Doctors, Dietitians Stand Behind Fat/Cancer Link

[colleenieweenie]

I hope this doesn't start anything - just wanted to get some thoughts on a topic I saw on the news yesterday...

The topic was how to lower your risk of cancer - things like, lose weight, get some exercise, avoiding processed meats, limiting alchohol consumption, avoiding tobbaco, and limiting red meat to one serving a week...

It's the last little tidbit that got me thinking....I believe in Atkins - I've been a convert for 5-6 years (only off while preggo) Red meat is part of the WOL. How do you feel about the link between red meat and colon cancer? Does it worry you? Do you care?

I understand that you can find any article on the web to support whatever agenda is out there - please don't post a bunch of links, I just want to know how YOU feel, what YOUR thoughts are on this...

TIA!

[TitianWasp]

I think that the amount of vegetables that we eat on this WOE tends to counteract the red meat issue. Not to mention, that being at a healthy weight and exercising trumps most other factors and Akins tends to get us there.

[sadie147]

I believe everything in moderation...on any woe. I personally don't eat red meat more than 3x per week, only because i find my digestive system can tend to act up..seems to be hard for me to digest on a regular basis. I go by how my body feels....

[ttdriver]

The brainwashing continues....

When will doctors and dieticians WAKE UP and see the link between SUGAR (and STARCHES) and cancer?

The PET scan used to detect cancer cells works with GLUCOSE ... in short, the glucose feeds the cancer cells and therefore the cells are easily found...you can google it for details ..

HERE'S WHAT I GOOGLED ON HOW THE TEST WORKS:


How does the procedure work?

Before the examination begins, a radioactive substance is produced in a machine called a cyclotron and attached, or tagged, to a natural body compound, most commonly glucose, but sometimes water or ammonia. Once this substance is administered to the patient, the radioactivity localizes in the appropriate areas of the body and is detected by the PET scanner.

Different colors or degrees of brightness on a PET image represent different levels of tissue or organ function. For example, because healthy tissue uses glucose for energy, it accumulates some of the tagged glucose, which will show up on the PET images. However, cancerous tissue, which uses more glucose than normal tissue, will accumulate more of the substance and appear brighter than normal tissue on the PET images.


The point is, SUGAR is the ultimate enemy to health, whether to weight gain, diabetes, aging, OR cancer.

Red meat and fat have been victimized FAR TOO LONG and its time to speak the TRUTH! SUGAR/CORN SYRUP/HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP/SUCROSE/DEXTROSE ETC., ITS ALL POISON!

Betty

[kate58]

My thoughts on this is that looking at constituet part of a diet without looking at the context in which it is eaten is not meaningful. For example, as you say, there is a connection made between red meat and cancer. But it is far from a linear connection - ie they are not saying that everyone (or even most people) who eats a lot of red meat will get cancer, nor are they saying that everyone who doesn't won't. So, in isolation, without more information about the overall diet, it is utterly meaningless.

What would be very interesting (and useful) to know is whether if you were to look at people who ate quite a lot of red meat AND a lot of carbs had a different risk-level to those who eat quite a lot of red meat BUT with low levels of carbs.

But that information will not be easy to extract, if it is even possible to extract it, from the stats. Why? Because there is such a focus on fat on on meat in so much research, and precious little on carbs. Huge amounts of the research that has been carried out on the dangers of fat in the diet has either COMPLETLY ignored the relative amount of carbs those being monitored ate, or failed to factor it in as being significant.

This new survey which has been making the news in the past few days is a meta survey, which looked at huge amounts of research data over a long period of time. Which sounds great, and is useful. But it also has significant limitations. You can only deal with what research exists, and what data exists. The results are only as good as the initial data. Basically there is a "s*** in, s*** out" principle, which applies to all data on which statistical analysis is carried out.

I am not for a moment suggesting that the results of the survey are not in large measure true. I think the link between overweight and cancer is pretty clear (and I've had cancer, and have read about this in some detail).

A massive amount of research that does exist is so focused on fat in the diet, without placing anything like a similar focus on the amount of carbs in a diet, that it is somewhere between difficult and impossible to get any meaning from it.

[Hudson]

I have been concerned about this as well. But I think there is a bias against red meat. If people are dying and they do all the following: eat sugar, live very stressful lives, eat no green vegetables, and eat red meat, the default reason they are dying is the red meat.

I have not seen one of these studies yet that dosen't group red meat and processed meat together. If there is a problem I think it is with the processed meat. I have by the way all but eliminated processed meat. But if you grouped cigarette smokers and green vegetable eaters together, green vegetables might look bad.

Also there is a self fufilling prophecy aspect of this to me. People that don't take care of themselves in general eat red meat because they don't listen to the "health experts". People that are concerned about their health almost by definition do not eat red meat. So that if healthy people are afraid to eat red meat and the unhealthy do eat red meat it may have everything to do with their overall approach to healthiness. Healthy people don't eat red meat - but if they did they might be even more healthy.

And then I ask: what is different about red meat? More saturated fat I guess. And I am convinced saturated fat is good for you.

But yea, keep an eye on this - it is possible Atkins was wrong on something.

[ghelen]

coffee's bad for you- coffee's good for you. vitamin D helps with some cancers, vitamin D doesn't do a dang thing. Vitamin E is good for your heart, Vitamin E is bad for your heart. You see where I'm going with this? That's how I feel about all these stuidies.

[not2late]

Red meat isn't necessarily a part of Atkins. There are enough animal protein choices on Atkins that if red meat isn't your thing, you don't have to eat it.

[Brook]

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to kate58 again.

[ttdriver]

But yea, keep an eye on this - it is possible Atkins was wrong on something.

Perhaps, but as far as I am concerned, he saved my life! Not only that, its tough to find fault with a man who believed in his WOE so much that he lived it for over 30 years....played tennis daily at 72 years of age...walked 2 miles a day to work 365 days a year in New York, no less!

Betty