Scary News for Hot Dog Lovers

Nothing says summer in America like hot dogs on the grill, but they could be killing you. If you enjoy eating lots of hot dogs, sausages, deli meats, and other processed meats, you could face a significantly higher risk of pancreatic cancer, according to a study by the Cancer Research Center at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu.

People who daily eat 40 grams or more of these meats are 67% more likely to develop cancer of the pancreas. Even worse, if your diet is rich in pork ("the other white meat") and red meat, your risk of pancreatic cancer increases by 50%, the study found. No link to pancreatic cancer risk was found from consumption of poultry, fish, dairy products or eggs. The 7-year study involved 190,545 men and women of African-American, Japanese-American, Caucasian, Latino and Native Hawaiian descent, 482 of whom developed pancreatic cancer.

Study leader Dr. Ute Nothlings believes the cancer link comes from chemical reactions during production and processing rather than from inherent fat or cholesterol. If fat or cholesterol were the carcinogenic culprits, Dr. Nothlings said dairy products, which are also high in fat and cholesterol, would show a similar risk of pancreatic cancer, but they do not.

"Our study is the largest of its kind to demonstrate a link between high consumption of processed meats over long periods of time and pancreatic cancer," Nothlings said in a news release carried by Reuters. "The sample size allowed us to obtain statistically significant risk estimates that support this hypothesis." Dr. Nothlings said the next research step is examination of cooking methods. Study results were reported at a meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in Anaheim, California.

The findings were disputed by the American Meat Institute which cited a different study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute that reached the opposite conclusion. (Such dichotomies are a common phenomenon in scientific studies.) The trade group, which of course has a professional bias to protect, claimed in its statement, "the larger body of evidence has shown that processed meats are a healthy part of a balanced diet." Most medical experts agree that the salt and sugar content of processed meats alone refutes that claim.

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