Noakes: Bacon warning is scaremongering

(File photo) Tim Noakes. Picture: Courtney Africa

(File photo) Tim Noakes. Picture: Courtney Africa

Published Nov 3, 2015

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Cape Town - Tim Noakes has criticised research by the World Health Organisation (WHO) which said eating processed meat, including bacon and sausages, increased the risk of developing colorectal cancer.

Professor Noakes, who advocates the low carbohydrate, high fat Banting diet, took to social media recently to air his views on a finding made by WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) last week.

The experts concluded that each 50 gram portion of processed meat eaten daily increases the risk of colorectal cancer by 18 percent.

“Of course WHO knows it’s meat ‘causing’ the cancer. All other possibilities excluded by prospective lifetime trials,” the sports scientist tweeted.

 

Speaking to the Cape Times on Monday, he called the research “scaremongering”.

Noakes said the study had merely selected one factor which could contribute to increasing the risk of cancer.

“There are many other factors to take into account like a lack of exercise or if a person has diabetes. But bacon causing cancer? There is no evidence of that,” he said.

He added that bacon raises lifetime colon cancer risk from five to six percent and avoiding bacon would save one person out of 100 people who eat the meat.

The WHO has said that the research does not ask people to stop eating processed meats, but indicated that reducing consumption of these products can reduce the risk of colorectal cancer.

“WHO has a standing group of experts who regularly evaluate the links between diet and disease. Early next year they will meet to begin looking at the public health implications of the latest science and the place of processed meat and red meat within the context of an overall healthy diet,” it said.

Professor Vikash Sewram, the director of the African Cancer Institute at Stellenbosch University’s faculty of medicine and health sciences, said meat is a good source of protein, contains all the essential amino acids, is rich in iron, zinc and selenium and contains vitamins A, B and D.

“The classification of processed meat falls into the same category as alcohol, tobacco smoke, asbestos and HIV. However, it is important to note that all of these agents, while in the same group, do not all share the same level of hazard,” Sewram said.

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@lisa_isaacs

Cape Times

 

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