One Renegade Cell

I just read the above book on cancer by Robert A. Weinberg. His background is in cancer research at MIT.  The book was published over 20 years ago, so I am sure there is more current information. I was attracted to it because it is part of a series, and I found other books in the series to be quite good.

Anyway, it did go into sufficient detail to add to my knowledge.  He made a number of predictive statements that turned out to be accurate.  The one predictive statement he made that leads  to this post is that he felt the successful treatment of cancer in the long term future was going to be through prevention.

Did he mention ‘starving’ the cancer? I heard that a strict diet that lacks the foods that fuel cancer to grow can be effective .

He used the concept.. not the word.   For example he discussed how the combination of smoking tobacco and drinking alcohol was begging for cancer.
He also discussed the prevalence of types of cancer worldwide wide and connected that to diet in those regions along with the implied trade offs I seldom hear about.   For example, he mentions that country X had 10x the colon cancer rate of region  Y.  Something I often hear. But then he goes on to address why region Y has a much higher liver cancer rate than country X.   And yes, he connects this to the diet of both.

John F Dean wrote:  For example, he mentions that country X had 10x the colon cancer rate of region  Y.  Something I often hear. But then he goes on to address why region Y has a much higher liver cancer rate than country X.   And yes, he connects this to the diet of both.

One of my issues with this concept, is when it is focused on a single cancer (colon), but doesn't go further to admit that, as you've said above, it is often a tradeoff. Not only could the protection from cancer one be a risk factor for cancer two, it is sometimes a risk factor for other diseases.

"Eat more seafood" protects from one disease, but tends to be high salt, which is a risk factor for an alternative disease.

I think a bunch of these diseases are also aided and abetted by our sedentary lifestyles, which is my cue to go and get something done outside while the weather is nice.

When I taught health care, trade off was one of the topics some students had difficulty getting a handle on.  A while back I raised the question in a post regarding the “real” minimums for fat and protein…..not the recommended minimums that can be found on the back of a can in the grocery store. Let’s say I want a low fat diet. Maybe the recommended minimum is around 50 grams, but I have every intention of going below that. At what point am I putting myself in serious danger?  Of course, one of the hard core facts of life is that it is full of trade offs.   But, I agree with your point, wouldn’t it be nice if those people who are aware of the trade offs made a point of sharing them and not being so selective.

Four out of the six people in my family of origen have had life threatening cancers that have required extreme interventions to survive.
The two of us that have not, probably have the "worst" diets out of the six of us.

My father has always been very keen on knowing how the food he ate affected his health.
At 88, he's still doing rather well, but he has Alzheimer's, like his father did.
This is the very thing he feared the most.
Ironically, his extremely low fat diet might have contributed to his mental state, even though it was supposed to do the opposite.

I've noticed once the body suffers from an unbalanced diet, just balancing the diet might not be enough to set things right.

I'm insulin resistant, probably started  from my teenage habit of drinking lots of highly sugared herbal tea!
It wasn't soda, which I had ni access to, but I always got sleepy after drinking it.
When I got a job, I would eat a handful of candy bars for lunch...
I'm not going to be able to eat "normal" amounts of sugar of simple carbs and be ok, that ship has sailed.

But, I recently gave up caffeine, to avoid prostate cancer and incidentally greatly reduced my artificial sugar intake, and now my body is less reactive to eating simple carbs and sugars.

At the same time I started experiencing pain and weakness in my thigh muscles.
It turned out each serving of the energy drink I used to imbibe was fortified with 100% of several important vitamins, and I had been megadosing by drinking multiple servings every day.
You can buy drinks that have the vitamins but not the caffeine and taurine, but they cost a lot more than the ones with the stimulants!
I'm back to supplementing vitamins B, C, and D, now in pill form, and at more moderate levels.

Like my father before me, I find myself creating odd drinks and unusual meals to try to bring my body back into balance.

All of which to say, once you start messing with the body by feeding it extremes of anything, you will likely trigger cascading effects, and your "fixes" will as well

I definitely think whole foods, as a rule, will keep you from going to extremes.
I don't see artificial colors and flavors as very threatening to my family's health, because the cheapest and best meals are made from items that don't have any of those things.
Yesterday at my mom's house I ate a microwaved potato with butter and salt.
Dirt cheap, delicious and no worries about additives.
Flaming hot Cheetos, mountain dew code red and Kraft macaroni dinner  might have crazy stuff in them but no one needs to eat those, just like no one needs to drink whiskey, but we are allowed to do so if we want.
I see white flour and bread as similarly suspect, but also no one is forcing them on me.