
There’s scant evidence that healthy foods prevent cancer or fatty foods cause it - tokenadult
http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/health/256766501.html
======
epistasis
This shouldn't surprise anyone...

People need to realize that research publications are not textbooks. They are
communications to other researchers about the way that the evidence is
pointing, that helps them design new experiments, that justifies expensive and
spendy clinical trials, which eventually find conclusive evidence.

The idea that one can open a science journal and find interpretable truth
revealed is a pernicious one. Trust that the data is true, but do not trust
the models or the conclusions. Everything is in flux, and it's science because
we likely don't know what the real world is like yet.

History will go back and pick out the key experiments and construct a path of
discovery, but in real time almost nobody knows what the most important
experiments truly are.

This makes for difficult journalism, but one should remain true to the
physical world rather than the narratives that are easy to squeeze into 500
word news blurbs.

~~~
tachyonbeam
It's not just that. There's a huge problem with selective bias here. People
think that "healthy foods" automatically means good health, and bad health is
automatically a result of processed foods, "bad health habits", etc. Bad
health is your own damn fault for profoundly insulting mother nature by
feeding your body Kraft Diner a few too many times.

News at 11: cancer is a natural occurrence. You could exclusively eat prime
quality fish, raw organic fruits and veggies and still get a heart attack at
52 and cancer at 58. In other news, I seriously question the idea that
paleolithic humans had incredible food wisdom and perfect health. They
probably ate whatever the hell they could find at a given time of the year in
their immediate environment, and that was probably hugely lacking in
nutritional value when it's the winter, all the plants are dead and most
animals hibernating.

I agree that making an effort to eat well is a good idea, but it doesn't make
you immune to diseases, and diseases are not necessarily a result of bad
habits. There is also a huge amount of conflicting information as to what is
healthy food.

~~~
stephengillie
I think what caused such robust health among paleolithic humans is they didn't
drive. They had to walk everywhere. Literally miles to find food.

~~~
nl
What evidence is there that paleolithic humans had robust health?

I suspect there was a real (literal!) survivor bias is the healthiness of
paleolithic humans while they were alive. In a hunter/gatherer society you had
to remain healthy enough to be mobile. If you didn't you were probably left
behind, and then you died pretty quickly.

Does the high levels of "fitness" of those alive mean they had "robust health"
in general? I'd question that: I think cause and effect has been switched, and
the only paleolithic humans left alive were those who remained in "robust
health".

~~~
rayiner
Bingo. Hunter gatherer societies are far less forgiving of the weak and sick.

------
teichman
This newspaper article states "In 2007, a major follow-up [to the 1997 AICR
report] all but reversed the findings." They don't cite the study or provide a
link, but it's almost certainly the 2007 AICR report.

Fortunately you can take a look for yourself [0]. The published research
findings are pretty much the opposite of the Star Tribune's claims that eating
healthy has no effect on cancer.

These are the AICR recommendations:

    
    
        Be as lean as possible without becoming underweight.
        Be physically active for at least 30 minutes every day.
        Avoid sugary drinks. Limit consumption of energy-dense foods.
        Eat more of a variety of vegetables, fruits, whole grains and legumes such as beans.
        Limit consumption of red meats (such as beef, pork and lamb) and avoid processed meats.
        If consumed at all, limit alcoholic drinks to 2 for men and 1 for women a day.
        Limit consumption of salty foods and foods processed with salt (sodium).
        Don't use supplements to protect against cancer.
    

[0]
[http://www.aicr.org/research/research_science_expert_report....](http://www.aicr.org/research/research_science_expert_report.html)

Edit: formatting.

~~~
DenisM
That's odd. The same article was in New York Times, do you know how did they
manage to get the opposite conclusions? Maybe it's a different study after
all?

------
encoderer
"Cures Cancer" is a high bar for _anything_.

Eat healthy food because you'll have a better life if you do.

Hell, just _try it_ for a month. Don't eliminate carbs, reduce them. Don't
skip meals, shrink portion sizes. Add veg that you've never used before.
Instead of mashed potatoes, go for mashed cauliflower or (even better imo)
celery root puree. Toss veggies in EVOO, salt, pepper and roast on a baking
sheet at 425* until tender. Get high quality proteins and cook in a little fat
with simple seasonings. Eat less than you do now. Just because you're not full
doesn't mean you're hungry. I found that last lesson hard to learn.

------
jpatokal
Now this is what I call dogfooding your own recommendations:

 _That evening at a reception hosted by the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center,
guests partook of a sumptuous buffet that included thick slabs of roast beef,
a variety of rich cheeses and generous servings of wine. Afterward came the
cancer research association’s grand celebration known for its dessert buffet._

~~~
charlieflowers
Yeah, it had been 10 years since the first convention which got all preachy
about healthy diets. So these folks had all that pent up diet-rebellion, and
then the convention says, "Nevermind." They promptly went and _pigged out_.

------
Malarkey73
This article (and some people here) seem to be mixing up the conclusion that
particular so-called "super foods" are viewed with skepticism by oncologists.
And a poor high fat high sugar diet is very clearly associated with cancer,
diabetes and heart disease. In between these is a grey area of whether a
slightly more healthy than merely adequate balanced diet is good.

Its pretty clear though that poor diet is associated with cancer.

------
websitescenes
No evidence, sources or credibility. Sorry but this article is just silly.
This is an old world corporate fed point of view that is obviously incorrect.

~~~
relampago
What's with a news source promoting misinformation?

------
yaketysax
I don't understand what's being reported on here.

"The reason for the change was more thorough epidemiology. The earlier studies
tended to be "retrospective," relying on people to remember dietary details
from the distant past."

So what? Which are the studies that are invalid? If none of them are invalid,
then why disregard any information they might give us? 4000 studies with
similar observations is not "scant evidence", unless you can rule out every
single one. And are these 4000 the only studies which have similar
conclusions? Probably not.

"These results were often upended by "prospective" protocols, in which the
health of large populations was followed in real time."

I don't know what this means.

~~~
glenra
In a "retrospective" study, you look at the past - for instance, you interview
people and ask them what they recall eating over the last year, and see how
that tracks with their current health condition. But memories are faulty and
selective and easily influenced, so you might be operating from bad data. And
the associations you find could be spurious for other reasons. So you can
quickly reach some conclusions with this type of study, but they might just
reinforce what people already believed rather than tell you what is actually
true.

In a "prospective" study, you look at the present - for instance, you could
ask a group of people to keep a food journal, measure their health at regular
intervals, encourage some of them to make some changes, and see if the advice
ends up making them healthier. The advantage is that you have MUCH more
accurate data. The disadvantage is: (a) you have to wait many years before you
can reach any conclusions, (b) most of the time the conclusion you discover is
that the advice didn't help.

Retrospective studies can generate hypotheses but you have to TEST those
hypotheses with prospective studies.

~~~
yaketysax
Ah ok. Had no idea how far back people were expected to remember. A few days
might be fine. A year seems crazy.

Also I don't know why the author put prospective and retrospective in quotes.
"Prospective study" and "retrospective study" are terms.

------
fthssht
Certain kinds of fat are likely healthy. Certain population s of indigenous
people thrived on high fat diets.

~~~
paul_f
The title of the article really annoys me. Not all fat is unhealthy. What is
especially bothersome is that food companies are creating "low fat" foods by
replacing fat with sugar, making them much less healthy than the original
yogurt or sour cream or whatever.

------
Cowicide
Eating less and exercising more has worked pretty well for me, but that's not
for everyone. I've also learned to see which foods give me more, sustained
energy over time and which ones don't or even drain me. But, once again, I
doubt that will work for everyone.

I'm also very skeptical of a lot of studies that discount things that are
clearly working for me. For example, a lot of studies that discount fish oil
tend to not take an enteric coating and proper absorption into account.
Actually, after many years, I'm still waiting for those studies. In the
meantime, I've seen the positive effects myself and will continue to use
enteric coated fish oil as a supplement.

I've also watched countless friends, family and acquaintances try the Atkins
diet only to yo-yo and see later problems develop. So, I'm not going to
consume buckets of lard to lose weight. But, if the Atkins thing works for
you, more power to you!

My conclusion is what works for me may or may not work for anyone else and
vice versa. But, that said, I still look at some studies over time and try to
glean some slight insight into what works and doesn't work for others and
experiment here and there.

------
dj-wonk
Unless an article compares various studies using a meta-analysis methodology
(see [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta-
analysis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta-analysis)), I'm probably not
going to give it much attention.

To summarize one key problem: journalists (and even some scientists) are prone
to say two studies "disagree" if one demonstrates an effect and another does
not. This is a problematic style of argument, because this kind of
"disagreement" may be caused by random variation in sample sizes and/or
differences in thresholds. You have to dig in to make an honest comparison and
synthesis. This requires some basic statistical understanding, which
apparently is lacking in many educational programs (but that is another
thing!).

Please, if you do this kind of work or care about interpreting a set of
studies collectively, go read the first few chapters from "Introduction to
Meta-Analysis" by Borenstein, Hedges, Higgins, and Rothstein.

------
joshpadnick
The primary thrust of the article seems to be that because (1) the American
Association for Cancer Research conference had a very small number of sessions
on diet and cancer, and (2) a single follow-up study in 2007 concluded there
was little link between diet and cancer that it must be true.

This is only one view and hardly comprehensive. If you read
[http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/vegetables_cancer.aspx](http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/vegetables_cancer.aspx)
by Joel Fuhrman, MD, you'll get a perspective on why the devil is in the
details with many of these studies and why broad sweeping headlines like this
one are often inaccurate.

Based on everything I've read on this subject -- The China Study, Eat to Live,
and a few others -- I side with the Fuhrman article over the one published in
the Star Tribune, a statewide newspaper for Minnesota.

~~~
joshpadnick
So, interesting follow-up as I researched this further. First, this article
was just published last week in the New York Times
([http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/22/science/an-apple-a-day-
and...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/22/science/an-apple-a-day-and-other-
myths.html?ref=science&_r=1)). The Star Tribune was merely syndicating it.

Second, it looks like the Joel Fuhrman, MD wrote a direct response to this
article: [http://eathealthyandthrive.wordpress.com/2014/04/26/the-
nutr...](http://eathealthyandthrive.wordpress.com/2014/04/26/the-nutrition-
and-cancer-myth/)

It's on a random Wordpress blog here, but this was sent out to his eNewsletter
earlier this week (though not posted on his website).

------
nl
I don't think any credible health organisation or government body has ever
claimed that what you eat has a serious effect on _cancer_ incidence. I'm sure
there are plenty of random books written by self-appointed experts who claim
that though. They probably recommend coffee enemas for cancer treatment, too.

OTOH, _heart disease_ has long been thought to be associated with eating high
levels of saturated fat. Recent evidence is beginning to challenge that
though[1].

[1] [http://www.nhs.uk/news/2014/03March/Pages/Saturated-fats-
and...](http://www.nhs.uk/news/2014/03March/Pages/Saturated-fats-and-heart-
disease-link-unproven.aspx)

------
EGreg
Cancer is like a random process. When enough mutated cells gets into a certain
neighborhood of events which lead to cancer, that's how it starts.

When I went to Aruba with my friend, a sailor there told us that most sailors
eventually got melanoma from being out allthe time. That's what made me
realize this.

~~~
hamai
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2515569/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2515569/)

~~~
revelation
_Only 5–10% of all cancers are due to an inherited gene defect. Various
cancers that have been linked to genetic defects are shown in Fig. 2. Although
all cancers are a result of multiple mutations (9, 10), these mutations are
due to interaction with the environment (11, 12)._

That 5% figure is much less interesting when you realize they mean _inherited_
genetic defects.

------
aaron695
If you read the actual title which seems much less misleading than the
subtitle it tells a different story.

Foods aren't 'good' for you.

But it seems to fail to mention is the important bit. Some foods aren't bad
and some food help stop you eating as much bad foods.

------
justsomeguynpdx
Well, there's this:
[http://www.clinicalepigeneticsjournal.com/content/3/1/3#B1](http://www.clinicalepigeneticsjournal.com/content/3/1/3#B1)

------
relampago
A sensationalist title with no links to any studies cited.

Why the misinformation? Are we, the readers, expected to be so ignorant to
think that foods grown in our gardens are equal (in health) to those found at
our local fast food restaurant?

No mention of the relationship between genetically modified foods, artificial
sweeteners, organic food, oxygen, etc to disease.

Another failure of the fourth-estate to inform the public.

#FAIL

~~~
ribs
I find the evidence for your claims to be lacking. GM foods? Are you kidding
me? There's no evidence that GM foods are bad for your health. Perhaps some
evidence will turn up. (It's possible; I doubt it will happen.) But there is
none. And organic foods? Come on, you're thinking like some ancient Greek who
took Aristotelean "essential natures" seriously. Like you're going to paste
bird feathers on your flying machine because birds fly so surely the feathers
will help.

~~~
justsomeguynpdx
There's quite a bit of evidence that organic foods have higher levels of
antioxidants. (This is not a first source, but it references quite a few)
[http://www.altmedrev.com/publications/15/1/4.pdf](http://www.altmedrev.com/publications/15/1/4.pdf)

"Organic strawberries had significantly higher total antioxidant activity
(8.5% more), ascorbic acid (9.7% more), and total phenolics (10.5% more) than
conventional berries (Table 2), but significantly less phosphorus (13.6% less)
and potassium (9.1% less) (Table 1)." Organically managed surface soils also
supported significantly greater microbial biomass (159.4% more), microbial
carbon as a percent of total carbon (66.2% greater), readily mineralizable
carbon (25.5% more), and microbial carbon to mineralizable carbon ratio (86.0%
greater) (Table 6). These indicate larger pools of total, labile, and
microbial biomass C and a higher proportion of soil total and labile C as
microbial biomass. All measures of microbial activity were significantly
greater in the organically farmed soils, including microbial respiration
(33.3% more), dehydrogenase (112.3% more), acid phosphatase (98.9% more), and
alkaline phosphatase (121.5% more). The organically farmed soils had a
significantly lower qCO2 metabolic quotient, indicating that the microbial
biomass in the organically farmed soils was 94.7% more efficient or under less
stress than in the conventionally farmed soils [40]. These same differences,
except for qCO2, alkaline phosphatase, iron, boron, and sodium, were also
observed in soils from the bottom of the mounds (20–30 cm depth).
[http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjourna...](http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0012346)

Glyphosate, used with GM soy, adversely affects good gut bacteria in poultry
at levels of 5ppm while bad bacteria are highly resistant to it.
[http://www.netwerkvlv.nl/downloads/2012-Krueger,%20M-glyphos...](http://www.netwerkvlv.nl/downloads/2012-Krueger,%20M-glyphosate%20effects.pdf#lTab2)

------
commentzorro
Off to the right there's a picture of a bathroom scale. When you click on it
it opens up to ... a larger picture of a bathroom scale. I don't know why I
found that so funny but I laughed for a good solid minute.

------
relampago
complete bunk

------
brc
Diets are easy.

Don't eat anything that is advertised on TV. If an actor in a televised 30
second play convinced you to eat it, you probably shouldn't.

Apart from that, invest in good quality scales. When the numbers go up, change
your behaviour until the numbers go back down again.

Oh, and quit making endless excuses in your head. They are just lies you tell
yourself. If you really want to be healthier, than just go ahead and do it.

------
bluedino
I thought it was sugar that makes your body acidic and that causes cancer...

