Out of the frying pan, into the fire What is it with the media's obsession with bacon? Last month, I told you about an article I read that touted bacon as the answer to your weight loss woes. Of course, the headline singing bacon's praises was only a fraction of the story (for the rest of the story, refer back to the 1/31/07 eTip, subject line: "Finding the fine print"). And the same thing is true with the article I just read, which bore the headline "Research links bacon consumption with 59 percent increase in bladder cancer." Now, you and I both know that bacon isn't good for you, so it doesn't come as much of a shock to hear that it played a role in cancer formation. But as imperfect as bacon is when it comes to nutrition, it hardly seems fair to point the finger at it alone -- especially after you read the rest of the story. First of all, the article opened with the following sentence: "People who eat bacon at least five times a week are at a 59 percent increased risk of bladder cancer over those who never eat the food, say Harvard scientists." I never realized how extremist they are up there at Harvard. Did it not occur to them that there's a BIG difference between not eating a particular food at all and eating it at least five times a week? Then I got to this sentence: "The report...also found that subjects who consumed bacon and other processed meat were more likely to smoke, consume more fat, take in fewer vitamins, and spend less time exercising." I would have laughed out loud if I wasn't so infuriated that this little tidbit was buried 2/3 of the way down the page. How on earth could the researchers single out a particular food and blame it for a rise in bladder cancer when the people eating it are also engaging in just about every other unhealthy habit you can think of? Of course, in a typical cover-your-bases move, the research team did admit that their work was "not definitive." I'll say. I'm not sure how they had the nerve to publish their results at all, "definitive" or not. It's like a bad joke -- and the punchline is that the money funding this asinine study could have been put towards research into natural therapies that might actually benefit people battling bladder cancer, instead of just telling them half-truths and offering half-baked advice. Nutrition & Healing Source: "Research links bacon consumption with 59 percent increase in bladder cancer," NewsTarget (www.newstarget.com), 11/30/06
"Meat intake and bladder cancer risk in 2 prospective cohort studies," American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 2006; 84(5): 1,177-1,183 | 
