Acrylamides pose little risk, panel decides

Acrylamides, a family of chemicals recently found in cooked foods, which are known to cause cancer in rats, pose little threat to the U.S. population, an expert panel reported on Wednesday.

People do not consume 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.

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.