Heme Iron and Cancer
Laboratory models suggest that extreme doses of heme iron may be detrimental, but what about the effects of nutritional doses in humans?
In muscle meat, there is a heme protein that contributes to, well, the meaty taste of meat. There’s also a heme protein in the roots of soybean plants that can be churned out to provide a similar flavor and aroma in plant-based meat, which is used to make the Impossible Burger possible. The question is: Are there any downsides?
When the European Food Safety Authority was considering the safety of adding heme iron to foods, its main concern was a potential increased risk of colon cancer. As you can see below and at 1:00 in my video Does Heme Iron Cause Cancer?, we know meat causes cancer. Processed meat—bacon, ham, hot dogs, sausages, and lunch meat—is considered a Group 1 carcinogen, meaning we know it causes cancer in people with the same level of certainty that something like smoking causes cancer, whereas something like a burger probably causes cancer in people, kind of like DDT. But what’s the role of heme iron?
There are all sorts of potential mechanisms to explain the cancer risk. Meat has the pro-inflammatory long-chain omega-6 arachidonic acid and more of the aging- and cancer-associated methionine, trans fat, and endogenous hormones like IGF-1, not to mention the ones that are implanted in animals as “exogenous hormonal growth-promoters.” Then there are all the toxic pollutants that build up the food chain, like pesticides and formaldehyde.
