- Several studies have found cooking foods at high temperatures is associated with health risks.
- Now, a new study suggests cooking at high temperatures may damage the DNA of food.
- Researchers believe pieces of this damaged DNA may be absorbed during digestion, and the damage is then absorbed into the consumer’s DNA.
- The study suggests the consumption of damaged food DNA may pose a genetic risk to the consumer.
In the past, some researchers hypothesized that health risks are linked to high-temperature cooking because the cooking process produces certain small molecules that react with the DNA in consumers’ bodies.
In his lab, Dr. Eric Kool, the George A. and Hilda M. Daubert Professor in Chemistry at the Stanford School of Humanities and Sciences, frequently studies cellular mechanisms of DNA repair.
Dr. Kool and other Stanford scientists then collaborated with researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) at the University of Maryland, and Colorado State University to produce a study looking at whether the DNA in food, damaged by heat, could serve as a potential source of genetic damage in mice.
“We decided to see what happens to human cells when they are exposed to damaged DNA components, and [we] were surprised to see that the cells were showing signs of DNA damage in their own DNA. It then occurred to us that we might be exposed to the same forms of damage when we eat food cooked at high temperatures. [So] we started measuring what happens to food DNA when you cook it.”
— Dr. Eric Kool
A paper on their work has been published in ACS Central Science.
The U.S. National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society funded part of the research.
In their paper, the researchers explain that they set out to answer three questions with their work:
- To what extent does cooking damage the DNA of food?
- Does cell exposure to damaged DNA evoke DNA damage repair responses or chromosomal damage?
- To what degree is damaged DNA in foods salvaged by…
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