Food and health
02/11/15 01:45
The comedians on a couple of podcasts to which I listen are having a field day with the recent announcement from the World Health Organization warning of a link between processed meat and colorectal cancer. One comedian, addressing a crowd in North Carolina compared bacon to cigarettes. I haven’t read the WHO report, but I doubt that it compared bacon or hot dogs to cigarettes. At any rate, I’m doubtful that the statistics bear out such a comparison.
Cigarettes really do result in significant health risks for those who smoke and those who breath the smoke of others. I believe that the risk factor is between 10 and 15 percent. In other words, for every 100 people who quit smoking, 10 to 15 lives can be saved. Smoking has been linked not only to lung cancer, but also to other forms of cancer, heart disease and other ailments. But it is important to understand that there is no such thing as a risk-free life. I am the child of non smokers. I’ve never smoked. My wife is a non smoker. I’ve lived my entire life in a nonsmoking household. That does not mean that I have a zero risk of lung cancer. Health officials do not keep official statistics, but about 20% of those who die of lung cancer do not smoke or use any form of tobacco. If lung cancer in nonsmokers was a separate category, it would rank among the top 10 fatal cancers in the United States according to the American Cancer Society. Lung cancer is also caused by Radon gas, secondhand smoke, other cancer-causing agents, air pollution and genetic mutation.
Changes in lifestyle can lower risk, but not eliminate the risk entirely.
Processed meats, even in the most recent studies pose a far lower risk factor. A BBC report on the WHO warning about processed meats stated that there is a 5.6% risk of developing colorectal cancer. For those who eat processed meat every day the risk rises to 6.6%. The 1% difference makes the impact of lifestyle change that much smaller than is the case with tobacco. For every 100 people who stop eating too much processed meat only 1 life would be saved if I’ve got my statistics right.
I’m thinking that the comedian who called hot dogs “gastronomic asbestos,” was quite a bit off from a purely statistical point of view.
The reality is that changes if lifestyle can have an impact on health, but there are so many other factors that there is no such thing as a perfect lifestyle change or a magic pill.
As I rid the transition from middle age to senior citizen, I have been trying to be careful about the choices I make. I would like to preserve my health as best as I am reasonably able so that I can enjoy my relationships with my family and serve the church for as many years as possible. I am well aware that I will not live forever. Nor will I be able to maintain my role in the church for extra decades. Still, it makes sense to me to at least consider the health effects of the choices I make within reason.
The problem is that it is difficult to determine which choices yield the best results.
For most of my life, for example, I have been a fairly heavy caffeine drinker. I enjoy coffee and have an espresso pump in my home. I like to make fancy espresso beverages for our guests. There have been many days when I was drinking several cups of coffee each day and experienced no noticeable ill effects. In fact in 2012 a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine reported positive health benefits of coffee. In that study 400,000 Americans were studied over 13 years. The scientists found that people who drink between three and six cups of coffee a day were around 10% less likely to die and had lower rates of heart disease, stroke, diabetes and infections. I remember reacting positively to that study thinking that my lifestyle put me right in the middle of that lowered risk group.
The problem is that the study made no distinction between those with normal health statistics and those with other factors that raised their risks. If the study had been limited to those who were already diagnosed with high blood pressure, for example, the results would likely have been different.
So much of what we know about health risks is based on observational studies. In the coffee study, we have no way of knowing if the coffee itself was protecting the heart, or if healthier people are just more drawn to coffee. There are other possible explanations for the results, but none have been tested enough to know for certain why the correlation between moderate coffee drinking and better health exists.
In a nutshell, it is difficult to say whether or not there is an increased risk or possible benefit from drinking coffee.
I grew up with several relatives who were wheat farmers. We were taught that whole wheat was extremely beneficial for health. We used to haul unprocessed hard red winter wheat directly from the farm in clean new metal trash containers. My mother would grind the wheat freshly when she baked bread. We used the same grinder to produce cracked wheat for cereal. Hot wheat cereal was a part of our breakfast all winter long. I remember longing for summer because during summer we would be allowed to eat cold cereal. During the school year, however, hot cereal was the norm. It was fairly common to also have toast, eggs and sausage, ham or bacon with our breakfasts as well.
Recently I caught a study connecting over consumption of wheat and Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s isn’t a disease that I would want to inflict on my family. However, even with some limited evidence that what based boots can trigger inflammation throughout the body, whole wheat is better for those with a family history of diabetes than say potatoes, which release sugars more quickly than whole grains.
The bottom line, don’t look to me for advice on a healthy diet. I try to make informed choices for myself, but I remain unconvinced that a perfect diet exists.
Still, I got this article about the DASH Diet, published by the National Institutes of Health. It sounds pretty good on the first read.
Has anyone ever done a study on the effects of following the latest diet fad on long term health prospects?
Cigarettes really do result in significant health risks for those who smoke and those who breath the smoke of others. I believe that the risk factor is between 10 and 15 percent. In other words, for every 100 people who quit smoking, 10 to 15 lives can be saved. Smoking has been linked not only to lung cancer, but also to other forms of cancer, heart disease and other ailments. But it is important to understand that there is no such thing as a risk-free life. I am the child of non smokers. I’ve never smoked. My wife is a non smoker. I’ve lived my entire life in a nonsmoking household. That does not mean that I have a zero risk of lung cancer. Health officials do not keep official statistics, but about 20% of those who die of lung cancer do not smoke or use any form of tobacco. If lung cancer in nonsmokers was a separate category, it would rank among the top 10 fatal cancers in the United States according to the American Cancer Society. Lung cancer is also caused by Radon gas, secondhand smoke, other cancer-causing agents, air pollution and genetic mutation.
Changes in lifestyle can lower risk, but not eliminate the risk entirely.
Processed meats, even in the most recent studies pose a far lower risk factor. A BBC report on the WHO warning about processed meats stated that there is a 5.6% risk of developing colorectal cancer. For those who eat processed meat every day the risk rises to 6.6%. The 1% difference makes the impact of lifestyle change that much smaller than is the case with tobacco. For every 100 people who stop eating too much processed meat only 1 life would be saved if I’ve got my statistics right.
I’m thinking that the comedian who called hot dogs “gastronomic asbestos,” was quite a bit off from a purely statistical point of view.
The reality is that changes if lifestyle can have an impact on health, but there are so many other factors that there is no such thing as a perfect lifestyle change or a magic pill.
As I rid the transition from middle age to senior citizen, I have been trying to be careful about the choices I make. I would like to preserve my health as best as I am reasonably able so that I can enjoy my relationships with my family and serve the church for as many years as possible. I am well aware that I will not live forever. Nor will I be able to maintain my role in the church for extra decades. Still, it makes sense to me to at least consider the health effects of the choices I make within reason.
The problem is that it is difficult to determine which choices yield the best results.
For most of my life, for example, I have been a fairly heavy caffeine drinker. I enjoy coffee and have an espresso pump in my home. I like to make fancy espresso beverages for our guests. There have been many days when I was drinking several cups of coffee each day and experienced no noticeable ill effects. In fact in 2012 a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine reported positive health benefits of coffee. In that study 400,000 Americans were studied over 13 years. The scientists found that people who drink between three and six cups of coffee a day were around 10% less likely to die and had lower rates of heart disease, stroke, diabetes and infections. I remember reacting positively to that study thinking that my lifestyle put me right in the middle of that lowered risk group.
The problem is that the study made no distinction between those with normal health statistics and those with other factors that raised their risks. If the study had been limited to those who were already diagnosed with high blood pressure, for example, the results would likely have been different.
So much of what we know about health risks is based on observational studies. In the coffee study, we have no way of knowing if the coffee itself was protecting the heart, or if healthier people are just more drawn to coffee. There are other possible explanations for the results, but none have been tested enough to know for certain why the correlation between moderate coffee drinking and better health exists.
In a nutshell, it is difficult to say whether or not there is an increased risk or possible benefit from drinking coffee.
I grew up with several relatives who were wheat farmers. We were taught that whole wheat was extremely beneficial for health. We used to haul unprocessed hard red winter wheat directly from the farm in clean new metal trash containers. My mother would grind the wheat freshly when she baked bread. We used the same grinder to produce cracked wheat for cereal. Hot wheat cereal was a part of our breakfast all winter long. I remember longing for summer because during summer we would be allowed to eat cold cereal. During the school year, however, hot cereal was the norm. It was fairly common to also have toast, eggs and sausage, ham or bacon with our breakfasts as well.
Recently I caught a study connecting over consumption of wheat and Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s isn’t a disease that I would want to inflict on my family. However, even with some limited evidence that what based boots can trigger inflammation throughout the body, whole wheat is better for those with a family history of diabetes than say potatoes, which release sugars more quickly than whole grains.
The bottom line, don’t look to me for advice on a healthy diet. I try to make informed choices for myself, but I remain unconvinced that a perfect diet exists.
Still, I got this article about the DASH Diet, published by the National Institutes of Health. It sounds pretty good on the first read.
Has anyone ever done a study on the effects of following the latest diet fad on long term health prospects?