Ironclad link between red meat and cancer identified
newatlas.com
newatlas.com
There's an awful lot of defensive comments in here! Nobody's forcing you to stop eating red meat. If you feel ambivalent or defensive about that choice, it's fine and healthy to say "I know eating this red meat is riskier than eating white meat or a vegetarian meal, but I'm going to choose to eat it anyway because that's my preference."
What I'd urge you NOT to do is to try to deny or belittle the source that's providing the information that makes you uncomfortable. That leads to all kinds of bad mental patterns!
When confronted with chemo, it has been my experience that, doctors are reluctant to talk about nutrition. (I speculate, over a concern for their own ignorance, ala risking getting caught up in fad or woo science)
Sometimes even going hard in the other direction, saying “eat whatever you want!”, when study after study show a positive correlation with nutrition based methods targeting specific cancers and complementing certain chemo “cocktail”s.
It’s only misleading if you don’t read the article though I guess that’s likely 9 of ten people who see the headline.
There's basically nothing that's always bad to eat or drink, the only exception I know of is alcohol. And even that is really really low risk if you drink just a little.
So I guess the link between kale and cancer has been identified.
Edit* also- I’m pretty sure fe3 iron sources - particularly dairy cause your body to hoard more iron which will result in more heme iron
Nevertheless, the amount of Fe(III) that exists in almost all cells is extremely small in comparison with the amount of Fe(III) that exists in the blood of any vertebrate, where it is used to transport dioxygen in the entire body. The "red" muscles also contain a similar protein to that of the red blood cells, which is used to store dioxygen.
Therefore any kind of food that contains either blood or muscles rich in myoglobin will contain much more Fe(III) than anything else.
The Fe(II) ions are soluble in water and they may also be found in natural water, but the Fe(III) ions normally form insoluble precipitates that would not have any effect even if they would pass through the intestine.
The Fe(III) ions that have been identified as harmful are those that are bound to organic molecules, e.g. proteins like hemoglobin, so that they are prevented from forming insoluble minerals.
People eat tuna and other sea fish daily (look at Japan) and not cancer causing?
The previous studies I have looked at point to heme vs non-heme iron sources. The heme iron comes from animal sources and is easier for the human body to absorb than plant based non-heme iron but the heme iron may be leading to cancer growth.
Seems clickbaity if I am reading it right.
It could have something to do with amount. For example, Iron from animal products is easier for the body to absorb and there are MUCH higher levels per gram (e.g., beef has 7x the iron kale does). Is it too much iron?
It could be type. You have FE2+, FE3+, heme iron, non-heme iron, etc. This article points to FE3+. Is there something more there?
Is it some combination of things?
There's a lot we don't know.
Most iron in food, except that from blood or red muscles is in the form of reduced Fe(II) ions.
Most iron that can be found in water or in food is in the form of Fe(II) ions, because all minerals that contain Fe(III) ions are insoluble.
The only components of food that are rich in Fe(III) are the hemoglobin from blood and the myoglobin from the "red" muscles, which are used by all vertebrates to transport or store oxygen.
It seems unreasonable to pin this concern on red meat in particular- especially since so many people also take iron supplements and eat iron fortified processed foods.
Instead I think it makes sense to look at your bloodwork- and then adjust iron intake and or donate blood regularly. I’d bet you can still eat a steak many times per week and have an overall fairly low, or even too low iron intake. It takes about a full pound of steak every day just to meet the iron RDA for adult men, which is much lower than for young women.
For digestive absorption Fe3+ is reduced to Fe2+, and then it gets reoxidized to Fe3+ after digestive absorption.
I would expect that different forms of dietery iron- reduced or not, protein bound or not, etc. would affect how well they are absorbed, but not affect the resulting oxidation state after absorption.
I suppose I would need more details on exactly how they think the iron is being transported to the cells in these colon cancer situations.
Our consumption of mammal meat is quantitatively, though not qualitatively, out of spec for human biology.
Would be interesting to study that
The research paper "Iron-(Fe3+)-Dependent Reactivation of Telomerase Drives Colorectal Cancers" seems perfectly legit and it solves a well-known mystery.
The actual research paper:
I've been chelating iron for a few years now, on and off. It's a subtractive approach to antioxidant protection and it helps.
If you give blood regularly, it should have the same effect.
In the past, people may have noticed some health rejuvenation after a survivable injury that caused some blood loss.
Would you expand on, or clarify, what you are trying to say here:
"It's a subtractive approach to antioxidant protection and it helps."
I will note that there are, in fact, observed benefits that seem to be linked to regular blood-lets, such as one would experience if they regularly gave blood.
I don't have my own opinion on this but I find it interesting ...
The huge question this leaves for me, which isn't addressed at all, is why we do not see similar associations with colorectal cancer with other foods high in iron?
On a per-serving basis, foods like spinach contain far, far more iron than beef [0]. Furthermore, beef contains mostly heme-based iron, which is chelated Fe2+, not Fe3+. More broadly, most non-heme iron is in Fe3+ form, and must be reduced to Fe2+ in your digestive system [1]. Why don't we see this cancer associated with other iron-rich foods?
Also in [1] is mentioned that consuming Vitamin C assists the reduction of Fe3+ to Fe2+, I wonder if we will find that high levels of vitamin C consumption reduce the risk of colorectal cancer.
[0] https://www.dietaryguidelines.gov/resources/2020-2025-dietar...
[1] https://www.crnusa.org/sites/default/files/files/resources/2...
I.e. perhaps all high-iron foods promote colorectal cancer, but some foods also contain anti-cancer factors that zero out the net effect
And how many servings of each dies the average person eat? Based only on my personal observations, I could believe that people eat enough red meat to far overcompensate for the differences per-serving.
When exposed to air, like when the blood passes through the lungs, or in cut meat, it will be oxidized to Fe(III), in which case its color will be a pleasant vivid red. When the iron is reduced, the heme has a much duller color.
The iron that can be absorbed or interact in any way with the intestine is either Fe(II), which is soluble in water or Fe(III) that is bound to proteins like hemoglobin or to other organic molecules. Otherwise, the Fe(III) ions form insoluble precipitates that pass through the intestine without effect.
The tolerable upper iron intake for an adult is 45mg: https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Iron-HealthProfessional/
So try not to eat more than 19 burgers per day.