BACON ON THE BRAIN
First cancer, now eating bacon ‘increases your risk of manic episodes’
Nitrates used to cure the meats are to blame, according to experts at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
GORGING on bacon, hot dogs and other processed meat could leave you unable to sleep.
It also increases the risk of hyperactivity and euphoria, experts have warned.
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The symptoms are collectively known mania, an illness that can last for months and may lead to dangerous risk-taking and delusions.
Nitrates used to cure the meats are to blame, according to experts at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore.
They looked at the medical history of 1,101 people - and scrutinised their diets.
People who ended up in hospital diagnosed with mania were 3.5 times more likely to regularly eat nitrate-cured meats, compared to people with no history of serious psychiatric disorders.
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The same scientists then performed a series of experiments in rats, to test their theory.
They found the rodents showed signs of hyperactivity after just a few weeks on diets with added nitrates.
Mania is generally seen in people with bipolar disorder, but can also occur in those with schizoaffective disorder.
Study leader Prof Robert Yolken said: “We looked at a number of different dietary exposures and cured meat really stood out.
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"It wasn't just that people with mania have an abnormal diet.
“Future work on this association could lead to dietary interventions to help reduce the risk of manic episodes.”
Patients were not quizzed about how often they ate cured meats or how long they had eaten them for, so it is not possible to say how much meat increases the risk of mania.
Nitrates have long been used as preservatives in cured meat products and have been previously linked to some cancers and brain diseases.
The findings are published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.
MOST READ IN HEALTH
The new evidence comes after a study from the University of Glasgow warned women eating more than 9g - or two sausages and three rashers of bacon a week - were up to a fifth more likely to develop breast cancer than those eating none.
The researchers examined 260,00 middle-aged British women and found processed meats could cause hundreds of cases of the cancer every year.
The World Health Organisation already classes salted, cured and fermented meats as a leading cause of cancer.
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