People do not eat enough of the chemicals in their daily diet to risk the
genetic damage that can lead to cancer, the committee of experts in reproductive
toxicology, birth defects and others areas reported.
"Considering the low level of estimated human exposure to acrylamides derived
from a variety of sources, the Expert Panel expressed negligible concern for
adverse reproductive and developmental effects for exposures in the general
population," the group's final report reads.
The report was commissioned by the National Toxicology Program of the
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
The report follows on a report in 2000 by Swedish researchers that they had
found the chemical in baked and fried carbohydrate-containing foods. Agencies
such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration began immediate assessments of any risks to people.
The FDA's troll of common foods turned up the chemical in olives, prune juice
and teething biscuits. It is found in cigarette smoke and is used in industrial
processes to make polymers.
In June a team at the City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte,
California, found that acrylamides can mutate DNA.
Experts say the best way to find out if acrylamide causes cancer in people is
to do epidemiological studies -- studies of populations to see if people who eat
more foods containing acrylamides have higher rates of cancer.
One such study, published by U.S. and Swedish researchers in January 2003,
found no link between acrylamide consumption and the risk of bladder or kidney
cancer.
The NTP committee, chaired by Jeanne Manson of the Children's Hospital of
Philadelphia, concluded that most Americans would get about 0.43 micrograms per
kilogram of body weight a day in the diet -- compared to 0.67 from smoking.
Comparative amounts in laboratory mice and rats do not cause cancer, they
said.
While acrylamides can cause genetic mutations that can be passed on to the
next generation in mice, people do not general take in enough to cause such
damage, the experts found.
