PDA

View Full Version : Bacon, Hot Dogs and Cancer Risk



Andrew Joiner
11-10-2015, 11:01 AM
You probably heard the news. Most reports said the WHO (World Health Organization) found processed meats increase your cancer risk by 18%. If you study it you find other numbers. The average risk for Americans of getting colorectal cancer is 5% on the average diet. Eat more than a hot dog a day and your risk is now 6% according to WHO.

Google Bacon 18% 5% 6% to see all kinds of news like:
An 18% increase in that risk means the risk rises from 5% to just under 6%. That's the absolute risk. The 18% is called the relative risk.

I'm not a big processed meat or bacon eater so I didn't really mourn on hearing the 18% news. I was just surprised how deep you had to look beyond the headlines to get the whole picture.

Michael Weber
11-10-2015, 11:35 AM
Interesting, thanks for posting that.

Bert Kemp
11-10-2015, 12:18 PM
I guess I'm high risk with my 5 or 6 lbs of bacon and 50 to 60 hot dogs I eat a year. Guess I better cut back.

Myk Rian
11-10-2015, 1:25 PM
You know what? It's all a bunch of hooey.
They say processed meats are bad, but we are in no way going to stop having it. Eggs were bad at one recent time. Now they're good.
We poisoned ourselves in the 40s and 50s with all the open air nuclear testing. Why should we worry about what we eat? It's too late for that.

Tom M King
11-10-2015, 2:43 PM
Anyone who eats anything is going to die.

Dave Anderson NH
11-10-2015, 3:54 PM
And to further Tom's comment, anyone who eats nothing is going to die too. Just remember the base death rate is one per.:D

Mike Cutler
11-10-2015, 4:29 PM
100% of all people that develop cancer have drank water. I guess we should all stop drinking water. :eek::rolleyes:

Art Mann
11-10-2015, 4:42 PM
I am surprised that anything published by the World Health Organisation is taken seriously.

Allan Speers
11-10-2015, 5:47 PM
FWIW, I once read that the single most carcinogenic, "naturally occurring" substance known to man, is bacon. This was in something like Scientific American, not "Tree Huggers Weekly."

One might argue that bacon, per se, is not quite "naturally occurring," but you know what they meant. Not Dioxin.


It sure tastes good, though!

Bruce Volden
11-10-2015, 6:14 PM
Well we die once, but look at all the days in between! Enjoy your bacon et al. Everything in moderation you know.

Bruce

Randy Rose
11-10-2015, 7:02 PM
My philosophy has always vacillated between these 2 options:

A. Everybody dies of something.
B. Nobody is leaving this parking lot alive.

" And so it goes"

Larry Frank
11-10-2015, 7:31 PM
I made a bacon wrapped pork tenderloin on the grill this last weekend. It may kill me but I will have a smile on my face.

Rich Engelhardt
11-10-2015, 7:36 PM
I'm fine with this since I switched from bacon to sausage with my two eggs for breakfast every day! :D

Tom M King
11-10-2015, 7:40 PM
My Mother will be 100 in April. I'm pretty sure she has never missed many days eating bacon, and she likes hotdogs too. I called her and asked if she had seen the news about how bad this was for her, and she had a good laugh. She did say that she had switched to the all beef hotdogs a long time ago, but wasn't about to give up bacon.

Bill Orbine
11-10-2015, 8:46 PM
I started doing these things before they found out it was bad for me............ so I'm OK!

Allan Speers
11-10-2015, 9:20 PM
My Mother will be 100 in April. I'm pretty sure she has never missed many days eating bacon, and she likes hotdogs too. I called her and asked if she had seen the news about how bad this was for her, and she had a good laugh. She did say that she had switched to the all beef hotdogs a long time ago, but wasn't about to give up bacon.


My grandma made it to 99, smoking at least a pack a day. So I guess .....

Mike Henderson
11-10-2015, 11:03 PM
I couldn't give up bacon - It's important to enjoy life, as well as having a long life. When I traveled to Israel, one of the things I really missed at breakfast was bacon (no pork).

Mike

Rick Potter
11-11-2015, 1:51 AM
How does that old one go? Something like......figures don't lie, but liars can figure. Kind of like ...Whoopie, our team took second place...........in a two man race.

Dennis Peacock
11-11-2015, 2:16 AM
Interesting....My granddaddy ate fried eggs, bacon, ham, gravy, and homemade biscuits every single morning of his life. He only lived to 84, so I guess he could have lived another year if he'd been eating healthier......OH...and we raised all our own meat and veggies. When we wanted chicken for supper? We exited the house via the back door, caught a chicken, wrung its neck, and then cleaned and prepared the chicken for frying.

All I got to say is that "when your number is up? Your number is up.....eating healthy or not" :)

Justin Ludwig
11-11-2015, 6:43 AM
I'll take my chances. I eat 3 strips of bacon and 4 eggs every morning (no breads). I'd pit my health against an Olympian.

"Lies, damned lies, and statistics." M. Twain

Curt Harms
11-11-2015, 9:24 AM
You probably heard the news. Most reports said the WHO (World Health Organization) found processed meats increase your cancer risk by 18%. If you study it you find other numbers. The average risk for Americans of getting colorectal cancer is 5% on the average diet. Eat more than a hot dog a day and your risk is now 6% according to WHO.

Google Bacon 18% 5% 6% to see all kinds of news like:
An 18% increase in that risk means the risk rises from 5% to just under 6%. That's the absolute risk. The 18% is called the relative risk.

I'm not a big processed meat or bacon eater so I didn't really mourn on hearing the 18% news. I was just surprised how deep you had to look beyond the headlines to get the whole picture.

I agree with the lack of effort by the 'news' media to add perspective. A great many people would take this as "OMG the odds of my developing colon cancer is 18% if I eat processed meats!" I wonder if that's intentional?:rolleyes:

Jon Nuckles
11-11-2015, 10:05 AM
The way the news was reported seems perfectly clear to me. I also don't know why someone would tend to disbelieve a health report because it came from the WHO. We will all die from something, and each of us is free to make choices that make him or her happy. Having more information to make a decision is still a good thing.

Allan Speers
11-11-2015, 10:09 AM
The way the news was reported seems perfectly clear to me. I also don't know why someone would tend to disbelieve a health report because it came from the WHO. We will all die from something, and each of us is free to make choices that make him or her happy. Having more information to make a decision is still a good thing.


This. Even if we're talking "only" a 1% risk increase, it's still CANCER, ferchissakes. If you enjoy your bacon, and other red meats, then fine. Just don't delude yourself that the dangers are just some tree-hugging California regulation.

Heck, EXCERCISE actually can cause cancer, when you get right down to it. (burning the oxygen molecules causes free radicals, or something like that.) I'm not about to stop running every day.

Myk Rian
11-11-2015, 11:36 AM
We just returned Sunday from a cruise on the Regal Princess.
I had a huge helping of scrambled eggs, a big pile of bacon, and 3-4 sausage every morning.
O..M..G.. I'M GONNA DIE!!!!
I did tone it down with a big slice of pineapple, and another of melon.

Charlie Velasquez
11-11-2015, 3:29 PM
We just returned Sunday from a cruise on the Regal Princess.
I had a huge helping of scrambled eggs, a big pile of bacon, and 3-4 sausage every morning.
O..M..G.. I'M GONNA DIE!!!!Yes.... you will.....

Charlie Velasquez
11-11-2015, 3:43 PM
The way the news was reported seems perfectly clear to me. I also don't know why someone would tend to disbelieve a health report because it came from the WHO. ....Tend to agree if one read only the WHO report.
But,when I Googled the story for more info I found a lot of stories/opinions/blogs written by yahoos that were just trying to gain clicks or readership. Maybe they really didn't understand the WHO report or maybe, as mentioned earlier, it was intentional, but the headlines and slants were sensationalized.
One article equated the eating of bacon to smoking because they were in the same WHO category for carcinogens (that describes the degree of certainty about its association with cancer, not its morbidity.)

Mac McQuinn
11-11-2015, 8:37 PM
This seems to be under one umbrella, how about organic or minimally processed bacon without all the chemicals? I tend to do the moderation route, I'm not too worried about 2-3 slices of organic bacon once or twice a month with a short stack of organic pancakes. Add a cup of joe and I'm content.
Mac

Lornie McCullough
11-12-2015, 1:31 AM
Consider this......

Good health is just the slowest possible way to die.

Is that what you want, really? I'll have the BLT (or MLT from Princess Bride).

Lornie

Joe Tilson
11-12-2015, 8:58 AM
My sister and her husband got on the health thing about two years ago, stopped eating bread, processed meats, and lost a lot of weight. Then they started having cold and flu symptoms on a regular basis. So my question is; What is healthy about this, when you are sick all the time? I going to go have some bacon and eggs right now!!!! I do love them so. Oh and I am going to make another pot of coffee. Stop by and I will share with you.

Art Mann
11-12-2015, 12:32 PM
The way the news was reported seems perfectly clear to me. I also don't know why someone would tend to disbelieve a health report because it came from the WHO. We will all die from something, and each of us is free to make choices that make him or her happy. Having more information to make a decision is still a good thing.

My observation has been that they are driven too much by politics and not enough by science.

Randy Rose
11-12-2015, 5:29 PM
Reminds me of a cartoon from several years back.
Elderly gentleman in a wheelchair at the lunch table of a "retirement home", orderly is spooning some gelatinous slop onto his tray. Cartoon "thought balloon" caption reads:
"To think that I gave up drinking and smoking so that I wouldn't miss all this"

Seriously though, today`s " good" is tomorrows "bad" and vice versa. I`ll just continue making sawdust until the WHO and the EPA make that immoral/illegal.

Patrick Walsh
11-12-2015, 6:28 PM
We all choose to believe what it is we want to believe.

Not to be controversial but this is what i choose to believe and how i choose to live.

I could care less how others choose to live with regard to diet and health. Just don't ask for my sympathy or help when you are suffering health problems that could had easily been avoided had you chosen to mind your health in a responsible manner.

I understand my opinion will not be well received or popular. I don't share my opinion to be a fire starter in any way. A share it as it is a topic i feel very strongly about.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_China_Study