Category: carcinogens
Researchers tested 76 samples of different kinds of organic and conventional meats for 33 different carcinogens. A study on carcinogenic risk associated with the intake of various meats estimated it to be so high that we may not want to feed beef, pork, or chicken to children more than about five times a month. The […]
What are the preparation methods to reduce exposure to carcinogens in cooked meat? What are some ways we can decrease our exposure to the carcinogenic substances in meat that are formed during cooking? At 0:15 in my video Carcinogens in Meat, I show a whole list of hazard factors. The first factor is “meat type,” […]
Oxidized cholesterol can be a hundred times more toxic than regular cholesterol, raising additional concerns about foods such as ghee, canned tuna, processed meat, and parmesan cheese. Too much cholesterol in the blood “has long been considered to act as a primary risk factor for developing Alzheimer’s disease and, possibly, Parkinson’s disease.” Striking images on […]
What is the role of erectile dysfunction drugs like Cialis and Levitra in the promotion and progression of prostate cancer and melanoma? Of the half-dozen Viagra-type drugs on the market now, Viagra itself may have “the greatest efficacy but also the highest rate of overall adverse events,” or side effects. It’s still a pretty safe […]
Is testing for body burden of heavy metals like mercury with “urine mobilization tests,” “challenge tests,” and “provoked urine tests” just a scam? Environmental risk factors, meaning non-genetic risk factors, may play a significant role in autism. Identical twins who share the same DNA may not share the condition more than half the time. A […]
What would happen if you effectively randomized people at birth to drink more or less alcohol their whole lives? Would they get more or less heart disease? Once you remove the “systematic error” of misclassifying former drinkers as if they were lifelong abstainers from studies on alcohol and mortality, moderate alcohol consumption, like a glass […]
Even if alcohol causes cancer and there is no “French paradox,” what about the famous J-shaped curve, where excessive drinking is bad, but light drinkers appear to actually have lower mortality than abstainers? “Why do we not see the corporate interests of the alcohol industry as clearly as we see those of the tobacco industry?” […]
Is there any benefit to resveratrol? If so, should we get it from wine, grapes, peanuts, or supplements? “Alcohol is a neurotoxin which can cause brain damage…[and] can cause cancer,” so perhaps the “consumption of alcohol…cannot be considered a healthy lifestyle choice” since it’s an addictive carcinogen. Cancer is only killer number two, though. Killer […]
If even light drinking can cause cancer, why don’t doctors warn their patients about it? As I discuss in my video Can Alcohol Cause Cancer?, we’ve known about “the possible association of the consumption of alcohol with excessive mortality from cancer” for more than a hundred years. Though there is “accumulating evidence that alcohol drinking […]
Are the health benefits associated with apple consumption simply due to other healthy behaviors among apple-eaters? Regular apple intake is associated with all sorts of benefits, such as living longer and, more specifically, a lower risk of dying from cancer. At 0:17 in my video Apple Peels Put to the Test for Chronic Joint Pain, […]
What does the world’s leading authority on carcinogens have to say about mobile phones? Do cell phones cause cancer? That’s a question billions of people would like to have answered and one I address in my video Cell Phone Brain Tumor Risk?. That’s why we have the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on […]
Do mobile phones cause brain tumors? Whenever a trillion-dollar industry is involved—whether it’s Big Food, Big Tobacco, Big Pharma, or Big Telecom—there’s so much money that the science can get manipulated. When it comes to the potential human health effects of cell phone use, certainly, you might end up with a crick in your neck […]
Just because the sodium lauryl sulfate in toothpaste doesn’t cause cancer doesn’t mean it can’t cause problems. Sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS) is a common detergent used in toothpaste. It was featured in a famous Internet hoax nearly 20 years ago. Colgate toothpaste contains SLS, which was supposedly proven to cause cancer, but at least buying […]
What happened when turmeric curcumin was put to the test to see if it could reverse DNA damage caused by arsenic exposure? Arsenic is a carcinogenic heavy metal, and the major mechanism of arsenic-related damage appears to be oxidative stress. It’s the arsenic-induced accumulation of free radicals that can kill off cells and damage our […]
Are there unique benefits to brown rice that would justify keeping it in our diet despite the arsenic content? For years, warnings had been given about the arsenic levels in U.S. rice potentially increasing cancer risk, but it had never been put to the test until a study out of Harvard. The finding? “Long-term consumption […]
Arsenic is not just considered to be a carcinogen; it’s also designated as a “nonthreshold carcinogen, meaning that any dose, no matter how small, carries some cancer risk”—so there really isn’t a “safe” level of exposure. Given that, it may be reasonable to “use the conservative ALARA” approach, reducing exposure As Low As Reasonably Achievable. […]
What are some strategies to reduce arsenic exposure from rice? Those who are exposed to the most arsenic in rice are those who are exposed to the most rice, like people who are eating plant-based, gluten-free, or dairy-free. So, at-risk populations are not just infants and pregnant women, but also those who may tend to […]
Getting rice down to the so-called safe water limit for arsenic would still allow for roughly 500 times greater cancer risk than is normally considered acceptable. Given the level of arsenic in rice, how could we figure out how much rice is too much? There are no U.S. standards for arsenic in rice, even though […]
When it comes to rice and rice-based products, pediatric nutrition authorities have recommended that arsenic intake should be as low as possible. “The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been monitoring the arsenic content in foods” for decades, yet despite the “well-established science describing the health risks associated with arsenic exposure, no standards have […]
Boiling rice like pasta reduces arsenic levels, but how much nutrition is lost? Cooking rice in a high water-to-rice ratio reduces toxic arsenic content, which I discuss in my video How to Cook Rice to Lower Arsenic Levels. What exactly does that mean? Well, as you can see at 0:16 in my video, if you […]
Brown rice contains more arsenic than white rice, but the arsenic in brown rice is less absorbable, so how does it wash out when you compare the urine arsenic levels of white-rice eaters to brown-rice eaters? Arsenic in rice is a cause for concern, according to a consensus statement by the European and North American […]
Arsenic levels were tested in 5,800 rice samples from 25 countries.The arsenic found in five servings of rice a week poses a hundred times the acceptable cancer risk. What did the rice industry have to say about that? When the story first broke in the media that U.S. rice had some of the highest arsenic […]
A daily half-cup of cooked rice may carry a hundred times the acceptable cancer risk of arsenic. What about seaweed from the coast of Maine? “At one point during the reign of King Cotton, farmers in the south central United States controlled boll weevils with arsenic-based pesticides, and residual arsenic still contaminates the soil.” Different […]
Even at low-level exposure, arsenic is not just a class I carcinogen, but may also impair our immune function and increase our risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes. When people hear about arsenic, they think of it as an acute poison, and, indeed, a tiny amount—a hundred milligrams, about one-tenth the weight of a paperclip—could […]
What happens when our crops are grown in soil contaminated with arsenic-based pesticides and arsenic drug-laced chicken manure? When arsenic-containing drugs are fed to chickens, not only does the arsenic grow out into their feathers, which are then fed back to them as a slaughterhouse byproduct, but the arsenic can also get into their tissues […]
What was the National Chicken Council’s response to public health authorities calling for the industry to stop feeding arsenic-based drugs to poultry? “Dietary practices influence our exposure to pesticides, toxic heavy metals, persistent organic pollutants, and industrial pollutants….A diet high in fish and other animal products, for example, results in greater exposure to persistent organic compounds […]
“Nearly 20% of cancer cases arising worldwide can be linked to infectious agents, including viruses.” Seven viruses are now conclusively tied to human cancers, and, as new viruses enter into human populations, the incidence and causes of cancer will likely change accordingly. The foundation of modern tumor virology was laid more than a century ago […]
There is a food that offers the best of both worlds—significantly improving our ability to detox carcinogens like diesel fumes and decreasing inflammation in our airways—all while improving our respiratory defenses against infections. Outdoor air pollution may be the ninth leading cause of death and disability in the world, responsible for millions of deaths from […]
The majority of dietary supplement facilities tested were found noncompliant with good manufacturing practices guidelines. “The U.S. public is not well protected” by current dietary supplement recommendations, an issue I explore in my video Dangers of Dietary Supplement Deregulation. Sometimes, there is too little of whatever’s supposed to be in the bottle, and other […]
The approval of aspartame has a controversial history. The Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) concluded that “there is a reasonable certainty that human consumption of aspartame: (1) …will not pose a risk of brain damage resulting in mental retardation, endocrine [hormonal] dysfunction, or both; and (2) will not cause brain tumors.” […]