Sausages can cause genetic changes

Everyone knows that eating lots of sausages is not healthy. But a new study also found that sausages can contain ingredients that mutate DNA and increase the risk of cancer.

Sidney Mirvish, a chemist at the University of Nebraska in Omaha, USA, and colleagues examined the ingredients in sausages. Sausages stored with sodium nitrate, which can form N-nitroso compounds, cause cancer in animals.

The substances in sausages when combined with sodium nitrate will produce these genetic modification compounds. When exposed to Salmonella in the intestine, sausages treated with sodium nitrate will double or quadruple the amount of altered DNA. The result may be a risk of bowel cancer.

The researchers said that in the next experiment, they will feed rats with sausages to see if they develop bowel cancer or other cancer symptoms.

MT