When I posted the "red meat" study recently, a few assumed that the meat industry must have been involved. There was obvious bias because the findings were obviously wrong. LOL
No-one mentioned the anti-red-meat bias. In response to cesanon I did note that the disciples of Ancel Keys are still in control & very influential.
Nina Teicholz in the LA Times reported that [1]:
"The nutrition establishment went ballistic. Even before publication of the Annals papers, 14 heavyweights in the field signed a letter demanding a preemptive “retraction” of the review. All the signers were members of a group called the True Health Initiative that advocates for a plant-based diet. Many of them recommend plant-based diets in their research papers, which rely heavily on epidemiology."
The Physician's Committee for Responsible Medicine [PCRM] was one such group:
"Physicians Group Files Federal Petition Against Annals of Internal Medicine over False Red Meat Claim" [2]
***
The PCRM cropped up this morning:
"Doctors petition FDA to add breast cancer warning on cheese" [3].
Coincidentally, just this weekend, I was reading a recent paper:
"Dairy Products and Cancer Risk in a Northern Sweden Population." [4]
Swedes collectively consume a lot of cheese - 18.9kg in 2017.
As expected: "In men, we observed an increased prostate cancer risk among high-consumers of cheese (hazard ratio (HR) for highest vs. lowest quintile (Q5-Q1), 1.11 ..."
{Some would point out that this type of study, using estimates from "from semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaires", is actually weak science. An 11% increased risk for quintile 5 over quintile 1 isn't very impressive & might be explained by something else. Those big cheese eaters are clearly not listening to their doctors, so who knows what else they are doing? But I'm not going to point that out.}
"In women, high-consumers of cheese had a decreased risk of overall cancer (HR Q5-Q1, 0.95 ...), smoking-related (HR Q5-Q1, 0.84 ...), and colorectal cancers (HR Q5-Q1, 0.82 ...)"
18% less risk of colorectal cancer? &, seemingly no increased risk of breast cancer.
Note that I don't intend to review the entire BCa-cheese literature, but the new Swedish finding suggests to me that women should not rely on the PCRM at this point.
***
Here's what the PCRM say about testosterone? [4]. It's a bit convoluted & not at all scientific:
"Men who rate themselves as generally angry on questionnaires given early in life are, by the age of 55, three times more likely to have heart disease and six times more likely to have a heart attack (myocardial infarction), compared to other men. The Johns Hopkins University study appears in today's Archives of Internal Medicine."
"One common theme between anger and heart disease: Testosterone may lead to aggressiveness, and men with low levels of sex-hormone binding globulin (SHBG), which binds testosterone, tend to be rated by their wives as more domineering and difficult to get along with, compared to men with higher SHBG levels. Low-fat, vegan diets lower cholesterol levels, but also raise SHBG, helping to mute testosterone effects."
I have had considerable experience with & without testosterone [T] since diagnosis 15 years ago. I associate the early period of continuous T use (at ~1,000 ng/dL) with a general feeling of well-being. Certainly not anger. T replacement is often associated with improvements in mood and energy levels. Interestingly, when T rises SHBG actually decreases. I have no idea why. Why would higher total-T lead to higher bioactive-T? Might be dangerous. LOL
Anyway, the PCRM seems to be saying that men can avoid anger-related disease by reducing free testosterone via a low-fat vegan diet. Too bad that lower free-T is associated with PCa risk & a poorer prognosis.
The name "The Physician's Committee for Responsible Medicine" seems designed to mislead. What's wrong with "Vegan Physician Activists"?
Just to show that I am castrate until month end, & therefore not angry with the PCRM, I'll paste what they say about PCa [5]:
"A plant-based diet that avoids milk and dairy products can help protect against prostate cancer.
"Research shows that a plant-based diet may lower prostate cancer risk and slow its progression if diagnosed. Fruits and vegetables rich in lycopene (the bright red pigment found in tomatoes, watermelon, and pink grapefruit) may be especially beneficial. Men who consume two or more servings of tomato sauce per week have 23 percent less risk of prostate cancer, compared to those having tomato sauce less than once per month, according to data from the Harvard's Health Professionals Follow-Up Study. Cruciferous vegetables (such as broccoli, cabbage, and Brussels sprouts) also offer protection.
"Milk and dairy products are linked to an increased prostate cancer risk due to the hormone insulin-like growth factor (IGF-I), saturated fat, and dairy calcium and protein. Red and processed meat and eggs are also associated with increased risk for prostate cancer."
Thin stuff, IMO, although I think I know all of the studies they are referring to & have even cited them.
We are long time educated by westonaprice.org / price-pottenger.org (??) leveraging great 1st hand research by Dr Price in the 1930's traveling the world then writing a book, Nutrician and physical degeneration, a long but worth while read.
General source of nutrician research / books: price-pottenger.org/ and westonaprice.org , with a slant toward prenatal and children + family thriving health... Leading to health through out life.
Watched the documentary Fat last night, lots of good historical and time line facts/story re how the anti-fat dogma got its roots. Totally in the face of how the body and insuline etc works. Sad the needless deaths and disease since and presently!
In the past, several of your posts have dealt with IFG-1/PCa and dairy products which should be avoided because of that connection. Now we are to believe that there is no such link. I went through several demographic studies of PCa throughout the world. It often appears contradictory:
"Reported PCa incidence rates varied more than 25-fold worldwide in 2012, with the highest incidence rates observed in Micronesia/Polynesia, the USA, and European countries. Mortality rates paralleled the incidence rates except for Africa, where PCa mortality rates were the highest. Countries with higher HDI (r = 0.58) and per capita GDP (r = 0.62) reported greater incidence rates. According to the most recent 10-yr temporal data available, most countries experienced increases in incidence, with sharp rises in incidence rates in Asia and Northern and Western Europe. A substantial reduction in mortality rates was reported in most countries, except in some Asian countries and Eastern Europe, where mortality increased. Data in regional registries could be underestimated."
Conclusions
"PCa incidence has increased while PCa mortality has decreased in most countries. The reported incidence was higher in countries with higher socioeconomic development." This last statement, I believe , may shed some clarification as to why one group of heavy dairy consumers of dairy products has had an increase in PCa while another hasn't. Example, Denmark vs. Bulgaria. Both countries consume a lot of dairy products, the difference being "socioeconomic development" much greater in Denmark than in Bulgaria. Having recently visited Bulgaria, I can attest to the relatively simple diet of these people. Lots of yogurt, cheese, whole grain bread, but very little junk food. The "richness" of the diet (Denmark) plus the total calories consumed may explain the difference.
There have been several studies done to understand the correlation between IGF-1 and Cancer. One of the study focused on this area of
research mentioned about various epidemiologic studies [31] where, association of consistent high circulating levels of a potent mitogen
and insulin-like growth factor (IGF-I) with increased risk for several common cancers, including those of the breast [32], prostate [33,34],
lung [35] and colorectum [36] were cited. When we review these cited research papers we learn that, in the study about breast cancer it
was hypothesized that high circulating IGF-I concentrations would be associated with an increased risk of breast cancer, however in their research finding they did not find any association between IGF-I concentrations and breast-cancer risk among the whole study group. In
their study, they interpreted the positive relation between circulating IGF-I concentration and risk of breast cancer among premenopausal but not postmenopausal women. They suggested that Plasma IGF-I concentrations may be useful in the identification of women at high risk of breast cancer and in the development of risk reduction strategies. However, they suggested additional larger studies of this association among premenopausal women are needed to provide more precise estimates of effect. Hence, IGF-1 responsible for the high risk of breast cancer was not clearly established in this study [32,37]. In case of prostate cancer, researcher conducted a case-control study
within the physician’s health study on prospectively collected plasma from 152 cases and 152 controls and they suggested a strong positive association between IGF-I levels and prostate cancer risk. They suggested cancer risk reduction and treatment through identification
of plasma IGF-I as a predictor of prostate cancer [33]. The association of IGF-1 and ovarian cancer is also reported [38]. Increased risk of
cancer development with increased serum levels of IGFs and/or altered levels of their binding proteins are reported in various studies [39].
Data based on these studies underline the significance of IGFs system in the development of cancer risk, and a potential target for
novel anticancer treatments and/or preventative strategies in high-risk groups. Elevated level of plasma IGF-1 and serum IGFBP3 in breast cancer patients is reported. Researcher also observed that, the IGF-1 did not correlate with age and nodal stage, IGF-1 and IGF binding protein 3 increased with tumor size, IGF-1 did not correlate with estrogen receptor status but did increase in progesterone-receptor-positive patients. IGF-1 levels were higher in premenopausal patients and in women with cancer recurrence. Tamoxifen reduced IGF-I levels significantly and reduced the risk of recurrence. They also suggested greater survival probability in patients with plasma IGF-1 levels <
120 ng/ml and concluded that lowering of plasma IGF-1 may reduce the risk of developing breast cancer in high-risk groups and slow the progression of breast cancer in patients at early stages of cancer [40]. Strong positive association between IGF-1 levels and prostate
cancer risk was suggested in the study involving case-control study within the physicians on prospectively collected plasma from 152
cases and 152 controls [33]. The Random effects meta-analysis (Involving 5 cohort and 29 case-control studies) reported an association between dairy consumption and gastric cancer [41]. The inhibition of IGF1/IGF1 receptor as a viable therapeutic strategy to suppress the
progression of Glioblastoma multiforme malignant tumor was suggested [42]. Meta-analysis results demonstrated the role of IGF1 gene rs1520220 in cancer susceptibility varies by ethnicity and cancer type and that gene rs1520220 increases cancer susceptibility in Asian populations [43]. The role of IGFs in increasing the risk of cancer and many aspects of the IGF system and its relationship to cancer were discussed [44,45]. The raised serum IGF-1 levels and its association with increased risk of prostate, breast and colorectal cancers were
also discussed [46].
IGF-1 in milk and dairy products and its association with risk of developing cancer.
Various researchers tried to understand the correlation between IGF-1 and dairy products consumption, and we can see various contrasting outcome of different researches. It was suggested that the rBGH initiates the production of IGF1 to high levels in milk
and presence in milk is resistant to pasteurization [14]. Consequently, the consumption of milk from rBGH treated dairy cows will likely
increase the daily intake of bovine IGF-1 [47]. Human IGF-1 and bovine IGF-1 are chemically similar and allowing the bovine hormone to
be biologically active in humans. They suggested that the role of IGF-1 in cancer is supported by various epidemiological studies revealing association between with increased risk of several common cancers such as prostate, breast, colon-rectum and lung and high levels of circulating IGF-1. The combination of IGF-1 in rBGH-milk and IGF1 in the human gastrointestinal lumen would augment intraluminal
concentrations of this hormone [48]. This increases the possibility of local mitogenic effects on gut tissues. The association between whole milk consumption and an increased risk of prostate cancer recurrence was suggested [49]. However, in this study, the association
between whole milk and increased risk of prostate cancer recurrence was only observed among men at the upper range of overweight
and obese men (BMI ≥ 27 kg/m2
They proposed mechanisms for the potential effect of dairy on risk of prostate cancer included: high calcium intake decreasing vitamin D levels [50-52] and increasing IGF‐1 Levels [53,54], fluctuating phosphorus levels modifying vitamin
D3 concentrations [55] and elevated saturated fat intake [56]. Their team previouslyreported association between saturated fat intake
with an increased risk of prostate cancer‐specific mortality among men with prostate cancer in the Physicians Health Study [56]. This supports the proposed hypothesis that the saturated fat content of whole milk in part contributes to the adverse association observed. Hence, this study also indicates that milk is such a complex food that IGF-1 level in milk alone cannot be considered responsible for potential agent for cancer and other constituents in milk should be consider as well. The available evidence suggests that milk increases IGF-1,
and this may affect breast cancer risk. However, epidemiological studies were so far not successful in establishing a strong relationship
between milk and the breast cancer risk. They also review other studies to understand the role of dairy products in the development
of breast cancer risk factors and hypothesized that milk causes greater adult-attained height, early menarche, higher birth weight and
delayed menopause which all can be considered as breast cancer risk factors and associated to higher levels of IGF-1. The relationship with adult weight and breast density is still not clear and inconsistent. They also hypothesized that the milk intake may influence breast cancer potentially through elevated IGF-1 level, but they were not certain about association with other dairy products. This requires more studies to examine these hypothesis [57]. Higher intakes of yogurt were associated with reduced risk of breast cancer and higher intakes of cheddar and cream cheeses were associated with a marginally significant increased risk. Associations with dairy foods were mixed and in general reflected those of overall breast cancer. However, they observed positive associations between milk intake and risk of estrogen-receptor-positive breast cancer and inverse associations between sweet dairy and estrogen-receptor-positive breast cancer. They suggested that the specific dairy foods may contribute to breast cancer risk in women although, the risk varies by source of dairy. They recommended future studies to confirm the protective potential of yogurt in this type of cancer [58]. Diet low in glycemic index and milk protein content reduces IGF-1 signaling and high IGF-1 levels may be considered as an indicator for higher risk of cancer, which may require treatment with insulin-sensitizing agents and appropriate dietary intervention [59]. Meta-analysis study concluded that there was moderate evidence that circulating IGF-1 increase with milk (and dairy protein) intake and that prostate cancer risk increased with IGF-1 level [60]. The association appears to be due to the protein content of milk [61].
So the beat goes on with the call for more studies and one study cancelling out another. As I have previously mentioned, why ingest a foods (dairy and red meat) that start out with three strikes: high saturated fat and cholesterol (also not heart healthy); iron and hormones? Occasional consumption of these foods probably wouldn't present much of a threat, but as far as I am concerned, why bother, there are plenty of other things to eat without the baggage.
The editor of Annals of Internal Medicine defended Johnston by saying that conflicts are common, telling the Times that they appear on “both sides of this debate.”
I can't comment on Hamblin himself, but he throws some names around, & the casual reader might not appreciate the baggage that some have.
e.g. American Heart Association (AHA) which has been accused of cherry picking [1]:
"We believe that one reason for the AHA's resistance to this evidence is its significant, longstanding reliance on funding from interested industries, such as the vegetable-oil manufacturer Procter & Gamble, original maker of Crisco Oil, which virtually launched the AHA as a nationwide powerhouse in 1948. Just recently, Bayer, the owner of LibertyLink soybeans, pledged up to $500,000 to the AHA, no doubt encouraged by the group's continued support of soybean oil, which is by far the dominant type of oil consumed in America today. It is striking that the authors of the three review papers supporting the AHA's stance on vegetable oils all report receiving funding from one or more vegetable-oil companies. Indeed, the review paper that most favored these oils was written by a researcher who discloses serving on the scientific advisory board of Unilever, one of the largest manufacturers of vegetable oils in the world."
e.g. Frank Hu - Chair of the Department of Nutrition and the Fredrick J. Stare Professor of Nutrition and Epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Professor of Medicine at the Harvard Medical School. At the 2018 American Heart Association meeting, Frank B. Hu, MD, PhD, gave the Ancel Keys Memorial Lecture.
The Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health was called the Harvard School of Public Health when Fredrick J. Stare ran it.
"In his autobiography, Adventures in Nutrition, Stare states that in 1960 he obtained a grant of $1,026,000 from General Foods for the "expansion of the School’s Nutrition Research Laboratories" and that in the 44-year period as a nutritionist he raised a total of $29,630,347.[7] For instance, Kellogg's funded $2 million to set up the Nutrition Foundation at Harvard. The foundation was independent of the university and published a journal Nutrition Reviews that Stare edited for 25 years.
Stare also co-founded and served as chairman of the Board of Directors for the American Council on Science and Health. In 1980, during his tenure as Chairman, he sought funding from US tobacco giant Philip Morris USA for ACSH's activities." [2]
Walter Willett - the Fredrick John Stare Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health. He is also a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.
Willett is a disciple of Ancel Keys & somewhat intemporate when Keys' legacy (& his own) is questioned:
"Top Science Journal Rebukes Harvard's Top Nutritionist"
"In an extraordinary editorial and feature article, Nature, one of the world’s pre-eminent scientific journals, has effectively admonished the chair of the Harvard School of Public Health’s nutrition department, Walter Willett, for promoting over-simplification of scientific results in the name of public health and engaging in unseemly behavior towards those who venture conclusions that differ to his."
"Willett, who is one of the most frequently quoted academic sources on nutrition in the news media, appears to have crossed a Rubicon when he denounced Katherine Flegal, an epidemiologist at the US National Center for Health Statistics, for publishing a study that showed people who were overweight (but not obese) lived longer than those deemed normal weight. “This study is really a pile of rubbish, and no one should waste their time reading it,” he told National Public Radio." [3]
"“Studies such as Flegal's are dangerous, Willett says, because they could confuse the public and doctors, and undermine public policies to curb rising obesity rates."
Don't confuse the public with facts?
e.g. David Katz - founder of the Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center and a voluntary clinical instructor at the Yale School of Medicine ...
"... is facing criticism this week from doctors and health care professionals around the world for his quoted comments about investigative journalist Nina Teicholz in a recent article published in the Guardian.
The article, “The Sugar Conspiracy” by journalist Ian Leslie, describes the history of research into the causes of obesity, claiming that in recent years, scientific evidence has increasingly shown obesity to be a result of excessive sugar consumption, rather than fat consumption. In response to Teicholz, whose work aims to debunk the idea that dietary fat causes obesity, Katz was quoted in the Guardian’s April 7 article as saying, “Nina is shockingly unprofessional … I have been in rooms filled with the who’s who of nutrition and I have never seen such unanimous revulsion as when Miss Teicholz’s name comes up. She is an animal unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.” Since the publication of the article, several health care professionals have urged Katz to apologize to Teicholz for his comments, both online and in letters to Dean of the Yale School of Medicine Robert Alpern and Dean of the Yale School of Public Health Paul Cleary." [4]
I agree that what can be perceived as conflict of interests are common. But I'm not entirely deterred by it. Devil's in the details. Keep in mind that the other side of the coin, the food companies, need to pay for these types of research for publicity. So there's a fine line, that perhaps sometimes gets crossed.
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MRI prior to HDR Brachy and HDR intensity.
PSA holding low!!
Introduction and asking for help interpreting latest scan results and thoughts on future treatment plan please.
