Study: Low carb diets and death risk

[Hanna]

I post the study in this forum since gcb (the chief instincto) has warned against meat-based diets for a long time. He noticed that (raw) meat in excess seems to cause cancer. Some instinctos eating a lot of raw meat even died of cancer.

Low-Carb Diets Based on Meat Protein Rather Than Vegetable Protein May Raise Death Risk, Study Finds
(...)
The study followed nearly 130,000 health professionals for at least 20 years (...)
The study, based on regularly administered questionnaires, found that eating a low-carb diet based on meat protein was associated with a 23% higher risk of death from any cause, 14% greater risk of heart-related death, and 28% greater risk of cancer-related death. Eating a vegetable protein-based low-carb diet, however, was associated with a 20% lower risk of death from any cause and a 23% lower risk of death from heart disease.

http://www.webmd.com/diet/news/20100907/meat-protein-risky-in-low-carb-diets

http://www.natap.org/2010/HIV/lowcarb.pdf

[TylerDurden]

First of all, cancer even exists among wild animals eating natural, raw diets, albeit in smaller quantities than in SAD-eaters. So diet is not the only factor. I believe in the case of Burger's wife, a former French member of RPF stated that she had gotten cancer due to various psychosomatic reasons, as opposed to diet as such.


Other than that, a number of RVAFers have stated that their cancers were cured on a raw-meat-heavy RVAF diet. I am sure that does not apply to absolutely all cancers, but that is still imressive.

[Raw Kyle]

Most people here don't eat a diet based on meat protein. I would say that the average base of this populations diet is a mixed meat protein and meat fat, and in some cases fruit sugar plays a secondary part as a base.

[Hanna]

Most people here don't eat a diet based on meat protein.

I see that the cited summary is misleading in this respect. The "low carb" participants ate more fat (and carbs) than protein (% energy) and even the "vegetable low carb" participants got most of their protein from animals (but most of their fat from plants). See the linked original study.

Other than that, a number of RVAFers have stated that their cancers were cured on a raw-meat-heavy RVAF diet.

Any link? Any reference? What happened to them long-term?

Not only gcb´s wife got cancer after she began to eat a raw meat-heavy diet. Other instinctos too.

There are studies showing that red meat consumption increases the cancer risk (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_meat#Cancer). The anecdotal evidence given in your link fits well into this picture:

Gastrointestinal Cancers in Optimal Dieters

I learned over on Peter’s blog that Optimal Dieters have been dying of gastrointestinal cancers at a disturbing rate. Recently Adam Jany, president of the OSBO (the Polish Optimal Dieters’ association), died of stomach cancer at 64 after 17 years on the Optimal Diet. Earlier Karol Braniek, another leader of the OSBO, died at 68 from duodenal cancer.

A Polish former Optimal Dieter who has now switched to something closer to the Perfect Health Diet noted that gastrointestinal cancers seem to be common among Optimal Dieters:

The impression we get is that there’s rather high occurrence of gut cancer, including stomach, duodenum, colon …

http://perfecthealthdiet.com/?p=1077

Your other link is interesting too:

The brain is the biggest determinant of glucose needs.  While other primates need only about 7% of energy as glucose or ketones, humans need about 20%.

Compared to other primates, humans have a 12% smaller liver. This means we can’t manufacture as much glucose from protein as animals can. Humans also have a 40% smaller gut. This means we can’t manufacture many short-chain fatty acids, which supply ketones or glucogenic substrates, from plant fiber.

So, while animals can meet their tiny glucose needs (5% of calories) in their big livers, humans may not be able to meet our big glucose needs (20-30% of calories) from our small livers.

So any carbohydrate deficiency disease will strike humans only, not animals.

http://perfecthealthdiet.com/?p=1032

[goodsamaritan]

Webmd is medical.  They assume COOKED MEAT all the time.

National AIDS treatment is medical. They assume COOKED MEAT all the time.

None of these studies hold water for us RAW Paleo dieters.

We are our own study.

In a few decades we will know.

[TylerDurden]

The studies claiming a cancer risk mainly focus on highly processed meats , and , in a few cases, just on cooked, not highly processed meats, none on raw meats. This is unsurprising as it is the heat-created toxins formed by cooking which vastly increase the rate of cancer. Just search pubmed or google under "heterocyclic amines cancer", "advanced glycation end products cancer" etc., and you will see what I mean.


As for Instincto claims, I am highly dubious as the only one I ever heard of was the one re Burger's wife. Plus, most Instinctos seem to have followed many years of eating mostly raw plant foods which would cause nutritional deficiencies, hardly helping against cancer. More to the point, I have come across countless reports/testimonials on other RVAF diet forums where people have mentioned recovering from cancer after eating plenty of raw meats, so this is highly dubious.

[miles]

But the HCA's are produced in cooking fish and poultry too, but 'they' did not find the same link to cancer, apparently(wikipedia)...

[Iguana]

Light on cancer translated by Google from:
Lumière sur le cancer

[TylerDurden]

But the HCA's are produced in cooking fish and poultry too, but 'they' did not find the same link to cancer, apparently(wikipedia)...

That seems incorrect. The heterocyclic amines wikipedia page shows that there is a carcinogenic risk for all muscle-meats, including fish and poultry:-

"Research has shown that cooking certain meats at high temperatures creates chemicals that are not present in uncooked meats. For example, heterocyclic amines are the carcinogenic chemicals formed from the cooking of muscle meats such as beef, pork, fowl, and fish. "


The exceptions where HCAs do not form are:-"Other sources of protein (milk, eggs, tofu, and organ meats such as liver) have very little or no HCA content naturally or when cooked."

[miles]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_meat#Cancer this page that someone linked earlier I got it from. Probably bullshit. Could be because when you cook poultry/fish the fat runs off, but with red meat it stays on..? And if cooked fat is bad...

[TylerDurden]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_meat#Cancer this page that someone linked earlier I got it from. Probably bullshit. Could be because when you cook poultry/fish the fat runs off, but with red meat it stays on..? And if cooked fat is bad...

HCAs only form in cooked muscle-meats, not so much cooked animal fat. It is AGEs which form in cooked animal fat, among others.

[Inger]

Hallo Hanna .

Could you please tell more specific about all the Instinctos eating a lot of meat and dying from Cancer? You don't need to mention Burgers wife, she is the only case I know about.
Please, tell me about every case you know, details.

I myself is still eating almost only meat. I feel great. Mostly all raw. I have great energy, and feel strong and healthy! I feel happy too, and enjoy my life / work every day.
Somehow I am so thankful being so healthy and having such a great feeling about life - there is so much love around. I am thankful that I discovered this way of eating, it is so totally easy! I just take a tiny bag, put some fatty, raw ground beef and some petfood in it (sometimes raw liver/bonemarrow too). That's all I need at work. It takes a few minutes to eat, and makes me feel great.. YAY! (my coworkers thinks my food is really funny.. especially that pet-food thing.. )

I have discovered the "pet-food" secret.  (thanks to Lex and Joanna  )
I eat it raw, maybe 10-20% of my food intake is petfood (dogs food, minced beef with various organs and wild, frozen), and that makes me feel wonderful.
I have been thinking about why this is, and I believe it is the organs mixed in it, all kind of organs that people usually do not eat. That must be the secret. They are really full of nutrients, so healthy for us.

I also eat a lot of Elch, I love the taste, never get tired of it. Bone marrow I eat regularly too - and this is not even organic.
Sometimes I drink coffee with cream, or a glass of wine. I often eat regular unsalted butter when I have no other fat.
I also eat some wild berries from the woods around here (Finnland) and a little greens (wild) when available. Sometimes I eat eggshells too, and eggs, seldom fish. No fruits, no vegetables.
So, I could do it a lot better, but I am still feeling great!
I really somehow feel that organs are really important.

I try to follow how I feel, and if starting to feel tired or less great, I will change something for sure. I believe my body will tell me if something is wrong. I have to believe it.
There is so many lies out there, I just have to figure it all out by myself.

I have also read about a recent study about meat / cancer, it showed that only meat that was processed, like salted, smoked etc. increased cancer risk. And there was no talk about raw or cooked!

Hanna, how do you eat for now? How do you feel?

Inger

[Hanna]

Details about the instincto cancer cases and gcb´s own tumor experiment can be found in the text linked by Iguana in this thread (written by gcb himself) or in this German text (written by gcb too): http://www.urkostmitbrigitte.de/wiki-archiv/x/600.htm

As for Instincto claims, I am highly dubious as the only one I ever heard of was the one re Burger's wife. Plus, most Instinctos seem to have followed many years of eating mostly raw plant foods which would cause nutritional deficiencies, hardly helping against cancer. More to the point, I have come across countless reports/testimonials on other RVAF diet forums where people have mentioned recovering from cancer after eating plenty of raw meats, so this is highly dubious.

Tyler, how could I forget that you know everything better than any other person.

[KD]

I havn't got around to reading all the articles, but my understanding is that cancer is highly linked to internal fermentation and fungus. It has been found as far back as the dinosaurs, but can be exacerbated greatly in the physical by excessive and undigested fermented fruits, grains and/or meats and of course processed foods and every which combination. Environmental and spiritual/psychological factors also play huge role I believe, particularly in lung cancers and cancer of the sexual organs respectively.

"But researchers say their findings suggest that health benefits of a low-carb diet may depend on the type of protein and fat it contains." this seems to be pretty obvious and crucial to understanding that even diets low in meats in comparison to ones high in meats, might be predisposed to cancer even when all raw... if they create the 'right' imbalances of sugar for instance as one factor.

I have to agree that much of this is the typical 'lean meats' slant. A vegetable protein low-carb diet is basically not possible without really stretching what low-carb means exactly. There are vegetable fats ( many which are refined) that are low carb but very little protein foods. In my experience its also pretty challenging to truly achieve a low protein-low carb diet unless one is eating mostly all raw or eating foods that likely also lead to cancer.

[TylerDurden]

Details about the instincto cancer cases and gcb´s own tumor experiment can be found in the text linked by Iguana in this thread (written by gcb himself) or in this German text (written by gcb too): http://www.urkostmitbrigitte.de/wiki-archiv/x/600.htm

Tyler, how could I forget that you know everything better than any other person.

  The trouble is that that claim re Instinctos is minimal compared to the numerous testimonials I have gotten re cancer-cures on RVAF diets heavy with raw meat, over the years. I am only anyway a partial believer in some of the Instincto notions so take such Instincto claims with a pinch of salt. And, like I said, the studies mentioned only point to cooked and processed meats as being a big culprit re cancer.

[PaleoPhil]

Tyler, how could I forget that you know everything better than any other person.

Ah yes, thanks for the reminder, Hanna.

I have come across countless reports/testimonials on other RVAF diet forums

Cool, do you have any links to those forums? The only ones I've found in the past are your and Vinny Pinto's Yahoo groups and GS' Curezone forum section.

[TylerDurden]

Most are on yahoo groups. RAV-Food , now defunct, and the closed primal diet yahoo group are examples.

[Iguana]

I know the text I gave the link for is long and the Google translation makes it a bit hard to read, but in the last paragraph GCB wrote:

It should not be inferred from all this that the meat is harmful in itself. Experience has also shown it can play a vital role in the reconstitution of the body weight, in the recovery and healing of diseases, including cancer. What is harmful is imbalance.

At first glance it may seem contradictory with what he explained above, but it's not really so. The nature is extremely complex and cannot be accurately accounted for by simplistic binary descriptions. So, I think both of you Hanna and Tyler are right even if your points of view seem opposed.  

[Sitting Coyote]

Important observations:

You don't hear about raw vegans dying of cancer.  They die of starvation.

You don't hear about raw carnivores or raw near-carnivores dying of starvation.  Some do seem to die from cancer.

Seems to me the ideal diet would lie somewhere in the middle, where we eat enough plant foods to avoid dying of cancer and enough animal foods to avoid dying of starvation?

Homo sapiens has not eaten the type of diet that is advocated on this website in at least a thousand years, probably several thousand or even tens of thousands of years.  We are abandoning thousands of years of human diet-digestive tract coevolution and trying to turn the clock back.  Suddenly.  We are an experiment.  Maybe the experiment will fail. 

Many people, including myself, have enjoyed short-term health benefits from eating raw animal foods.  What the human digestive system works well with over the short term won't necessarily keep the body healthy over the long term.  This is an experiment.  Maybe the experiment will fail.

It's important that we keep track of what we eat and how we live, and make this known to others along with any maladies we suffer.

[TylerDurden]

Well, I reckon iguana is a good example of long-term success on a RVAF diet, given his 24(?) years on raw.

[KD]

What the human digestive system works well with over the short term won't necessarily keep the body healthy over the long term.

I think this is pretty important in general and to this issue. What has always bothered me on every forum i've been on ( funny this happens never in the real world with average people ) is the insistance that based on a.) b.) and c.) that the particular diet and lifestyle program is not only the best, it will be for everyone and will continue to be for the end of time or at least their lifetime. I'm sure someone will respond to that with the importance of following ones instinct, but this already rules out not only huge portions of foods and processess, but also places a huge emphasis on diet being the prevention mechanism. That, or doesn't acknowledge some of the subtle factors that I listed above re: how some foods can turn to shit internally. Regardless, in some cases there might be something drastically differnt needed to ward of these ailments that should be able to be explored.

[TylerDurden]

Ultimately, diet cannot solve  absolutely everything. There are always a very few people with really odd conditions, such as a complete inability to digest any fats or who have unusual genetic conditions which interfere with digestion of any foods, or whatever. And those might find some artificial means to work better. Now, in many cases, such issues might have been originally caused by a highly processed SAD diet, but physical deterioration might end up so severe that not even an RPD diet would be 100 percent effective.

[Hanna]

Hi coyote .

Rawvegans get diseases not related to starvation too, including diseases caused by Vitamin B12 deficiency and even cancer. And a (in Germany once prominent) raw food dieter told me on the telephone that he got diabetes, which he attributed to the loads of sweet tropical fruit he had eaten. I could hardly believe it - until I read about the dangers of fructose.

[Sitting Coyote]

I was making sweeping generalizations, of course.  The point I really wanted to make is that what we do well on over the short term may not keep our bodies healthy over the long term, and that the diets we eat are an experiment that could fail.

[Iguana]

I was making sweeping generalizations, of course.  The point I really wanted to make is that what we do well on over the short term may not keep our bodies healthy over the long term, and that the diets we eat are an experiment that could fail.

Exactly, and that's why I follow the track cleared by some genius pioneers who developed and experimented successfully at their own risks for more than 40 years what has been called instincto or anopsology. I have other interests in live than nutrition, and health depends of other factors than nutrition as well.