Dr Geraldine Cuskelly (Educator)
I am a Lecturer in Human Nutrition. I am particularly interested in the relationship between food consumption and diet and health; especially food components that increase cancer risk.
Activity
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.....microwaving meat BEFORE using another cooking method has been shown to result in lower levels of HCAs formed. Though the texture of the meat may be compromised, so not all win-win.
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Dear Nancy
Yes, marinating (depending on how long and what ingredients are included in the marinade) can help lower HCAs. This is through the water content of the marinade which results in lowering of the meat temp during cooking (as water content maintains a lower temperature), but alos the use of certain herbs in the marinade can also inhibit HCA...
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There is still not a reliable marker available as urinary HCAs have a very short half life and protein adduction to HCAs has proved challenging in confirming satisfactory sensitivity.
With such difficulties in measuring dietary intake, a reliable biomarker would be very beneficial.
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Yes, there are a number of comments about the limited number of countries providing HCA intake data. We have included all countries that have provided HCA intake data, so if your county does not appear, it is simply because intakes have not yet been published.
Hope this helps. -
Dear Lawrence,
no there are no regulations in place as yet, until we have better evidence on whether a dose reponse relationship exists which we would need in order to quantify the real risk if any , in humans.
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Dear Tom & Melissa,
The cooking temperature is the more significant factor so slow cooking at lower temperatures is likely to produce less HCAs.
With regard to microbial contamination, it should be possible to use cooking methods which reduce HCA formation while adhering to good general food safety practices, such as ensuring the meat core temperature is...
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Dear Moath,
No there are currently no guidelines or recommendations on upper intakes in any country.
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Dear Sofia,
There are no specific recommendations in any country as to how much should be consumed or not consumed. This quesionnaire is to give you a guide as to your intakes and you can compare with the intakes in countries that have made measures of intakes of these compunds, but ultimately, there are no guidelines on intakes.
Hope this helps.
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Dear Martin,
Thank you for raising this. Yes, the methodology for measuring HCA intakes is different in different published studies and this is inevitable in the absence of standardising the methodology worldwide. In the case of Singapore and Malaysia, the 2 studies used different questionnaires and this will be true of many countries whose methodologies...
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Dear Okiror,
Thank you for your comments. Yes, I agree it would be better to have intake data on more countries. In our review of the literature, these were the only countries reporting HCA intakes.
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Dear Martin,
There is a very good review published of HCAs in different meats and cooking methods (Alaejos & Afonso, 2011). There is a general trend that meats eaten with skin have higher HCAs. Data on effects of roasting bags is not included, though intuitively, I would expect this would result in REDUCED formation of HCAs due to the lower temperature in...
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Dear Kirsten,
Yes, bioactivation of HCAs occurs after they are absorbed from the digestive system. This bioactivation is catalysed by enymes, many of which are located in the liver
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Dear Kirsten,
Yes, these comparisons have been made, shwoing lower risk of cancer in vegetarians. However, vegetarians tend to comprise only a small proportion of the population (except in countries such as India where vegetarianism is more common). There are many differences between vegetarians and meat eaters, in addition to meat eating habits. Usually...
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The reason for further exploring the human exposure to HCAs is because of the weight of evidence showing a relationship between red meat consumption and cancers of the gut, particularly colon cancer. Is the role of red meat due to HCAs, or something else? We don't know the answer to this yet. Colorectal cancer is primarily a cancer associated with the...
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Dear Kirsten,
From our review of the literature, there did not appear to be published data for Australia. You raise an interesting point about the Swedish data. Because, different methods are used in the different countries, it is difficult to assess which values are absolutely true. I cannot overstate the difficult challenges in this research as a result...
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Dear Martin,
From our review of the literature, these are the only countries that have estimated intakes. Different publications do sometimes use different units, but the maps included here have all been converted to nanograms (ng) per day. Even then, the data are still widely variable, which I believe may be partly due to the difficulties in dietary...
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Dear Carolyn,
Yes, as you say, the variation in data are partly reflected by the natural variation in diets between countries and populations. In addition, some further explanations for the apparent wide variation between countries is that doneness and cooking method effects the amounts of HCAs formed and some countries have had to use assumptions in their...
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Dear Brian,
Thank you for your comment. Yes, all of the data presented are nanograms (ng) per day. This should have been made clearer.
Thank you.
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Dear Aintzane,
This data comes from a publication in 2002, specifically Rohrmann & Becker, 2002.
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Dear Mark,
Thank you for your comments. The countries included in the interactive map are currently the only countries that have published data on HCA intakes. Each of the countries data are represented in separate publications, so the methods of analysis vary between surveys. Furthermore, some countries have tried to estimate HCA intakes but have not had...
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Dear Karen,
Thank you for your comments. Currently, there are no specific regulations on maximum levels in cooked meats or indeed on maximum levels of exposure to humans from all sources of HCA in the diet. So it is not possible currently, based on this lack of guidance data, to give advice to manufacturers of meat products.
