Researchers have newly discovered a surprising and potentially significant reason why eating foods frequently cooked at high temperatures, such as red meat and deep-fried fare, elevates cancer risk. The alleged culprit: DNA within the food that's been damaged by the cooking process.
A few things that caught my attention:
The article does reinforce the commonsense that being a vegetarian is healthier for you than eating meat… But eating fried veggies still absorbs that damaged DNA into your system.
I think you misunderstood the article. About your points:
1 - “…potatoes, for instance, incurred less DNA damage at higher temperatures than meat for unknown reasons.”
It’s only at higher temperatures, and they only tried two kinds of meat and one veggie (potatoes).
2 - It doesn’t talk about lab-grown meat at all. It mentions lab-grown cells, which are ~~probably bacteria ~~ various types of human cells that they exposed to the heat-damaged DNA, and they absorbed the damaged DNA. (thanks @appel@whiskers.bim.boats for the correction)
Also I don’t see how “being a vegetarian is healthier” is commonsense, but that’s besides the point. The article doesn’t reinforce any of that. It just says that:The study does reference another study about how low meat consumption can lead to less cancer. And they say this would support their findings of less damaged DNA in plant material, therefore causing less genetic damage.In summary (see @higgsbi@beehaw.org’s comment here for a much better one):
a) Food gets DNA damage when heated up (even boiling).
b) That DNA damage can be absorbed by lab-grown cells and also by mice
c) They speculate cancer and genetic diseases are more probable because of the damaged DNA.
They have a very small food sample size, and didn’t try many methods of cooking (they admit all of this). Which is to say: they have no idea yet how this impacts people, if at all.
I wanted to check which cells they used, because using bacteria would give it no power at all, as bacteria have very different uptake, DNA damage tolerance and DNA repair mechanisms. they used:
source
So they are all human cells, and the SW620 cells would be somewhat similar to our gut epithelial cells, as they once were the same. It’s hard to be certain though, because immortal cell lines can accumulate many differences since they were isolated.
The SW620 cells did take up the damaged nucleosides, and more so than HeLa or MCF-7.
Thanks for the clarification! I definitely should’ve read the actual paper before commenting :)
I edited my comment to reflect this
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I’ll have you know we don’t just eat Oreos. That’s crazy. I have a (very) well rounded diet of Fritos, Lay’s potato chips, nutter butters, sour patch kids… And Oreos.
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Oh, I see! Sorry, I only read the linked summary, didn’t notice there was more!
They do reference a study about the risk of cancer depending on diet, and that it would support their conclusion that plant matter produces less DNA damage (therefore, less cancer on vegetarians). I see now where the other comment was coming from, thanks.