Many people when shopping for a convenient ready to eat meat at the grocery store would choose rotisserie chicken over hot dogs or pepperoni, but as it turns out in a new study, they’d be wrong. Surprisingly, according to a new study, hot dogs and similar meats like pepperoni and deli meats are relatively free from carcinogenic compounds, and rotisserie chicken would be the riskier option.

The carcinogens in question are heterocyclic amines (HCAs), which are compounds found in meat that has been fried, grilled or cooked at high temperatures. Diets high in HCAs from meat increase people’s risk of stomach, breast and colon cancers, according to the National Cancer Institute.

Researchers from Kansas State University tested the HCA levels of eight popular ready-to-eat meat products: beef hot dogs, beef-pork-turkey hot dogs, deli roast beef, deli ham, deli turkey, fully cooked bacon, pepperoni and rotisserie chicken.

Pepperoni had the lowest levels of HCAs; hot dogs and deli meat came in second. Overall, these products were low in HCAs, researchers said, while cooked bacon and rotisserie chicken meat had the highest levels. However, rotisserie chicken skin had the highest levels of HCAs overall.

But, before you go purchase pepperoni, consider that its low HCA levels may have to do with processing, which is in itself a health hazard. According to a KSU statement.

Remember, You cannot judge the danger of a food by its HCA content alone, which is based on the manner in which its been cooked. You also have to evaluate all those added ingredients, such as preservatives, flavoring, and food colors. Hot dogs, deli meats and bacon are notorious for their nitrite content, so even though they might be low in HCA’s, they are far from healthful.

Researchers are always looking for the magic bullet to kill cancer, and now they may have found it in a surprising place, a glass of beer! (Who knew?) It turns out that hops, which is the flavor component of beer, contains a cancer-fighting compound called xanthohumol.

Xanthohumol turns out to be toxic to several kinds of human cancer, including prostate, ovarian, breast, and colon. Further, it inhibits enzymes that can activate the development of cancer, and also helps detoxify carcinogens. It even seems to slow down tumor growth in the early stages. Scientists are trying to produce hops that contain even more xanthohumol, and the Germans are racing to develop a “health” beer.

Beers that provide the most benefits contain the most hops, and include strong brews such as ale, stout, and porter. In general, the darker the beer, the better. For those who can’t stand beer, herbal supplements made from hops contain the highest concentrations of beneficial elements.

NewsMax.com Health Alerts

Did you know if you want to reduce your risk of cancer, you should join a study. Promoters of vegetarianism have been singing the praises of a report on two studies in the British Journal of Cancer. The report notes two prospective studies, the Epic-Oxford cohort and the Oxford Vegetarian study, examining cancer incidence among vegetarians. The report studied 61566 British men and women, comprising 32403 meat eaters, 8562 non-meat eaters who ate fish and 20601 vegetarians. The average follow-up was 12.2 years. Vegetarians had less bladder, stomach and blood cancer than meat and fish eaters. However vegetarians had higher rates of colon, rectal and cervical cancers. These numbers as with many studies are deceiving.

According to this report the chance of a meat eater developing bladder cancer is 1 in 518; for vegetarians it was 1 in 1677; for fish eaters it was 1 in 1400. Even though the report shows meat eaters are over three times more likely to develop bladder cancer, it?s still only a .19% chance. Your chance of developing cervical cancer if you?re a meat eater was 1 in 1982; for fish eaters it?s 1 in 890; for vegetarians it?s 1 in 948. Judging by this report, a vegetarian female is twice as likely to develop cervical cancer compared to her meat eating amigo, but still only a .10% chance. The play on numbers in this report is inexcusable but all too common.

The differences in the various cancer rates between the 3 groups overall were insignificant; however the fish eaters were found to have the largest reduced cancer risk. Curiously, which you don?t see reported in mainstream sources, there was no difference found in all cause mortality between the diet groups. However, all the diet groups had a 50% less reduced risk of all cause mortality compared to the general population. Hmmmm.

In another analysis of two studies, the Oxford Vegetarian Study and the Health Food Shoppers Study, researchers compared the mortality of vegetarians and non-vegetarians. Mortality rates were 52% and 59% of the general population respectively. However, strangely unreported by vegetarians, there was no difference in mortality rates between vegetarians and non-vegetarians in either study. Researchers concluded that the benefits found in the subjects of both studies compared to the general population may be attributed to non-dietary factors.

This article by Men?s Fitness.com says so:

Mom always said to take your vitamins. But she didn’t mean overdo it. Thirty-five percent of adults swallow a multivitamin on a regular basis, but several studies warn that an abundance of extra nutrients may not be as good for the body as previously suspected. Just check out the data.

DIABETES: While vitamin K and thiamine appear to help reduce risk factors, scientists warn that selenium in vitamins may increase the risk of type-2 diabetes.

PROSTATE CANCER: Too many multis may increase your risk of developing a form of fatal prostate cancer, according to data from the National Cancer Institute.

LUNG DISEASE: Multivitamins don’t protect against lung cancer, say scientists at the University of Washington. (In fact, too much vitamin E may increase the risk.)

LONGEVITIY: Perhaps most alarmingly, vitamin supplements may increase your overall mortality risk. So says a recent Danish review of 67 studies involving more than 200,000 participants. After analyzing the data, researchers found that people taking vitamins were 4% more likely to die during the course of the study than people who weren’t taking them. Yikes.

THE BOTTOM LINE: If your diet sucks, a multi may help. But if you already eat well
and buy fortified cereals and breads, you’re likely getting all the nutrients you need.

Interesting. Like most Americans who believe that they?re taking an active role in their health, I ingest a multivitamin on a daily basis (and actually, I take them on a nightly basis). But I don?t know if this article is enough to scare me away from taking them every day.

I wish the article had provided more detail as to the appropriate amount of times a week it?s okay to take a multivitamin. Based on that last paragraph, the article would almost lead you to believe that you should take a multivitamin on the days you can?t eat as healthy as you should.