Meat and human health

By One Green Planet

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More and more people want to know what’s in the food they are eating, so we might as well begin with those burgers and steaks sizzling on the grill on these balmy summer nights. What, exactly is in the meat you are eating? Is there more to your burger than meets the eye? Sadly, the answer is yes.

Saturated Fat



The majority of meat production is now completely dominated by factory farms: 95% of pigs, 78% of cattle and 99.9% of chickens to be precise. In a majority of instances, animals are fed completely un-natural diets, which is a big part of the problem with conventional burgers. See, it’s like this. When cows are grass-fed and eating a diet natural to them (they are vegans, ironically…) their meat contains less than 2 grams of saturated fat per ounce, while grain-fed, factory-farmed cattle contain just under 10 grams of saturated fat per ounce. That’s an astonishing difference and the main reason heart disease is associated with consumption of red meat. It’s no small thing to consider the ramifications of about 12 grams of saturated fat in a 6-ounce steak versus almost 60 grams.



Antibiotics

Since the 1940’s, factory farms have employed the use of non-therapeutic antibiotics for healthy animals to help ensure they do not get sick. The animals live in un-naturally tight quarters; a sick one can infect the whole herd. So we dose them up before they become diseased rather than change the conditions in which they live…because that would cost money. These preventive drugs have another benefit, but again, hardly for the animal. It turns out that these antibiotics also make the animals fatter faster, which maximizes profits! So it’s a win-win for the factory farm ranchers. They fatten animals quickly and offset the disgusting unsanitary conditions in which these creatures are forced to subsist until slaughter, packed into feedlots and confined enclosures where an enormous amount of feces serves as the perfect breeding ground for bacteria and disease to spread from one animal to another. Sound delicious yet?



According to a report released by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), 80% (or 28.8 million pounds) of the antibiotics sold in the United States are used to raise livestock and poultry. When a farmer can walk into a feed store and purchase a 100-pound bag of tetracycline, we need to worry about the quality of meat they are producing. We try ball players in open court for the use of performance-enhancing steroids, but yet we eat them on a daily basis in our burgers, steaks and ribs. Yup. Steroids, similar to the ones athletes use.



Hormones

According to Cornell University research, they describe hormones in meat and dairy production to “make young animals gain weight faster. They help reduce the waiting time and the amount of feed taken by an animal before slaughter in meat industries. In dairy cows, hormones can be used to increase milk production. Thus, hormones can increase the profitability of the meat and dairy industries.”



There are a variety of hormones produced by our bodies that are essential for normal development of healthy tissue, but synthetic steroid hormones used as pharmaceutical drugs have been found to affect cancer risk. For instance, lifetime exposure to the natural steroid hormone, estrogen is associated with an increased risk for breast cancer. As early as the 1930’s, farmers realized that cows injected with compounds drawn from cows’ pituitary glands produced more milk. However, it was not until the 1980’s that it became possible to harvest enough of this compound for large-scale use in animal production. In 1993, the FDA approved the use of rbGH (recombinant bovine growth hormone also known as bovine somatotropin, rbST) in dairy cattle. Current estimates by manufacturers of this hormone indicate that 30% of the cows in the U.S. may be treated with these hormones. We should be concerned about the hormones being added to our foods!

It’s Time We Change



How many beef recalls, egg recalls, salmonella outbreaks, e-coli contaminations, under-cover exposes of unsanitary practices in meat packing plants will it take before we realize that factory farming is polluting the planet, destroying our health and contributing to unspeakable cruelty. Have our brains gone to mush? Are we immune to suffering in ourselves and in others? Do we not care about our own health and the health of the planet? Do we just talk a good story and carry our little canvas bags to the store and breathe easier because we have done our part for ‘greening?’

Meat consumption and cancer risk

The World Health Organization has determined that dietary factors account for at least 30 percent of all cancers in Western countries and up to 20 percent in developing countries. When cancer researchers started to search for links between diet and cancer, one of the most noticeable findings was that people who avoided meat were much less likely to develop the disease. Large studies in England and Germany showed that vegetarians were about 40 percent less likely to develop cancer compared to meat eaters. In the United States, researchers studied Seventh-day Adventists, a religious group that is remarkable because, although nearly all members avoid tobacco and alcohol and follow generally healthful lifestyles, about half of the Adventist population is vegetarian, while the other half consumes modest amounts of meat. This fact allowed scientists to separate the effects of eating meat from other factors. Overall, these studies showed significant reductions in cancer risk among those who avoided meat. In contrast, Harvard studies showed that daily meat eaters have approximately three times the colon cancer risk, compared to those who rarely eat meat.



 

A number of hypotheses have been advanced to explain the connection between meat consumption and cancer risk. First, meat is devoid of fiber and other nutrients that have a protective effect. Meat also contains animal protein, saturated fat, and, in some cases, carcinogenic compounds such as heterocyclic amines (HCA) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) formed during the processing or cooking of meat. HCAs, formed as meat is cooked at high temperatures, and PAHs, formed during the burning of organic substances, are believed to increase cancer risk. In addition, the high fat content of meat and other animal products increases hormone production, thus increasing the risk of hormone-related cancers such as breast and prostate cancer.



In 2007, the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) published their second review of the major studies on food, nutrition, and cancer prevention. For cancers of the oesophagus, lung, pancreas, stomach, collorectum, endometrium, and prostate, it was determined that red meat (beef, pork, or lamb) and processed meat consumption possibly increased cancer risk. For colorectal cancer, a review of the literature determined that there is convincing scientific evidence that red meat increased cancer risk and that processed meat, saturated/animal fat, and heavily cooked meat were also convincing of increased risk.



 

Carcinogenic Compounds in Cooked Meat



​Heterocyclic Amines


HCAs, a family of mutagenic compounds, are produced during the cooking process of many animal products, including chicken, beef, pork, and fish. Even meat that is cooked under normal grilling, frying, or oven-broiling may contain significant quantities of these mutagens.



 

The longer and hotter the meat is cooked, the more these compounds form. In some studies, grilled chicken has formed higher concentrations of these cancer-causing substances than other types of cooked meat.



The major classes of heterocyclic amines include amino-imidazo-quinolines, or amino-imidazo-quinoxalines (collectively called IQ-type compounds), and amino-imidazo-pyridines such as PhIP. IQ-type compounds and PhIP are formed from creatine or creatinine, specific amino acids, and sugars. All meats (including fish) are high in creatine, and HCA formation is greatest when cooking meat at high temperatures, as is most common with grilling or frying. Consumption of well-done meat and PhIP has been associated with increased risk of breast cancer and colon cancer, as discussed in greater detail below. A recent case-control study at the University of Utah that included 952 subjects with rectal cancer and 1205 controls found that men and women with the highest consumption of processed or well-cooked meat had an increased risk of rectal cancer.



 

Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons



Grilling or broiling meat over a direct flame results in fat dropping on the hot fire and the production of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon-containing flames. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) adhere to the surface of food, and the more intense the heat, the more PAHs are present. They are widely believed to play a significant role in human cancers. A fairly consistent association between grilled or broiled, but not fried, meat consumption and stomach cancer implies that dietary exposure to PAHs may play a role in the development of stomach cancer in humans.



 

Breast Cancer



Countries with a higher intake of fat, especially fat from animal products, such as meat and dairy products, have a higher incidence of breast cancer. In Japan, for example, the traditional diet is much lower in fat, especially animal fat, than the typical western diet, and breast cancer rates are low. In the late 1940s, when breast cancer was particularly rare in Japan, less than 10 percent of the calories in the Japanese diet came from fat. The American diet is centered on animal products, which tend to be high in fat and low in other important nutrients, with 30 to 35 percent of calories coming from fat. When Japanese girls are raised on westernized diets, their rate of breast cancer increases dramatically. Even within Japan, affluent women who eat meat daily have an 8.5 times higher risk of breast cancer than poorer women who rarely or never eat meat. One of the proposed reasons is that fatty foods boost the hormones that promote cancer.



 

According to new findings from the Shanghai Women's Health Study, soy food intake provides protection against premenopausal breast cancer when consumed during adolescence and as an adult. The usual dietary intake of 73,223 Chinese women during adulthood and adolescence was assessed after a mean follow-up of 7.4 years. Those with the highest intake of soy protein or isoflavone versus those with the lowest had about half the risk of premenopausal breast cancer regardless of age at time of consumption. No significant association with soy foods was found for postmenopausal breast cancer.



The consumption of high-fat foods such as meat, dairy products, fried foods, and even vegetable oils causes a woman’s body to make more estrogens, which encourage cancer cell growth in the breast and other organs that are sensitive to female sex hormones. This suggests that, by avoiding fatty foods throughout life, hormone-related cancer risk decreases. A 2003 study, published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, found that when girls ages eight to ten reduced the amount of fat in their diet—even very slightly—their estrogen levels were held at a lower and safer level during the next several years. By increasing vegetables, fruits, grains, and beans, and reducing animal-derived foods, the amount of estradiol (a principal estrogen) in their blood dropped by 30 percent, compared to a group of girls who did not change their diets.



 

Harvard researchers recently conducted a prospective analysis of 90,655 premenopausal women, ages 26 to 46, enrolled in the Nurses’ Health Study II and determined that intake of animal fat, especially from red meat and high-fat dairy products, during premenopausal years is associated with an increased risk of breast cancer. Increased risk was not associated with vegetable fats.



In addition, researchers at the Ontario Cancer Institute conducted a meta-analysis of all the case-control and cohort studies published up to July 2003 that studied dietary fat, fat-containing foods, and breast cancer risk. Case-control and cohort study analyses yielded similar risk results, with a high total fat intake associated with increased breast cancer risk. Significant relative risks for meat and saturated fat intake also emerged, with high meat intake increasing cancer risk by 17 percent and high saturated fat intake increasing cancer risk by 19 percent.



 

Several studies show meat intake to be a breast cancer risk factor, even when confounding factors, such as total caloric intake and total fat intake, are controlled. Part of the reason may be that meat becomes a source of carcinogens and/or mutagens, such as HCAs, that are formed while cooking meat at high temperatures. A review of HCAs showed that certain HCAs are distributed to the mammary gland and that humans can activate HCAs metabolically. As a consequence, frequent meat consumption may be a risk factor for breast cancer.



Colorectal Cancer

 

As with breast cancer, frequent consumption of meat, particularly red meat, is associated with an increased risk of colon cancer. Total fat and saturated fat, which tend to be substantially higher in animal products than in plant-derived foods, and refined sugar, all heighten colon cancer risks. At Harvard University, researchers zeroed in on red meat, finding that individuals eating beef, pork, or lamb daily have approximately three times the colon cancer risk, compared to people who generally avoid these products. A review of 32 case-control and 13 cohort studies concluded that meat consumption is associated with an increase in colorectal cancer risk, with the association being more consistently found with red meat and processed meat. And, in the recently published Cancer Prevention Study II, involving 148,610 adults followed since 1982, the group with the highest red meat and processed meat intakes had approximately 30 to 40 percent and 50 percent higher colon cancer risk, respectively, compared to those with lower intakes. In this study, high red meat intake was defined as 3 ounces of beef, lamb, or pork for men and 2 ounces for women daily, the amount in a typical hamburger. High processed meat intake (ham, cold cuts, hot dogs, bacon, sausage) was defined as 1 ounce eaten 5 or 6 times a week for men, and 2 or 3 times a week for women—the amount in one slice of ham. In addition, earlier studies have also indicated that those consuming white meat, particularly chicken, have approximately a threefold higher colon cancer risk, compared to vegetarians.



Secondary bile acids are probably part of the problem. In order to absorb fat, the liver makes bile, which it stores in the gallbladder. After a meal, the gallbladder sends bile acids into the intestine, where they chemically modify the fats eaten so they can be absorbed. Unfortunately, bacteria in the intestine turn these bile acids into cancer-promoting substances called secondary bile acids. Meats not only contain a substantial amount of fat; they also foster the growth of bacteria that cause carcinogenic secondary bile acids to form.



 

Cooking methods that promote the formation of HCAs are believed to play a significant role in colorectal cancer risk. A case-control study in North Carolina that analyzed meat intake by level of doneness, cooking method, and estimated intake of HCAs in 620 colon cancer patients and 1038 controls, found that not only was red meat intake positively associated with colon cancer risk, but also pan-frying was the riskiest way to prepare meat due to high HCA formation. Confirmation of the link between frying and colorectal cancer risk was adduced in the review mentioned above, where high frying temperature was found to increase colon cancer risk almost twofold, and rectal cancer risk by 60 percent.



Colorectal cancer is steadily becoming more common among young adults, according to an American Cancer Society analysis. Incidence rates among adults ages 20 to 49 increased 1.5 percent per year in men and 1.6 percent per year in women from 1992 to 2005. The increase may be tied to rising rates of obesity, a major risk factor for colorectal cancer. Increased consumption of meat (especially in fast food) over the past three decades could also be a key factor. Previous studies have suggested that diets free of red and processed meats and rich in plant-based foods may significantly reduce colorectal cancer risk. 

 

 

Prostate Cancer



Prostate cancer is one of the leading cancers among men in the U.S., and researchers have explored a number of possible dietary factors contributing to prostate cancer risk. These include dietary fat, saturated fat, dairy products, and meat, as well as dietary factors that may decrease risk, such as the consumption of carotenoids and other antioxidants, fiber, and fruit. As with breast cancer risk, a man’s intake of dietary fat, which is abundant in meat and other animal products, increases testosterone production, which in turn increases prostate cancer risk. One of the largest nested case-control studies, which showed a positive association between prostate cancer incidence and red meat consumption, was done at Harvard University in an analysis of almost 15,000 male physicians in the Physicians’ Health Study. Although this study primarily analyzed plasma fatty acids and prostate cancer risk, the authors found that men who consumed red meat at least five times per week had a relative risk of 2.5 for developing prostate cancer compared to men who ate red meat less than once per week. The most comprehensive dietary cohort study on diet and prostate cancer risk reported on nearly 52,000 health professionals in Harvard’s Health Professionals Follow-Up Study, which completed food frequency questionnaires in 1986. The report, based on 3 to 4 years of follow-up data, found a statistically significant relationship between higher red meat intake and the risk of prostate cancer, with red meat as the food group with the strongest positive association with advanced prostate cancer. These and other study findings suggest that reducing or eliminating meat from the diet reduces the risk of prostate cancer.



 

A new review published in the Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics assessed whether certain modifications in diet have a beneficial effect on the prevention of prostate cancer. Results suggest that a diet low in fat, red meat, dairy, and calcium, yet high in fruits and vegetables is beneficial in preventing and treating prostate cancer. Consumption of highly processed or charcoaled meats, dairy products, and fats seemed to be correlated with prostate cancer.



Other Cancers

 

Although not as extensively studied as breast, colon, and prostate cancer risk, a number of studies have concluded that meat consumption may play a significant role in kidney and pancreatic cancer risk. Three of eight case-control studies examining the relationship between renal cell carcinoma and meat consumption found a statistically significant increase in risk with a high consumption of meat. In addition, a prospective study in Japan found that people consuming meat daily had higher death rates from kidney cancer than those eating meat less frequently.



Red meat and high glycemic index foods could be risk factors for kidney cancer, according to a 2009 study in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association.  Researchers studied food questionnaires for 335 people with renal cell carcinoma, the most common form of kidney cancer, and 337 healthy controls. They found that men and women who ate red meat five or more times a week were more than four times as likely to develop the disease, compared to those who consumed red meat less than once a week.  The study also found that white bread, white potatoes, and other high glycemic index foods increased the cancer risk threefold. High glycemic index foods affect insulin-like growth factors, which impact tumor development.



 

Pancreatic cancer is relatively uncommon, yet it is frequently fatal, with fewer than 20 percent of cases surviving for one full year. Daily meat intake has been shown to be associated with increased pancreatic cancer risk in a number of prospective, cohort, and case-control studies. Some of these studies have singled out beef and pork consumption and have concluded there is a higher risk for pancreatic cancer with a higher intake of these foods.



According to a new study, fat from red meat and dairy products is associated with increased risk of pancreatic cancer. As part of the National Institutes of Health-AARP Diet and Health Study, researchers followed and analyzed the diets of more than 525,000 participants to determine whether there is an association between dietary fat and pancreatic cancer. This same study found no association between plant-food fat and pancreatic cancer.



 

A recent study in the British Journal of Cancer found that vegetarians are 12 percent less likely to develop cancer than meat-eaters.

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After following 61,000 meat-eaters and vegetarians for over 12 years, researchers also discovered that cancers of the blood—such as leukemia, multiple myeloma, and non-Hodgkin lymphoma—were drastically reduced by as much as 45 percent for those following a vegetarian diet.  Although this study points to an overall reduced risk, this may well be an underestimate of the benefit of a vegetarian diet. Previous studies have shown as much as a 40 percent reduced risk for all cancers.



 

Conclusion



Two themes consistently emerge from studies of cancer from many sites: vegetables and fruits help to reduce risk, while meat, animal products, and other fatty foods are frequently found to increase risk. Consumption of dietary fat drives production of hormones, which, in turn, promotes growth of cancer cells in hormone-sensitive organs such as the breast and prostate. Meat is devoid of the protective effects of fiber, antioxidants, phytochemicals, and other helpful nutrients, and it contains high concentrations of saturated fat and potentially carcinogenic compounds, which may increase one’s risk of developing many different kinds of cancer.



 

Vegetarian diets and diets rich in high-fiber plant foods such as whole grains, legumes, vegetables, and fruits offer a measure of protection. Fiber greatly speeds the passage of food through the colon, effectively removing carcinogens, and fiber actually changes the type of bacteria that is present in the intestine, so there is reduced production of carcinogenic secondary bile acids. Plant foods are also naturally low in fat and rich in antioxidants and other anti-cancer compounds. Not surprisingly, vegetarians are at the lowest risk for cancer and have a significantly reduced risk compared to meat-eaters.



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A long-term study finds that eating any amount and any type increases the risk of premature death.

March 2012

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Eating red meat — any amount and any type — appears to significantly increase the risk of premature death, according to a long-range study that examined the eating habits and health of more than 110,000 adults for more than 20 years.



 

For instance, adding just one 3-ounce serving of unprocessed red meat — picture a piece of steak no bigger than a deck of cards — to one's daily diet was associated with a 13% greater chance of dying during the course of the study.



Even worse, adding an extra daily serving of processed red meat, such as a hot dog or two slices of bacon, was linked to a 20% higher risk of death during the study.



 

"Any red meat you eat contributes to the risk," said An Pan, a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston and lead author of the study, published online Monday in the Archives of Internal Medicine.



Crunching data from thousands of questionnaires that asked people how frequently they ate a variety of foods, the researchers also discovered that replacing red meat with other foods seemed to reduce mortality risk for study participants.

 

Eating a serving of nuts instead of beef or pork was associated with a 19% lower risk of dying during the study. The team said choosing poultry or whole grains as a substitute was linked with a 14% reduction in mortality risk; low-fat dairy or legumes, 10%; and fish, 7%.



Previous studies had associated red meat consumption with diabetes, heart disease and cancer, all of which can be fatal. Scientists aren't sure exactly what makes red meat so dangerous, but the suspects include the iron and saturated fat in beef, pork and lamb, the nitrates used to preserve them, and the chemicals created by high-temperature cooking.



 

The Harvard researchers hypothesized that eating red meat would also be linked to an overall risk of death from any cause, Pan said. And the results suggest they were right: Among the 37,698 men and 83,644 women who were tracked, as meat consumption increased, so did mortality risk.



In separate analyses of processed and unprocessed meats, the group found that both types appear to hasten death. Pan said that at the outset, he and his colleagues had thought it likely that only processed meat posed a health danger.



 

Carol Koprowski, a professor of preventive medicine at USC's Keck School of Medicine who wasn't involved in the research, cautioned that it can be hard to draw specific conclusions from a study like this because there can be a lot of error in the way diet information is recorded in food frequency questionnaires, which ask subjects to remember past meals in sometimes grueling detail.



But Pan said the bottom line was that there was no amount of red meat that's good for you.



 

"If you want to eat red meat, eat the unprocessed products, and reduce it to two or three servings a week," he said. "That would have a huge impact on public health."



A majority of people in the study reported that they ate an average of at least one serving of meat per day.



 

Pan said that he eats one or two servings of red meat per week, and that he doesn't eat bacon or other processed meats.



Cancer researcher Lawrence H. Kushi of the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research in Oakland said that groups putting together dietary guidelines were likely to pay attention to the findings in the study.



 

"There's a pretty strong supposition that eating red meat is important — that it should be part of a healthful diet," said Kushi, who was not involved in the study. "These data basically demonstrate that the less you eat, the better."



UC San Francisco researcher and vegetarian diet advocate Dr. Dean Ornish said he gleaned a hopeful message from the study.



 

"Something as simple as a meatless Monday can help," he said. "Even small changes can make a difference."

Additionally, Ornish said, "What's good for you is also good for the planet."



 

In an editorial that accompanied the study, Ornish wrote that a plant-based diet could help cut annual healthcare costs from chronic diseases in the U.S., which exceed $1 trillion. Shrinking the livestock industry could also reduce greenhouse gas emissions and halt the destruction of forests to create pastures, he wrote.



 



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Processed meats declared too dangerous for human consumption

Red meat and kidney cancer

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According to a new study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition middle-aged adults who ate the most red meat were almost one fifth (19%) more likely to be diagnosed with kidney cancer than those who ate the least. A higher intake of chemicals found in grilled or barbecued meat was also linked to increased risk of the disease.



Researchers noted that previous studies examined links between red meat and kidney cancer had arrived at mixed conclusions.

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During the study time period some 1,800 of the participants or less than half a percent were diagnosed with kidney cancer. On average, men in the study ate two or three ounces of red meat per day, compared to one or two ounces among women. Participants with the highest consumption of red meat — about four ounces per day — were 19 percent more likely to be diagnosed with kidney cancer than those who ate the smallest amount, less than one ounce per day. That was after accounting for other aspects of diet and lifestyle that could have influenced cancer risks, such as age, race, fruit and vegetable consumption, smoking and drinking, and other medical conditions including high blood pressure and diabetes.

Carrie Daniel, from the National Cancer Institute in Rockville, Maryland, and her colleagues said more research is needed to figure out why red meat may be linked to some types of kidney cancers but not others.

Factors contributing to cancer

by Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine



 

Eighty percent of cancers are due to factors that have been identified and can potentially be controlled, according to the National Cancer Institute. And not only can we potentially prevent most cancers, we can also improve the survival rates of people who have cancer. Cancers of the breast, prostate, and colon have received more research attention than other forms of the disease, but, as we will see, certain principles apply to many forms of cancer.



Cancer starts when one cell begins to multiply out of control. It begins to expand into a lump that can invade healthy tissues and spread to other parts of the body. But there is a lot we can do about it. Thirty percent of cancers are caused by tobacco. Lung cancer is the most obvious example, but by no means the only one. Cancers of the mouth, throat, kidney, and bladder are also caused by tobacco.



 

Dietary factors also play a significant role in cancer risk. At least one-third of annual cancer deaths in the U.S. are due to dietary factors. A recent review on diet and cancer estimates that up to 80 percent of cancers of the large bowel, breast, and prostate are due to dietary factors.



In 2008, excess body weight was responsible for over 124,000 new cancer diagnoses in Europe. These results were presented at a major European cancer conference in 2009 and showed endometrial (uterine) cancer, postmenopausal breast cancer, and colorectal cancer were the most common weight-related cancers. These three cancer types accounted for 65 percent of all cancers due to excess body weight. The effects of obesity also appear to increase mortality from several other types of cancer including gallbladder, pancreas, kidney, cervix, and ovary, as well as non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in women with the highest BMIs compared to those with a healthy BMI.  Previous studies including the Adventist Health Study-2 show that following a vegan diet results in the lowest BMI of any group (lacto-ovo-vegetarian, pesco-vegetarian, semivegetarian, nonvegetarian), making them less susceptible to obesity-related cancers.

 

The link between diet and cancer is not new. In January 1892, Scientific American printed the observation that "cancer is most frequent among those branches of the human race where carnivorous habits prevail." Numerous research studies have shown that cancer is much more common in populations consuming diets rich in fatty foods, particularly meat, and much less common in countries eating diets rich in grains, vegetables, and fruits. One reason is that foods affect the action of hormones in the body. They also affect the strength of the immune system and other factors. While fruits and vegetables contain a variety of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and phytochemicals to protect the body, by contrast, recent research shows that animal products contain potentially carcinogenic compounds which may contribute to increased cancer risk.



In addition to tobacco use and diet, other factors, including physical activity, reproductive and sexual behavior, bacterial and viral infections, and exposure to radiation and chemicals, may also contribute to the risk of certain forms of cancer.





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The benefits of a vegetarian diet

The connection between diet and cancer is hardly a new one. But some truly eye-opening and life-changing research is taking that idea to a whole new level.



 

Basically the idea is this: cancer (and a slew of other diseases) are linked in an important way: they all involve excessive or otherwise defective angiogenesis (the process of forming new blood vessels).



Thus, "curing" or preventing a number of these diseases--including many cancers--may require little more than "correcting" or controlling angiogenesis, something that has been accomplished not only through synthetic drugs, but also by including specific foods in our normal diets (note also the connection with the discussion of "antioxidant" foods).



 

Listen to pioneer researcher in this field William Li as he lays out the theory and some of its implications - all in about 20 minutes!

Cancer
Facts & figures



 

There were an estimated 12.7 million cancer cases around the world in 2008. The number is expected to rise to 21 million by 2030.

There were 255 new cases of cancer diagnosed per 100,000 in more developed countries compared with 149 per 100,00 in less developed countries.



• Kidney cancer is the 14th most common cancer, with 274,000 new cases diagnosed in 2008. 

• Breast cancer is the second most common cancer, with 1.38 million new cases diagnosed in 2008. 

• Stomach cancer is the fourth most common cancer, with 989,000 new cases diagnosed in 2008 

• Liver cancer is the sixth most common cancer in the world, with 750,000 new cases diagnosed in 2008. 

• Oesophageal cancer is the eighth most common cancer, with 482,000 new cases diagnosed in 2008. 

• Lung cancer is the most common cancer in the world, with 1.61 million new cases diagnosed in 2008. 

• Colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer, with 1.23 million new cases diagnosed in 2008. 

• Prostate cancer is the fifth most common cancer, with 899,000 new cases diagnosed in 2008. 

• Cervical cancer is the seventh most common cancer, with 530,000 new cases diagnosed in 2008. 

• Bladder cancer is the ninth most common cancer, with 383,000 diagnosed in 2008. 

  

Source: World Cancer Research Fund International



 

According to the National Cancer Institute (U.S.) it is estimated that 1,638,910 men and women (848,170 men and 790,740 women) will be diagnosed with and 577,190 men and women will die of cancer of all sites in 2012 in the United States.