# Research Study Links Barbecued & Smoked Meat To Death From Breast Cancer In Women



## dls1 (Jan 22, 2017)

Very interesting article in Reuter's, Jan. 19, 2017.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-meat-breast-cancer-idUSKBN1532Y1


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## mike5051 (Jan 22, 2017)

My fiance was recently told the same by her doctor.  She no longer wants to eat any smoker or even grilled food.  I was smoking for three, then my daughter went to college, then this.  My smoker has mold in it!  

Mike


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## cliffcarter (Jan 22, 2017)

The study was conducted with 1508 women who were _*diagnosed with breast cancer in 1996 and 1997*_.

It does not conclude that eating smoked or BBQed meat causes or increases the risk for breast cancer in women, only that that eating a diet "high" in smoked meat may increase mortality in women who previously had breast cancer. 

The Reuter's article also states that "Some research has suggested exposure to these chemicals through grilled or smoked meat can increase the risk of breast cancer" but does not cite a particular research study.

In my opinion The Reuter's piece is not a cause for worry for any women, my wife included, who is a 13 year breast cancer survivor.

This is the abstract sited in the Reuter's article( note that Reuter's took their info from the research abstract and not the study itself)-

https://academic.oup.com/jnci/artic...moked-Meat-Intake-and?redirectedFrom=fulltext

I am of the opinion that healthy people have nothing to worry about when eating BBQ or a grilled steak.


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## gr0uch0 (Jan 22, 2017)

3 words come readily to mind after reading that article, just like the others:  everything in moderation.


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## chef jimmyj (Jan 23, 2017)

I take stuff like this with a grain of salt...As so often occurs, next year there will be a study by some other group, spending federal grant money, that says Smoked Meat may help women avoid Breast Cancer...

Lard is bad cook with veg oil.

Veg oil is bad and cooking with lard has health benefits.

Butter's bad, eat margarine.

Margarine's bad, eat butter.

Drinking wine is bad for your heart and liver.

Drink a glass of red wine daily for heart health and has no impact on liver.

Eggs are the leading source of high cholesterol.

Eggs have no effect on cholesterol levels and a great source of protein..

Cured meat is the leading source of nitrite and cancer causing nitrosamine.

Green veggies provide many times the amount nitrite found in cured meat. 

Can I get a $2 million grant to study if reading the SMF forums make you a better Pitmaster?....JJ


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## johnmeyer (Jan 23, 2017)

Over the years, in various jobs, I've used a mathematical tool called "regression analysis." This tool is at the root of almost all of these epidemiological studies where data is gathered from hundreds of people and then the main variable (the number of breast cancer cases per 100 people) is correlated, using this tool, against all the input variables, one of them being, in this case, smoked food.

There are multiple problems with these studies, and none of them are minor. First of all, you can never know everything about everyone, and your study may forget to ask questions about things which might have influenced the outcome. Second, people don't answer completely, truthfully, and sometimes just plain forget stuff. Third, the regression tool is almost impossible to use without introducing your own biases. To use the tool, you have to create a model based on how you assume things work. You then run the math, and the model gives you answers as to which things have the highest correlation to the outcome. The problem is that you often get very weak or almost no correlation to anything, something which renders your research useless. At that point, it is very tempting to go back to the regression model and tweak it until correlations start to appear. While this might at first seem like a reasonable thing to do, it is actually completely and totally wrong because it means you no longer have a hypothetical model, and you are simply twiddling "knobs" in the regression model until correlations appear.

It is well known in this field that you can tweak a regression model until you get seeming correlation with data which is produced with a random number generator!!

So, as already pointed out, studies like this should be taken with a large block of salt, if not entirely ignored.

I'm getting old enough to have seen most of these sorts of studies completely contradicted at a later time, including:

Eat margarine, not butter; oops, we now think margarine is bad, so eat butter instead.

Eggs increase serum cholesterol, so don't eat eggs; oops, we now think serum cholesterol is elevated by the body chemistry, and the cholesterol in the food you eat contributes almost nothing.

I could fill up several more pages with these things.

In the end, I always come back to that great scene in the old Woody Allen movie, "Sleeper:" If you've never seen this, watch the first thirty seconds of this clip. You'll love it.


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## chef jimmyj (Jan 23, 2017)

That Sleeper clip is my all time favorite example on how clinical studies flip flop. You can create a study and get results to prove any crazy theory you want and get a federal grant to pay for it...JJ


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