Low-fat diet later may cut ovarian cancer risk (NOT)

The report below is essentially a fraud from beginning to end and totally misrepresents the actual findings of the study concerned. But for once I don't have to explain why. Sandy Szwarc explodes it all at length. It's just egregious data dredging. Please read Sandy's comments

Try fewer burgers and more veggies after menopause: Cutting dietary fat may offer a long-sought protection against deadly ovarian cancer -- if you stick with the diet long enough. Low-fat diets have long been promoted as a way to reduce the risk of different cancers, with decidedly mixed results when put to the test. But this week, researchers unveiled the first hard evidence that switching to a low-fat diet late in life can lower the odds of ovarian cancer, a malignancy with a particularly dismal survival rate.

The study tracked almost 40,000 women ages 50 to 79, some of whom were assigned to cut the total fat in their diets to 20 percent of calories -- from an average of 35 percent -- while others continued their usual diets. For the first four years, the menu changes didn't make a difference. But those who kept the fat low for eight years cut their chances of ovarian cancer by 40 percent, researchers reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. "This is really good news," said Dr. Jacques Rossouw of the National Institutes of Health, which funded the work. "But you have to stick with the diet."

Until now, the only known prescription against ovarian cancer -- aside from surgically removing the ovaries -- was for women of childbearing age to use birth control pills. Use for five years can lower the ovarian cancer risk by up to 60 percent, protection that lingers years after pill use ends. The new findings offer an option for postmenopausal women to try. It's arguably the most promising finding of the mammoth Women's Health Initiative dietary study, which enrolled tens of thousands of healthy women to track the effects of teaching them to cut fat and eat more fruits and vegetables.

So far, the diet has had seemingly little impact on rates of breast cancer, colorectal cancer and even, surprisingly, heart disease. There are a number of theories: Maybe the women started healthier eating too late; most were overweight, a major risk factor, and the diet wasn't designed to shed pounds. Nor did most women actually cut enough fat. Despite all those hurdles, a low-fat diet did appear protective against ovarian cancer -- and the women who started with the worst diets and cut fat the most, got the most benefit.

Ovarian cancer is fairly rare, affecting one in 60 women compared with the one in 9 who will get breast cancer. But it is particularly lethal because it usually is detected only after it has spread throughout the abdomen, making it much harder to treat. Only 45 percent of patients survive five years. The American Cancer Society estimates that 22,430 U.S. women will be learn that they have ovarian cancer this year; 15,280 women will die of it. Ovarian cancer can strike anytime in adulthood, but risk increases with age. Mutations in the so-called breast cancer genes BRCA1 and BRCA2 also increase the risk of ovarian cancer -- and women in the new study have not yet been tested for those genes, to see if the low-fat diet proves more or less beneficial for them.

Why would diet affect ovaries? The theory is that fat intake increases the amount of estrogen circulating in the blood, which may in turn overstimulate sensitive ovaries. Indeed, blood tests showed study participants on the low-fat diet experienced a 15 percent reduction in estradiol, a key form of estrogen, while non-dieters experienced no change, said study co-author Dr. Ross Prentice of Seattle's Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. "It's quite noteworthy," Prentice said of the ovarian protection. "We're really pleased to have something positive to say to American women -- that undertaking a low-fat diet likely reduces your risk of ovarian cancer and perhaps other cancers as well."

Estrogen plays a role in breast cancer, too. Yet when researchers last year checked women in this same study, they found only a 9 percent drop in breast cancer risk, not quite large enough to be sure it wasn't due to chance. Perhaps a bigger estrogen drop is required for breast cancer. Still, the women who cut the most fat fared better -- just like with the new ovarian cancer data.

Most of the dieters cut their fat intake to 24 percent of calories, not quite as much as recommended. And over time, the fat crept back: Eight years later, they were up to 29 percent -- still lower than the average American diet, noted Rossouw, of NIH's National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. "It's feasible," he said of the diet. "Once there is news that this does work, it may be easier to motivate people to do

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Obesity link to life loss: More Fraudulent "consensus" science

Once again we see a hope that majority votes will trump the facts. The facts are summarized here

OBESITY is more dangerous than smoking and will dramatically shorten the lives of millions, a landmark study has found. While smoking reduces life by an average of 10 years, the research says being seriously overweight can cut life expectancy by as much as 13 years. The Foresight report, written by 250 leading scientists, says the obesity crisis in some Western countries is so severe it would take at least 30 years to reverse. It warns modern life -- with the easy availability of cheap, unhealthy food and a sedentary lifestyle -- means it is almost impossible for many to avoid putting on weight.

About 7.4 million Australians -- more than 50 per cent of the adult population -- are obese, says an Australian Bureau of Statistic report released this year.

Lead Foresight report author David King [Also famous as a champion of global warming] said: "We must fight the notion that the current obesity epidemic arises from individual over-indulgence or laziness alone. "We live in a consumer society which encourages us to eat. We have a sedentary lifestyle. It's an environment which means that if we just behave normally we will become obese." Professor King said. "We may only put on a bit of weight a day but there are 365 days in the year."

The report found that being obese, with a body mass index of more than 30, knocks nine years off a person's life, while men with a BMI of more than 45 face 13 years less life. It says the human body is biologically predisposed to put on weight because this was an advantage in our evolutionary past and the current high rate of obesity means it is becoming accepted as a societal norm.

Pointing out the design of many towns and cities was based around the needs of the car, it suggests more should be done to ensure that it is easier to walk and cycle to encourage residents to take more exercise. The availability of unhealthy food and drink should be controlled the report says, perhaps by restricting advertising or certain food ingredients such as trans fats.

Nutrition Australia's senior nutritionist, Aloysa Hourigan, said in some ways Australia was one step ahead in the obesity fight thanks to diet overhauls in school tuckshops and a push towards healthier eating. But it would still take about 30 years to overhaul the obesity rates, which were on par with the US and Britain among adults and among the highest in the world for children, Ms Hourigan said. "The current generation of kids are likely to be the first generation of Australians that don't outlive their parents because of health issues that arise from obesity so then you have got to take a whole another generation to expect that to change," she said.

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Just some problems with the "Obesity" war:

1). It tries to impose behavior change on everybody -- when most of those targeted are not obese and hence have no reason to change their behaviour. It is a form of punishing the innocent and the guilty alike. (It is also typical of Leftist thinking: Scorning the individual and capable of dealing with large groups only).

2). The longevity research all leads to the conclusion that it is people of MIDDLING weight who live longest -- not slim people. So the "epidemic" of obesity is in fact largely an "epidemic" of living longer.

3). It is total calorie intake that makes you fat -- not where you get your calories. Policies that attack only the source of the calories (e.g. "junk food") without addressing total calorie intake are hence pissing into the wind. People involuntarily deprived of their preferred calorie intake from one source are highly likely to seek and find their calories elsewhere.

4). So-called junk food is perfectly nutritious. A big Mac meal comprises meat, bread, salad and potatoes -- which is a mainstream Western diet. If that is bad then we are all in big trouble.

5). Food warriors demonize salt and fat. But we need a daily salt intake to counter salt-loss through perspiration and the research shows that people on salt-restricted diets die SOONER. And Eskimos eat huge amounts of fat with no apparent ill-effects. And the average home-cooked roast dinner has LOTS of fat. Will we ban roast dinners?

6). The foods restricted are often no more calorific than those permitted -- such as milk and fruit-juice drinks.

7). Tendency to weight is mostly genetic and is therefore not readily susceptible to voluntary behaviour change.

8). And when are we going to ban cheese? Cheese is a concentrated calorie bomb and has lots of that wicked animal fat in it too. Wouldn't we all be better off without it? And what about butter and margarine? They are just about pure fat. Surely they should be treated as contraband in kids' lunchboxes! [/sarcasm].

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