Dangers Associated With Consumption of Pork

by Neha V. Blogger

Foodie or not, pork remains one of the most controversial subjects. On one hand, you have a group of zealous pork lovers, but on the other side of the divide, you have people who cannot stand even the smell of pork, raw or cooked, for religious and personal reasons. As a big shot tax lawyer Toronto, which side of the divide do you lie?

While pork, especially bacon remains the tastiest processed form of breakfast and a cheaper form of meat, you may want to reduce or completely stop eating bacon because of the following reasons:

· Risk of Hepatitis E

When you think about the health of your liver, you increase your risk of contracting hepatitis E every time you eat pork. Did you know that the leading cause of hepatitis E, in the developing countries in the consumption of pork liver? Hepatitis E is a virus infection that affects about 20 million people annually.

Pork liver is particularly unsafe for pregnant mothers. In rare cases, hepatitis E can cause myocarditis, an inflammatory heart disease. It can also cause acute pancreatitis, neurological problems, blood and musculoskeletal disorders. With these risks, there is also an element of compromised immunity.

· Liver Cirrhosis and cancer

This comes about because of the existence of common risk factors like Hepatitis B and C infections, as well as the exposure to aflatoxin, plus excessive alcohol abuse.

The consumption of pork is strongly associated with liver cancer and liver cirrhosis. This is especially true in individuals who consume high levels of bacon which undergoes extensive processing. This is also the case with ham and sausages. With the International Agency for Research On cancer placing processing meat in its list of carcinogens, it is no wonder to have pork on the list of possible causes of cancer.

· Multiple Sclerosis

Though this side effect of the consumption of pork hardly gets mentioned, it is one of the big ones.

Multiple Sclerosis or MS is an autoimmune condition that severely affects the functioning of the immune system. Most MS patients report consumption of high levels of pork, especially the potted head.

There have been reports of pig brain mist where the tiny pieces of pork brain tissue blasted into the air. The immune systems of the workers who reportedly inhaled the particles had high volumes of antibodies raised against the porcine antigens. The immune reaction may not have been identical to MS, but the molecular mimicry cannot be overlooked.

It is also believed that MS may come about from a bacterial infection from the bacteria acinetobacter which is involved in the molecular mimicry of the myelin sheath that gets damaged in MS.

Although this case hasn’t come to a close, there is a big relationship between MS and the epidemiological patterns.

· Yersinia

This brings the question, how do you like your pork? While pork was traditionally served as well-done meat, thanks to cases of trichinosis, that has changed, and right now, you can easily have pink, undercooked pork served. Unfortunately, this trendy delight is associated with Yersinia bacteria, the leading cause of food poisoning.

Other issues include:

· Swine flu

· Trichinosis

There also exist a host of other diseases transmitted from pork.