/oss/taxonomy/term/1280/all en /oss/article/medical-health-and-nutrition-general-science/should-you-be-worried-about-eating-burned-toast <hr /> <p><em>This article was first published in <a href="https://montrealgazette.com/opinion/the-right-chemistry-should-you-be-worry-about-eating-burned-toast">The Montreal Gazette.</a></em></p> Fri, 06 Sep 2024 21:30:09 +0000 Joe Schwarcz PhD 10065 at /oss /oss/article/critical-thinking-health-and-nutrition/waxing-lyrical-about-fruit-wax <p>Apparently Snow White's wicked stepmother knew something about chemistry and toxicology. She brewed up a remarkable poison to put the anemic young lady into a state of suspended animation. But how to get her to ingest it? Who, thought the evil queen, could resist a bright, shiny apple? Certainly not Snow White. And you know the rest of the story. </p> Wed, 21 Aug 2024 20:15:59 +0000 Joe Schwarcz PhD 10042 at /oss /oss/article/health-and-nutrition/concerns-about-smoked-foods-heat <hr /> <p><em>This article was first published in <a href="https://montrealgazette.com/opinion/columnists/the-right-chemistry-concerns-about-smoked-foods-heat-up">The Montreal Gazette.</a></em></p> <hr /> <p>Cavemen in the Stone Age didn’t have many luxuries. They had, however, learned to make fire by banging together flintstones or rubbing two sticks together, and that at least made their cold and dingy dwellings more comfortable.</p> Fri, 12 Jul 2024 17:01:14 +0000 Joe Schwarcz PhD 10000 at /oss /oss/article/carcinogen-bread <p>I ventured into homemade bread-making at the start of the pandemic two years ago. My first try failed miserably. The bread turned out to be a shapeless, mushy mess. What ingredient was missing? Possibly potassium bromate!</p> Wed, 08 Jun 2022 00:17:16 +0000 Nancy Liu-Sullivan, PhD 9129 at /oss /oss/article/health-and-nutrition/non-smokers-lung-cancer-and-hidden-link <p>The link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer is widely acknowledged. But not everyone who smokes gets lung cancer and not everyone who gets lung cancer is a smoker. How does one contract the so-called non-smoker’s lung cancer? The answer, one might say, is blowing in the wind. And that wind may be blowing a gas called radon.     </p> Fri, 31 Dec 2021 19:08:52 +0000 Nancy Liu-Sullivan, PhD 8970 at /oss /oss/article/health-nutrition/broccoli-conundrum <p>Life is full of difficult decisions, isn’t it? Should you put broccoli on a pizza before or after sliding it into the oven? Fret not. This decision can be made a little easier by examining the properties of sulphoraphane, touted by a plethora of books, magazines, websites and nutritional gurus as being responsible for broccoli’s anti-cancer effect. But I’ll let you in on a secret. While sulphoraphane may have anti-cancer properties, it is not found in broccoli!</p> Fri, 01 Oct 2021 21:20:15 +0000 Joe Schwarcz PhD 8886 at /oss /oss/article/you-asked/why-does-california-want-put-cancer-warning-coffee <p>I’ve commented many times on what I think is a ludicrous piece of legislation in California known as Proposition 65. This requires that the public be informed by signs, as is the case on entering Disneyland, or on product labels, about any possible exposure to a chemical “that is known to the State of California to cause reproductive harm or cancer.” And there are over 900 of these that are accused of being an affront to health! So what’s wrong with Prop 65 warning against dangerous substances? Sounds like motherhood and apple pie.</p> Thu, 05 Apr 2018 19:30:00 +0000 Joe Schwarcz PhD 6991 at /oss /oss/article/did-you-know/root-root-beer-sassafras <p><span>Unless you’re participating in a spelling bee or playing</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout:_New_Vegas"> Fallout New Vegas</a><span>, you probably don’t think about sassafras much, but you might still ingest it regularly. It is, or at least once was, the main flavourful ingredient in</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Root_beer"> root beer</a><span>.</span></p> Tue, 20 Feb 2018 18:52:02 +0000 Ada McVean B.Sc. 6928 at /oss /oss/article/did-you-know/leg-raising-experiment <p>Bladder cancer in humans has been associated with cigarette smoking.  Since dogs can also develop this deadly cancer, they can serve as model for evaluating treatment methods.  In a study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, beagles were exposed to a carcinogenic chemical from cigarette smoke.  It turned out that those dogs urinating every four hours had only one third as much carcinogen left in their bladder as the animals voiding every eight hours.  Indeed some surveys on humans have also shown that in rural areas bladder cancer is less frequent than in urban areas.</p> Fri, 02 Jun 2017 16:39:24 +0000 OSS 2532 at /oss /oss/article/controversial-science-environment-health-toxicity-you-asked/wood-burning-stoves-should-be-extinguished <p style="text-align:justify"><a href="http://blogs.mcgill.ca/oss/?p=5917"><img alt="wood smoke" height="150" src="http://blogs.mcgill.ca/oss/files/2013/11/wood-smoke-150x150.jpg" width="150" /></a>Wood burning stoves are a health hazard. Period. Not debatable. To understand, we first have to examine what combustion is all about. When cellulose and lignin, the major components of wood, burn completely, they produce carbon dioxide, water, heat and light. The heat of combustion also allows oxygen and nitrogen in the air to form various oxides of nitrogen. But combustion is rarely complete. Smoke is a sign of incomplete combustion…and of a health risk. It is actually composed of tiny particles of unburned hydrocarbons which are packed with carcinogens such as the notorious polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Incomplete combustion also signals the formation of carbon monoxide.</p> <p style="text-align:justify">Inhalation of carbon monoxide reduces the blood’s ability to supply oxygen to the body. Nitrogen oxides directly impair the respiratory system and also contribute to ozone formation, which causes breathing problems. Ozone is formed when nitrogen oxides are mixed with some of the volatile organic compounds such as formaldehyde that are also produced when wood burns.</p> <p style="text-align:justify">According to the California Environmental Protection Agency, the particulate matter emitted from wood burning is usually 10 or 2.5 microns in diameter. In order to put this into perspective, a human hair diameter is roughly 60 microns! Due to their miniscule size, these tiny particles can easily lodge in the lungs causing asthmatic attacks, severe bronchitis, cardiovascular diseases and respiratory illnesses.</p> <p style="text-align:justify">Cooking indoors on a wood burning smoke is particularly dangerous. However, some studies have suggested that HEPA (high efficiency particulate arresting) filters may be a viable option for reducing particle concentrations in homes. But HEPA filters cannot filter out volatile organic compounds.</p> <p><a href="http://blogs.mcgill.ca/oss/2013/11/11/wood-burning-stoves-should-be-extinguished">Read more</a></p> Tue, 12 Nov 2013 04:31:03 +0000 Alexandra Pires-Ménard, OSS Intern 2032 at /oss /oss/article/health-news-quackery/fearsome-yellow <p>Next time you think of welcoming someone home by tying a yellow ribbon around an old oak tree, you might want to think again. According to a widely circulating report the yellow dye could leave a toxic residue on your hands. What are we talking about? PCBs. Actually one specific PCB, namely PCB-11. Polychlorinated biphenyls have become an environmental pariah, accused of being endocrine disruptors and carcinogens. Quite a comedown for chemicals that were once revered as ideal heat transfer fluids and insulating materials in electrical equipment.</p> Mon, 24 Mar 2014 02:56:31 +0000 Joe Schwarcz PhD 2117 at /oss /oss/article/cancer-controversial-science-food-health-toxicity/hot-potato <div> <p style="text-align:justify"><a href="http://blogs.mcgill.ca/oss/?p=6930"><img alt="fries" height="150" src="http://blogs.mcgill.ca/oss/files/2014/11/Screen-Shot-2014-11-22-at-8.50.54-PM-150x150.png" width="150" /></a>The poor potato is being mashed by criticism.Too high a glycemic index, critics say, which means more sugar in the bloodstream for anyone concerned about diabetes. Forget about eating potatoes, say the proponents of low carb diets. French fries? Forget it. Loaded with fat. And supporters of California’s Proposition 65, which stipulates that any substance that has been linked to cancer must be clearly identified, clamor for potato chips to sport a label stating that they contain acrylamide, which is “known to the State of California to cause cancer.” Acrylamide forms when heat causes asparagine, an amino acid present in numerous foods, to react with starch. Potatoes have asparagine and starch, and when it comes to baking or frying, can indeed form acrylamide.</p> </div> <div> <p style="text-align:justify">Technically this is a carcinogen because it can cause cancer in animals albeit only when they are treated with doses far greater than human exposure. No epidemiological studies have demonstrated that the traces of acrylamide to which we may be exposed in baked goods, coffee, cereals or potatoes play a role in human cancer. But California politicians argue that less exposure to a carcinogen is always better, and that people should know where such substances are found so they can take appropriate measures. This argument does not fly with most toxicologists who maintain that even with carcinogens there is a threshold effect below which there is no risk.</p> <p style="text-align:justify">No matter whether the risk is real or not, reducing the possibility of acrylamide formation can be an effective marketing tool. So along comes the “Innate” potato, developed by the J.R. Simplot Company in the U.S. With its reduced asparagine content it will have less acrylamide when baked or fried. But there is an issue here that may not play so well in the marketplace. The new-fangled potato is a product of genetic engineering. The gene that codes for the production of asparagine, as well as one responsible for the browning of potatoes, has been silenced through a process known as “RNA interference.” This does involve the incorporation of novel genes into the Innate potato, but those genes come from other varieties of cultivated and wild potatoes. No genes from any other species are introduced.</p> <p style="text-align:justify">Stll, there are critics who contend that RNA interference technology has not been studied well enough, and that asparagine may also play a role in defending the potato against disease causing organisms. And then there is the issue of implying that a “safer” potato has been engineered which can lead to less vigilance about eating fried potatoes. Realistically, the health concern about French fries is the amount of fat they harbour, not their acrylamide content. It is extremely unlikely that there is any health risk arising from consuming this genetically engineered potato, about as unlikely as there being any risk associated with the traces of acrylamide in foods we eat. Basically, though, this new potato is a solution to a problem that never existed.</p> <a href="http://blogs.mcgill.ca/oss/2014/11/22/a-hot-potato">Read more</a></div> Sun, 23 Nov 2014 03:52:51 +0000 Joe Schwarcz PhD 2215 at /oss /oss/article/food-health-you-asked/you-asked-there-really-dirty-secret-about-almonds <p>Anytime you see an article that starts off with the heading “The Truth About….,” it’s a pretty safe bet that you will not get the truth. And so it is with an article circulating about almonds. “The Truth About Almonds: Almost No One Knows This Dirty Secret.” What is the “dirty secret?” That the almonds are treated with the fumigant propylene oxide to prevent contamination by salmonella bacteria. Salmonella infection is not pleasant to say the least. But people mostly associate it with contaminated eggs, not almonds. Where do the bacteria come from? Mostly fecal matter.</p> Mon, 30 Mar 2015 01:37:09 +0000 Joe Schwarcz PhD 2247 at /oss /oss/article/food-health/risk-caramel-colouring <p style="text-align:justify"><a href="http://blogs.mcgill.ca/oss/?p=3868" rel="attachment wp-att-3870"><img alt="" height="150" src="http://blogs.mcgill.ca/oss/files/2012/12/caramel-150x150.jpg" width="150" /></a>Colas derive their colour from caramel, which basically is a complex mixture of compounds produced when various carbohydrates such as sucrose, fructose, glucose or starches are heated to a high temperature. Put some sugar or starch in a pan, heat it, and soon you’ll have caramel. And of course a mess to clean up. Chemically, caramelization is a very complex process resulting in the formation of hundreds of compounds. To complicate things further, there are several types of commercial caramelization processes, depending on what other reagents are added to the carbohydrate source as it is being pyrolyzed. Adding acids or alkalis to promote caramelization is common, but it is also possible to add sulphites such as sodium sulphite or ammonia compounds such as ammonium carbonate to achieve specific shades of brown.</p> <p style="text-align:justify">Caramelization also occurs commonly in cooking and produces basically the same set of compounds as a commercial process except for when ammonium compounds are added. Any complex mixture like this will contain some compounds that when isolated and carefully investigated will produce some adverse effects in cell cultures or laboratory animals. When ammonium compounds are used, some of the breakdown products fall into the imidazole family, a couple of which, namely 4-methylimidazole and 2-methylimidazole have been shown to cause cancer in rats and mice. This can provide some gristle for the alarmist mill. And it has.</p> <p><a href="http://blogs.mcgill.ca/oss/2012/12/24/the-“risk”-of-caramel-colouring/">Read more</a></p> Tue, 25 Dec 2012 03:36:12 +0000 Joe Schwarcz PhD 1847 at /oss