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Colon cancer now leading cause of cancer deaths under 50 in US

theguardian.com

131–140 of 226 posts

Re: Colon cancer now leading cause of cancer deaths under 50 in US

#131
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Risk of stroke is the most obvious (and fairly concerning) one where there's solid data. Also there's "distance running" as in running maybe 50k a week, that's probably okay, although as you get older it will increase your risk of stroke. But ultramarathons are a whole different ball game and almost certainly bad for you

Can you link the data? I don't buy it. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11720530/ says there's a higher rate of AF in older, male althetes but a lower risk of stroke compared to similar aged, non-athletes. At any rate, the data doesn't seem clear enough to claim that "distance running bad for you" or "any distance over 50K is bad for you".

I'm struggling to find it but I definitely remember reading a paper that claimed that aerobic exercise in over 60s decreased heart attack risk (which is good, obviously) but increased stroke risk.

I think the biggest risk though is acutely doing high intensity exercise (e.g. a marathon) whereas doing low intensity regular exercise (e.g. a 5k jogged at moderate pace 4x a week) is probably good.

So it's not "running is bad", it's more "running insane distances and/or running at insanely high intensity is bad", but the issue is a lot of people who get really into running end up doing one or both of those things.

One sign that marathons (let alone ultramarathons) may not be particularly healthy is that the first guy to do one famously died, and then subsequently people die doing them every single year. Yes the risk is low overall, but that doesn't mean it's actually good for you

Re: Colon cancer now leading cause of cancer deaths under 50 in US

#132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's better than the "Food Pyramid" and "MyPlate" which were the gov standards when I was growing up. Those standards put processed carbs like bread/pasta as the largest part of a "healthy diet". Whoops.

Humans have relied on bread, pasta, rice, and tubers for most of their calories since time immemorial. Japanese people eat plenty of rice even today and they are very healthy. "Food pyramid dumb, eat meat" is a very reductive take.

Only the last hundred to twenty thousand years or so. Evolutionarily speaking, that's not our typical diet. Maybe excepting tubers.

Re: Colon cancer now leading cause of cancer deaths under 50 in US

#133
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My money is on massive overexposure to high fructose corn syrup in the Western diet. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9170474/

Sugar is 50:50 fructose:sugar and "high"-fructose sugar is 55:45. The slight difference in fructose:sugar between the two is not significant in terms of health outcomes, unless you mean sugar in general.

I can't make sense of your comment, but whatever you're trying to get at is wrong: Table sugar is sucrose. Corn syrup is mostly glucose and contains no fructose. HFCS is commonly produced at 42% and 55% fructose formulations. I don't think HFCS is meaningfully more or less harmful than any other sugar, but chemically there's a significant difference.

Re: Colon cancer now leading cause of cancer deaths under 50 in US

#134
If you have the symptoms, go get yourself checked out. I delayed my colonoscopy for YEARS, hell - I even delayed my doctors visit for years, and I had pretty much every symptom there is. My anxiety was through the roof when taking the blood test, and getting the colonoscopy - as I simply assumed they'd find something.

But, no. They didn't find a single thing. Blood and stool tests came back fine. Not even a polyp was found during the colonoscopy.

The only thing that kind of sucked, was the prep - there's no way around that. But the colonoscopy itself, no problem. I get some mild sedatives, but was completely awake during the procedure - even watched it on the screen.

Re: Colon cancer now leading cause of cancer deaths under 50 in US

#135
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lean toward "people got better at not dying from everything else." It's plausible to me that it just enabled existing factors to unfold on the time scales they unfold on for more people. My handy heuristic for headlines like this: Is it a scary new trend that means something or did other factors suppressing its natural emergence decline? Or is it a matter of observation? A recent real-world example was the detectio…

>I lean toward "people got better at not dying from everything else." Unfortunately, that doesn't seem the be the case here, and the article goes into this. Deaths due to colorectal cancer under 50 simply used to be incredibly uncommon. Younger people were simply not screened for it. The rise is not solely relative to other forms of death, but in absolute terms has increased.

There could still be another factor other than lifestyle or chemicals in the food, the dominant opinions as of posting. Point (which I realize I forgot to make) is we don't know and latching on to pet theories, even really smart ones, has never done anyone any good in general, but especially when it comes to health.

Re: Colon cancer now leading cause of cancer deaths under 50 in US

#136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's keep in mind that this is the recommendation from the same government that recently declined to regulate dangerous pesticides [1] and relaxed regulations on additives [2]. The current US administration is not at all interesting in addressing America's unhealthy food. [1] https://cen.acs.org/environment/pesticides/glyphosate-roundu... [2] https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-take...

It's better than the "Food Pyramid" and "MyPlate" which were the gov standards when I was growing up. Those standards put processed carbs like bread/pasta as the largest part of a "healthy diet". Whoops.

I love when the Food Pyramid and MyPlate are brought up as arguments on why Americans are unhealthy these days.

National estimates suggest only 8%-14% of Americans ever followed MyPlate. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40752889/

Also, MyPlate only used "grains" as a category, with a note to make half from whole grains...not just processed carbs. Big difference. And, vegetables are the biggest category.

Adding on to that, if you workout in ANY capacity, you need simple carbs.

Re: Colon cancer now leading cause of cancer deaths under 50 in US

#137

As a Multiple Sclerosis patient since I was a teenager, let me just say: all you “healthy diet” zealots aren’t helping. Your advice on which blended kale and gogi berry smoothie I should try is cringe and annoying. Normally, the person is right in front of me, and well-intentioned, so I typically smile and politely thank them with a non-committal gesture towards trying it someday. But since this is all one-party and…

> As a Multiple Sclerosis patient since I was a teenager, let me just say: all you “healthy diet” zealots aren’t helping.

I don't understand the relevance to the article. Does Multiple Sclerosis come with a higher risk of colon cancer?

Re: Colon cancer now leading cause of cancer deaths under 50 in US

#138

As a Multiple Sclerosis patient since I was a teenager, let me just say: all you “healthy diet” zealots aren’t helping. Your advice on which blended kale and gogi berry smoothie I should try is cringe and annoying. Normally, the person is right in front of me, and well-intentioned, so I typically smile and politely thank them with a non-committal gesture towards trying it someday. But since this is all one-party and…

I think this is probably due to people suffering from the just-world fallacy. Most folks like to believe that if you do the right things and consume the right stuff you'll have a long and healthy life when the fact of the matter is that luck/randomness plays a much larger role in your health than most people would like to admit.

I dont think this is right... most people I know care more about not doing the "wrong" thing than feeling entitled for doing the "right" thing.

Re: Colon cancer now leading cause of cancer deaths under 50 in US

#140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apt username from a person suggesting that non edible fiber is the nutrient causing illness and thats the presupposition we should argue against. Why would more fiber help?

Uh, what? I have not made a presuppositional argument (I made no argument at all...). I made a statement about my epistemic state - ie: that I would "bet" on low fiber being the major contributor to colon cancer rates. Someone then asserted that it can't be that, and I asked "why?". > Why would more fiber help? Because there is an incredible amount of research into high fiber diets being good for your gut, including…

My comment is that it is not ONLY low fiber diets. There are a lot of other risk factors involved. Will high fiber help - absolutely. Is it the be all end all - no I doubt it.

Western diet collapsed its fiber intake well over 80 years ago - it would have shown up already.

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