Why Vegans Get Cancer

[andyswarbs]

I promised Hidden that if I have bad news for vegans then I would shout it from the tree-tops and that's what I am going to do today. Why did I promise this? Because I was accused of spreading propaganda that vegan is best, vegans are great, that meat & dairy is bad, blah blah blah.

Whatever, I try to go with the science and as I find out more about science I want to share those highlights here. That also means that I refine my food choices, based on ideas I learn. Getting to the good science is sometimes very difficult. The dairy industry in the USA was successfully prosecuted for spreading very poor quality research and using it to actively promote milk as a health food. This research was proven in a court of law that it designed from the outset to show milk consumption was good for health. But that is another story.

Just because milk is not good for health that does not mean, per se that all vegan foods are good for health. One controversy that came to light at least in 2004 - because of research - that a significant number of vegans get cancer. And that is what this post is about.

I don't pretend to understand all the nuances of the story. I am trying to get up to speed, but this is partly a story of a deeper understanding of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. Partly it is a story of soy, particularly soy used in meat-replacement products such as burgers.

However the biggest part of the story is about IGF1. This is found in milk and helps bones grow. Obviously we want our children to have healthy growth, however as we become adults more growth is not what we generally want. IGF1 has one role in the body - helping growth. IGF1 is found in dairy milk and is designed to turn a baby calf into a huge heffer. It does that very successfully.

The challenge with growth is we want bone growth until we reach maturity. However IGF1 has been shown to promote cancer growth as well. This is one of the main reasons I advocate people should not consume dairy.

But, and this is a big but, IGF1 is found in soy, especially isolated soy protein. Not just that but the levels of IGF1 in soy are twice that of in dairy. Most of the problem seems to be with isolated soy protein which is used in many meat/dairy replacement products such as tofu burgers.

You can learn so very much more by watching the fruit doctor's episode on the subject youtube.com/watch?v=D8i94tT...(Not working as expected?) where she covers what I have said above and discusses cases of some high-profile vegan activists who died from cancer.

And this is my final point. People who go vegan for ethical reasons (animal welfare) may not transition towards a plant-food diet designed for health reasons. They may get stuck in "transition" foods such as meat alternatives. These could be soy-based ice creams, milks, burgers etc etc. It is so important for new people who go vegan to see this as a learning curve and to learn about the health benefits of heading towards a whole-food plant based diet, especially one with minimal oils. And part of that is a transition away from meat-replacement transition foods.

For myself I am trying to remember when I last had soy, in any form. That is a long time ago. When I first went vegetarian often I would have had a things like TVP, textured vegetable protein, which is actually soy protein. So it is possible my body has cancer inside it from that history. That was a risk that I did not know about. Hopefully my current diet, which has no soy in it will reverse any potential cancerous growth that might have happened in the past.

For everyone else who has adopted a vegan styled diet, my advice would be to use transition foods as a way of getting used to a vegan lifestyle, but to phase them out as you learn about the benefits of plant-based approach and gain more confidence in cooking and eating that day.