Have I mentioned how much it kills me to post anything less than eight pages long (especially when the not-eight-page-long thing is also not the promised wheat post)? I’ll risk some death today. Mark Sisson kindly invited me to write a guest blog post for Mark’s Daily Apple about that recent study blaming fat and cholesterol for faster-growing, more aggressive breast cancer tumors. It generated quite a few headlines a week or two ago and probably made the low-fat crowd a little smugger about their mammary health. But as usual, the publicized conclusions are a far cry from what the research showed. Here’s a closer look at the study and what it really uncovered:
High Fat Diet Linked to Breast Cancer?
And because this feels a little too much like a link-and-run crime, here’s some stuff this post would’ve had if it were longer:
Get it? Because I’m kind of cheesy and corny? I’m here all night, folks.
Denise Minger 
Where’s the picture of Kansas in August? 😉
The authors of that paper probably thought that this was a quick way to pad their CVs knowing that many reviewers in so called peer-reviewed journals don’t really take the time as you have to critically analyze and dissect the whole study. Once again, Denise, you did a far better job doing so than most academics with fancy titles after their names.
Before putting the feed products on the market, the manufacturers must have run tests very similar to this. Or even exactly like this. Basically all they did was replicate manufacturers’ quality control tests and compare.
Hey Niesy,
Great dissection yet again (although you gotta admit, this was not one of your biggest challenges was it 😉 ) – struck me how absurd the “western diet” was – how do they get away with this sh*t??
anyway – that wheat post? (yawn…) hey – YOU promised it….
thanks – yer getting to be a star ya know-
Ravi
DaiaSolGaia
Discoveries for a Full Life
http://daiasolgaia.com
I was truly horrified that the diets weren’t controlled at all. There was no way to make the claim that fat or cholesterol had anything to do with the tumors. I’m shocked that this is what gets published. I’m getting so much more jaded about scientific studies, especially as reported by the media. Terrible.
Daiaravi,
I’ve been checking out your website, which has some excellent things on it about soil remineralization. There’s something puzzling me. The descriptions of your lifestyle and family seem to be identical to descriptions given on another thread by Moksha. Are you and Moksha the same person?
Jane,
I’ve been checking out Daiaravi’s website too, and there’s something puzzling me also. He lets you contact him directly through his website, so what’s your point in questioning him here? Denise spends a huge amount of time and effort researching and analysing and writing these posts, so please don’t disrespect her and the rest of us with your agenda-driven nonsense.
Dairavi,
Here’s something from your website which may explain your interest in getting Denise to write (negatively?) about wheat:
‘USEFUL GOODS/PRODUCTS RELATED TO THIS POST THAT WE STAND BEHIND: gluten free flours, gluten free recipe books, books on losing weight with proven lo-carb diets, paleo diet books, paleo diet (lo carb) snacks. We appreciate if you will click-through here to our Amazon Store so we may get affiliate credit for your purchases. THANKS for your support.’
Jane, you are an anonymous axe-grinder yourself.
But thanks for your investigative journalism. No doubt it will win the Vegan Troll Times a Pulitzer.
You should make Sisson link to your blog instead!
Okay, I went over there and read it.
So basically the high cancer mice were being fed a diet of dairy and refined sugar, while the lower cancer mice were being fed pretty much a natural mouse diet. Heh.
Plus, I noticed that the protein/carbohydrate/fat percentages didn’t add up to 100; I guess the remainder was fiber?
The only really clean cancer paper I’ve seen was this one:
http://www.ajcn.org/content/85/6/1586.full
I’d be interested if you have any reactions to it.
Cindy and Ugh,
I imagine you are two more alter egos of Moksha/Daiaravi’s. One more question: are there actually 5 of you? Is Liss the fifth? This is important, because Liss may have succeeded in misleading Denise about McCarrison’s work.
Why do you imagine that, “Jane”? Because you can’t believe there might be more than a single person who isn’t besotted with veganism?
BTW, “Denise” cannot be misled, for “she” is really a bot programmed by the Weston A. Price foundation — one that has been coded far too cunningly to be vulnerable to falsehoods propagated by carbon-based lifeforms.
Ugh/Moksha/Daiaravi/Liss, the jig is up. Jane has figured out that we are I am you. (Ssshhh, she hasn’t yet figured out that we are all really Denise just commenting on her own posts, ’cause you know no one else believes this stuff.)
You are not me. I am the eggman.
Coo coo ca-choo.
Whatever you guys/gals are on….please can I have some? ;-D
More great work, Denise. I am currently doing a Med Phys master’s degree and my research project is breast cancer related. I have recently posted about cancer, positron emission tomography and the Warburg effect on my new blog… PET gives a much better idea of which food is most associated with tumour growth.
@Amanda: Very interesting blog (cool glucose/tumor gif!).
Here’s a link for other folks:
http://medphyzz.blogspot.com/2011/01/positron-emission-tomography-and.html
Hey Denice
Read your article on Mark’s blog, great stuff!
What’s particular unnerving is that all these bogus studies are leading people to eat less fat which invariably leads to high consumption of refined carbs and sugar, the real culprit.
Sincerely
Amit
Love your work.
The mice in my life confine themselves to grain and seed ( and of course grain laced with brodifacoum) we store in the woolshed. The dog can find them (under snow… just like the movies) whilst they are eating grass seed. They don’t eat high protien foods or any chloresterol so how can one make any assumptions about why they get sick on that diet?
Is it any wonder that newspapers and mainstream media are losing readers? It takes independent bloggers to do any useful investigative work. A journalism degree seems completely useless.
here’s another one for you to disassemble:
http://www.ajcn.org/content/early/2011/01/26/ajcn.110.002758.abstract
In other words, it may take more than 5 days for your body to adjust to a radical change in diet…
AAAArgh! Is it something wrong with the RSS-feed on your site? My reader hasn’t notified me of any new posts and now I’m wisiting I se that I have missed many. My feed stopped working after “The China Study: A Formal Analysis and Response”
(So I have to use a couple of afternoons to read up – which is a good ting, in a way.)
PS – my reader (google/IG doesn’t seem to have problems with other sites…)
Some time you have nothing to do (please don’t stop reading here) I wish you would look into what kind of cooking oil a culture favors, and see if there is a correlation with the incidence of heart disease. Doesn’t have to be the last word, just something to get the ball rolling.
Peter Silverman, Portland, OR
it’s over production of the fat growth hormone insulin
Two randomized human studies ( 7 years or more) have shown that high fat diet is not likely to cause breast cancer. The first one was WHI done in US 2006 ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16467232 ) and the second one was only recently published (Canadian RCT): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21199800
How much have you heard of these in media? Afterall, it’s only the large scale randomized trials that will or won’t verify the experimental hypotheses.
The most effective ways to prevent breast cancer seem to be: 1) avoid obesity 2) avoid excess alcohol.
If you wish, you can have a look my take on breast cancer: http://www.slideshare.net/pronutritionist/breast-cancer-eng-5443354
Very interesting and quite informativepost