14 DAY TRIAL // People who consume cured meat on a regular basis are 71% more prone to develop lung cancer, according to a recent report on FoodNavigator.com. The research was carried out by scientists at the Columbia University Medical Center in New York who stated that thisis one of the first studies to look at the nitrite amount in foods and how it affects our health.
Therefore, lung cancer is not always primarily caused by active or passive smoking; it can also be triggered by high levels of nitrite found in foods content. Due to the fact that cured meat is known to have a high nitrite content researchers suggested that overconsumption of this product may raise risk of lung cancer. But study leader Graham Barr, Assistant Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology at the Columbia University Medical Center added: "This is a first, cross-sectional, observational study. Further research is needed before we make any recommendations regarding public health."
Nitrite is a food additive added to meat in order to prevent it from becoming rancid quickly and for preserving its flavor, taste and rose-red color for a longer period of time. Generally, food additives are substances added to aliments before they are put on the supermarket shelves and bought by consumers. Food additives can be natural substances or chemically synthesized substances.
Additives are introduced in foods for various reasons, such as: for storing and preserving foods fresh for a longer period of time, especially foods that alter in a few days; for enriching the nutritive value of foods; for making foods processing and production easier; for enhancing foods' taste, flavor, color, aspect etc. Most additives are identified with E numbers. These E numbers appear on foods labels and are natural or chemically synthesized additives approved by the UE.
Even if scientists involved in the current study might have done an important discovery concerning lung cancer triggers, they caution that further larger studies on animals and humans are needed for a more exact understanding of how nitrite works on our health: "First, we need to replicate it in other cross-sectional studies, then we need to replicate it in longitudinal studies. The animal studies on nitrite intake and emphysema are about three decades old, so additional animal and bench research is warranted," Dr Barr stated for FoodNavigator.com.