post #21 of 21
11/28/02 at 3:17pm
Well, you all piqued my interests and I did a quick google search for "carrageenan is a carcinogen " .

Here's what I found in 5 mins:

Degraded carrageenan is a carcinogenhttp://www.enn.com/news/enn-stories/...01/s_45265.asp

Degreaded Carrageenan is a known or suspected carcinogen (there were many lists like this I found with it on there)
http://anatomy.med.unsw.edu.au/safety/Carcinogens.htm


And I quote, in part (link after quote) from this other site:


Quote:
A spokesman for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) says there are two kinds of carrageenan -- undegraded and degraded. Undegraded carrageenan is what has been approved by the FDA for use in food. Degraded carrageenan has changed into a different substance and really isn't carrageenan anymore, says the spokesperson, and that is often what's been used in research studies.

According to the FDA, carrageenan is considered safe when manufactured according to FDA guidelines.

Tobacman, however, says that virtually all carrageenan changes into degraded carrageenan. She says even when manufacturers use undegraded carrageenan, food preparation and the acid in our stomachs inevitably break some of the substance down into degraded carrageenan.

Because of this, she believes the FDA should more strictly regulate the use of carrageenan, especially since other thickening agents, like locust bean, guar and xanthan, are available for food manufacturers to use.

While agreeing it would probably be a good idea for the FDA to review these studies, Ruth Kava, director of nutrition for the American Council on Science and Health, says the question of whether carrageenan could be harmful to humans is very much up in the air.

"An awful lot of these experiments didn't give the carrageenan in a way analogous to humans," says Kava. Researchers often gave the animals undegraded carrageenan in drinks and sometimes even infused the substance directly into the animals' intestines, she says. And, she adds, the results varied from species to species.

"In most animal models, carrageen has not been found to be a problem, except in guinea pigs," she adds. Carrageenan is a carcinogen for guinea pigs, according to the study.

Kava says this situation may be similar to the saccharin studies done many years ago. That food additive was banned when studies on rats found that high doses of saccharin caused cancer in rats. Later studies exonerated the sweetener.

But, she adds, this study dose raise some interesting questions that should probably be studied further.
source: http://healingwellibd.subportal.com/...se/502197.html


Well, you asked !