THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, July 7, 1994 TAG: 9407020029
SECTION: FLAVOR PAGE: F1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARY FLACHSENHAAR, SPECIAL TO SUNDAY FLAVOR
LENGTH: Long : 151 lines
THE HOT DOG has become one more fallen American hero.
Long a starring player at beloved national pastimes such as the backyard barbecue and the ball game, long a dinnertime staple for households in a hurry, the hot dog began to acquire a criminal record back in the '70s.
Then the sodium nitrite added to hot dogs and other processed meats was cited as the evil ingredient. When the compound combines with substances called amines, found naturally in some foods and in the stomach, it was discovered that powerful carcinogens called nitrosamines are formed.
In the '80s, when low-fat eating came into vogue, the hero's criminal record got a bit longer. Nutritionists alerted the public to the high-fat content of the hot dog. One slim dog might pack more than 16 grams of fat, they warned.
Earlier this year, three studies published in a cancer journal suggested a link between hot dogs and two forms of childhood cancer - leukemia and brain tumors. Headlines sounded alarming, but researchers emphasized that the findings are inconclusive and that more investigation is needed.
Consumers are in a pickle.
Should we simply dismiss these warnings as a tempest in a frying pan? Should we take a middle-of-the-road approach and eat fewer hot dogs? Or should we put the culprit away for life?
John T. Hardison's response is typical of other local hot-dog lovers.
``If this latest hot dog story is true, I would've been dead 50 years ago,'' said the 55-year-old owner of the Village Butcher Shop of Virginia Beach. ``My mama fed me tons of hot dogs. I have six kids who eat hot dogs like they're going out of style.
``People have decided that all of this is just a bunch of hogwash,'' said Hardison, adding that recent studies haven't slowed hot-dog sales in his shop. ``So many times the experts change their minds about what's good and what's bad for us.''
The experts are not likely to change their minds about the hot dog, a food that has never been high on a nutritionist's hit parade.
``The hot dog is just a poor food choice,'' said Art Silverman, director of communications for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Washington-based consumer-advocacy group that specializes in nutritional issues. In the '70s, the group was one of the first to alert the public to the potential danger of nitrites.
``The hot dog is high in fat and sodium,'' Silverman said. ``Even before these latest cancer studies, we've always encouraged people to eat fewer hot dogs.''
What the studies say
The latest studies, three unrelated pieces of research linking childhood cancer to hot-dog consumption, appeared in the March 1994 issue of Cancer Causes & Control. The international journal of cancer studies in human populations is published in Oxford, England, and has its editorial offices at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston.
Here is a quick look at each study:
In the Denver, Colo. area, a study comparing 234 children with cancer to 206 children without cancer found that consumption of one or more hot dogs a week by children, or by mothers during pregnancy, was associated with brain tumors in the children. The risk of brain tumors was even higher in the children who ate hot dogs but did not take vitamins.
(The study also showed that childhood consumption of hamburgers once or more a week was found to be associated with leukemia.)
Another study focused on 155 children with brain tumors in the United States and Canada and a control group of the same number of healthy children from the two countries. Here, too, weekly consumption of hot dogs and other cured meats by mothers during pregnancy was associated with a higher risk of brain tumors in the children they bore.
The third study, conducted in Los Angeles County, Calif., focused on 232 children with leukemia, 232 without. Many lifestyle factors suspected to be related to the disease were examined, including environmental chemicals, electric and magnetic fields, past medical history, parental smoking and drug use and dietary intake of foods thought to contain carcinogens or protective agents.
Participating families were quizzed about their consumption of breakfast and luncheon meats, hot dogs, oranges and orange juice, grapefruit and grapefruit juice, apples and apple juice, charcoal-broiled meats, milk, coffee and colas.
When all risk factors had been adjusted, researchers concluded that the only persistent significant association was that the children had eaten 12 or more hot dogs a month or their fathers had eaten 12 or more a month prior to conception of the children.
The press release issued with the studies concluded that ``while none of the findings is conclusive, all three studies support the hypothesis that human intake of N-nitroso compounds is associated with certain cancers.''
Like many of her colleagues, Regina G. Ziegler finds the studies ``provocative but not alarming.''
``What's new and interesting here is that diet may play a role in childhood cancers that had not been previously linked to diet,'' said the nutritional epidemiologist with the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md.
``We hadn't thought that diet was a factor in childhood leukemia or brain tumors, although some earlier research in adult brain cancer indicates a connection to diet.''
According to Ziegler, further research needs to be done since the recent studies had a great potential for bias. All the studies were flawed by ``recall bias,'' said Ziegler, which means that data wasn't completely reliable because participating families were asked to recall what they had eaten in the past. Parents of a child with cancer might be thinking hard about every possible cause while other parents might not work so hard to recall details, she explained.
``The questionnaires were not broadly based enough,'' Ziegler continued, ``and they were not detailed enough to distinguish whether this is a hot-dog association or an association with dietary patterns that generally accompany elevated hot-dog consumption.''
The family that eats a lot of hot dogs might also eat a lot of other processed foods, Ziegler said. ``I'm postulating that maybe that family isn't eating a lot of fruits and vegetables.''
Emphasizing that a diet rich in fruits and vegetables is important to health, Ziegler said: ``Hot dogs should not be the mainstay of a child's diet but, according to what we know now, evidence is not strong enough to eliminate them from the diet. Getting hot dogs out of the diet may not strikingly reduce your cancer risk.''
Future studies, Ziegler and others in the field agree, need current, reliable records of a participant's complete diet, including quantities, brand names and cooking methods. One researcher quipped that with the information we have now, we can't be sure that the bun or the mustard isn't the culprit. Others in the field of nutrition say that future studies might point to the fat, not the nitrite, as the troublemaker.
Will the public listen?
Dietitian Clara Schneider is concerned that the public, weary of carcinogen-of-the-week scares, may not take the latest warnings seriously.
``The story may come into focus a little more with more studies,'' said Schneider, who works with the American Institute for Cancer Research in Washington, D.C. ``We may find we've over-reacted but we also may find there's good reason pregnant women shouldn't be eating hot dogs.''
The mother of a 13-year-old daughter and a 7-year-old son, Schneider doesn't buy hot dogs but doesn't restrict her children from eating them, either.
``When we go to the ballpark, they eat a hot dog. When my son went to a Boy Scout cookout recently, he ate a hot dog,'' Schneider said. ``But if you keep a pack in the refrigerator, it's too easy for the children to opt for a hot dog over the healthful piece of fish the parent might be preparing for the rest of the family.''
Schneider said many adults and children eat more hot dogs than they think they do. ``Children might be having a hot dog weekly or every other week at school lunch,'' she said. ``Parents may then be serving hot dogs at home and not really keeping count.''
The National Live Stock & Meat Board in Chicago does keep count. Its latest tally shows Americans eat 16 billion hot dogs a year. That's about 66 dogs per person a year, 5 1/2 per month or more than one a week. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]
BILL KELLEY III/Staff
by CNB