From the study’s discussion (quote):
Bacon-based diet appears to protect rats against carcinogenesis, in a dose-dependant manner. This finding was in contrast with our starting hypothesis that bacon diets would promote carcinogenesis. Our hypothesis was based on epidemiological studies showing that intake of processed meat (mainly pork) is associated with risk. We also thought that nitrite and N-nitroso compounds found in bacon might increase carcinogenesis. However, bacon-fed rats drank more water than controls (Table 3), probably because bacon is salty. We thus propose the hypothesis that a high water intake, and not the bacon intake, can protect the rats against carcinogenesis
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2527479
I’ll leave y’all to deal with that last sentence. Not enough rolleyes.
I doubt bacon manufacturers are going to leap on the study (“Healthy rats love our bacon!”).
The whole proposition sounds shaky to me. They weren’t even measuring actual tumors, just something called “aberrant crypt foci” - doesn’t sound very reproducible.
Great jobs for research assistants with that study, though. The person who had to analyze all the rat feces had a plum assignment, but not as good as this individual:
“The animals were sacrificed 105–107 days after the carcinogen injection, 98–100 days after the start of the experimental diets, by cervical dislocation between 8 and 11 AM.”
Hey Bob, it’s 8 o’clock! Time to start breaking rodent necks!
Yeah, they state that “some ACF are…lesions thought to represent the earliest precursors of colon cancer.” that sounds kind of wussy to me too. The water hypothesis is somewhat jarring - although I’m sure it’s a valid hypoth to make. This was posted on a meat-lovers board where we find any studies contrary to standard nutritional dogma (ex: red meat is bad) invariably contain some guileful wording to uphold said dogma.
Well as a new member of the Church of Bacon (Independent), I’m happy to proclaim the Greasy Word.
In high school my Biology teacher, who like me as I was a decent student, gave me the honor of plopping a live rat into a jar of some toxic gas so it could be dissected. I probably lost some points with him when I gave it back to him.