Does beef jerky actually contain chemicals that cause mental disorders?

According to Live Science, a new study shows that people with bipolar disorder (a psychotic disorder that causes unstable emotional changes) often eat a variety of sausages, dried meat and marinated meat. More salt than others.

But the researchers note that these findings only show a link between salted meats and manic episodes, but cannot prove cause and influence.

The article published July 18 in Molecular Psychiatry described three related studies conducted by researchers at Johns Hopkins University Medical School and Sheppard Pratt Medical System, in Baltimore.

Salted meats with manic stages.

The study co-author, Faith Dickerson, Stanley Research Program Manager at Sheppard Pratt Health System, said that in the first study, researchers did not even intend to consider salted meats. It only started when researchers asked patients with serious psychological disorders to come to the clinic and ask questions around their lives. Although not a key issue, the team still questioned whether these patients had ever eaten salted meat, as if to "complete" the question and answer process. And they ask similar questions for people who don't have psychological disorders.

When the researchers looked back on the answers in a decade, from 2007 to 2017, they found that bipolar disorder patients responded "yes" to the question of much higher salted meat. compared with other patients (such as bipolar or schizophrenic depression) or those who have not been diagnosed with a mental disorder. In total, they looked at the answers of about 1,000 people. According to scientists, the answer "yes" has increased the rate of patients classified into bipolar disorder about 3.5 times.

So they did a follow-up study to reproduce and complement the original results. In this second study, the researchers asked 40 others about mental symptoms as well as the amount of salted meat absorbed and obtained similar results.

Finally, in the third study, researchers figured out which ingredients in salted meat could cause mania. Therefore, they fed the rats to salted meat and observed which ingredients caused hyperactivity. The hyperactivity in rats is not the same as mania, but researchers still choose this animal because they have the most similarity to humans.

The researchers found that the nitrate preservative in dried salted meat seemed to increase the likelihood of hyperactivity in mice most compared to other ingredients. Since then, the team deduced that these materials themselves may play an important role in influencing the symptoms of patients although more research is needed to confirm this.

This result opens up more in-depth studies in the future, not for people to panic about consumption of salted sausages and meat.

Indeed, Kellie Tamashiro, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins Medicine, who conducted the mouse study, also noted that mice are different from humans, so the results cannot be taken at The mouse applies to humans.

However, co-author Bob Yolken, professor of pediatrics at Johns Hopkins Medicine said there are a number of reasons to suspect that nitrates may affect human brain function based on certain similarities in chemistry. substances in the brain of mice and humans.

There are several other reasons for us to doubt the results of these studies. The question of salt meats is quite vague and the total number of participants is too small. Researchers have confirmed that the results open more in-depth studies in the future, not for people to panic about consuming their salted sausages and meat.