

Eating Vegetables Doesn’t Stop Cancer - tokenadult
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/08/eating-vegetables-doesnt-stop-cancer/

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chasingsparks
There is a related paper that I can't seem to find. The gist of which was:

Studies on the cancer-fighting prowess of many antioxidants often fail to
mention that your body naturally synthesizes a lot of antioxidants (e.g.
melatonin and glutathione). While ingested antioxidants are known to protect
cells in vitro and theoretically do so in vivo, relative to naturally
synthesized antioxidants they might account for little additional protection.

(If someone could find that paper, I'd appreciate it.)

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growingconcern
Garbage study. They only looked at vegetables as a group - which probably
included potatoes and the like (possibly in the form of french fries). They
didn't look at particular subclasses of vegetables. And they also didn't look
at raw versus cooked (where previous studies have found significant reduction
for colo-rectal cancer rates for raw broccoli but no reduction for cooked
broccoli).

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hugh3
How does that make it a garbage study? Just because it doesn't divide up
"vegetables" into tinier classes doesn't mean it didn't valuably disprove a
perfectly well-formed and plausible hypothesis about vegetables as a group.

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mhartl
It's the "vegetables as a group" part. The "vegetable group" is ill-defined
because some vegetables (such as potatoes and corn/maize) have nutritional
profiles more akin to grains, with higher glycemic index and lower nutrient
density. I'd be very surprised if eating lots of broccoli and cabbage doesn't
lower cancer rates; lots of potatoes, not so much.

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tokenadult
The underlying research article is

"Fruit and Vegetable Intake and Overall Cancer Risk in the European
Prospective Investigation Into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC)" by Paolo Boffetta,
Elisabeth Couto, Janine Wichmann, et al. Journal of the National Cancer
Institute Advance Access published online on April 6, 2010 JNCI Journal of the
National Cancer Institute, doi:10.1093/jnci/djq072

I remember years ago reading a statement by Jerry Pournelle in Byte Magazine
that he thought people eating more fruits and vegetables could prevent more
cases of cancer than all the activities of the United States Environmental
Protection Agency combined, but perhaps we now have to reject that hypothesis.

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teye
For those who've read _The China Study_ , note that this is about increasing
consumption of vegetables, not decreasing consumption of anything else
(including animal protein).

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nova
Oh yes, the China Study.

<http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com/China-Study.html>

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nickpp
FUD promoted by the well known Weston A Price foundation a very successful
pusher of fat in our diets. While their motives aren't yet clear (diary&meat
industry lobby) their methods are clear:

[http://www.care2.com/causes/health-policy/blog/who-is-the-
we...](http://www.care2.com/causes/health-policy/blog/who-is-the-weston-a-
price-foundation/)

~~~
nova
Or you could say the China Study is vegetarian FUD backed by other lobbies
(soy, grains, corn, etc).

By the way, nothing wrong with fat in our diets, unless is tran-fats or excess
omega 6 PUFAs (typically seed oils). Please read Gary Taubes also.

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nickpp
Lowers risk of heart disease or stroke instead. Sounds good to me!

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fhars
But that means people eating more fruit and vegetables will actually increase
the cancer rate in the society, as fewer people die before they develop cancer
(which is an almost inevitable event in an ageing body). Of course, this is
related to the effect that you can double the number of people that suffer
from a aggressive form of cancer by finding a treatment that makes them live
twice as long after diagnosis (if you count all current cases and not only all
new cases). Statistics and epidemiology are, ahm, fun is not quite the right
word.

~~~
tokenadult
Looking for the "hard endpoint" of reduced all-cause mortality is always an
important issue when studying a lifestyle intervention or medical
intervention.

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nfnaaron
However, eating fruits and vegetables is still necessary for proper bodily
function and general health. There is no better reason to eat fruits and
vegetables than this. Cancer fighting is a sideshow, although an important
one.

There is also the potential benefit that if you eat more fruits and vegetables
then you're less hungry for junk food.

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nova
> However, eating fruits and vegetables is still necessary for proper bodily
> function and general health.

Tell that to (ancient) Inuit.

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nfnaaron
Hmmm ... interesting point.

Maybe it's: if you're not eating a total (ancient) Inuit diet, then fruits and
vegetables combined with the relatively small amounts of protein and fats most
other peoples eat is necessary ...

Hmmm

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grosenbush
Provocative Headlines Sell Newspapers

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mark_l_watson
I am not agreeing with the article: eating more vegetables should mean that
you eat less meat which I would argue is more likely to be carcinogenic. Way
off topic, but: before a very strenuous hike early this morning (last 5
pictures: <http://picasaweb.google.com/mark.watson/SedonaHiking2010#>) I
'carbed out' with miso soup loaded up with lots of 4 different kinds of
veggies. I ate nothing else, and my energy level was great.

