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There’s scant evidence that healthy foods prevent cancer or fatty foods cause it

startribune.com

31–40 of 65 posts

Re: There’s scant evidence that healthy foods prevent cancer or fatty foods cause it

#32
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

Re: There’s scant evidence that healthy foods prevent cancer or fatty foods cause it

#33
post #19
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cancer is like a random process. > most sailors eventually got melanoma from being out allthe time These two statements seem in conflict to me.

Why? It's lke saying "Craps is a random. If you roll the dice at Vegas all the time, eventually you will lose your bankroll."

Because they are in conflict. "Cancer is like a random process" is saying that it can happen equally to anyone. "Most sailors eventually got melanoma from being out all the time" is showing that it does not happen equally to anyone. Your example isn't accurate.

Re: There’s scant evidence that healthy foods prevent cancer or fatty foods cause it

#34
post #33
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? It's lke saying "Craps is a random. If you roll the dice at Vegas all the time, eventually you will lose your bankroll."

Because they are in conflict. "Cancer is like a random process" is saying that it can happen equally to anyone. "Most sailors eventually got melanoma from being out all the time" is showing that it does not happen equally to anyone. Your example isn't accurate.

I don't think saying cancer is random means anyone can get it. It could also mean when you are exposed to a carcinogen, the impact is random.

You could smoke cigarette's and never get lung cancer. You could spend your whole life in the sun and never get skin cancer.

Re: There’s scant evidence that healthy foods prevent cancer or fatty foods cause it

#35

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 per…

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…

There's a great TEDx talk debunking the myths of paleo diets: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMOjVYgYaG8

Re: There’s scant evidence that healthy foods prevent cancer or fatty foods cause it

#36

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 per…

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…

Your comment suffers from the affliction that "if it doesn't completely eradicate -foo-, then there's no point at all". If there was a magic food that cut your chance of getting any sort of cancer by a factor of 1000, your statement of 'you could still get heart attack/cancer in your 50s' would still be true.

The main article does this a little as well; there's something of a tone that says 'healthy food has all these other benefits, but since it doesn't stop cancer, it's probably not worth it'. It's weird, because I've never heard of anyone specifically choosing foods because of their reduction in cancer rates - people tend to choose foods that affect their current wellbeing, not future 'maybes'.

Re: There’s scant evidence that healthy foods prevent cancer or fatty foods cause it

#37
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.

Re: There’s scant evidence that healthy foods prevent cancer or fatty foods cause it

#38
post #33
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? It's lke saying "Craps is a random. If you roll the dice at Vegas all the time, eventually you will lose your bankroll."

Because they are in conflict. "Cancer is like a random process" is saying that it can happen equally to anyone. "Most sailors eventually got melanoma from being out all the time" is showing that it does not happen equally to anyone. Your example isn't accurate.

I think what he is trying to say is that the baseline for getting cancer is random, and there really isn't much you can do you reduce the chances of it happening.

However, you can increase the chances of happening through things like excessive sun exposure.

Re: There’s scant evidence that healthy foods prevent cancer or fatty foods cause it

#39

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 t…

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.

Re: There’s scant evidence that healthy foods prevent cancer or fatty foods cause it

#40
Unless an article compares various studies using a meta-analysis methodology (see 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.

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