Eating overcook meat the risk of cancer

Part on overcooked meat long been known to trigger cancer. But recent research shows, cancer risk was 2 times greater than originally expected. According to research by experts from the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, the meat is overcooked or burnt tend to contain compounds that are carcinogens or mutagens trigger cancer.

In the body, these compounds could trigger a change from normal cells become cancerous. In addition, cancer risk is also magnified by the presence of sulfotransferase enzyme that occurs naturally in the human body. These enzymes can transform harmful substances into harmless, or otherwise of that is not dangerous to be carcinogenic.

The team inserted more of these enzymes into the mice to see whether there was a difference in risk. They found that the incidence of intestinal tumours increased from 31 per cent to 80 per cent in 'human-like' mice eating a heated meat crust.

The researchers said: 'The mice received the food mutagen often found in highest quantities in the crust of meat and fish. 'We wanted to study tumour development in the intestines of the "human-like" mice, and compare this with tumour development in normal mice given the same food mutagen.

'The results showed that the incidence of intestinal tumours increased from 31 per cent to 80 per cent in "human-like" mice after consuming substances from the meat crust. 'This shows that normal laboratory mice are not a good model for assessing the health risk to humans following ingestion of food mutagens from well-done meat and fish.'