Cancer Survival! Use Nuts and Olive Oil




Sometimes, it doesn't take a major diet overhaul to get significant health benefits. Small changes can be helpful, too.

This seems to be the take-home message from a new study in JAMA Internal Medicine linking olive oil and nuts to improved survival from prostate cancer.

Researchers studied the fat intake of more than 4,500 men who had been diagnosed with non-metastatic prostate cancer (this is cancer that's still confined to the prostate gland and has not spread to another place in the body).

It turns out that men who replaced 10 percent of their total daily calories from carbohydrates (such as rice, bread and sweets) with vegetable fats (such as olive oil and canola) after their cancer diagnosis had a 29 percent lower risk of developing lethal prostate cancer and a 26 percent reduced risk of death during a median of eight years of follow-up.


In addition, adding a daily ounce of nuts to their diets was linked to an 18 percent lower risk of developing metastatic prostate cancer.

So what's at play in the body?

"I think it could be several things," study author Erin Richman of the University of California, San Francisco, told me by phone. "Consumption of oils and nuts increases plasma antioxidants and reduces circulating insulin ... and inflammatory markers," she explains. And this could be significant, since high levels of insulin, cell damage and inflammation can all play a role in the progression of cancer.

Richman says she wasn't necessarily surprised by the results, though "the finding that vegetable fat [was beneficial] was new" and worthy of follow-up studies. This was an observational study, so it's tough to suss out whether it's the high intake of vegetable fat or a lower intake of carbs that is responsible for the effect observed.

As the researchers point out, there are lots of men who could potentially benefit from dietary changes. The American Cancer Society estimates there will be about 238,000 new cases of prostate cancer diagnosed this year. And about 2.5 million men currently have the disease.

The findings fit with a larger body of evidence pointing toward multiple health benefits of reducing consumption of refined carbohydrates and replacing foods high in saturated fats with plant-based sources of fat, including oils, nuts and avocados.

We asked outside experts who were not involved in the study to comment on the findings.

"These data in cancer patients, specifically men with prostate cancer, echo what we have seen in healthy individuals," wrote Dr. Lawrence Appel of Johns Hopkins University in an email. "Vegetable fat (mostly oils) appear to be beneficial."

And this year, we've seen some of the most convincing evidence that following a Mediterranean diet, rich in fish, vegetables, beans and fruits — as well as olive oil and nuts — can significantly cut the risk of cardiovascular events, such as strokes, among at-risk individuals.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Chelyabinsk Meteor And 2012 DA14

Image
On February 15, 2013, an asteroid entered the Earth’s atmosphere over the southern Ural region of Russia and exploded. The event was witnessed by thousands of people and became the largest known airburst since the 1908 Tunguska event. The blast produced a light brighter than the Sun, and the shock wave was felt by people all over the area. The energy of the explosion was equivalent to 20-30 of the atomic bombs used at Hiroshima. The asteroid was not detected by the authorities before the airburst, and the event surprised many people. It wounded 1,500 and damaged over 7,000 buildings. The meteor was caught on tape by multiple sources, which shows a giant fireball in the sky - followed by an enormous explosion of light. It was reported that the meteor made the ground hot, and the city smelled like gunpowder after the explosion. The event was an extremely rare occurrence and the only time in history that a meteor has been known to cause human injury.
Read more

Charity Destroys Lives

Image
By its very definition, charity is selfless. Whether it’s dropping a few pennies in a collection box or shipping our old T-shirts off to Africa, a spot of charity is a quick and easy way to net some karma. At least it would be if it didn’t usually harm the very people we’re trying to help. Take our practice of sending old clothes to Africa. Objectively, it makes sense: People living on under a dollar a day probably don’t have much of a clothing budget, so why not redistribute the stuff we’re not using? In fact, it makes so much sense that millions of us pack and ship off our novelty Christmas jumpers every year - resulting in the complete collapse of the African textile industry. Think about it: If you flood a market with free goods, you’ll bankrupt the traders and manufacturers trying to sell them. And that’s exactly what’s happened here. Across the continent, whole communities have lost their livelihoods in exchange for your old Slayer T-shirts.
Read more

BIZARRE MEDIEVAL MEDICAL PRACTICES

Image
Medicine is one of the cornerstones of modern civilization - so much so that we take it for granted. It wasn’t always the case that you could just waltz into a doctor’s office to have them cure what ailed you. In medieval times, for example, things were a lot more dangerous, and a lot stranger. Boar Bile Enemas Enemas in medieval times were performed by devices called clysters. A clyster was a long metal tube with a cup on the end. The tube would be entered into the anus and a medicinal fluid poured into the cup. The fluid would then be introduced into the colon by a series of pumping actions. Although warm soapy water is used for enemas today, things were a little more earthy back then: one of the most common fluids finding its way into a clyster was a concoction of boar’s bile. Even kings were high up on the clyster. King Louis XIV of France is said to have had over 2,000 enemas during his reign - some even administered while he sat on his throne.
Read more