Post by Rene on Feb 13, 2009 9:05:34 GMT -7
For those who wish to do more Research try
www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=SUNA,SUNA:2007-14,SUNA:en&q=Acrylamide
Background information on acrylamide
How and when was acrylamide found in certain foods?
In late April (2002), the Swedish National Food Authority announced that researchers from Stockholm University had discovered elevated levels of acrylamide in starch-based foods that had been cooked at high temperatures (greater than 120 degrees Celsius).
Since the Swedish National Food Authority announced its findings, similar findings have been reported in other countries.
By September 30, (2002), Health Canada had conducted its preliminary analytical studies in order to verify the Swedish findings by looking at Canadian foods that may contain acrylamide. In doing so, Health Canada studies confirmed the Swedish results. Health Canada had also started to investigate how acrylamide is formed in food. Our scientists discovered a possible route for the formation of acrylamide, involving a reaction at high temperatures between the amino acid "asparagine" and the sugar glucose in baked or fried carbohydrate-rich foods, such as potatoes. This information may provide a key as to how the presence of acrylamide in foods can be minimized. Health Canada advised industry and interested associations of these findings. As well, Health Canada posted information on its website.
On December 4, (2002), the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released the results of their analysis of french fries, potato chips, bakery and cereal products and other foods for the presence of acrylamide. The results revealed that acrylamide levels can vary considerably depending on the type of food and the cooking conditions. The highest acrylamide levels were found in potato chips and other high-carbohydrate foods that are cooked longer at higher temperatures. These findings are consistent with analytical results generated by Health Canada to date. Further research is being done by Health Canada and in other countries to investigate ways of minimizing acrylamide levels in foods.
Acrylamide, a compound that causes cancer symptoms in animals, is formed during frying and baking, two studies now show.
The discovery solves a mystery that had caused public alarm. In April a Swedish study found the chemical in crisps and biscuits, but not raw food, at levels higher than the World Health Organisation (WHO) recommends for drinking water1.
"I haven't known as much interest in a topic in many years," says Don Mottram, who studies food chemistry at the University of Reading, UK. Not knowing where the chemical was coming from was "a very big problem", he explains.
Baked bread tastes better than raw dough, and fried chips are tastier than boiled, because of the Maillard reaction. As long as there's sugar around, high temperature breaks proteins down to give food more flavour and a golden brown colour.
The Maillard reaction also produces acrylamide, Mottram has found, as has Richard Stadler of the Nestlé Research Centre in Lausanne, Switzerland, in independent experiments2,3. Potatoes and some cereals contain large amounts of the amino acid asparagine, which is similar to acrylamide. In the lab, heating asparagine with sugar at 185 ºC turns much of it into acrylamide, Motram and Stadler have found.
"During cooking, many complex chemical reactions take place," says Stadler: other amino acids change their form repeatedly, also producing acrylamide. More tests are needed on different types of food to see how acrylamide forms, he says, and to understand the effects of different cooking techniques.
Exposing more of a food to higher temperatures, as in thin potato crisps, generates more acrylamide. So too does cooking food for longer. No acrylamide has been found so far in boiled foods, probably because of their lower cooking temperature.
Almost all reported cases of human acrylamide toxicity have occurred in the context of chronic occupational exposure with predominant routes believed to be combined inhalational and dermal (see 11.1 for detailed description of individual reported cases). The clinical course is characterized by the development of symptoms and signs of a motor and sensory peripheral neuropathy (see 9.4.3.2) that slowly progress in severity if exposure continues. Other prominent initial symptoms and signs are excessive sweating of the hands and feet and inflammation of the skin of the hands and feet with blistering and desquamation. Muscle pain and weakness are less common. If exposure is prolonged, evidence of central nervous dysfunction develops, especially truncal ataxia and behavioural change. Malaise and weight loss are almost always reported. There is considerable interindividual variation in the severity, rapidity of progression and delay in onset of symptoms following initial exposure. This is most likely to reflect differences in the cumulative dose of acrylamide that is absorbed.
Acrylamide Harms DNA
New lab studies reported in the June 18 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute find that acrylamide -- at very low concentrations -- causes a wide range of genetic mutations. Ahmad Besaratinia, PhD, and Gerd P. Pfeifer, PhD, City of Hope National Medical Center, Duarte, Calif., found that acrylamide doubled mutation rates in a special gene placed inside mouse cells.
"The most significant thing we found was the mechanism by which acrylamide exerts its [cancer-causing] effect," Besaratinia tells WebMD. "Most chemicals that cause cancer have these characteristics. They interact with the DNA molecule and bind to specific sites on cancer-related genes."
Acrylamide belongs to a class of chemicals that form advanced glycation end products, also known by their first letters as AGEs. They are a group of molecules that are formed when sugar attaches on protein when starchy foods such as potatoes and grains are cooked in the absence of water at very high temperatures. They do not form when food is cooked in water, and the higher the cooking temperature, the more acrylamide is formed.
Diabetics form advanced glycation products in their bodies because high blood sugar levels cause sugar to stick on the protein in cell membranes to form AGES, and it is these AGEs that cause the horrible side effects of diabetes, such as blindness, deafness, heart attacks, strokes and kidney damage. AGEs can damage every tissue in the body. HBA1C, the blood test doctors use to measure control of diabetes, actually measures this sugar bound to the protein on a person's cells. AGEs may also cause cancers, aging of tissues, and arteriosclerosis by raising cholesterol and causing clotting and are associated with loss of kidney function, Alzheimer's disease, thinning and wrinkling of skin and cataracts.