Study Links Cured Meats to Lung Disease

Related Encyclopedia • Abdominoplasty • Acidophilus • Adhesions • Amebiasis More... Related Healthscout Videos Hungry Heart Power Out Fat Diabetes As a Risk Factor Strategies in Treating Heart Disease More... Related Animations • Asthma • GERD • PPI Therapy • What is Cholesterol? More... Related Drug Information • Aciphex • Advair Diskus • Combivent • Flovent More... Related News Articles • Health Tip: Calculating Your BMI • Scientists ID New Genetic Markers for Bowel Disease • FDA OKs New Rotavirus Vaccine • Young Gymnasts Tumbling and Vaulting Their Way to the ER More...

Page:  << Prev | 1 | 2

"There is a plausible background to it," said Dr. Neil Schachter, professor of pulmonary medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. "They (the study authors) are not the first to say that diet may impact lung disease, and certainly there have been many hypotheses about chemicals and oxidative species that may enhance the development of chronic lung disease."

This study does not, however, prove cured meats actually cause COPD, Schachter said. "Associations don't mean causality," he said. "That's the bottom line of an epidemiologic study. Because even though they control for many variables, they cannot control for everything."

Dr. Norman Edelman, chief medical officer of the American Lung Association, who called the findings "interesting," echoed that sentiment. "Like any correlational cross-sectional study, there's always the possibility there's some other confounding variable they haven't considered."

Text Continues Below

---

Food brand choice, nutritional content and genetics may all play a role in the development of COPD, for instance, he said.

In addition, Jiang said that because this is a cross-sectional study rather than a longitudinal one -- meaning that it looks at a collection of individuals at a single point in time instead of following the same individuals over an extended period -- "we cannot say cured meat is associated with an increased risk of developing COPD, only that people who ate cured meat were more likely to have it."

Neither Jiang nor Schachter recommended wholesale dietary changes as a result of this study, and neither did Cathy Nonas, a registered dietician and director of diabetes and obesity programs at North General Hospital in New York City. "Would I tell people not to ever eat lunch meats again?" she said, "No, I wouldn't."

But, Nonas added, the study "does play up the idea that fresh foods are probably still better for you. And that a moderate amount of all of these things (cured meats) is certainly better than too much."

Jiang and colleagues have now completed two independent, prospective studies on the relationship between cured meat consumption and COPD, which, Jiang said, confirmed the findings in this report. Both studies have been submitted for publication, Jiang added.

More information

For more information on COPD, visit the American Lung Association.

Page:  << Prev | 1 | 2