Is your breakfast giving you cancer?

MatildaGage

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MatildaGage
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For some reason, I am getting Prevention Magazine in the mail. I keep finding such ridiculous stuff in there. :mad: They seem to make a living taking a kernel of truth in a singular study and making sweeping/false conclusions about it.

This month really irks me. Article: "Is your breakfast giving you cancer?"

It's about folic acid. Now I understand there is some scientific debate about this--as evidenced by different countries having different policies on it--but sheesh. They are hinting 15k new cases of cancer per year in the US are attributable to folic acid.

Prevention: "'Unlike folate, folic acid isn't found in nature, so we don't know the effect of the excess,' says Smith."

Cancer Society: "Folic acid...is named after the Latin word for leaf (folium), because it was first found in spinach and other green leafy vegetables."

:( Honestly, Prevention.....this is an awful thing to do to a cancer survivor while she's eating a breakfast of fortified cereal. Even though I just read your rag for laughs, you struck fear into my heart for 5-10 minutes.
 
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Good grief. Folate IS folic acid. In fact, folate = folic acid = folacin = vitamin B9. Who does their research, Bill Maher?
 
Phew - it just folic acid. So, my standard bourbon and boiled peanuts is safe.

More seriously, somehow my wife got on their mailing list a couple of years ago and we got them in the mail for over a year. There is a LOT of woo in that publication. The first half of the magazine is usually sound advice on diet and fitness. The second half is often pseudo-scientific latest bandwagon woo nonsense.
 
Is it actually possible to overdose on a water-soluble vitamin? I was under the impression that you could only overdose on A,D,E, and K.
 
I think technically you can "overdose" on darn near anything, but for some things it would take a ridiculous amount to do it. Hell you can overdose on water.
 
How strange,

now we have the Australian Government advising:

Folate is a B group vitamin needed for healthy growth and development. This vitamin is known as folate when it is found naturally in food, such as green leafy vegetables, and as folic acid when it is added to food, such as bread and breakfast cereals, or used in dietary supplements.
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then:

In September 2009, it became a legal requirement in Australia that all bread-making flour, except organic flour, contain added folic acid. As a result, your bread now contains added folic acid. Three slices of bread (100g) contains an average of 120 micrograms of folic acid. This is a Government initiative that acts as a safety net for women to help protect their babies against neural tube defects.
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and running a nationwide multi media campaign advising women to avoid the possibility of neural tube defect in their unborn children by increasing their consumption of folate/folic acid:

http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/consumerinformation/adviceforpregnantwomen/folicacidfolateandpr4598.cfm

Who to believe, who to believe ???
 
Yes actually. Reactive Oxygen Species is a leading cause of cancer; I don't think you can convert to being an anaerobic organism, so somehow I'll have to live with it.
 
Actually mine does. But that's because I have Marlboro's for breakfast.
 
Well I've been eating frosted flakes passed through a reactor core since I was a kid, so I'm either going to become a superhero or get a lot of cancer.
 
excaza said:
Well I've been eating frosted flakes passed through a reactor core since I was a kid, so I'm either going to become a superhero or get a lot of cancer.
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They're not mutually exclusive; you could be both.

But "Cancerman" is already taken.
 
AmandaM said:
Is it actually possible to overdose on a water-soluble vitamin? I was under the impression that you could only overdose on A,D,E, and K.
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Well, you can. Even on vitamin C, if you take such a large amount of it in a short amount of time that it hasn't been able to be removed yet.

For vitamin C, you'd have to eat about a kilogram all at once.
 
bigred said:
Good grief. Folate IS folic acid. In fact, folate = folic acid = folacin = vitamin B9. Who does their research, Bill Maher?
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Depends. "Folate" by itself is nothing; it could be sodium folate, potassium folate, ethyl folate, benzyl folate, etc. If it's an ionic folate, than the folate ion will go into solution and be exactly the same ion that you would get from folic acid. An ester of folate acid would probably hydrolyze to folic acid rapidly enough in the digestive tract.
 
Emet said:
Here's a SBM article from 31 Mar 2011:
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That was a good article, thanks.

Folic acid, a synthetic form of folate, is used in multivitamins supplements because it is better absorbed.
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So now we have another source saying it's synthetic.

Not that this, by any means, is the most important thing. Synthetic does not = dangerous, of course....

Anyhoo, it appears the jury is still out.
 
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