A study analyzed the possible relationship between a pregnant mother’s diet and the child’s risk of childhood cancer. The study compared 234 cancer cases (including 56 acute lymphocytic leukemia, 45 brain tumor) to 206 randomly selected control cases in Denver. The authors found that children whose mothers consumed one or more hot dogs per week during pregnancy had twice the normal risk of developing brain tumors (OR = 2.3). The odds ratio is the ratio of the odds of an event occurring in one group to the odds of it occurring in another group and an OR of 1 means it equally occurred in both groups. Among children, eating hamburgers one or more times per week was associated with risk of lymphocytic leukemia (OR = 2.0) and children who consumed one or more hot dogs per week were also at higher risk of brain cancer (R = 2.1). Hot dogs contain nitrites that are used as preservatives, primarily to combat serious food poisoning know as botulism, which form compounds associated with cancer. This study suggests that pregnant women may want to cut hot dogs and other processed meats such as bologna, sausage, pepperoni and other packaged luncheon meats out of their diets. (61)
