Hello and welcome to Nutrition Facts. I'm your host, Dr. Michael Greger. Today we're going to

explore smart nutrition choices based naturally on facts. Have a history of high blood pressure

in your family? How about heart disease, diabetes? There are foods we can eat that may not

only help prevent many of these chronic diseases, but even stop them in their tracks.

Today we introduce our latest podcast feature, the Nutrition Facts Grab Bag, where we bring you

the latest breaking news and all variety of topics. First up, some news on how poly-oma viruses

discovered in meat can survive cooking and pasteurization. Here's the story. Nearly 20% of cancers

can be linked to infectious agents such as viruses. There are seven viruses now conclusively

tied to human cancers, and as new viruses enter into human populations, the incidents and causes of

cancer will likely change accordingly. The foundation of modern tumor virology was laid over a

century ago with the discovery of a cancer-causing chicken virus, for which a Nobel Prize was awarded.

Another Nobel went to the guy that discovered the HPV virus was causing cervical cancer,

and in his acceptance speech, he used that there may be a bovine poly-oma virus, a multiple tumor

virus in cattle that could be playing a role in human colon cancer, lung cancer, and breast cancer,

but no poly-oma virus had ever been discovered in meat until now. Poly-oma viruses are a particular

concern, not only because they are known to be carcinogenic, but because they can survive

cooking temperatures. Because single burgers these days can contain meat from many dozens of animals,

they figured it would present an ideal situation for virus hunting. So researchers at the National

Cancer Institute just walked into three supermarkets and grabbed meat right off the shelf

and found three different poly-oma viruses in ground beef. Now just because three types of

poly-oma viruses are commonly detectable in food-grade ground beef doesn't necessarily mean they're

causing human disease. What made this Nobel laureate suspect them? Well, for one thing,

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