Keto diet fails the test !

[Break60]

See attached study:

nutritionfacts.org/video/ke...

[Hidden]

Cancer sufferers are always looking for some kind of "magic bullet" that will wipe out their cancer and set them free. The body is designed to function on a natural balanced diet, and that is what will maximise the immune system. THAT is the magic bullet that kills cancer throughout our lives. When that system fails, we "get cancer", but we have always had SOME cancer. Most of us (if we are honest) can make a long list of things we did to weaken our immune system - eating the wrong kind of sugar, junk food, poisons, lack of exercise and Vit D, overweight. There is little point making the body weak from "selective" starvation hoping the cancer cells are going to starve as well. They will have first claim on your body reserves to keep making babies, and now your immune system is weaker too.

The only "starvation" that seems to work is the very temporary "detox" diets that can clean up the gut microbiome. Your immune system is based on these trillions of bugs and you need tens of thousands of "brands" to process food (and make short-chain proteins) in a healthy gut. If you eat wrong, you will create imbalances that weaken your immune system.

A "natural" diet is many kinds of raw veggies, fruit, nuts, berries, with the odd bit of animal fats from birds and animals. Sunshine, exercise and sleep. Nothing from a packet or bottle. Zero sugar. These "cave men" never get cancer. These days anything with GMO contents guarantees you get a good dose of weed-killer and pesticides. it is in the food - you cannot wash it off or peel it off. Half your diet may be this stuff. Read up about all this - it is a complex subject, and your life depends on it.

[TommyTV in reply to Hidden]

I somewhat disagree with your statement cave men never got cancer. There is already proof the dinosaurs got cancer, and the Pharaohs certainly got cancer, on the basis that every living thing on the planet gets cancer, diet is far too simple an excuse. My opinion goes with Darwinian Evolution, in that good genetic changes make you faster, taller, stronger, bad genetic changes give you Cystic Fibrosis , Hutchinson’s Chorea, and a whole host of others including cancer. Of course you can limit genetic damage by avoiding sunshine, tobacco and asbestos to name a few, but as long as cells need to divide, errors will always occur.

[Hidden in reply to TommyTV]

You are nit picking. I said everyone has cancer from the day we were born, but the immune system usually deals with the problem. I could have written a megabyte story and still not covered the subject, so one has to generalise. Very few cave men died of cancer, and very few modern people on a "cave man" diet die from cancer - in fact are likely to live a long time. In evolutionary terms, our bodies are still "optimised" for cave man existence, which is why a modern junk food diet makes us vulnerable to diseases. We are starving fro nutrients!

You have also made a generarlisation - that sunlight is bad for you. 70% of Westerners are Vitamin D3 deficient because they avoid the sun, and that makes them much more vulnerable to cancer. D3 is a vital ingredient in the cancer-fighting kit (some say 10,000 iu a day). If you are not going to eat D3 pills, you must be out in the sun for about 20 minutes a day. Don't worry about the skin cancer which might come your way in 20 years - you need D3 now to fight your current cancer. Yes, there are trials that show that D3 helps a lot, and some work indicates it plays a direct role in helping the body seek out and kill cancer cells. But do not expect the average doctor to mention this. I will stick my neck out and say that most of the members of this forum are trying to fight their cancer without taking any D3 to help, and that is a sure way to lose the battle.

[TommyTV in reply to Hidden]

Can you explain where your evidence that very few cavemen had cancer? I can find no proof to support your statement. I can also find very little evidence other than a study in Japan that D3 prevents cancer, and that is qualified by the word ‘may’. There is some evidence that high levels of D3 may reduce liver cancer. Also, your statement that we are born with cancer is misleading. Since cancer is the final effect of around seven genetic ‘hurdles’ having been overcome, and all cells have the ability to become cancerous, that is very wide of the mark. I stick with my belief of Darwinian Evolution. All animals, whatever their diet, get cancer.

[Hidden in reply to TommyTV]

Nit picking again. There is plenty of evidence that "third world" people have a lot less cancer than the "first world" folks. It is because they eat a more natural diet of things they grow or pick themselves. Less poison. Less GMO. Less sugar. As they get "westernised", they too are getting more cancer.

Google "Prostate rate by country" to see the data.

On the point about cancer from the day we were born. We need a revolution to correct thinking that you "get" cancer, and get closer to the truth that we always have it - but the body deals with it IF the immune system is up to the job. You are confusing "visible" cancer with "getting cancer". The truth is our cancer was there for years before we get to "see" it, and there were tiny colonies all over the body. There are now blood tests to show these strays.

You are in the school that believes that "cut and burn!" will "get it all", but that is becoming increasingly not true as the statistics come in. With prostate cancer, the long term survival rates of those with and without their prostate gland are much the same. So the "We got it all!" is generally not true at all and millions continue to get pieces cut off in a futile quest.

[Buddy_Blank in reply to Hidden]

I'm not sure of the cancer stats, country by country, that leads you to assume the least developed ones get less cancer. If that is true, and I don't know if it is, it could be because of lifespan, and not diet per se. I'd like to see some evidence to support your claim (and not be told to "google it"). I have to shake my head re: cavemen, because the life expectancy of a caveman was between 30-35 years. The following article sheds some light on the caveman diet psychologytoday.com/us/blog...

[TommyTV in reply to Buddy_Blank]

I quite agree. A great number of cancers are age related, most westerners have excellent lifespans, which come with an increased risk of DNA damage.

I am not from the school of cut and burn, how Davidhealth makes that assumption is beyond me. I have stage 4 PCa. Never had chemo, surgery or radiotherapy, but still here 8 years later.

Regarding his use of the word cancer, it only applies to cells that have become cancerous, all other cells are normal or precancerous as the dna changes are becoming visible. No one is born with cancer, that is untrue. We are all born with the ability to produce cancer cells eventually through gene damage. Luckily our immune systems can spot dna damaged cells, until one becomes ‘smart’ enough to fool the immune system. Cancer cells then overwhelm your immune system. Only by triggering T cells by genetic engineering to recognise a cancerous cell from a normal cell can immunology work. Our immune systems need genetic intervention.

Your Welcome.

[Hidden in reply to TommyTV]

Apologies for the "Cut and Burn" label, but there are lots of people in this forum that think a "cut and burn" strategy can (with luck) kill all the cancer. It follows on from thinking that there is a material difference (nit picking) between pre-cancerous and cancerous cells. They both exist from birth, but it is true the ratio of cancerous cells will increase with age. It is also true that it takes time for the immune system to recognise new mutations, and they can get out of hand. What is also true (and the whole point) is that "getting cancer" is a failure of the immune system to kill the cancer cells quicker than they can grow. What is also true is that a good balanced diet is necessary to have a strong immune system to help stave off the onset and fight cancer (many people cure their cancer just by changing their diet). The other side of that coin is a "junk food" diet makes one more prone to getting cancer, and less able to control it with the immune system.

[TNCanuck in reply to Hidden]

Can you provide citations for your "statements of fact"?

[Break60 in reply to Hidden]

My post frankly had nothing to do with cancer per se. It was intended to help those of us looking for a safe and effective way to lose weight we’ve put on as a result of ADT.

I continue to see these ads espousing Keto pills allegedly promoted by the Shark Tank members as if to say if those smart folks put their own money behind them they must work. It’s all BS and, as it turns out , harmful .

I’ve lost 15 pounds in the last month by eating a well balanced mostly plant based diet of 1200 calories or less and exercising daily.

Bob

[Hidden in reply to Break60]

Exactly my point too - eating a healthy balanced diet will not make you fat (and if you are fat, you will lose it), and also maximise your immune system too. Starving the body of essential nutrients cannot be good for you! History shows a short shelf-life of fad diets for this reason.

In our arena of cancer sufferers, most of us also have things like diabetes or high blood pressure. These too can go away with a healthy diet - and help greatly in our fight to live.

[Longterm101 in reply to Break60]

Congrats Bob !! Stay healthy

[Break60 in reply to Longterm101]

Thanks. Feeling much better with a shrinking gut ! 🤣

[pjoshea13]

It's always a treat to hear the spin-master at work. LOL

Greger would be particularly interested in the study since he advocates a low-fat/high-carb diet - as do the current official US & UK food pyramids.

In the US: "The average weight for men rose "dramatically," in the CDC's words, from 166.3 pounds in 1960 to 191 pounds in 2002. Women went from 140.2 pounds in 1960 to 164.3 pounds in 2002." [2]

The British are now the fattest in Europe. From 2016:

"In a damning report that accuses major public health bodies of colluding with the food industry, the National Obesity Forum and the Public Health Collaboration call for a “major overhaul” of current dietary guidelines. They say the focus on low-fat diets is failing to address Britain’s obesity crisis, while snacking between meals is making people fat." [3]

"Dr Aseem Malhotra, consultant cardiologist and founding member of the Public Health Collaboration, a group of medics, said dietary guidelines promoting low-fat foods were “perhaps the biggest mistake in modern medical history, resulting in devastating consequences for public health”.

“Sadly this unhelpful advice continues to be perpetuated. The current Eatwell Guide from Public Health England is in my view more like a metabolic timebomb than a dietary pattern conducive for good health. We must urgently change the message to the public to reverse obesity and type 2 diabetes."

***

The study was far from real-world. The diets were isocaloric, as they needed to be for this particular study. With a high-carb diet, the glucose spike after lunch can be followed by a dramatic slump that leads to mid-afternoon fatigue and sends people to the snack machine or cookie jar for a quick sugar fix.

Here is how the Discussion section begins:

"This study demonstrated that transitioning from the BD to the KD coincided with a substantial decrease in daily insulin secretion ..."

BD is "high-carbohydrate baseline diet"

KD is "low-carbohydrate ketogenic diet"

IMO, the 'gasoline' for PCa is not testosterone, but insulin.

Why do diabetics have less PCa? The stress of glucose spikes has cause burn-out of pancreatic beta cells. They can no longer create the insulin spikes that non-diabetics on a high-carb diet produce.

The link to the full text of the study is below [1].

-Patrick

[1] academic.oup.com/ajcn/artic...

[2] livescience.com/49-decade-s...

[3] theguardian.com/society/201...

[Shanti1 in reply to pjoshea13]

Thanks Patrick, I always enjoy your posts and the logic and research you put into them. I like some of Dr. Gregor's work, but he definitely has an agenda and will cherry-pick studies and ignore others that don't fit his personal views.

[pjoshea13 in reply to Shanti1]

Thanks Shanti, I enjoy your posts.

I used to cringe when I saw Greger's name or heard his voice. He was my bete noir. I knew I would have to pull up every paper & see if he was misusing the results. But now, he's almost like an old friend.

He is very weak on PCa. The literature is light with regard to vegan diets of the Dean Ornish variety.

Some men find him very persuasive. Perhaps many men in this group? We need a researcher to track their progress against matched controls & other distinct diets (pescatarian, Mediteranean, full-fat vegan, etc.)

Best, -Patrick

[Shanti1 in reply to pjoshea13]

My husband is one of those "greatly persuaded" so I have spent way too much of my time investigating Gregor's statements, fortunately, he now also takes what Gregor says with a grain of salt. Hubby is still vegan, mostly raw and he actually seems to enjoy his diet, adapting to it quite contentedly. I am in favor of not stoking the fire with excess fats, high insulin provoking foods or high proteins that stimulate HGH/IGF-1. I found this interesting testimonial about calorie restriction from Dr. George Yu (same guy who was an author on the cabergoline/clioquinol paper). It corroborates reports from people who do Gerson or similar therapies with initial success which then fades when they return to normal eating or the cancer adapts. I think Calorie Restriction is very hard to do long term and for most people is too impacting on QOL. I also question it once the cancer is widespread and has strongly implemented mechanisms of catchexia. Anyhow, I was surprised by his report of such a large response and hope we see formal studies on this at some point.

yufoundation.org/about-us

"What Did We Learn from monitoring CR cancer patients in 13 years. CRON + Moderate Ketosis

All groups practice a form of CRON "Caloric Restriction Optimal Nutrition" limiting total intake of 1500- 1800 calories per day but the food was nutritionally dense and free from sugars, no fruits and diaries. Fruits have a special consideration because of its high Fructose content. The data from the administrators of these institutions and my own corroboration in past 13 years show that approximately 1/3 of the cases have impressive regression of cancers and some go into complete remission but 2/3 of them will improve both from objective studies (CAT scans + blood markers), physical examination and symptoms relief but later, developed a recurrence and die. At that point using CR diet will not stop progression of cancers."