"The Role of Burger Viruses in Cancer"
“Nearly 20% of cancer[s]…can be linked to infectious agents”
such as viruses.
There are 7 viruses now conclusively tied to human cancers,
and as new viruses enter into human populations,
the incidence and causes of cancer will likely change accordingly.
The foundation of modern tumor virology was laid
over a century ago with the discovery of a cancer-causing chicken virus,
for which a Nobel Prize was awarded.
Another Nobel went to the guy that discovered
that the HPV virus was causing cervical cancer,
and in his acceptance speech, he mused that there may be
a bovine polyoma virus, a multiple tumor virus in cattle
that could be playing a role in human
colon cancer, lung cancer, and breast cancer,
but no polyoma virus had ever been discovered in meat...
until now.
Polyoma viruses are a particular concern,
not only because they are known to be carcinogenic,
but because they can survive cooking temperatures.
Because single burgers these days can contain meat
from many dozens of animals,
they figured they would present an ideal situation for “virus hunting".
So, researchers at the National Cancer Institute
just walked into three supermarkets and grabbed meat
right off the shelf and found three different polyoma viruses
in ground beef.
Now, just because three types of polyoma viruses are commonly detectable
in food-grade ground beef doesn’t necessarily mean
they are causing human disease.
What made this Nobel laureate suspect them?
Well, for one thing, some people got cancer
right where they were vaccinated for smallpox,
a whole bunch of different cancers.
The vaccine was harvested from the skin of calves,
and so, maybe there was some cancer-causing cow virus?
“Many people are exposed to potentially
virus-contaminated meat and dairy products,” through their diet
but those in the industry would be even more exposed.
So, it would be interesting to see if these groups
have higher cancer incidence.
And indeed, it now appears clear that those who work
in the meat industry are at increased risk
of developing and dying from a variety of cancers.
Another reason to suspect the involvement
of some kind of bovine infectious factor in colorectal cancer
is the fact that countries that don't eat a lot of beef
appear to have relatively low rates of colorectal cancer.
And, countries that all of a sudden started eating
lots of meat had their rates shoot up.
Mongolia appears to be the exception.
Lots of red meat, yet low colon cancer rates,
but there they eat yak,
and maybe yaks don’t harbor the same viruses.
Can’t you just avoid steak tartare?
Even steak cooked “medium” may not reach
internal temperatures above 70 celsius,
and it takes temperatures above that to inactivate
some of these viruses;
so, we would expect viruses to survive
both cooking and pasteurization.
In fact, they followed up with a paper suggesting the consumption
of dairy products may represent a main risk factor
for the development of human breast cancer.
The recent discovery of a larger number
of presumably new viruses in the blood, meat, and milk of dairy cows
should be investigated,
since one might speculate that infectious agents
present in dairy products might have a special affinity
for breast cells, since they came from breast cells.
The fact that people with lactose intolerance,
who tend to avoid milk and dairy throughout their lives,
have lower rates of breast cancer and other cancers
could be seen as supporting this concept,
though there are certainly other reasons dairy may increase cancer risks,
such as increasing levels of the cancer-promoting
growth hormone IGF-1
or adversely affecting our gut microbiome.
Or, for that matter, maybe the plant based milks
they’re drinking instead could be protective.
That’s the problem with population studies:
you can’t tease out cause and effect.
It doesn’t matter how many viruses are found
in retail beef, pork, and chicken
if we can’t connect the dots.
Can’t you just look for the presence
of these viruses within human tumors?
They’ve tried and found some, but even if you don’t find any,
that doesn’t necessarily mean viruses didn’t play a role.
There’s this “viral hit-and-run” theory
of cancer development that suggests that certain viruses
can slip in and out of our DNA to initiate the cancer,
but be long gone by the time the tumor matures.
So, there’s still a lot of work to be done,
but if the link between bovine polyomaviruses
and human disease pans out,
the National Cancer Institute researchers envision
the development of a high potency vaccine.
So, just like the HPV vaccine may prevent cervical cancer
from unsafe sex, one day perhaps, vaccines may prevent breast
and colon cancer from unsafe sirloin.