Fruits, Vegetables, and Your Noggin

More Fruits and Vegetables = Lower Risk of Head and Neck Cancer

One more time, benefits are found from eating more fruits and vegetables.

A large prospective study of 500,000 men and women aged 50 and older has found that those who ate more fruit and vegetables had a reduced risk of head and neck cancer. Head and neck cancer is the sixth leading cause of cancer-related mortality worldwide, resulting in more than 350,000 deaths annually.

The study found that an increase of 1 serving of fruits or vegetables per 1000 calories (so around 2 servings per day) was associated with a six-percent reduction in risk for head and neck cancer. It also found that the protection from vegetables was higher than that from fruits. From enlarged prostates to brain function and now reduced risk of head and neck cancer, produce delivers the goods that make them better. Note that vegetables are better than fruits at cancer prevention. Vegetables are much more nutrient dense and should be one of the cornerstones of a healthful diet, along with meat, seafood, and eggs.

All of these studies showing vegetables and fruits to be healthy sure do make me feel good. My vegetable intake is probably higher than that of most vegetarians. I don't grains, opting instead for the much more nutrient dense, calorically sparse offerings from the produce aisle. Try it with your own diet. Replace your grains with vegetables and watch your health improve. You'll also be much less hungry due to the bulk of the vegetables.

High Blood Sugar Linked to Cancer Risk

Swedish Study Shows More Cancer in People With Higher Blood Sugar, Regardless of Diabetes

But when researchers looked at specific types of cancer, they found that both men and women with the highest blood sugar levels were more likely to have pancreatic cancer, urinary tract cancer, and malignant melanoma (the most deadly type of skin cancer) than those with the lowest blood sugar levels.
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Also, the study didn't track all possible cancer influences. For instance, researchers didn't know the participants' diet, exercise habits, or family history of cancer.

Unfortunately, as the last part of this quote shows, the study doesn't actually prove anything, it just throws a bit of a question towards high blood sugar. However, while correlation doesn't prove causation, we have to consider if the link makes sense. A diet that promotes high blood sugar also promotes high insulin levels. Insulin is a very potent growth stimulator, which is why most people that have high blood sugar and high insulin also have high body fat. Insulin's purpose is to shuttle the nutrients you eat into muscle, liver, and fat storage areas. Insulin also has the ability to stimulate even more potent growth factors, known as insulin-like growth factors (IGFs). Studies have shown that individuals with higher levels of IGFs have a higher risk of developing cancer. Along with that, the preferred fuel of cancer is glucose, which the Standard American Diet supplies in abundance.

We can also consider this from the evolutionary standpoint of nutrition. High carb diets were not possible until the advent of agriculture some 10,000 years ago or so. Until that point, all humans lived as hunter-gatherers, eating animals and plant matter. Large quantities of grains were not available, so the staple carbs were roots, fruits, and vegetables. Fast forward to the 20th century when the industrial complex took over our food production and began churning out grocery stores full of cheap, high sugar products. Given that cancer is primarily a 20th century disease, along with so many others that are tied together (obesity, diabetes, etc), the logic fits.

Considering all of the other deleterious effects of a high sugar diet, it seems prudent to keep your blood sugar low by limiting yourself to a whole foods-based diet with carbs coming from fruits, vegetables, tubers, and squashes, rather than grain products like bread and pasta. Here is a short list of the effects of a high-carb diet:
- Higher Cholesterol, for those that worry about such things
- Diabetes and Double Diabetes
- An increased risk of heart attack and stroke
- Higher risk of pancreatic cancer from soft drinks, a staple of the high-carb diet.

And let's not forget that another carb-heavy staple, bread, has been linked to kidney cancer.

Should've Just Read "Lights Out"

Lights At Night

I wrote a book review of Lights Out: Sleep, Sugar, and Survival previously. In this book, Wiley and Formby lay out the premise of why modern humans suffer from debilitating diseases and how light toxicity contributes. Now comes this finding that jives perfectly with that book's premise:

Night life under electric lighting may cause serious behavioral disorders and physical diseases including cancer, according to a specialist team led of the Professor N.N. Pertov Scientific Research Institute of Oncology, Russian Ministry of Healthcare, and Petrozavodsk State University, who have been investigating the effects of night-time illumination on people’s health for several years.

Basically, strong light suppresses melatonin which is necessary for proper hormonal functioning. Think about all of the little lights in your room: alarm clock, LEDs on the DVD player, light coming through the windows, etc. All of that light is wreaking havoc on your hormonal systems by suppressing melatonin release. It is important to make your room as dark as possible and sleep 7-10 (8+ is optimal) per night.

New Cancer Drug

Cheap, safe drug kills most cancers

This is an interesting article from New Scientist that I happened across a few days ago. They have found a drug, dichloroacetate (DCA), that turns off the immortality of cancer cells. Cancer cells grow into a tumor because they lack the normal mitochondrial activity that signals for apoptosis, or cell death. This drug reactivates the mitochondria so that they can trigger normal cell death, returning cancerous cells to the status of every other cell. The real beauty is that it has no patent and can therefore be manufactured on the cheap. We still lack human trials, but this could be promising.

Finally Some Good Advice About Soy

Soy cancer warning

In today's news out of Adelaide, South Australia, Australia, we finally have some common-sense coming out.

The Cancer Council NSW will issue guidelines today, warning about the dangers of high-soy diets and soy supplements for cancer patients and those people in remission from cancer.
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"The Cancer Council does not support the use of health claims on food labels that suggest soy foods or phyto-oestrogens protect against the development of cancer.''

Here's another good part of the story:

Soy has earned a reputation as a natural "superfood'' that cuts the risk of breast or prostate cancer, and is commonly included in women's health supplements.

This claim was based on findings that cancer rates were lower in Asia, where soy consumption is high.

And there it is...the truth. It's not based on actual facts. It's based on the finding that Asians have less of some types of cancer. What those proponents won't inform you of is that Asians also have higher rates of some cancers, such as esophagus, stomach, pancreas, and liver. Can soy proponents take credit for lower incidence of some cancers, but not for the higher incidence of others? That hardly seems logical. Besides, Asian diets aren't just higher in soy, they are higher in fruits and vegetables, lower in sugar, lower in refined carbohydrates, and higher in whole foods, all of which are protective against disease.

Rest assured, soy is a huge industry and that is why there is so much "good news" about it here in the States. The reality is that our soy products are not similar in any way to those consumed by traditional Asians. They eat fermented products, such as miso, natto, and tempeh, while we eat precipitated products, like soy burgers, soy dogs, and tofu. The fermentation is absolutely essential to neutralize the many, many antinutrients in soy. And studies have shown that Asians only consume an average of 2 tsp of soy per day, hardly a "high" intake.

From protease inhibitors to goitrogens to high levels of manganese, you can read all about the reality of soy here. It's not a health food. It must undergo extreme processing to be palatable in the form that it is consumed in the US. Soy foods are a man-made item and should not be consumed as part of a healthy diet, unless they are traditionally fermented foods.

Pancreatic Cancer: Add Another Side Effect to Soda's List

Two soft drinks a day ups pancreatic cancer risk by 90%
I came across this article on Medpage last week.

The crux of the article:

Consuming two cans of fizzy drinks a day can double your risk of developing one of the most fatal types of cancer, say researchers.
People who add sugar to cups of tea or coffee are also at higher risk of pancreatic cancer, according to a new study.

Looks like it's the sugar causing the problems again. The soft drinks may introduce an even greater threat due to their carbonation and acidity, but the article doesn't really lay out the difference in the increased risk. And pancreatic cancer is a BIG deal:

Almost all the 7,000 people who get pancreatic cancer annually in the UK die shortly after diagnosis, partly because the symptoms are spotted too late.
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Only two per cent of patients are alive five years after first being treated, although surgery followed by chemotherapy can increase survival rates.

Of course, there's always the chance that the soft drinks only point to a general lifestyle more at risk of cancer and since the study was a retrospective diet survey (notoriously inaccurate), it could be a case of correlation not equaling causation. Perhaps people that drink 2 or more soft drinks per day are also more likely to smoke and less likely to exercise. Smoking, along with the high sugar content of the diet, is a known risk factor for pancreatic cancer. Regardless, why test it? You really won't miss the soft drinks from your diet, your skin will be healthier and you will just generally feel better. They didn't really classify what is a "soft drink" in terms of size, but I'm willing to bet that 12oz or less counts as one. Think about that the next time you pick up a 44oz or 64oz Coke from BP. And a large at McDonald's, et al is like 32oz. Those are all more than one soft drink.