Comments on: Warning: Bologna May Cause Cancer Headlines

By: RkaneKnight

RkaneKnight — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 15:44:18 +0000

I think the whole issue is that we are trying to mass produce stuff that should be grown in our own back yards. God didn’t create supermarkets! We weren’t created to live/work/play indoors all day in little cubicles, and eat foods that have traveled the world in boxes, and refrigerated trucks.

As someone who spends most of the day sitting down while programming software or writing, I agree. When I get out and move, my body is happier.

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 12:33:31 +0000

Tom - thanks for doing this. These headlines seem to come out daily and while I am confident in the primal diet I’ve migrated to, I still occasionally get doubts from the onslaught. Your break down helps alleviate those (very minor) fears.

When you lump “hamburgers and bacon” in with pizza, deli sandwhiches, and hot dogs, I assume you mean standard processed (feedlot) burgers served on crap buns and drowned in HFCS ketchup and Oscar-Meyer-like-processed bacon…

Definitely. I can’t imagine anyone who goes to the effort to find steaks and burgers from grass-fed cows would also eat pizza and hot dogs.

By: Dave, RN

Dave, RN — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:27:34 +0000

Of course the real problem here is red meat that’s been fed GRAINS, antibiotics and growth hormones. Just go for the Antibiotic free, hormone free, grass fed meat and all will be well.

Very good point. But given an either/or, I’ll eat the corn-fed cow before I’ll eat the corn.

By: Tony K

Tony K — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 23:28:11 +0000

Thanks. Feel free to use the graphs.

By: Tony K

Tony K — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 20:15:33 +0000

Hi Tom,

Nice post. Good breakdown on some of the many flaws in this study and approach in general.

I generated some sample corrrelations and put them up on Emotions for Engineers so people can see what they look like.

http://www.emotionsforengineers.com/2009/07/some-sample-correlations.html

It’s interesting to see what those correlation numbers really mean.

Cheers,
Tony

Great work, Tony. I knew the estimated correlations would produce a scattered distribution, but I didn’t know how to create a chart to demonstrate it visually. Would you mind if I insert one of those graphics into the original post for people who stumble on it later? (With credit, of course.)

By: Jane

Jane — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:49:30 +0000

This is a clip that was on the news here in Canada. Once again the blame is all on the Fat. http://watch.ctv.ca/news/health/lifetime-with-monica-matys/#clip191036

Would have been interesting to see what their results would be if the carbs had been cut from the meals.

I saw an article about CSPI’s latest bit of nonsense as well. There’s so much that’s ridiculous about this one, it may require a full post.

By: Laurie

Laurie — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 13:35:50 +0000

Copy of a letter/ email that I have sent to everybody I know….friends, family, colleagues, students, acquaintances, about GCBC and Fat Head.—
Hello Dear Ones and a book recommendation related to my mom’s health . July 2009 . My mother is 82 and losing her memory. She’s physically healthy and as pleasant as ever, which is nice- I guess. My frustration is that this was preventable - her vascular dementia. Hopefully the following information will be helpful to you, or intriguing or tick you off, but I’m aiming for some kind of reaction -and any will do. And, she’d probably be pleased to know her predicament could lead to some greater good.
Gary Taubes’ 2007 book, “Good Calories, Bad Calories” is what I’m hawking. If you have elderly relatives in your life, or if you eat, you want to read this book. Though I have recommended books to some of you before, until now, they’ve all just been fun or interesting ones. But this book literally changed my life and view of the conduct of science. I’m not exaggerating, even though some of you also know that I’m dramatic for effect in conversation!. I first laid hands and eyes on this important tome in June ‘08. I sat and read it in two days because I could NOT put it down. In the year since, I have learned and read more and I’ve reached a critical mass…..thus the reason you hold this letter in your hand.. GCBC is a paradigm slayer. By now you might have ‘evil-nutrient’ witch-hunting fatigue, but I implore you to read it. Before Taubes, I had NO clue that there isn’t any research to support the current dogma that we should eat low-calorie and low- fat foods.
Your brain is 70% fat. Each membrane surrounding each one of your 100 trillion cells is composed of cholesterol and lipid and I’ve calculated that the combined surface area of all these membranes is equivalent to two football fields! These membranes regulate all cellular processes and help sustain and maintain you. 50% of the weight of your cerebral cortex is cholesterol. My mom has spent her life trying to ‘eat right’. Instead of eating nourishing, fatty brain fuel, she ate a lot of altered, low-cholesterol, processed vegetable ‘Frankenstein Fats’. These were originally developed for the varnish, paint, putty, and candle industries. When new markets were sought and their addition to animal feed didn’t pan out, they were dumped into human chow - and claims they enhanced health began (and continue).
New neurons were thought to be created only in the developing fetus and newborn. Now we know that isn’t the only time we make them, but it also isn’t the most critical part of this story. It’s the interconnections between brain cells where the greatest potential lies and this seems to be a process that can continue, new connections being forged, throughout life. But high quality saturated animal FAT is a requirement if this is to occur. Prevention of dementia, or its retardation if it’s already begun, is my reason for writing this letter.
“The average brain consists of one hundred billion neurons . . . each neuron is connected to other neurons, usually one thousand to ten thousand others . . . the number of combinations possible exceeds the number of particles in the known universe” (Dr. Daniel Levitin, professor of psychology and neuroscience at McGill University and author of ‘This Is Your Brain on Music’). My opinion is that the brain is ‘plastic’ and can repair and regenerate itself and bypass damaged interconnections when necessary, but only if it’s properly fueled.
I hope I’ve grabbed your attention. Please refer to the following references list and PLEASE contact me if you do. I want to get something started. Wishing you High Fat Food For Thought from My Year of Reading Dangerously!

Talk by Gary Taubes at Grand Rounds, Dartmouth Medical June 2009 (journalists not usually invited to these……) http://www.dhslides.org/mgr/mgr060509f/f.htm
———————————————————————-
“FAT HEAD” DVD by Tom Naughton
“My Big Fat Diet”, DVD Dr. Jay Wortman, Bare Bones Productions
FAT HEAD blog http://www.fathead-movie.com/index.php/2009/04/19/can-your-own-bologna-kill-you/
HYPERLIPID blog
————————————————————————————
“The Eden Alternative”, Dr. William Thomas http://www.edenalt.org/
————————————————————————–
‘Space Doc’, Duane Graveline, http://www.spacedoc.net/

‘Good Calories, Bad Calories’, Gary Taubes/”Trick And Treat”, Barry Groves/”Cereal Killer”, Alan Watson/”The Great Cholesterol Con”, Dr. Malcolm Kendrick/”Pure, White and Deadly”, J.Yudkin PhD/
“Sugar Blues”, William Dufty/”Primal Body- Primal Mind”, Nora Gedgaudas/”Nourishing Traditions”, Sally Fallon/”Know Your Fats”, Dr. Mary Enig/”The Vegetarian Myth”, Lierre Keith

In Science Is Veritas, Laurie

Great letter. I hope you change some minds out there.

By: Dave Dixon

Dave Dixon — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 21:10:26 +0000

@Tom,

I don’t know if it’s true, because I don’t think it’s been directly tested in living people. But it seems a pretty good hypothesis based on the biochem. Can’t think of an instance in our evolution when we would have eaten quantities of carbs and fats simultaneously. Hunter-gatherer groups seem to be either/or, and will take fat if they can get it. The most glycemic naturally available food would be honey. So unless our ancestors made a practice of regularly fighting angry bees and dishing up brains topped with honey, I don’t think our genes would have been exposed much to this stimulus.

By: Cynthia

Cynthia — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 20:47:25 +0000

I’d like to see someone request access to the database to do their own independent analysis - perhaps someone from the Nutrition and Metabolism Society. I don’t think it would be too difficult to estimate sugars, fructose or intake of carbohydrates in general, if they asked questions at all related to the diet as a whole. I highly doubt that the researchers could only get good estimates of fat intake from the data! If this study was funded by grant funds, they should be obligated to make the data available to the public - after all we paid for it. I’d really like to see what someone without a “fat is evil” bias would make of the data! At least report on ALL the data and not just single out dietary fat!

I’m not sure how people get ahold of research databases like this one, but yes, that would be an interesting study.

By: Dave Dixon

Dave Dixon — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 20:05:30 +0000

@Tom,

It’s even stupider, because we know that fat tends to increase insulin secretion. This probably evolved in the context of eating meat, where it’s a good thing (you need insulin to get the fat and amino acids into your cells; amino acid absorption causes glucagon to be released, which helps keep your blood sugar stable in the absence of dietary carbs and presence of insulin). But fat and refined carbs is probably a real mess. The refined carbs trigger large insulin release as it is, and throwing fat on top of that probably just makes the situation worse.

So we might expect to see that correlation between fat consumption and cancer, given the composition of the modern diet. Unfortunately, it seems like the boobs who do these hand-waving observational studies don’t know any of this stuff.

@ethyl d,

Though it certainly seems like these scientists are fishing for ways to get a pre-supposed answer, I think in reality they’re probably just stupid. Well-intentioned, but too dumb to realize that their study design is biased towards a particular answer.

So it’s true that fat mixed with refined carbs is the “killer combination.” Think of all the foods that fall into that category: french fries, potato chips, desserts, take-out Chinese, donuts, a thousand varieties of sandwhiches, pizza, etc. No wonder diabetes is rampant.