cancers are caused by tobacco. So do they really belong in the same risk category?

The WHO also said that red meats were “probably carcinogenic” but there was limited evidence. Well, that’s helpful!

The meat industry is, understandably, not happy about this and their spin doctors have set about trying to rubbish the statements. I wonder if they are now going to resort to the same tactics the tobacco companies did in their fight against the proof that smoking caused lung cancer? Perhaps we’re about to see the emergence of Big Meat…

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-34615621
http://gizmodo.com/heres-why-you-shouldnt-panic-over-processed-meats-causi-1738704617
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/oct/28/116-things-that-can-give-you-cancer-list

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