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?

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