Day 034 - 11 Oct 94 - Page 38
1 study. The part that is of interest are the comments on
2 the fact that those mutagens actually do form.
3
4 Skipping down to the second paragraph, or the next
5 paragraph below that: "The results in the present study
6 indicate that there is an interaction (more than an
7 additive effect) between browning of the meat surface and
8 protein, fried meat, and gravy. In support of this,
9 mutagen formation has been shown to be related to the
10 protein content of cooked food ... Furthermore, fried
11 meat contains carcinogenic heterocyclic amines, the
12 formation of which depends on high cooking temperatures".
13
14 Again, I note the absence of any qualifiers in there that
15 fried meat simply does contain carcinogenic heterocyclic
16 amines, which, in simple terms, cancer causing chemicals:
17 "The observed association between colorectal cancer and a
18 preference for a heavily browned meat surface and or brown
19 gravy in our study might conceivably be due to the
20 presence of these compounds in these foods. All 10
21 cooked-food-derived heterocyclic amines tested to date
22 cause cancer in rodents ... The liver is most frequently
23 affected, but tumours are formed in several organs,
24 including the large and small intestines. In fact, the
25 heterocyclic amine present at the highest level in fried
26 meat ... was shown to cause malignant tumours primarily in
27 the colon of male rats".
28
29 Skipping the next paragraph and looking at the paragraph
30 underneath that, simply the first sentence: "Human fecal
31 flora" -- meaning bacteria in the colon -- "can convert at
32 least one of the mutagens in fried meat to a
33 directly-acting mutagen".
34
35 The only other point that is worth mentioning here --
36 I skipped over the references that Dr. Gerhardsson was
37 referring to, but I note that the last comment that these
38 mutagens, there are directly acting mutagens that can be
39 produced by human fecal flora acting upon the mutagens in
40 meat, that was reported in 1988, and the sentence in the
41 second paragraph I read stating: "... fried meat
42 contains carcinogenic heterocyclic amines", that also was
43 1988.
44
45 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Why does he go on: "The observed
46 association", or why do the authors of the paper go
47 on: "The observed association between colorectal cancer
48 and a preference for a heavily browned meat surface and or
49 brown gravy in our study might conceivably be due to the
50 presence of these compounds in these foods." Why does he
51 put it in terms of possibility?
52 A. What he has noted with certainty is that meat does
53 contain carcinogens and that this has been known for some
54 time, as he states. He also notes that in his subjects
55 those who had a preference for a browned meat surface or
56 brown gravy had a higher risk of colorectal cancer. He is
57 saying that, perhaps, those two are related.
58
59 Q. I understand that, but am I being unfair to you? You feel
60 more positively about it; do you suggest they are related?
