Microwave & Cancer Risk: Is Heating Food/Fluids Dangerous?

[Ivan Seeking]

Is the default position that we have absolute certainty that in no way can the use of microwaves increase the risk of cancer.

If not, then where do we lack certainty?

 

[Chemicalsuperfreak]

Originally posted by Ivan Seeking
Considering that the RF is used to cause precession of Hydrogen atoms, I don't see the logic in your statements. This is added energy.

You can excite spin states of nuclei with RF. Never denied that. But switching spins states is a long way off from exciting a molecule. You can't do chemistry with an NMR.

 

[Jeebus]

The thermal heating effect of microwaves is well understood and is the basis for the heating action of microwave ovens. Some studies have examined the possibility of a link between microwave exposure and cancer. Results to date have been inconclusive. While some experimental data have suggested a possible link between microwave exposure and cancer, other studies have been unable to replicate these findings. In fact other studies have failed to find evidence for a causal link to cancer or any related condition.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Originally posted by Chemicalsuperfreak
You can excite spin states of nuclei with RF. Never denied that. But switching spins states is a long way off from exciting a molecule. You can't do chemistry with an NMR.

We have a more energetic state. The concern was that some of this energy could transfer to the entire molecule. These studies went on for years. This was clearly recognized as good science. Most of the people doing this work were radiation physicists. To my knowledge, heating effects were observed but determined to be insignificant. This does not jive with your assertion that we could not have any energy transfer. I assume that these studies can be found. This was Cedars in Hollywood in about 1982. The NMR was a state of the art, 0.75T [edit: this could be 1.0T], GE scanner.

My point was that good scientists felt that emperical evidence was required. We can't rule these things out on theoretical arguments alone.

Again, I can only make my point by turning this whole thing around. I posted a possibly flakey link [I am taking Russ at this word on this] because I have never tried to argue this point before. I am arguing on a philosophical premise that we can't rule things out with absolute certitude. When I was surprised by objections to this statement, I was forced to scramble to defend an argument that I don't even agree with. So again, I ask you, do we have absolute certainty on these issues; including all aspects of the plastics used by food companies, intermittant arcing due to faulty magnetrons, defective seals from Taiwan, potential effects on complex molecules that have not been thouroughly studied in this context, unforseen effects from other circuitry, and whatever else we can and can't possibly imagine?

It we can't claim absolute certitude, then where does the uncertainty exist?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Originally posted by iansmith
I went through the Lancet of Dec 9 1989 334 (8676) 1392-1393
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/01406736

I never found the following quote by Dr. L. Lee



What I found is 3 researchers stating that milk heated in the microwave oven produce cis-stereosomers of hydroxyproline and cis -amino acid. It also produce d-proline. The concentration was estimated to be 1-2 mg/L. The researchers worried about the effect of the cis form because it could be incorporated in protein and change their configuration and immunoligical properties. Edit d-proline is can potential be a neurotoxin if injected into the brain of 2-5 days old chick. Therefore the researcher stated that effect should be investigated

this was critiqued in Lancet of Feb 4 335 (8697) 470, then Mar 31 335 (8692) 792 which had a mistake and was corrected on apr 7 335 (8693) 868 and was finally critiqued on Jul 7 336 (8706) 49.

The author of the research also stated that its was not to test the toxicity of microwave food but to have a model of the event of microwaving.

Ivan, there is nothing wrong the Lancet and that is probably why you source used it to support its claim. the problem is that it doe not appear in the lancet. All I can say is that somebody has done fraud. Edit I went through the sources of Ivan and Dr. Lee referred to the Lancet and add her comments. What the website did is just use the Lancet as Dr. Lee research.

I can see that there is a problem with the link given, but I don’t hear you saying that microwaves cannot affect complex molecules. If so, this still makes the point that I thought was legitimately made. It is not necessary to show that these changes would be toxic; the point was that changes can occur. Does this still appear to be true? If so, then one can easily imagine that as a randomly selected example pulled from the aether that some other change could in turn affect our resistance to cancer. Again, I was only looking for a potential mechanism to show that uncertainty could exist.

 

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by Ivan Seeking
Then you argue with ghosts...

I think I have made my position pretty clear:

Do you bother to read my posts? Unfortunately, you force me to make an argument that I don’t even agree with.

Uh... yeah, clear. Arguing a position you don't agree with makes your real position anything but clear. But admitting you don't agree with the position you are arguing does clear things up a bit.

However: I have a bad memory, Ivan. I can't remember MY OWN posts from three days ago - if your position isn't completely clear, I won't remember the intricacies from the beginning of the thread.

You are in direct conflict with The National Cancer Institute.

[?] [?] The quote you posted said exactly what I said: no link. A "statistical association" is just that - a statistical association. It does NOT imply a link, hence "no conclusion" and "no consistent pattern." I think you're reading between the lines something that isn't there. We've had this conversation before.

I'm seeing a double standard from you here: On one hand, anything other than an unequivocal absolute in a scientific paper indicates to you there is a REAL possibility of the other side of the coin. But at the same time you trumpet the inability of science to give absolutes.

...we might imagine a connection...

I have a vivid imagination, Ivan. I can imagine a lot of things, but unless there is some evidence, its just my imagination.

Artificial methods of altering food are clearly untested in the long term. This was my only point. I asked you for your evidence. You never answered.

What do you define as long term? I most certainly did point out the timeframe we are dealing with here. Its one that I and most scientists DO consider "long term." I also pointed out that you have the burden of proof backwards: its pretty much impossible to prove a negative, which is of course a large part of the problem here. What kind of evidence are you looking for and what would it convince you of?

None of this worries me in the slightest.

Ehh, forget it. This argument is pointless then. I hate arguing against someone who is just playing devil's advocate.

 

[eliloe]

Thank you guys for providing the most serious discussion on this topic I was able to find on the web. Google searches are littered with thousands of references to the same "scientific evidences" you quote here.

Since I have a science background (biochem) and use the microwave oven often, I need to know what is going on.

ALL these references cite some Dr. Hans Ulrich Hertel and a Dr. Bernard H. Blanc of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and University Institute for Biochemistry [sic].
ALL these web pages cite an article published by them, but NONE (NONE) provide a link to said article.

I've just spend several hours trying to track these guys (including searches on the actual official website of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, www.ethz.ch ) and here's what I found:
- Dr. Hans Ulrich Hertel apparently did graduate from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology circa 1974, in VETERINARY MEDICINE and HUSBANDRY.
- No references whatsoever on his supposed work on Food or Microwave on that site.
- Dr. Bernard H. Blanc is or was apparently related to the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, and from my poor knowledge of French I could gather his specialty to be in either dermatology, oncology and/or gynecology (sorry for not having the right answer maybe some of you can find it.) It does appear he does done research on cancer and research with microwave in scanning techniques on patients.
- The “University Institute for Biochemistry” doesn’t seem to exist at all, at least with that name (?).

It seems this references are BOGUS(!). Most of them all cite a “Dr. Lita Lee of Hawaii” as having published an article on The Lancet (1998). The news is that a search on the Lancet for that year, yield no articles on that subject and author. NONE.

She (if she really exist, and if she really if a PhD) seems to have a website selling all kinds of vitamins, enzymes and other healthy stuff (?): www.litalee.com
A Google search yields this GEM of article from her (?): https://www.litalee.com/documents/Microwaves And Microwave Ovens.pdf
Read it for yourself(!) It cites: “Russian investigations published by the Atlantis Rising Educational Center in Portland, Oregon.”
Yeah, this sounds pretty serious, almost like the NIH.
(Try to find the website for the Atlantis Rising Educational Center in Portland, Oregon or the Atlantis Raising Educational Center in Portland, Oregon….and good luck ! )

It also cites work published on The Lancet on 1998 on microwaves and its adverse effect on health through food, but no title or author of such article. Search The Lancet for that year (www.thelancet.com ) and you will find NO article(s) on that subject. NONE
Pretty professional for a PhD, uh?

Finally, to all you physicists here please answer this question:
As some of you have correctly pointed out, the micro-waves excite the H2O particles hence releasing heat. These “scientific (!)” articles claim that microwave convert other molecules into something else. While all heat releasing processes can do this (e.g. heating food in a stove), do these claims sound outlandish to you too?

 

[visitor]

I've read a lot of articles on the internet and it got me thinking. I want to pose a practical question of why people who know about potential effects of microwave cooking on health continue to use it.

Can someone please tell me any food or drink that can't be heated using heat from fire? It doesn't have to be cooked over an exposed flame. I don't understand with the POTENTIAL for carcinogens to be produced just stick to conventional method of cooking. There is a taste difference for me, and I SPECULATE that it's because nutrients are broken down or altered and over time we have evolved to find nutritious foods tastier, hence, less nutritious food doesn't taste as good. Taste is subjective but I have noticed a difference. Someone please enlighten me why the same food cooked in a microwave oven tastes blander.

Have any valid/conclusive available scientific studies been done on the effects of microwave cooking on foods and materials also put in the microwave oven?

I've wanted to find out the truth for over a year now and I typed up an experiment which I wanted to share with you guys.

1. My proposal is this: a large group of about 700 healthy participants from all ages, genders, nationalities, social class, etc. are put into 3 groups: control, all microwave food, and part microwave food. Each group is served the exact same foods, and EVERY meal (breakfast, lunch and dinner) consumed by the participants must be cooked using the microwave or conventional cooking methods depending on the participants group.

The duration spans for three months, where they are put on a healthy diet and continue their normal lifestyle. An objective analysis is made by regularly measuring body functions (blood tests, etc.) and state before and after, and a subjective analysis is made from introspection reports on perceived emotion, physical health, etc

2. The participants report themselves at 2 week intervals.

The experiment is a double blind, so all the participants have their food served with no discerning presentation which give away if they're part of the control or microwave group, and the people serving them and the people recording the data are not aware if the participants are control, or microwave food either.

This minimises any potential bias.

3. The group consuming only half of their diet as microwave food serves as a buffer.

The hypothesis is that if the group consuming all microwave food does report objective and subjective negative results, then the reports from the half microwave food group should still experience any subjective negative results but show less than the complete microwave good group.

4. It must be noted that this is only a measure of effects of ingested food, not direct radiation, which should be measured in a separate experiment. More importantly, an experiment of chemical analysis of the food before and after microwaving would yield more scientific results, however, I'm not certain how chemical analysis of so many different nutrient substances are done.

This experiment focuses on short term (carcinogens don't cause cancer overnight) physical and emotional effects of consolidated consumption of microwave food, which can be extrapolated to microwave cooking over a lifetime. I hypothesise that if there is no chemical alteration cooking food with microwaves, then the control and microwave food group shouldn't report any statistically significant differences. The proof is in the pudding.

A focus on emotion was placed as it is one of the dimensions of health and the advocates of avoiding microwave use make many claims of ill effects arising from microwave use, including emotional.

Help me modify the above experiment or design a scientifically valid experiment, it won't be carried out but who knows, one day it might. By the way, compared to I imagine most of the people on this forum I have very limited scientific background (high school), just thought I'd let you know.

I really wish someone could carry out a combined experiment which includes a complete and very thorough chemical analysis of the food before and after. It would be clarifying data as a significant amount of people in first world countries have and use a microwave oven to cook their food and heat drinks.

Which gets me thinking, why haven't they done experiments like this yet? How much would it cost to finance a study like this?

 

[alxm]

Can someone please tell me any food or drink that can't be heated using heat from fire? It doesn't have to be cooked over an exposed flame. I don't understand with the POTENTIAL for carcinogens to be produced just stick to conventional method of cooking.

This is one of the most clueless statements I've read on this topic.
Fire causes an enormous amount of carcinogens to be formed when things are charred or exposed to smoke. Thousands upon thousands of carcinogens. This is the same for any burning/charring organic material. (Tobacco smoke is harmful primarily because it's smoke).

To begin with, you have the formation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), such as pyrene, anthracene, bensopyrine, etc, which are known carcinogens, which are known to be formed by grilling food (and as a content in smoke) and have been repeatedly detected in food cooked that way.

I SPECULATE that it's because nutrients are broken down or altered and over time we have evolved to find nutritious foods tastier

Anti-freeze tastes sweet, therefore it must be healthy?
There's a huge number of toxic substances that taste quite pleasant, and quite a lot of nutritious substances that don't taste good, or nothing at all.

Someone please enlighten me why the same food cooked in a microwave oven tastes blander.

To begin with, microwave-heated food more often tends to be reheated and not fresh. It also tends to have a higher water-content, since it's not been dehydrated as much from cooking.

Have any valid/conclusive available scientific studies been done on the effects of microwave cooking on foods and materials alfromso put in the microwave oven?

Yes it's been extensively studied and there are no significant known risks of microwave cooking, apart from bacteria if the food is unevenly cooked. Nor any strong reason to believe that microwave cooking is harmful. Quite the opposite, for reasons mentioned in this thread:
1) Microwave radiation cannot easily break chemical bonds (unlike heat from a fire) and thus significantly alter the chemical composition of food, destroy nutrients, or create carcinogens.
2) Microwave cooking requires less total energy than conventional methods of cooking, which again, means less destruction of the food.

And it is certainly less harmful than fire.

You're saying we should avoid microwaves because it could 'POTENTIALLY' cause carcinogens to be formed - on the basis of what theory? And contrary to observation. Instead you're advocating we therefore change to a method of cooking which is KNOWN to produce carcinogens - both in theory and in practice.