Do Charred Foods Really Cause Cancer?
Or what's the entire mechanism behind the whole idea that "charred foods can cause cancer"?
I believe that people in most households would have fiddled around with Araldite adhesives before. They’re quite useful for gluing things together.
I’ve done that for the soles of my shoes before.
But what we do have, in terms of chemistry, would be an epoxy-amine reaction, and that’s why the Araldite product comes in 2 distinct tubes.
One tube contains an amine, and the other contains an epoxide. If they don’t come into contact with each other, they will exist as thick, viscous, sticky liquids. If you did accidentally inhale any of their fumes, you’d find that the stuff inside each tube is different — the amine tube would tend to give off a fishy smell.
But when they’re mixed together, they will tend to give off heat, and the resultant mixture will undergo a cross-linking chemical reaction, such that it then solidifies into a hard solid.
What we do have to know is that the amine isn’t that reactive…
But the epoxide is. Here’s what an epoxide looks like:
We see that distinct triangle shape in the epoxide molecule, and this triangle shape is known to be highly strained. As it is mentioned in this article:
Epoxides are strained heterocycles that are encountered throughout chemistry. Epoxides are simple to synthesize and reasonably stable. They react readily, often via reactions that relieve ring strain such as the addition of a nucleophile to a ring carbon.
“The addition of a nucleophile to a ring carbon” would help to relieve ring strain. In the epoxy-amine reaction, the amine functions as the nucleophile that can react with the epoxide ring.
That being said, any epoxides will undergo ring strain, and this allows them to readily react with nucleophiles such as amines to relieve that strain.
And we will find epoxides in our body from the food that we eat - just not directly, of course.
When we grill foods at high heat over an open flame that is hot enough to cause a charred surface, the charred surface will end up containing polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) such as benzopyrene.
So when we eat these charred foods, we would ingest the benzopyrene too.
Unfortunately, this research article shows that benzopyrene is converted by the liver into a highly reactive epoxide. Which, of course, can be neutralised by the glutathione antioxidants that our cells are producing:
So what’s going to happen when we ingest sufficient quantities of these charred foods?
Our liver will convert the PAHs in there into epoxides, and the epoxides will react with the amines in our body through the epoxy-amine reaction, of course.
The problem is that we will encounter amines just about everywhere in our bodies. Proteins are made up of amino acids, which are so named because they have a carboxylic acid functional group and an amine functional group as part of their basic chemical structure.
Amines are also found in the molecules that make up the DNA chains in our cells.
The problem with that is that if our cell DNA does react with these epoxides, then its DNA structure gets altered and it can force unnecessary mutations within the cell. The cell can then become permanently damaged and defective.
We’d then need to get rid of this damaged, defective cell, if the autophagy proess in our body is up to the task:
If autophagy can’t remove this cell in time, this cell is able to multiply generation after generation… and then the accumulation of these defective cells can turn into a cancerous tumour after a critical mass of these defective cells has been achieved.
We need to understand that these charred things aren’t inherently dangerous on their own, but:
Our liver cells can convert them into reactive epoxides,
Which may be neutralised if those cells are producing sufficient glutathione to detoxify these epoxides.
If there is insufficient glutathione, these epoxides can force cellular DNA mutations,
Which can still be negated if one’s autophagy process is working fine.
Therefore, one who is experiencing cancer would definitely be facing issues with autophagy dysregulation and glutathione production.
But of course, it’s just easier to say that “charred foods cause cancer”, isn’t it?
It’s not entirely true, but to the layman, it’s enough to suffice. Though it does ignore those issues with autophagy dysregulation and glutathione production… which then opens the door for other chronic inflammatory conditions to kick in and worsen an already bad situation.
However, to be technically accurate, it’s the metabolism of the PAHs into epoxides by the liver cells that kick starts the entire sequence of events. At least we can be thankful that our liver is still working well… but it ought to be working better than that, though!
For a good liver support, do feel free to check out What Nutrients Support Digestion And Detox In Our Body?
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