Lower fat ‘healthy’ eating shown to be a dismal failure for cancer prevention (and other things)
Posted on 7 November 2007
My blog last Friday questioned the wisdom of recent advice dished out to us on how to prevent cancer. The crux of this issue is that such recommendations are based on so-called
Published November 7, 2007 . Filed under: Food and Medical Politics, Healthy Eating, Weight Loss, Women's Health
here is a similar one just published:
http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/86/5/1445?etoc
November 8, 2007 @ 9:33 am
[...] The results speak for themselves: national healthy eating guidelines just aren’t keeping the n… [...]
November 9, 2007 @ 10:35 am
Hi John,
What does a ‘normal diet’ mean in the context of this study – “About 60 per cent of these women were allowed to continue on their normal diet (the control group).”
From reading this it almost feels like it doesn’t make any difference to our health what we eat, yet we know that not all food is created equal. I would be interested to know what the ‘normal’ diet consisted of. Presumably not KFC and fanta?
Mel
November 9, 2007 @ 12:33 pm
John. This study seems to be about fat, not nutrition. There are so many nutrients that need to be taken into account. As we both know it is not just about fat. They needed to look at a whole range of antioxidants, magnesium, all vitamins, how food is cooked, how much raw food was in the diet, how processed the food was. Some researchers think that they can just separate out parts of a diet like fat and see what happens. Nutrition is too complicated for that. It is extremely difficult to do studies on nutrition but a prospective study like this one should have been better. How you analyse the data is always important. THe intervention group just had one extra piece of fruit a day so eiter the control group had a good diet ( Ex group told to eat 5 pieces) or the ex group did not eat what they were told.
As far as I am concerned and there are loads of studies diet is paramount for health but knowing what diet to eat is the difficult thing for people. A low fat diet can be good or bad depending on what they eat. I knew a vetetarian who ate no fruit and no vegetables! Hilda
November 9, 2007 @ 1:57 pm
Mel
Take a look at this link:
http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/vol295/issue6/index.dtl
It will take you to the edition of JAMA from last year which published 3 studies (1st 3 studies under ‘Original Communications’) regarding the findings of the WHI trial . These studies are ‘free to access’, and contain considerable detail about what the women in the intervention and ‘control’ groups ate in this study.
November 9, 2007 @ 2:01 pm
Mel . Please don’t reach that conclusion. In my job I see people making great steps in health just by changing their diet for a few months. We should eat what we were intended to eat. Buy one of Johns books and you’ll see. No KFC and fanta or margerine or other processed foods won’t do it. Hilda
November 9, 2007 @ 2:01 pm
I didn’t know that having a moderately healthy diet like that was supposed to prevent cancer – I thought it was supposed to prevent heart and related circulatory problems and other diseased related to being obese.
I think a lot of cancer is caused by all the chemicals we’re exposed to now whatever we eat.
Tiggy
November 11, 2007 @ 4:45 am
Now we sit back & watch all the “experts” tell us why this study didn’t confirm their dearly held beliefs. As for the so called “healthy diet” by the time you finish consuming the huge amounts of carbs = sugar there is little wonder the body cell structure tends to break down & illness results. Send in all the fake foods made with soy & chemicals & it is little wonder the body breaks down. It is an amazing thing the body, but we do have to put a bit of effort into not polluting it with anti – nutrients & chemicals.
November 12, 2007 @ 9:35 pm
I’m struggling to get my head around diet right now.
I have metabolic syndrome, hypothyroid, high triglycerides, low HDL and moderate/high LDL and I’m doing ok with this approach. But….
I have MS and the ‘optimum’ diet for MS is low animal fat (or so Roy Swank and the Best Bet Diet originators claim) and no gluten or pulses.
Of the two approaches towards health management, the low-carb diet wins hands down for me. Keeping blood glucose levels even is important. Fatigue is a big problem with MS (and ME) and I am pretty sure that for those whose bodies don’t work as well as they should, that the blood glucose rollercoaster has a big part to play with this.
But….the Best Bet and Swank diets are adamant that animal fats are also bad guys.
More confusing is that information that Vitamin D (the wonder vitamin right now) is very important to help keep MS at bay, but one of the best sources for dietary vitamin D is lard.
Confused?
You bet I am.
How about the next stop for dietary researchers should be to find a great way of eating that helps people with chronic diseases to get the best from their diets.
Proper clinical research that is not funded by cereal manufacturers or any sort of lobbying group.
I did try to follow a 90% raw food diet for the first few months of this year. I felt great in the summer months, but it’s just not possible in winter. I didn’t feel good emotionally though. Rawfooders are mostly vegans and they regard food as some sort of evangelical religion.
I took great comfort from this…http://www.beyondveg.com/billings-t/vegan-pledge/vegan-pledge-1a.shtml
When I feel confused (often) I read this. It helps!
November 13, 2007 @ 12:10 pm
Haven’t seen Roy Swanks stuff, but Best Bet whilst being ” adamant that animal fats are also bad guys.” doesn’t offer any good evidence for this.
People tend not to be aware that for example, beef fat is as much monounsaturated fat as saturated. Plus a little Polyunsaturated. This probably varies with the animals diet however.
November 16, 2007 @ 9:14 pm
Yes, it is very confusing. The Swank results are anecdotal and not specific enough for me to buy into it wholeheartedly.
There’s a lot of pronouncements from ‘experts’ on MS, from the LDN doctors who say that beta-interferon drugs can’t be taken with LDN, despite the fact that there is not a shred of clinical evidence for this.
There’s also another doctor with an interest in MS, who says that no carbs should be eaten at all and that offal and brains should be consumed at least once per week (not sure about eating brains), along with a great deal of animal fats.
I think I agree with not eating legumes or grains and I have had the best year since diagnosis so far through all this, but what really, really bugs me about the approaches to handling MS, is that the ‘experts’ are so polarised. Certainly until this year, Ashton Embry who promotes the Best Bet Diet was anti-interferon use. Why?
The MS society won’t discuss diet.
It would appear that those people with an open mind are left feeling unsupported if they decide to try both diet and drugs as a way to help minimise MS.
November 18, 2007 @ 2:12 pm
as a post menstrual, weight gaining,woman I have been even more aware of my nutrutional needs. There is so much information but really no clear advice. Each ‘group’ or ‘research’ trying to sell its own beliefs.
I did spend some time the other day trying to make a list of what I should be eating each day / week. The results would have made me obese!!. Do the 3 brazil nuts count as one of my, at least, five a day, how many bottles of cod liver oil etc, how can I eat ALL those portions of oily fish, white meat or pulses.
It is a minefield.
One thing I have noticed though is that if I listen to my body I seem to have cut out red meat and eat no bread and I hadn’t even noticed I had
January 28, 2008 @ 10:11 am