Cancer story

[grassfarmer]

This is not really a beef issue but I just thought I'd share it with readers. Gleaned from stockmangrassfarmer magazine.
80 year old research from Germany showed that tumors are fueled by sugar, and may be caused by it. Recent research at the same University put terminal cancer patients who had exhausted surgery, radiation and chemo therapies onto a 3 month carbohydrate-free diet. The patients stayed alive, their physical condition stabilised or improved and their tumors stopped growing or shrunk. This research was corroborated with cancerous mice at Boston University.

And here is the kicker "Unfortunately there is much opposition to continued research from the pharmaceutical industry which doesn't stand to profit from a dietetic treatment for cancer"

Wow, what a sick society we live in - all the people that suffer cancer, all the funds raised for "cancer research" by citizins and some greedy corporations will not back this type of research because they can make more money by keeping people sick and eventually killing them. How can we condone this type of attitude?? surely this will outrage every person that reads it - what kind of society have we become?

[rkaiser]

Also research that says CLA is a cancer fighting agent. Can anyone guess where the best natural source of CLA comes from? Bovine herbivores. The ones that eat a diet too rich in "carbohydrates" lost their ability to create CLA.

The answers to the health of the world are simple ones - and like grassfarmer says - not related to money and greed.

[smcgrath76]

You might enjoy Michael Pollan's latest book, "In Defense of Food".
I picked it up at an airport last week and it was a pretty engaging read, and an intesting condemnation of our current Western Diet, and "nutritionism".
When I got home I see Allan Nation has a review/summary of the book in his article in the latest Stockmans.

[per]

Good Calories Bad Calories goes into detail on that very subject Grassfarmer. I suppose you guys read Acres USA as well. Grass fed beef has the best CLA and Omega 3 profiles.

[bduke]

Grassfarmer....you raise an important issue regarding the correlation of research,politics, vested interests, and prioritizing funding. One would expect the Canadian Cancer Society, for example, to be eager to fund wellness and lifestyle research, and they probably do. However I expect most funding tops up major pharmaceutical projects to address the people already victimized. They would be seen "most in need". Not the most sustainable allocation IMHO, but how do we disregard those either to become or alredy afflicted? Short term pain for long term gain has proven to be politically hazardous.
As an an anecdote, I had a discussion last week with a 60 year old woman recovering from a breast cancer operation and she is blaming "hormones in meat" as her culprit. Do you think/know if she is correct? Her comments surprized me, but she was sincere and bitter.
Seems to me there is never enough money to fill all the "black holes", especially with all the opotunists involved....much like "global warming"!
But that is another debate...Bill

[farmers_son]

I did a bit of research on Cancer. There are many known causes of cancer including the sun. Known causes of cancer include:

Carcinogens
Age
Genetic makeup
Immune system deficiencies
Diet
Environment
Viruses

Only 1/3 of Cancers are thought to be related to diet. Contributing factors here include:

Obesity
Alcohol
Food additives
Contaminants

Diet can also include preventative factors such as CLA in beef as rkaiser pointed out.

Referring to Grassfarmers post, it seems to me that there will be two kinds of cancer research, research focusing on prevention and research focusing on cures and treatments. I do not see why the pharmaceutical industry would be doing any research on prevention related to diet, for example sugar or carbohydrates.

I found some interesting data on the incidence of Cancer in Canada since 1992.

See: http://dsol-smed.phac-aspc.gc.ca/dsol-smed/cancer/c_time_e.html

The incidence of breast cancer in women is about 1 per 1000 female population. Prostrate cancer in men is slightly higher at 1.3 per 1000 male population. The incidence of getting any form of cancer is 5 per 1000 which has been relatively stable since 1992.

The most commonly diagnosed cancer is non melanoma skin cancer, thought to be caused by exposure to the sun.

[bduke]

Thanks for the info F.S. I thought auto-immune deficiency was a given, and the trick is to figure out why our immune systems turn against us. I heard many years ago from a medical research scientist at UBC that he was finding viruses to be far more invasive and damaging than was commonly accepted. He said the knowledge of viral affects was in infancy and would take many, many person years of research to understand, combat and prevent.
However, the woman I referred to is in Toronto, had the tumor removed at the toronto general...I think. Also,I think she heard about "hormones in meat" from her doctor(s). Is research suggesting implants or is it a WAG? Did the research results referred to above exclude implanted beef? Did grassfarmer fall off the edge of the world?...Bill

[grassfarmer]

I think you have misunderstood my post F_S. The research that I am mad that the pharmaceutical industry does not want to pursue is not on promoting better diet choices to prevent cancer but on using diet to stabilise, treat or reverse the condition of severely ill cancer patients. That is what the research in my post indicated. In cases where the pharmaceutical industries cures have failed there may be potential cures in simple food choices - I stand by my post, that behaviour is inexcusable.

[farmers_son]

There is growing pressure on business to be socially responsible. In other words the bottom line is not just about the bottom line. In general terms I can see how an organization, for instance a pharmaceutical company, could realize a brand benefit by supporting the kind of research you mention. Corporations, the business community, do have a role to play in the larger society.

To bring it back to cattle and beef, corporations that want to market a beef product may have to prove beyond to the consumer, in addition to food safety, taste, convenience, that the beef did not contribute to deforestation in the Amazon or that the families raising the cattle were fairly paid, the animals were humanely treated etc. Brands that do cannot provide these assurances may not get their product on certain retail shelves, perhaps not even be allowed to import the product into certain countries. I can easily foresee the next generation making purchase decisions based on criteria and benefits that have far more to do with the perceived social responsibility of the brand than any physical trait of the product.

Social and environmental responsibility, human rights, and so on quite easily could be the next non tariff trade barrier.