SHAFAQNA

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) -- People who eat a lot of processed meat such as ham, bacon, sausages and burgers run a greater risk of premature death and developing conditions such as cancer and heart disease, research shows.

The study, which included data from 448,568 people in 10 European countries, including the UK, found that the biggest consumers of processed meat were 44% more likely to die prematurely from any cause than those who ate little of it. High levels of consumption increased the risk of death from heart disease by 72% and cancer by 11%.

If everyone ate no more than 20g a day of processed meat – about one rasher of bacon, chipolata sausage or thin slice of ham – then 3% of all premature deaths could be avoided, according to an estimate by the authors, led by Professor Sabine Rohrmann from the University of Zurich. Their results are published in the journal BMC Medicine.

But a small amount of red meat also seems to benefit health, because it contains important nutrients and minerals, they add. Risks rise in line with the level of consumption, the researchers found. The results are in line with previous studies. Dr Rachel Thompson, deputy head of science at the World Cancer Research Fund, said the research bore out its own findings in 2007 – disputed by the meat industry at the time – about the health risks of processed meat.

It has found that consuming bacon, ham, hot dogs, salami and some sausages heightened the risk of bowel cancer. The charity estimates that 4,100 fewer Britons a year would be diagnosed with the disease if everyone ate no more than 10g of processed meat a day, though advises avoiding it altogether.

Dr Carrie Ruxton, a nutritionist who sits on the meat industry-funded Meat Advisory Panel, said the study's findings were not robust enough to justify changing public health advice. The fact those who consumed the largest amounts of processed meat also displayed other unhealthy habits meant it was hard to confidently ascribe risk of death to meat eating alone, she said.

"The occasional bacon butty isn't going to do you much harm. People shouldn't avoid bacon or salami because they think it's going to kill them, because it won't. We can't say that from this study. But we do know that processed meat has a higher salt and fat content, so having bacon or salami in moderation, and switching to lean red meat products, is a good idea," Ruxton added. Tracy Parker, a heart health dietitian with the British Heart Foundation, said people who ate a lot of processed meat should try to eat a more varied diet, such as chicken, fish, beans or lentils.

www.shafaqna.com/English

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) –Processed meat is to blame for one in 30 early deaths, a large-scale study has found.

Diets laden with pies, sausages, and ready meals have been linked to deaths from cancer and heart disease.

Limiting processed meat intake to just a chipolata a day could prevent 3,000 early deaths a year in Britain alone, according to one of the largest studies of its kind.

Researchers calculated that cutting daily processed meat intake to 20g (just under an ounce) would reduce premature deaths by 3.3 per cent – the equivalent of one rasher of bacon.

About 100,000 people die prematurely in Britain every year, before the age of 65, suggesting the reduction could prevent about 3,000 early deaths a year.

The scientists, who followed the health of almost 450,000 people aged 35 to 69, found the more processed meat people ate, the more likely they were to die early from any cause.

This was true even after attempting to account for the fact that those who eat more meat tend to be less active, drink more and smoke.

High processed meat consumption led to a 72 per cent increased risk of dying from heart disease, and an 11 per cent increased risk of dying from cancer.

Professor Sabine Rohrmann, who led the analysis of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition study, said: “Risks of dying earlier from cancer and cardiovascular disease also increased with the amount of processed meat eaten.

“Overall, we estimate that three per cent of premature deaths each year could be prevented if people ate less than 20g processed meat per day."

Over a typical follow up time of almost 13 years, the risk of dying from any cause was 44 per cent greater for high processed meat consumers.

The researchers also found an indication that eating a lot of unprocessed red meat resulted in higher death rates, although this link was not strong enough for them to consider it statistically valid.

But Dr Carrie Ruxton, a dietitian from the Meat Advisory Panel, said: “This study should not put you off the odd bacon sandwich.”

She argued that such studies could never truly account for lifestyle differences, and isolate the supposed role of meat intake in death rates.

“If you’ve got someone who’s overweight, watching television for hours, munching a meat pie and smoking a fag, which one of those is relevant?” she asked.

“You can’t say reducing processed meat intake will reduce mortality rates by three per cent."

The scientists found that, in general, diets high in processed meat were linked to unhealthy lifestyles.

Men and women who ate the most processed meat ate the fewest fruits and vegetables, and were more likely to smoke. Men, but not women, who ate a lot of meat also tended to have high level of alcohol consumption - but they say the data was adjusted to take account of these factors.

A small amount of red meat may actually have health benefits, they added, as it contains essential vitamins and minerals which may be missing from a vegetarian diet.-www.shfaqna.com/English

Source: The Telegraph

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – Vegetarians are one-third less likely to be hospitalized or die from heart disease than meat and fish eaters, according to a new U.K. study.

Earlier research has also suggested that non-meat eaters have fewer heart problems, researchers said, but it wasn’t clear if other lifestyle differences, including exercise and smoking habits, might also play into that.

Now, “we’re able to be slightly more certain that it is something that’s in the vegetarian diet that’s causing vegetarians to have a lower risk of heart disease,” said Francesca Crowe, who led the new study at the University of Oxford.

Still, she noted, the researchers couldn’t prove there were no unmeasured lifestyle differences between vegetarians and meat eaters that could help explain the disparity in heart risks.

Crowe and her colleagues tracked almost 45,000 people living in England and Scotland who initially reported on their diet, lifestyle and general health in the 1990s.

At the start of the study, about one-third of the participants said they ate a vegetarian diet, without meat or fish.

Over the next 11 to 12 years, 1,066 of all study subjects were hospitalized for heart disease, including heart attacks, and 169 died of those causes.

After taking into account participants’ ages, exercise habits and other health measures, the research team found vegetarians were 32% less likely to develop heart disease

After taking into account participants’ ages, exercise habits and other health measures, the research team found vegetarians were 32% less likely to develop heart disease than carnivores. When weight was factored into the equation, the effect dropped slightly to 28%.

The lower heart risk was likely due to lower cholesterol and blood pressure among vegetarians in the study, the researchers reported this week in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Meat eaters had an average total cholesterol of 222 mg/dL and a systolic blood pressure — the top number in a blood pressure reading — of 134 mm Hg, compared to 203 mg/dL total cholesterol and 131 mm Hg systolic blood pressure among vegetarians.

Diastolic blood pressure — the bottom number — was similar between the two groups.

Crowe said the difference in cholesterol levels between meat eaters and vegetarians was equivalent to about half the benefit someone would see by taking a statin.

The effect is probably at least partly due to the lack of red meat — especially meat high in saturated fat — in vegetarians’ diets, she added. The extra fruits and vegetables and higher fiber in a non-meat diet could also play a role.

You also don’t have to cut out meat altogether — just scaling back on saturated fat can make a difference

“If people want to reduce their risk of heart disease by changing their diet, one way of doing that is to follow a vegetarian diet,” Crowe said.

However, she added, you also don’t have to cut out meat altogether — just scaling back on saturated fat can make a difference, for example. Butter, ice cream, cheeses and meats all typically contain saturated fat.-www.shfaqna.com/English

Source: Nationalgeographic

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – This scene and other religious and ethnic practices set China’s Muslim minorities apart from the rest of the population, and the differences frequently led to clashes with the government in the past.

But now, the country’s leaders are embracing the large Muslim population in this remote and relatively undeveloped city in the northwestern province of Ningxia, hoping that frozen packs of halal meat produced here can help build economic bridges with the Middle East, according to a report in Washington Post.

With the U.S. and European economies still recovering, the Arab world is an increasingly enticing market for Chinese exports and a potential source of investors for Chinese projects.

Middle Eastern countries are also some of the closest positioned to help develop China’s western provinces, which have fallen far behind its flourishing eastern coastal cities during the past three decades of economic boom.

Perhaps most important, on a strategic level, China wants to protect and strengthen its access to the Middle East’s oil and energy resources, which are fueling the country’s economic growth.

“The short-term goal of increasing halal meat going to Arab countries is to build up our local economy and workforce,” said one provincial official here, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the strategy of central authorities.

“But the real goal is to introduce the Arab world to us and get them comfortable with the idea of building up their relations and investment in China. . . . And energy is not the only reason behind it, but it is a big one.” China’s government has thrown considerable diplomatic and political resources during the past five years into building up Middle East ties.

Lavish conferences have been sponsored across the country, ethnic festivals held to celebrate Chinese Muslims’ heritage, and trade delegations sent out from both sides, including two visits to Saudi Arabia by outgoing Chinese President Hu Jintao.

The most recent large-scale event — an economic forum that included high-level dignitaries from China and the United Arab Emirates — took place this fall in Yinchuan, the capital of Ningxia. In private conversations on the sidelines, Chinese officials described an overall strategy of outreach to the Middle East that was laid out in broad terms by central authorities, then planned and executed in more detail by local officials.

The efforts appear to have produced some positive results. Last year, Sino-Arab trade increased by 35 percent to $196 billion, according to Chinese officials, and in the first half of this year, trade rose 22 percent over the same period in 2011, to $111.8 billion.

The Sino-Arab trade remains dominated by oil, but Chinese exports such as textiles and home appliances have made a strong showing, according to limited data released by Chinese officials.

The decision by central authorities to make Ningxia a focal point for bridge-building efforts aimed at the Middle East gave local business leaders a much-needed boost of hope. It is hard to find a province more in need of development. A desert region largely left behind during China’s economic boom, Ningxia has the country’s third-smallest gross domestic product and few exports that it can rely on besides a fruit called wolfberry.

One thing it does have in abundance, however, are Muslims. Two million members of the predominantly Muslim ethnic minority called Hui live here, making up a third of the province’s population. The Hui are thought to be descendants of Arab and Persian traders going back to the ancient days of the Silk Road.

Local officials are starting small, with exports of such products as halal meat. But there are ambitious — and perhaps overly optimistic — plans to eventually turn the province into a gleaming financial hub for trade with the Arab world.

At the Yinshun company’s slaughterhouse and meat factory on the outskirts of town, Vice General Manager Yang Li, an ethnic Hui, described the company’s goals as largely profit-driven but also patriotic and cultural.

Almost half the staff are Hui, and the company follows strict Islamic rules about what their cows and sheep eat and drink, when slaughter can be performed and under what conditions. The factory, which is two years old, has hosted high-level dignitaries from Muslim countries, including the United Arab Emirates and Malaysia.

But there have been some obstacles to increasing its exports, chief among them getting its halal meat certified under the byzantine and often-protectionist national laws of many Arab states. Yinshun, for instance, shipped 125 tons of halal meat last year to the Middle East, but it is in pursuit of deals that could increase that figure more than 10 times over, officials said.

Although Chinese officials have talked about their hope to diversify trade with the region, the lion’s share of Sino-Arab trade still consists of oil. Similarly, the long-term goal of luring investors from the Middle East has been slow to materialize, several officials from both sides acknowledged.

“It’s true there’s still not much investment coming from Arabic countries,” said Nazha Aschenbrenner, director of a trade initiative created by the UAE’s Ministry of Foreign Trade. Highlighting the shared Muslim culture and religion in places such as Ningxia helps, she said. But, ultimately, business decisions come down to money.- www.shfaqna.com/English

Source: Abna

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) — Previous studies have emphasized an association between diets high in red meat and risk of prostate cancer, but evidence is limited. Attention to cooking methods of red meat, however, shows the risk of prostate cancer may be a result of potent chemical carcinogens formed when meats are cooked at high temperatures.

For a new study, published online in the journal Carcinogenesis, researchers examined pooled data from nearly 2,000 men who participated in the California Collaborative Prostate Cancer Study, a multiethnic, case-control study conducted in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Participants completed a comprehensive questionnaire that evaluated amount and type of meat intake, including poultry and processed red meat.  Information regarding cooking practices (e.g., pan-frying, oven-broiling, and grilling) was obtained using color photographs that displayed the level of doneness.  More than 1,000 of the men included in the study were diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer.

“We found that men who ate more than 1.5 servings of pan-fried red meat per week increased their risk of advanced prostate cancer by 30 percent,” says Mariana Stern, associate professor of preventive medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of University of Southern California.

“In addition, men who ate more than 2.5 servings of red meat cooked at high temperatures were 40 percent more likely to have advanced prostate cancer.”

When considering specific types of red meats, hamburgers—but not steak—were linked to an increased risk of prostate cancer, especially among Hispanic men.

“We speculate that these findings are a result of different levels of carcinogen accumulation found in hamburgers, given that they can attain higher internal and external temperatures faster than steak,” Stern says.

Researchers also found that men with diets high in baked poultry had a lower risk of advanced prostate cancer, while consumption of pan-fried poultry was associated with increased risk.

Pan-frying, regardless of meat type, consistently leads to an increased risk of prostate cancer. The same pattern was evident in Stern’s previous research, which found that fish cooked at high temperatures, particularly pan-fried, increased the risk of prostate cancer.

The researchers do not know why pan-frying poses a higher risk for prostate cancer, but they suspect it is due to the formation of the DNA-damaging carcinogens—heterocyclic amines (HCAs)—during the cooking of red meat and poultry.

HCAs are formed when sugars and amino acids are cooked at higher temperatures for longer periods of time. Other carcinogens, such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are formed during the grilling or smoking of meat. When fat from the meat drips on an open flame, the rising smoke leaves deposits of PAHs on the meat. There is strong experimental evidence that HCAs and PAHs contribute to certain cancers, including prostate cancer, Stern says.

“The observations from this study alone are not enough to make any health recommendations, but given the few modifiable risk factors known for prostate cancer, the understanding of dietary factors and cooking methods are of high public health relevance.”—www.shafaqna.com/english

Source: Futurity

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) — People who eschew red meat do so for various reasons – health concerns, environmental impacts, disgusted indignation over the bacon sundae – but for some it’s not a matter of choice, they’re literally allergic to the stuff. Yes, there is such a thing as a meat allergy, and scientists are starting to get a better understanding of how it works. An article published online on July 20 in the Journal of General Internal Medicine presents three such cases and describes how researchers are unraveling the mystery of this unusual allergy. The strangest part of the tale is the possible cause of the syndrome. The current suspect in creating this involuntary vegetarianism is an insect – the lone star tick (Amblyomma americanum).

Meat rash

Red meat is a recent and rare (rare as in uncommon, not undercooked) addition to the cannon of food allergies. The novel hypersensitivity was announced in a 2009 article in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, and by the time of a March 2012 review published in Clinical and Molecular Allergy, literature on the syndrome amounted to a total of only 32 cases.

Diagnosing the allergy can be challenging due to its delayed onset. Typical food allergies elicit reactions within 30 minutes of consumption, but individuals allergic to meat experience symptoms up to six hours after the offending meal. If they happen to partake of meat at dinner, the result can be a terrifying middle-of-the-night awakening with unexplained hives or even full-blown anaphylaxis*. It’s definitely an allergy, as opposed to an intolerance. For those allergic to meat, eating a hamburger doesn’t just cause digestive problems or make them feel ambiguously unwell, it creates an antibody-mediated allergic response.

IgE antibodies. They mean well. Image: NIH.

Food allergies are usually sensitivities to a particular protein found in these items. One might expect the same from a much-touted protein source like meat, but in this case it’s actually a sugar that sets off the reaction – galactose-alpha 1,3-galactose (known to its friends by the catchier nickname “alpha-gal”.) Alpha-gal is found in non-primate mammalian meat, so for those with the allergy cows, pigs, sheep, cats and dogs, etc., are all off limits, but poultry and fish are safe.

Like the bulk of allergies, reactions to meat are mediated by Immunoglobin E (IgE) antibodies†, which the body produces in response to a particular allergen (in this case alpha-gal.) Why some people become “sensitized” (i.e., produce allergen specific antibodies) to relatively harmless things like pollen, peanuts, or meat is not entirely clear, but as with many physiological quirks, it’s likely a mix of genetic and environment factors.

Some sensitization occurs through excessive exposure to the allergen. For instance, health care workers, who interact more with latex than the general population, are also more likely to develop allergies to it. Other times it seems underexposure may be the culprit. Some studies suggest that children who aren’t exposed to peanuts prior to age 3 are more prone to developing an allergy once finally faced with peanut butter. Childhood is indeed the time when food allergies usually arise. The meat allergy, however, is cropping up in adults, many of who had previously eaten mammals for years without incident. And scientists suspect that an altogether different environmental factor – bites from a tick – is responsible for their condition.

Clues

How did we get from acknowledging meat allergies to blaming ticks? It wasn’t the steak-spawned hives that led scientists in that direction, but rather another allergic reaction – to the medication cetuximab. Administered in IV form, cetuximab, is used to treat certain kinds of cancer and has an alpha-gal component in its molecular structure. Soon after its approval for tumor treatment in 2005, reports of allergies began. While severe allergic reactions to medications are not unheard of, they normally occur only after the patient has been sensitized by earlier exposure to the drug. What made the cetuximab allergy unusual was that some patients experienced anaphylaxis upon being given their first dose. Clearly, they had been sensitized by something else.

Oncologists working with cetuximab also observed that these allergic reactions were far more common in patients residing in the southeastern United States, an area coincidently high in populations of the lone star tick. Patient histories revealed that many of those with hypersensitivities to cetuximab reported at least one tick bite. It was after the publication of these findings that doctors dealing with meat allergic patients noticed a similarity in the geographic distributions and began to wonder if the two allergies had a common cause.

Ticked off

So meat allergies occur more in the southeastern U.S., which also happens to be teeming with lone star ticks. So what? The correlation could be caused by any number of other demographic differences. After all, people in that part of the world also eat a lot of red meat. (Disclaimer: anecdotal information based entirely on high volume of BBQ restaurants seen in the south.) How do we know this isn’t just another instance of latex-style overexposure sensitization?

The lone star tick. it’s said to be “aggressive.” Image: CDC.

Well, there is some pretty interesting evidence to support the tick hypothesis. The patient histories, for one thing. When questioned, most of the meat allergic individuals recalled having run-ins with ticks. The ability to test blood serum for IgE antibodies has also turned up some useful data. A 2011 study in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology found a correlation between presence of alpha-gal IgE antibodies and IgE antibodies specific to proteins in the lone star tick. More intriguingly, the authors were able to test serum samples from three subjects both before and after they incurred tick bites. In all three cases levels of alpha-gal IgE rose following encounters with the blood sucking beasties. Three subjects is, of course, a very small number. But good luck getting approval for an experiment that deliberately exposes a large group of people to tick bites.

And Amblyomma americanum isn’t the only tick linked to meat allergies. Smaller numbers of cases have been documented as far as Australia, and in these too, most patients reported a history of tick bites (Ixodes holocyclus is the species currently accused of causing Australian meat allergies.)

Despite the strong correlation evidence, there is still no mechanism to explain how tick bites might sensitize people to alpha-gal. And with so few documented cases, it appears that not everyone bitten by a tick goes on to develop a meat allergy, suggesting that other underlying factors may contribute to sensitization. Though we may start to see more diagnosed cases as the syndrome gains recognition. That recent Journal of General Internal Medicine article, which added three case studies to the literature but no new insight as to the cause, did emphasize the need for doctors to be aware of this emerging allergy.

Naturally this allergy poses potential problems for hunters heading into the woods to shoot deer and whatnot (I know zilch about hunting, but I’ll still recommend pulling your socks up over your pants.) But on the bright side, if the condition does turn out to be more common than previously documented, this could be an excellent money making opportunity for the first person to figure out how to produce alpha-gal-free red meat. —www.shafaqna.com/english

Source: Earth Sky

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) — The 2012 Olympics is leaving a bad taste in many Athletes mouths since they found out the British assured food standard meat is 100% Halal! This is the deceit and hypocrisy of UK supermarket chains and slaughter houses which, whilst trumpeting the ‘Britishness’ of their products, surreptitiously purvey Halal meat to the general public and the Olympic teams.

Halal is the Islamic method of religious slaughter whereby a live animal has its throat slit whilst being blessed in the name of Allah and it can take up to six minutes to die.

In a investigation it was revealed that supermarkets, butchers and other retailers, restaurants, cafes and the food production and catering industry as a whole, all source from suppliers who serve Muslim as well as non-Muslim customers.

Some of these suppliers process all their meat to Halal standards. For example, all New Zealand lamb meet’s Halal standards. And all British lamb and chicken is Halal. In these cases all processes still meet the same stringent animal welfare requirements it is claimed and some animals are stunned prior to slaughter whether the meat is sold as Halal or non-Halal but all is Islamically blessed so it can be used for both the Muslim and non-Muslim market.

The American Olympic national team are being forced fed by this crawl meat which is blessed with the same words used by the 911 hijackers in the cockpit as they crashed into the world trade centre, French Athletes from their national squad whose country has just suffered a Islamic terrorists killing, Jewish children outside a school are also being forced fed by London 2012 officials with Halal meat.

The meat is not Labeled in the UK, So shoppers and catering industry do not know they are in fact eating Halal. It’s hidden truth came out from email press statements made by several supermarkets that meat sourced in the UK is all pressed Halal so they can serve the 4% of the population with religious slaughter Islamically blessed meat.

India whose Olympic team might also object under religious grounds being Hindus and Spain, Denmark and Russia are just a few who could ask London 2012 organizers what are we eating as British Red Tractor meat according to all major supermarkets is in fact now slaughtered islamically to save packaging costs.

As the world looks at London, the British meat industry gets ready to show off some of it’s finest meat, forgetting to tell anyone that in fact there's not much that is British in the method it is slaughtered. The reason why the abattoirs are slaughtering most meat Halal now, is to sell the parts of the carcass that most British people 96% of them don't use, to other markets 4% Muslims who do use it.

This minimizes food waste, keeps prices down for customers and helps our farmers say’s meat retailers.

Christian Athletes who are being forced fed Islamic meat in the Olympic village like the American team!—www.shafaqna.com/english

Source: Asian Tribune

SHAFAQNA (Shia News Association) — BNP leader Nick Griffin is due to lead a demonstration in Sunderland tomorrow.

Mr Griffin and members of his party are planning to take part in a demonstration against the use of halal meat in Subway sandwich shops in the city.

However, despite claiming their protest is neither politically or racially motivated, their plans were today condemned.

Tahir Khan, chairman of the multi-cultural organisation Unity, said: “Picking on religious beliefs is very evil-minded and is wrong morally. I think the BNP is just wasting its time and resources.”

As part of a day of action, they plan to congregate outside the St Luke’s Terrace Subway shop in Pallion to raise awareness about what they claim is a “barbaric” practice.

In the past, the party has taken part in similar protests in other parts of the country, including South Tyneside.

Martin Vaughan, North East BNP representative, said: “My party has campaigned for many years about the barbaric slaughter of these poor animals.

“They should not be ritually slaughtered in this country and it’s a barbaric way to kill animals.

“It’s got nothing to do with religion.It’s all about the health and safety of the animals. It’s diabolical that this is allowed in this country.”

According to Islamic law, halal meat must come from a healthy animal, the butcher must make a recitation dedicating it to God, and the jugular vein, carotid artery and windpipe must be cut before the blood is drained.

With non-halal meat, the animal is stunned before having its throat slit.

The BNP also plans on lobbying the RSPCA about the issue, which they claim the animal charity ignores.

But Mr Khan, chairman of Unity the multi-cultural organisation, has hit back, saying attacking religious rituals is “cruel”.

He said: “The killing of any animal can be seen as cruel but it does not give them the right to object or make an issue about someone’s religion.”

BNP chairman Griffin is expected to attend the demonstration before the group move on to Jarrow. Later tomorrow, he is due addresses a branch meeting in South Tyneside in the evening.

Northumbria Police told the Echo they were aware of the demonstration.

A spokeswoman said: “Police are aware of possible BNP activity taking place in Sunderland tomorrow and as is always the case we’re working to establish the extent and make contact with members.”

No-one from Subway was available to comment.— www.shafaqna.com/english/