Milk and beef may become part of a diet to help avoid cancer.
A study at Agriculture Canada’s Lethbridge Research Centre is under way to find out whether conjugated linoleic acid, or CLA, can be passed from safflower oil and canola oil into beef and milk.
Cancer fighting properties in CLA are attributed in part to its anti-oxidant property, said researcher Clement Ip, of the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, New York. Scientists first recognized the potential of CLA in fighting cancer in 1979, when examining grilled ground beef.
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While the links between CLA levels in the human body and its relationship to cancer rates are not fully understood, Martha Belury, of Purdue University in Indiana, is expected to improve that understanding. Her work, funded by the American Institute for Cancer Research, explores how CLA, which is present in cooked meats and cheeses, can ward off chemical carcinogens.
The amount of CLA people take in through their diets has dropped drastically during the past 50 years. Scientists think it’s mainly because livestock are rarely finished on natural pasture. Linoleic acid, a polyunsaturated fatty acid in plants, is passed on to ruminant animals, which convert it into CLA in their stomachs.
Since the livestock eat less of the plants in the days leading up to slaughter, there is less CLA in the meat that people eat.
Work carried out by Agriculture Canada near Edmonton on linking plant and animal CLA levels has already proven successful in lamb and goat dairy products.
Three times the normal amount of CLA was found in both the meat and dairy products of test animals when they were fed a ration containing six percent canola or safflower oil. The oils are both high in the acid.
The oil is also burned by the animal as feed. Rations cannot exceed 10 percent oil, however, as processing of rough forage will be hampered, say scientists.
Zahir Mir of Agriculture Canada in Lethbridge, has funding from the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association to test 72 beef cattle to determine if they will respond the same way as did the goats and sheep. The cattle are on a six percent ration of safflower oil.
CLA’s anti-oxidant properties may also play a role in helping beef improve its shelf life, said Mir.
If the project proves CLA can be passed on through meat, subsequent studies might be done at other facilities with dairy cattle.
Designer milk and meat may only be a few years away if CLA can be shown to increase in food products from animals on the oil ration.
Slaughter of the research animals will take place at the end of June and results should be available in early fall.
