Recent medical study found people who eat frequent microwave popcorn suffer from lung disease due to the butter chemical, diaceytl.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/070904/health/health_popcorn_lung_consumer

When I first read the headlines on Google News this morning, thought for sure I'd be giving up yet another vice. But was heartened to read this on the AP newsfeed:

"Microwave popcorn fans worried about the potential for lung disease from butter flavoring fumes should know this: The sole reported case of the disease in a non-factory worker involves a man who popped the corn every day and inhaled from the bag [emphasis mine].

"He really liked microwave popcorn. He made two or three bags every day for 10 years," said William Allstetter, a spokesman for National Jewish Medical and Research Center in Denver where the man's respiratory illness was diagnosed.

"He told us he liked the smell of popcorn, so he would open and inhale from freshly popped bags," Allstetter said. And the patient said he did this for a decade.

This fact from popcorn.org: Americans consume 17 billion quarts of popped popcorn annually or 54 quarts per man, woman and child. So after the ten years this guy gorged himself on popcorn, the folks who consumed the other nearly-200 billion quarts are apparently doing OK. I wish half the things I ate came with those kinds of odds.

You sniff/snort anything three times a day for ten years, you're likely to get sick.

Believe our medical- and health-related resources and "policing" are better utilized elsewhere ... say E. coli and produce (yeah, I still buy and eat produce).

Full Disclosure: No popcorn industry affiliation of any kind, unless you count the 32-pack of Redenbacher's Movie Theater Butter microwave popcorn I bought at Costco today.

You pound enough of anything down the throat (or other orifice) of a lab rat, or couch potato, it will make him sick. Next someone is gonna say that too much sex is bad for you....

Hey Ironraven, I won this bet.

-Blast

A totally shameless plug, but the Boy Scouts are staring their annual Trails End popcorn sales. This is the only microwave popcorn that doesn't use this chemical. They actually use butter (go figure), so keep an eye open for your local scouts if you're interested.

Stove popped tastes so much better anyway. With fine grained salt and real butter (maybe a few spices or finely grated cheese), makes my mouth water just thinking about it. Can't wait until I'm free this evening.

It's tough, but you get used to it.

I guess you're gonna have to live til ya die, so I figure "life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body. But rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, martini in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming ~ "WOO HOO what a ride!"

That's a neat quote, but eating popcorn is hardly skidding in sideways. More likely it just means that later in life instead of being really energetic and living life to the fullest, you'll already have had a minor heart attack and you'll be living life carefully in order to ensure you can enjoy that next bag of Orville Redenbacher's Kettle Korn.

Fresh from the farm....stove popped...mmmmmmm.

BTW, I remember from SCUBA training a long time back that there is a disorder you can get if your air tanks happen to get oil in them. I think it is called lipid pneumonia.

I wonder if these are related conditions... the popping oil mixed in heavy concentration in the air day after day.

Been there, done that. Only not so minor. Attitude is everything. Unnerving when my doctors don't know why I'm not dead yet. If we reacted to every issued medical report that came across our desks, we wouldn't be able to eat anything or even go outside (or probably not stay inside either!)

Now, where did she put the popcorn pan?

this chemical pose a serious health hazard. I strongly advise everyone to avoid eating microwave popcorn period. the butter smell come from the chemical instead of real butter. This chemical is saturated as fine mist that easily enter the lung membrane.


In addition the popcorn bag use a chemical that is carcinogen. It is proven that this chemical cause cancer. A canadian politician volunteer to undergo testing for cancer causing carcinogen. One of the chemical in his body come from microwave popcorn. He quit eating microwave popcorn and the chemical level in his blood dropped dramatically. I am not kidding people.

Listen to the Captain words.

Live Long and Prosper !

This story is 99% media hype.

There was no mention of the first or second degree burns he suffered from the escaping steam as he performed this daily ritual.

this carinogen has immediate effect and can be detected in X-ray scan.

no. this isn't media hype. The Canadian gov't is drafting law that ban chemicals such as this one.

Yes, yes you did.

*Don't stick your head in a blast furnace.
*Don't stick your head in a super-heated steam vent.
*Don't stick your head into a volcano.
*Don't stick your head into a bucket of water and breathe deeply 12 times.
*Don't superglue your lips and your nostrils together at the same time.
*Don't put a plastic bag over your head and tie it snugly around your neck.
*Don't deeply inhale large amounts of propane, natural gas, lighter fluid, freon or several hundred (or thousand) other materials.

Some people aren't ignorant or brain-damaged, they're just plain stupid. Mankind has been killing itself in creative ways since the cave days. This dork has just added one more. So what?

Sue

picard, your hypochondria can be amusing at times, but I must ask a question in all, 100%, no-BS serious:

What do you eat at this point?

Just because some chemical has been shown to have carcinogenic effects in the laboratory, should not necessarily be cause for alarm. Concern maybe, alarm no.

Many naturally occurring chemicals also shown carcinogenic and/or toxic effects in laboratory bioassays. The design of these bioassays are generally skewed towards being overly sensitive. Non-animal studies, which use either, cell cultures or bacteria have been shown to demonstrate alterations to even chemicals that have been in use for many years without any indication they cause any health issues in the real world. Even animal studies do not always correlate to the general use of the product.

Complex interactions between man-made and naturally occurring chemicals, biotransformation, factors such as genetic predisposition, age, sex, ethnicity, dose exposure, route of exposure, length of exposure and a whole host of other factors will influence the effects any chemical will have on a particular individual.

Organic in and of itself is no assurance that the food product is safe. One example of this is peanut butter. Alphatoxins are potent carcinogens, which can be the byproduct of fugal metabolism. Most, if not all of the larger peanut butter producers have machines that screen every single peanut for the presence of fungal contamination and reject those peanuts, which are infected with fungi. Many of the smaller producers, use organically grown peanuts, which due to not using fungicides are more prone to fungal contamination. This combined with fact that these producers could not afford the equipment to screen for fungal contamination resulted in many of the organically produced peanut butters to contain high levels of alphatoxins. I believe this has now been addressed and corrected, but for many years it went undetected.

There have been many hyped media scares over the years, many prove to have no foundation in fact, but once it becomes part of folk lore/urban legends it is hard to shake off the suspicion. The successful key is to most things in life is moderation, not extremism.

Just my 2 cents-
Pete

Carcinogens by their very nature cause transformation of the normal operations of the cell(s) to become uncontrolled or cancerous. Once the transformation of the cell(s) has occurred it does not simply go away by removing the carcinogen. I find it highly unlikely that the physical evidence, which you say was evident on an X-Ray, would simply disappear once the individual stopped eating the popcorn containing this additive.

Pete

LOL. Haven't had a Diet Coke go through my nose like that in quite a while. Now I have to wait for the Hazmat team to come clean my keyboard. I'm sure there are about a dozen carcinogens in Diet Coke.

But seriously, Picard, cite some sources once in a while.