Exaggerated fear

Doctors and nutritionists have researched the effects of foods on the generation of different cancer types.  What is true of the “carcinogens” in certain foods?  Do they have an equal effect on all humans, or only those with hereditary predisposition?  How is the proportion between the genetic and environmental factors involved?

Some years ago, a whole scientific research line emphasized the power of some foods to cause cellular alterations of the type we know as tumors.  The most drastic said that 30% of different cancer type cases were caused by foods.  The hope that theory generated in the science community and the general public was great, since it was supposed that by avoiding those elements, a great number of cancer cases could be prevented.

However, currently specialists are more careful when making those affirmations.  It is not so easy to precisely determine which are the types of cancer related to nutrition and which of its components are the ones responsible for the alterations.

In fact, food is not a simple substance, specially foods produced and industrialized.  These contain, besides the nutrient, a set of additives necessary for their industrialization.  The processes of cooking, packaging and preserving could also influence the final result.  But not only the food’s composition and the variations it could suffer during its elaboration are important.  Also the consumer’s habits, which include frequency, quantity, combination with other foods, etc., are defined as important factors in this context.

Another condition: supposing these substances are capable of producing the genesis of body tissue alterations, they would have to be combined with the individual’s predisposition for developing such alterations.  In almost all pathologies, there is a combination of the individual’s factors, in many cases genetically based, with environmental and behavioral aspects.  Health, as sickness, are not simple states at all, but depend on an infinite number of combined factors.

The panorama is, therefore, quite complex.  However, an agreement has been reached according to the capacity of the foods and, specially, the feeding habits of different population groups, for letting other predisposing factors come into play.

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