The Life Ledger

Fitness is a way of life.

photo credit: wiennat

A story currently making rounds on the interwebs makes vague claims about how eating 1.8oz of processed meat per day, the equivalent of one sausage, increases your risk of bowel cancer by 20%. Blogs like That’s Fit are picking up the story, as originally reported in UK papers like the Daily Mail:

One sausage a day can significantly raise the risk of bowel cancer, one of the deadliest forms of the disease, experts have warned.

Eating 1.8oz (50g) of processed meat a day - the equivalent of one sausage or three rashers of bacon - raises the likelihood of the cancer by a fifth, research shows.

Never satisfied with vague, oblique references like “studies show,” I did some digging to find a study that actually backs up this claim. A search on Medical News Today results in this article:

For most Americans, meals tend to center around meat. To significantly decrease a person’s risks of developing colorectal cancer, experts at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center suggest a new approach to meal planning that focuses more on fruit and vegetable dishes.

According to recent findings issued by the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR), consuming more than 18 ounces, or a little over a pound, of red meat (pork, beef, lamb and goat) each week can significantly increase a person’s risks for developing colorectal cancer. In addition, every ounce and a half of red meat a person eats over 18 ounces increases their risks by 15 percent.

AICR also recommends eating very little processed meat (meat preserved by smoking, curing, salting or adding chemical preservatives), such as ham, bacon, hot dogs, sausages, pastrami and salami. Every ounce and a half of processed meat eaten a day is thought to increase a person’s risks of developing colorectal cancer by 21 percent.

Experts at University of Texas suggest? Recent findings issued by AICR? Still not satisfied, I do a little searching at AICR’s website, which doesn’t provide any further information or studies backing up the claims. I next head to the World Cancer Research Fund’s UK website, which is cited by several news stories, and find what appears to be the story’s origin:

Last year we published our Expert Report, which analysed 7,000 studies on the link between lifestyle and cancer risk and then made 10 recommendations on how to reduce cancer risk.

The report found convincing evidence that red meat and processed meat are a cause of bowel cancer. Because of this, we recommend people limit consumption of red meat to 500g per week (cooked weight) and to avoid eating processed meat…

Processed meat is any type of meat that is preserved by smoking, curing or salting, or by adding preservatives. Examples of this are ham, bacon, pastrami and salami. Hamburgers and minced meats only count as processed meat if they have been preserved with salt or chemical additives.

There you have it - the story is based on a report which analyzed “7,000 studies” and made a determination based on that analysis. Don’t get me wrong - I’m not suggesting processed meat isn’t bad for you, and avoid it like the plague myself. I simply dislike reading news articles making vague references to things that “studies suggest” without providing the evidence. News agencies don’t have a very good track record of accurately reporting health news, as inaccuracies arise when dense stories are condensed into soundbites and short timelines are met. Excluding information on studies or reports that originate the story make me question news articles that much more.

Thank you for visiting The Life Ledger. If you enjoyed this article, check out the related posts below and subscribe to our feed.

photo credit: Zesmerelda

An article on the Food Law Prof Blog, something I read nearly daily, pointed me to an interesting article on Medical News Today about a study connecting diets with high glycemic index and diseases such as diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular diseases and gall stones.

The study provides compelling evidence that diets with a high GI or a high GL will increase your risk of type 2 diabetes and heart disease. It also shows there is good evidence for links between high blood glucose and gall stones and some types of cancer.

‘The GI is a physiologically-based ranking that distinguishes how different carbohydrate foods (sugars and starches) affect your blood glucose levels.’

‘If you eat carbohydrate foods (sugars or starches) that break down quickly during digestion, the blood glucose response is fast and high - in other words, the glucose in the bloodstream increases rapidly. These foods have the highest GI values.’

…If you have constantly high blood glucose and insulin levels due to eating a high GI diet, you may literally “wear out” your pancreas over time and eventually this can lead to pre-diabetes and type 2 diabetes.’

So what does this mean? Actually, nothing new - it’s long been touted that we should moderate our intake of processed and starchy foods, which commonly factor much higher on the glycemic index. The official website of the Glycemic Index offers these general tips for staying low on the index:

• Use breakfast cereals based on oats, barley and bran
• Use breads with wholegrains, stone-ground flour, sour dough
• Reduce the amount of potatoes you eat
• Enjoy all other types of fruit and vegetables
• Use Basmati or Doongara rice
• Enjoy pasta, noodles, quinoa
• Eat plenty of salad vegetables with a vinaigrette dressing

The Glycemic Index site also provides a database for researching the glycemic index value for different foods. From personal experience, I can recommend substituting sugar (58 on the GI) or honey (70+ on the GI) with agave (11 on the GI). I’ve written about agave before, and still use it frequently.

Do you factor in your foods’ glycemic index values when choosing meals? What are your best GI tips?

I’m not too hip on multivitamins. Not only do we take on faith what’s in them, we take on faith they’re healthy. My own personal opinion - get your vitamins the way they’re meant to be processed, from food.

There’s a new study out that makes me even more wary of multivitamins. The U.S. News and World Report recently ran an article about a study from the National Cancer Institute that indicates taking more than 7 multivitamin pills a week could increase mens’ risk of “advanced and fatal” prostate cancer:

Researchers followed 295,344 men for five years and found that while high multivitamin use did not correlate with higher rates of localized cancer, it increased the risk of advanced cancer by 30 percent and nearly doubled the risk of fatal prostate cancer. Taking additional beta carotene and zinc supplements increased the risk even more.

…

Goran Bjelakovic, a researcher at the University of Nis in Serbia who has looked at the impact of nutritional supplements and wrote an editorial accompanying the study in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, points out that the average American diet provides 120 percent of the beta carotene and vitamins A and C needed, suggesting that additional vitamins could upset the body’s balance of micronutrients.

Wow, the average American gets 120% of the body’s required beta carotene, vitamin A and vitamin C from diet, before even taking the multivitamin? The National Institute of Health has this to say about taking too much vitamin A:

Hypervitaminosis A refers to high storage levels of vitamin A in the body that can lead to toxic symptoms. There are four major adverse effects of hypervitaminosis A: birth defects, liver abnormalities, reduced bone mineral density that may result in osteoporosis (see the previous section), and central nervous system disorders [1,48-49].

Toxic symptoms can also arise after consuming very large amounts of preformed vitamin A over a short period of time. Signs of acute toxicity include nausea and vomiting, headache, dizziness, blurred vision, and muscular uncoordination [1,48-49]. Although hypervitaminosis A can occur when large amounts of liver are regularly consumed, most cases result from taking excess amounts of the nutrient in supplements.

Makes me wonder about the other vitamins and minerals we take “for health” without thinking about the damage we might be doing to ourselves.

Fast food burgers, fast food vitamins, fast food money - before long, we’ll be driving up to McDonalds and purchase hamburgers enriched with E. coli and vitamin A with our credit cards. All we’re missing is the vitamin A.

Keeping pace: Do TVs, iPods help or hurt your workout? (@ cnn.com)
Here’s the gist of this article:

“If you want to maintain a high level of intensity, you pretty much have to focus on your body,” he said.

This is related to the belief that noisy gadgets interfere with the intensely focused mental state many athletes refer to as “flow.” For instance, visitors to the Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health, in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, are encouraged to leave the headphones behind. Jennifer Young, director of healthy living programs, said she wants to keep visitors’ mind-body connections strong.

“Don’t turn out and turn off,” Young said, “because then there’s that underlying signal, ‘Oh, working out is something I don’t want to do. I’m escaping it by doing this.”‘

My personal opinion - isn’t it fascinating what we study?  I wonder who funded this research.  At any rate, I love listening to music or podcasts as I bike ride, walk or otherwise exercise, and I think whatever makes it easier or more fun to exercise is worth doing.  This “be in the flow” stuff is for the people who get a kick out of exercising, and you’re not going to force that enjoyment on people who don’t naturally like running marathons.

Hope over ‘obesity busting gum’ (@ bbc.co.uk)
Still looking for the magic bullet.  Still not going to find it - the more unnatural crap you add to your body, the less healthy you are.  This gum is supposed to work by adding levels of pancreatic polypeptide, a hormone your body naturally makes that induces the feeling of being full.  I say, eat less and move around more instead of messing around with your body’s chemistry.

Cancer Deaths Drop for Second Year (@ cnn.com)
Here’s CNN’s story highlights for this article:

• U.S. cancer deaths dropped by 3,014 in 2003-2004
• Second straight year of declines, Cancer Society says
• Early detection and improved treatment credited for drop

The numbers focus on the amount of people dying of cancer, and are derived by studying death certificates.  Shouldn’t we also be looking at the cancer death rate, and look for correlating trends in the number of elderly people or other groups of people with a higher-than-normal rate of cancer?  Personally, I suspect this number will go back up as the baby boomer generation ages, and can’t help but think this number may be somewhat misleading.  I don’t discount the work being done on cancer research, but I can’t help think the buzz about these numbers is somewhat overstated.  On the other hand, it is nice to see good news about cancer.

Low-stress Life May Be Best Way to Prevent Colds (@ npr.org)
The article talks about an untested product called Airborne that multitudes of people buy to treat the common cold.  There must be some psychological reason people turn to medication rather than make lifestyle changes that actually do help.  Is marketing and advertising really that effective?  It sure has created an entire culture and industry around diamonds.  Whatever it is, it’s unhealthy.