Any attempt to attribute cancer to modern diets fails
...
Perhaps I wasn't clear, because Seyfried's book doesn't even
imply that.
It asserts that cancer, once established, can be
largely
remissed by switching to a calorie-restricted ketogenic
diet. Keto is
both a modern and an ancient diet, being
the current diet of some Inuit and a
few other remote
cultures beyond the reach of Twinkies.
.. all
animals will die of cancer when getting old enough.
Irrespective of their
diet.
Possibly not, but I'm not aware of low carb advocates
having
predictions of what we will die of instead, and when.
I went low carb 2 years
ago, for other reasons, but I'm
now musing that my
cancer risk might be much
lower than it previously was.
(I made the change due to a family member finally
discovering
that they were acutely reactive to wheat. When I switched,
my weight
promptly dropped by 40 years and two chronic
conditions
remissed.)
There are "modern" causes known that can
increase the risk of cancer:
Seyfried's (actually Warburg's)
hypothesis is that the
common root path of cancer is mitochondrial damage, but
yes,
there are legions of things that are the precursors for that
damage,
although perhaps a slightly smaller list than the State of
California
would have us believe ☺.
Seyfried even addressed cell
phones in the book (probably a
FAQ) and conjectured that if there's a risk, it's
not genetic
damage from ionizing radiation, but simple thermal
damage.
That said, the modern diet (full-time high glycemic)
feeds
cancer, and I would add that a few novel and inflammatory
foods
may well trigger it via mitochondrial damage.
Attempts to blame
it on "diet" are largely "blaming the victim".
The victims are just
victims.
Take a gander at the trend charts for most chronic ailments.
Type 2
diabetes (T2D) is perhaps the poster child: not just high,
not just rising, but
accelerating. Yet this obviously out of control
malady is a 100%
avoidable
condition caused by a chronic high gly diet, and is fully
reversible
with diet if caught prior to serious complications (rhetorical
question:does the ADA
tell you this?).
So why don't people (victims)
dodge T2D? Because they are
getting fatally flawed dietary advice from the
USDA's MyPlate on down.
It is not blaming the victim because these
victims have no idea
that what they are being told to eat/not_eat is in fact
causing the problems.
They are eating an incorrect allocation of macronutrients
(high carb, low fat),
and the carbs are loaded with addictive,
appetite-stimulating, weight-gain-promoting
substances. They are being told to
deal with it by 'starve'n'strive' (portion control and
jog your buns
off).
The top 3 consensus diet errors:
- "healthy whole
grains"
i.e. wheat: See "Wheat Belly" (Davis) for the full indictment
and escape plans.
- added simple sugars, but fructose in particular
(oddly enough)
HFCS is the supervillain here: See "The Fat Switch"
(Johnson) for the biochemistry.
- low fat mania
Attia's
blog, particularly
The
straight dope on cholesterol is instructive here, as is Wheat
Belly.
Yep, this means the consensus diet is almost upside
down.
Someone is clearly incorrect. What to do about that is a matter
of
individual choice, and yes, we're betting our lives and health
on that
choice.
We may not know for some years yet what the ideal human diet
is
(some paleo advocates think it may take 50 years),
but it's clear from the
trend charts that today's consensus
diet ain't it. My view is that most of our
chronic health problems
are likely to turn out to be totally optional ailments,
avoided
by simple diet changes.
... and the recent news on gene patents
is probably not going
to be a major factor in whatever develops. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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