The sausage scare

I was—am—distressed, shocked, dismayed.

Earlier this week, the world was told that sausages, salami, bacon and ham are carcinogenic. Processed meats, the World Health Organization (WHO) said, are group 1 carcinogens, the deadliest kind, the equivalent of smoking cigarettes.

Eat processed meat and you stand a good chance of getting bowel cancer, said the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer. The best thing to do, they advise, is to eat as little as possible or altogether shun processed meats.

As if that were not enough, we were told that red meat—beef, pork and lamb—is a carcinogen classified as group 2A, meaning it is “probably carcinogenic” (group 2B is “possibly carcinogenic”), linked to prostate and pancreatic cancer. If you must consume red meat for its nutritional benefits—or for the sheer joy, I might add—they advise, eat no more than 500g a week.

I grew up eating a variety of processed and red meat—ham, hooves, brain, liver, sausages; really, anything that had lived, my family would eat. It was a time before the cancer and cardiovascular epidemic, before cable and satellite television; a time of clean air, lots of sunshine, long walks and wide, open spaces, exploited keenly for sport and physical activity.

It was an outdoorsy, cleaner lifestyle that precluded worry over what are today called lifestyle diseases. Our parents worried about things like malaria, typhoid and scabies.

Times have changed, of course, and even I—cautioned by a health episode—eat red or processed meats sparingly (very), but the idea that my daughter will grow up in a world where she may have to cut down her intake of ham is depressing. In any case, I may be one of the few Indians to be shocked by the processed/red meats warnings.

Although there are more non-vegetarians than vegetarians in India, consumption of mutton and fish is falling—beef-eating has risen, marginally—mainly because they are too expensive, according to government data. Indians seek more protein, a natural consequence of rising prosperity, primarily in chicken, eggs and milk. This is why the WHO’s advisories have limited relevance in mother India.

But if you are—as I was—a fan of processed and red meats, how worried should you be?

Let’s first understand why processed meats are classified as carcinogens. That’s because of the extra salt and fat in them and the added chemicals they use as preservatives. Once in the body, these chemicals can damage cell DNA and spark cancer, which is the effect of malignant cell growth, masterminded by faulty or damaged DNA.

With red meat, the details are sketchier. Consuming red meat has been linked to increased risk of cancer for some time, but it was not clear why among all carnivores, only humans get cancer from eating red meat.

One plausible explanation came earlier this year, when a group of US researchers found particularly high levels of a single sugar molecule called Neu5Gc in red meat. The sugar does not occur naturally in the human body and obviously comes through diet. The cancer could come from an immune system overreaction against the sugar, but there is much that is unclear.

Nevertheless, I would not take the WHO warnings lightly, issued as they are with substantial deliberation and with the backing of numerous laboratory tests and scientific studies. The link between some types of cancers and processed and red meat has been explored for nearly a decade.

This conclusion in a 2011 paper in the online journal PLOS One sums up what science has found: “High intake of red and processed meat is associated with significant increased risk of colorectal, colon and rectal cancers,” said the paper. “The overall evidence of prospective studies supports limiting red and processed meat consumption as one of the dietary recommendations for the prevention of colorectal cancer.”

The key phrase here is “high intake”. As always, the key is moderation. The WHO said that 50g of processed meat every day increases the risk of colorectal cancer by 18%. Although these findings have been contested—with many maintaining that eating salami is not the same as smoking a cigarette—it is obvious that the occasional sausage or ham slice should be alright, as should limited quantities of red meat.

Finally, the perspective: group 1 and group 2 carcinogens abound in our lives. As many as 118 substances and occupations are listed by the WHO in group 1, including air pollution, alcohol, diesel exhaust, areca nut (think paan), solar radiation (sunburn), coal-tar pitch (coatings, paint, roofing and paving), oral contraceptives, wood dust and second-hand tobacco smoke.

Group 2A includes frying, grilled food, ethyl and methyl carbamate (found in beer and wine), circadian disruption (working night shifts) and working as a barber or hairdresser.

Ban the bacon, if you will, but how about that exhaust?

Samar Halarnkar is editor of Indiaspend.org, a data-driven, public-interest journalism, non-profit organization. He also writes the column Our Daily Bread in Mint Lounge. Comments are welcome at frontiermail@livemint.com

To read Samar Halarnkar’s previous columns, go to www.livemint.com/frontiermail-