Will life be worth living once all the simple ‘unhealthy’ pleasures are banned with the help of paid studies to trigger cancer?

Scientists are calling for a ban on supermarket bacon and ham after the chemicals used in their production were linked to more than 50,000 bowel cancer cases. The Daily Mail Online has the story.

A coalition of leading scientists says the refusal to ban nitrites – preservatives used to keep processed meats pink and long-lasting – has come at a devastating human and financial cost, with the NHS footing an estimated £3 billion bill to treat preventable cancers over the past decade.

Their analysis, based on figures from Cancer Research UK and the British Journal of Cancer, estimates that around 5,400 bowel cancer cases each year in the UK are caused by eating processed meats. Treatment costs for each patient average £59,000.

The warning comes exactly ten years after the World Health Organisation‘s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified processed meat as a Group 1 carcinogen – placing it in the same risk category as tobacco and asbestos.

Despite this, ministers have done ‘virtually nothing’ to reduce Britons’ exposure, according to Professor Chris Elliott OBE, founder of the Institute for Global Food Security and a former government adviser.

He said: ‘A decade on from the WHO report, the UK Government has done virtually nothing to reduce exposure to nitrites – the curing agents that make these products pink and long-lasting but also create nitrosamines, compounds known to trigger cancer.

‘Every year of delay means more preventable cancers, more families affected, and greater strain on the NHS.’

The scientists who worked on the original WHO report have now written to Health Secretary Wes Streeting urging him to ban nitrites in processed meats.

Their landmark report, published in 2015, analysed data from more than 800 studies and found that for every 50g of processed meat eaten a day, the risk of colorectal cancer increased by 18 per cent.

Experts say it is specifically the combination of nitrates and processing methods used in meats such as bacon, ham and sausages that generates carcinogenic compounds when consumed.

Currently, up to 90 per cent of bacon sold in the UK is thought to contain nitrites, which have been linked not only to bowel cancer but also breast and prostate cancers.

Professor Robert Turesky, of the University of Minnesota, who contributed to the original WHO report, said: ‘When the IARC report was published in 2015, evidence linking processed meat to cancer was strong.

‘A decade later, it is even stronger, and many preventable cancers have likely occurred. The evidence now calls for public health action.’

Read the full story here.