Hormones in chicken

'Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands far away; for truth has stumbled in the public squares, and uprightness cannot enter. Truth is lacking, and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey.' (Isaiah 59:14-15)

Recently I have been seen by another TCM physician, who unlike the previous one, strongly advices her cancer patients not to eat chicken meat, at least cut down to the minimum. Her argument is that with the rampant injection of hormones to make the chickens grow faster, frequent consumption of chicken meat may have adverse effect on the human health in the long run. Indeed, there have been some studies done to address the concerns on the health effects of hormones used by the meat and dairy industries. However, evidences available so far are not conclusive.

Hormones can come in the form of steroids or proteins. Steroid hormones are active in one’s body when consumed, such as hormone pills. In contrast, protein hormones are broken down in the stomach, and lose their ability to act in the body when eaten. Therefore, protein hormones need to be injected into the body to have an effect, such as insulin is a protein hormone for the diabetic patients.

Hormones are used in food production because certain hormones can make young animals gain weight faster. The growth hormone typically acts by triggering the cells to make other chemicals, called growth factors. These growth factors cause the increase in growth rate and milk production. They help reduce the waiting time and the amount of feed eaten by an animal before slaughter in meat industries. In dairy cows, hormones can also be used to increase milk production.

While different hormones are produced by our bodies and are essential for normal development of healthy tissues, synthetic steroid hormones that are used as pharmaceutical drugs, have been found to affect cancer risk. For example, lifetime exposure to natural steroid hormone estrogen is also associated with an increased risk for breast.

The female sex hormone estrogen was first found to affect growth rates in cattle and poultry in the 1930s. Synthetic estrogens started being used to increase the size of cattle and chickens in the early 1950s. Steroid hormones are administered under the animal’s skin of the ear. The ears of the animals are thrown away at slaughter. However, improper use of such implants in other parts of the animal can result in higher levels of hormone residues to remain in the animal meat.

Since it is not possible to differentiate between the hormones produced naturally by the animal and those used to treat the animal, it is difficult to determine exactly how much of the hormone used for treatment remains in the meat or the milk. Steroid hormones in food were suspected to cause early puberty in girls in some reports. Early puberty in girls has been found to be associated with a higher risk for breast cancer.

The scientists have found that the amount of protein hormone, recombinant bovine growth hormone (rbGH) found in milk from rbGH-treated cattle have higher levels of the naturally produced protein called insulin-dependent growth factor-1 (IGF-1). IGF-1 is a protein, and is digested into smaller pieces in the stomach. Whether IGF-I remains intact through human digestion and whether it is biologically active in humans remained unclear. There is the concern that it may somehow cause the human body to make more of its own IGF. Higher levels of IGF-1 in blood have been found in people with cancers, notably prostate and breast cancers.

While there are chemical tests that can distinguish between organic milk and non-organic milk, there are no chemical tests that can distinguish between milk produced using synthetic rBST and "hormone free" milk because cows produce their own hormones also. The only way to ascertain this is to know the source of animal meat or milk production. Giant food retailer Wal-Mart Stores Inc. had announced in 2008 that its store brand milk in the United States would now come exclusively from cows not been treated with artificial growth hormones.

Since it is not possible for us to avoid hormone-laced food products entirely, may be one can adopt the habit of eating a variety of animal meat, no matter how one may like certain type, while at the same time cut down the number of servings of meat and dairy.