Bacon-eaters, don't worry too much

From the Daily Mail:

'To use the scientific term… it’s cobblers! If you’re consuming enough bacon to make it as dangerous as tobacco, then cancer is the least of your worries,' says MICHAEL HANLON

'So what are the real statistics? I will hand over now to the marvellous slayer of dodgy health scares, Prof Sir David Spiegelhalter, of the University of Cambridge and perhaps the world's greatest expert on risk. 

Here is his response in full to the WHO announcement: 'There may be good evidence for there being an increased risk, but the magnitude needs to be put into perspective. 

'In the normal run of things, around six in every 100 people would be expected to get bowel cancer in their lifetime. 

'If all these 100 people ate a three-rasher - around 50g - bacon sandwich every single day of their lives, then according to this report we would expect that 18% more would get bowel cancer – which is a rise from 6 cases to 7 cases. 

'So that's one extra case of bowel cancer in all those 100 lifetime bacon-eaters.' 

Doesn't sound so scary now, does it? Cigarettes, on the other hand, give a whole FIFTH of their smokers lung cancer (and kill many of the rest via heart disease, emphysema and so on). 

Put simply, bacon may be 'dangerous', but it is more than a whole order of magnitude less so than tobacco. 

Look at those figures again. The measurable cancer increase happens when you eat a modest-sounding extra 2oz of processed meat a day. But that is actually quite a lot - a hell of a lot. 

I love bacon, but I do not eat a pound of the stuff a week, 52 weeks a year, year-in, year out. In fact, to raise the health risk to something approaching that of tobacco, I would have to consume so much bacon (about a pig's worth every fortnight) that bowel cancer would be the least of my worries

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3298459/To-use-scientific-term-s-cobblers-consuming-bacon-make-dangerous-tobacco-cancer-worries-says-MICHAEL-HANLON.html#ixzz3qOAT9dIW 

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