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Signs of cancer can appear long before diagnosis, study shows

theguardian.com

61–70 of 75 posts

Re: Signs of cancer can appear long before diagnosis, study shows

#61
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you consume during this time? How do you know it's safe? I'd like to try this sometime. Do you have any advice?

I've only done 3-days and not 7, but for n=1: - make sure to consume salt (adding to water is the easiest); if anything, err on the side of both too much water, and too much salt (we normally consume a lot of both through food). - Some people still consume certain zero-calorie items, like black coffee, green tea, or bone broth. You still get most of the fasting benefits, and it might be a good way to start (bone brot…

Bone broth has calories.

Re: Signs of cancer can appear long before diagnosis, study shows

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any sources for this? I'd like to learn more.

In a word? No. There have been a couple studies done that suggest vegetarian diets are modestly cancer protective (~10% lower incidence). There have also been some that link increased meat consumption with increased risk of cancer. It's absolutely not clear that eating meat causes cancer. Dietary habits change your cancer mortality risk and being a vegetarian probably correlates with something like a 1-4% decreased r…

Those were all observational studies anyway. Basically junk science that doesn't meet evidence-based medicine standards.

Re: Signs of cancer can appear long before diagnosis, study shows

#63
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a word? No. There have been a couple studies done that suggest vegetarian diets are modestly cancer protective (~10% lower incidence). There have also been some that link increased meat consumption with increased risk of cancer. It's absolutely not clear that eating meat causes cancer. Dietary habits change your cancer mortality risk and being a vegetarian probably correlates with something like a 1-4% decreased r…

Yep, for example salmon and other fatty fish is widely recognized to be highly healthy food from cardiovascular point of view, and definitely doesn't increase cancer risk. I don't think even red meat is necessarily so bad - rather it's the fact people in wealthy countries eat way too much of it compared to what humans have done most of our species history.

Some hunter-gatherer and pastoralist groups such as the Comanche and Maasai primarily ate red meat.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comanche#Food https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maasai_people#Diet

Re: Signs of cancer can appear long before diagnosis, study shows

#64
post #60
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, this seems dangerous or maybe unique to each individual. In the past I've had low blood sugar issues (started shaking and got splitting headache) because I forgot to eat for 24h or so and worked long hours, it wasn't a nice experience and I most certainly wouldn't want to repeat that on purpose by fasting. In addition to that, I often "bonk" on longer bike rides (don't eat sufficiently) and do intensive cardio e…

I don't know frankly. I was surprised it was so easy for me, but let's say first day I get headaches which I attribute to caffeine/sugar withdrawal, maybe that's your case as well. Drinking 1 liter of water quickly often resolves that though. It's possible you are actually dehydrated as most water comes from food and not drinks, so if you continue drinking like you are used to, you end up with insufficient water.

Just drinking water can lead to electrolyte imbalance or is am I mistaken?

Re: Signs of cancer can appear long before diagnosis, study shows

#65
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you consume during this time? How do you know it's safe? I'd like to try this sometime. Do you have any advice?

First, try just 1-2 days but remove all caffeine/sugar like a week ahead. Once you can do 1-2 days without any major problems, try doing 3 days (Friday + weekend). Once you are fine with that, try 5-7 days, water + electrolytes only, no food, no juice; drink however as much as you want, if you feel weird, drink more (always with electrolytes). If something really feels off, have some energy bars ready to intervene an…

Can you safely fast if you rely on medication?

Re: Signs of cancer can appear long before diagnosis, study shows

#66
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

7 days fasting (electrolytes-only) gives me a week-long euphoria afterwards, but days 6-7 show some ugly symptoms of previous diseases, so persevering those is a bit tricky. It also leads to 10-12lb weight loss.

> show some ugly symptoms of previous diseases This could be your body breaking apart old injuries to start repairing them better.

Breaking apart old injuries...? Never heard of this hypothesis, how would this work?

Re: Signs of cancer can appear long before diagnosis, study shows

#67
post #65
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, try just 1-2 days but remove all caffeine/sugar like a week ahead. Once you can do 1-2 days without any major problems, try doing 3 days (Friday + weekend). Once you are fine with that, try 5-7 days, water + electrolytes only, no food, no juice; drink however as much as you want, if you feel weird, drink more (always with electrolytes). If something really feels off, have some energy bars ready to intervene an…

Can you safely fast if you rely on medication?

Discuss this with your physician. People who have e.g. problems with kidneys should not fast.

Re: Signs of cancer can appear long before diagnosis, study shows

#68
post #64
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know frankly. I was surprised it was so easy for me, but let's say first day I get headaches which I attribute to caffeine/sugar withdrawal, maybe that's your case as well. Drinking 1 liter of water quickly often resolves that though. It's possible you are actually dehydrated as most water comes from food and not drinks, so if you continue drinking like you are used to, you end up with insufficient water.

Just drinking water can lead to electrolyte imbalance or is am I mistaken?

You are completely right. If you scroll up 3 posts you'll see I mentioned "electrolytes-only".

Re: Signs of cancer can appear long before diagnosis, study shows

#69
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> show some ugly symptoms of previous diseases This could be your body breaking apart old injuries to start repairing them better.

Breaking apart old injuries...? Never heard of this hypothesis, how would this work?

Many people report feeling older injuries/illnesses during prolonged fasting. It's not clear what is the nature of that, if it's just psychosomatic and some neural pathway is correcting/readjusting/"backpropagating" itself (think phantom pain) or if the original repair was "temporary" and body does a proper rebuild there, or something completely different is going on. Try 1 week then tell us if you felt something similar, I did.

EDIT: This Reddit thread has interesting comments, elevated HGH might be the culprit:

https://old.reddit.com/r/fasting/comments/5gl1aq/can_fasting...

Re: Signs of cancer can appear long before diagnosis, study shows

#70
post #12

While it is certainly interesting to hear of new developments for cancer screening, it must be taken in with the proper context. I see a lot of people without medical or public health training fall into the trap of thinking that any sort of screening mechanism is a net positive, without taking into consideration the "costs". For example, a lot of breast cancer screening has been highly controversial, because of eithe…

There's also a lot of confusion due to reported survival rates which are basically always higher if you screen but that does not mean people live any longer (or happier).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNiORew3uRY

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