Remembering Relative Risk

Some of us old enough to remember riding our bikes without helmets as kids, no car seats and no anti-bacterial soap. Of course there was a risk in those behaviors, but most of us made it through our childhood safe and sound. Sometimes it feels as though our society today has become more and more cautious and anxiety-ridden. Washington State University adjunct professor Dr. Jude Capper and I were visiting about relative risk and the importance of context. She has an interesting perspective to share when it comes to beef hormones and implants. Capper: "There is often a perception that we if we eat beef or dairy that we are increasing our hormone intake every single day. All foods contain hormones -- whether it is apples, cheeseburgers or ham -- everything contains hormones. But if we put it into context for the average person who eats about 60 pounds of beef per year to get the equal amounts of estrogen from beef from animals that was given hormones; they would have to eat that beef for 58 years to get the same amount of estrogen that is in one birth control bill -- so a huge amount of beef for one tiny amount of estrogen." Dr. Capper shares another example -- comparing one 8 ounce serving of cabbage which contains 5,411 nanograms of estrogen, over 1,000 times more estrogen that the same serving size of steak from a steer given an hormone implant.