Claim:   Growth hormones injected into chicken wings cause ovarian cysts in women.

Status:   False.

Example:   [Collected on the Internet, 2006]

Avoid eating chicken wings frequently - ladies especially a true story...! A friend of mine recently had a growth in her womb and she underwent an operation to remove the cyst. The cyst removed was filled with a dark coloured blood. She thought that she would be recovered after the surgery but she was terribly wrong. A relapse occurred just a few months later. Distressed, she rushed down to her gynecologist for a consultation. During her consultation, her doctor asked her a question that puzzled her. He ask if she was a frequent consumer of chicken wings and she replied yes wondering as to how, he knew of her eating habits. You see, the truth is in this modern day and age; chickens are injected with steroids to accelerate their growth so that the needs of this society can be met. This need is none other then the need for food. Chickens that are injected with steroids are usually given the shot at the neck or the wings. Therefore, it is in these places that the highest concentration of steroids exists. These steroids have terrifying effects on the body as it accelerates growth. It has an even more dangerous effect in the presence of female hormones, this leads to women being more prone to the growth of a cyst in the womb. Therefore, I advise the people out there to watch their diets and to lower their frequency of consuming chicken wings! People, who receive this email, please forward it to your friends and loved ones. I am sure no one wants to see him or her suffer!

Origins:   This warning about chicken wings causing ovarian cysts first showed up in the snopes.com mailbox in April 2004. It is a tall tale, nothing more, an expression of widespread anxiety concerning animal products and hormones. Agricultural advances of a nature so as to not be well understood by the average person have instilled in us a sense of concern about the foods we eat — we fear that unbeknownst to us what we are ingesting is loaded with substances that are doing us untold amounts of harm.

In particular, that anxiety focuses upon hormones and steroids that might be lurking in animal products. We fear the meats that make their way to our tables have been pumped full of chemicals as part of the process that went into bringing well-fleshed animals to market and that those chemicals will similarly affect us. Hormones are linked in our minds (as they should be) with the growth process, which in humans is strongly tied to changes related to sexual maturation. Ergo, that fear finds voice in stories about women exposed to such hormones developing cysts in their reproductive systems and in stories about men developing the physical characteristics of women (that is, growing breasts).

[Collected on the Internet, 1998]

There was a similar story many years ago about this man who simply loved chicken neck. He would have his daily chicken rice with all the chicken necks. After a couple of years of this exotic diet, he noticed that his breast was growing bigger; that got him so worried that he sought medical help. Then it emerged that he had been on a high female-hormone course all this time.

Poultry-related fears of this nature are misplaced. As the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) notes, "residue levels of hormones in food have been demonstrated to be safe, as they are well below any level that would have a known effect in humans." Even if one were not convinced of the safety of hormonal growth-promoting drugs, however, it isn't an issue where chicken is concerned, because the FDA has ruled that "No steroid hormones are approved for use in poultry," so chickens intended for human consumption in the U.S. cannot legally be fed or injected with steroids. The rules governing cattle are different, though. Says the FDA: "Certain steroid hormones have been approved for use at very low concentrations to increase the rate of weight gain and/or improve feed efficiency in beef cattle."

Barbara "cattle call" Mikkelson

Additional information:

Use of Steroid Hormones for Growth Promotion in Food-Producing Animals   (U.S. Food and Drug Administration)

Last updated:   19 February 2006

The URL for this page is http://www.snopes.com/horrors/food/wingcyst.asp

Urban Legends Reference Pages © 1995-2008 by snopes.com.
This material may not be reproduced without permission.
snopes and the snopes.com logo are registered service marks of snopes.com.