Like lead covered toys, the Western diet is becoming a toxic import
In July, a study in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention of 3,002 postmenopausal women in Shanghai, China found those who ate the high fat, low fiber Western diet — a badge of developed countries — were 30% more likely to get breast cancer, especially the estrogen receptor-positive variety. Women who abstained from the Western diet in favor of tofu, cauliflower, beans and bean sprouts had no increased breast cancer risk.
In August a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) found colon cancer patients who ate a lot of red meat, French fries and desserts increased their chance of a recurrence of cancer by three and a half times. Subjects who ate what Dr. Jeffrey Meyerhardt, the study’s lead author, called a “prudent” model of fruits, vegetables, poultry and fish had no increased risk of returning cancer or death.
And this month a study of 192 people with Alzheimer’s disease in the journal Neurology found those who avoided the — you guessed it — Western diet were 76% less likely to die during the study period of 4 1/2 years.
Increasingly poor countries, too, are finding the arrival of KFC, dairy and US fast food culture presages a rise in obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, stroke, osteoporosis and even gout, the so called rich man’s disease. And they’re saying thanks but no thanks to the Western diet.
“In the 50’s, 60s, and 70’s, most of our diet in sub-Saharan Africa was not refined or high fat as we are having today,” says Dr. Adekunle Adesina, an oncologist/pathologist at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston in the Nigerian Tribune, Lagos’ oldest newspaper.
“There was a lot of fibre in our meal at that time, which kept cancers and other diseases at bay. But the Western diets that we are now eating in Africa are highly refined with little fibre.”
J. Olufemi Ogunbiyi, a professor of Anatomic Pathology at the College of Medicine, University of Ibadan agrees. “It is crucial that we cut down the amount of fat in our diets,” he told the Tribune. “Meats, especially red meat, cheeses, eggs and whole milk should also be eaten with utmost caution to prevent some diseases.”
Nor is the world view of the Western diet likely to improve with the follow-up to the American Institute for Cancer Prevention/World Cancer Research Fund’s 1999 landmark study, Food Nutrition and the Prevention of Cancer due out November 1. Its 1999 position on the Western diet? “If eaten at all, red meat to provide less than 10% total energy.”
But you can’t expect Big Food to take world rejection of its products lying down — like the people and animals it sidelines.
This month Quality Meat Scotland, a red meat promotional agency, is hosting a seminar at the Moredun Institute in Edinburgh about the health properties (sic) of the fatty acids found in red meat — conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) and Omega 3 — which it claims help the immune system and in losing body fat.
The US egg industry also claims its product makes you lose weight. Women who ate two eggs with toast every morning lost 65% more weight and 83% more abdomen fat than women who ate bagels and low fat yogurt according to its own study cited in the August 17 issue of Feedstuffs, the agribusiness weekly.
And the Australian meat industry, a big exporter to the US, is undaunted by the bad Western diet press.
“Red meat has played a significant role in human evolution” it says (see tall ships; leeches) and “trimmed of fat it is generally lean and contains low levels of saturated fats and cholesterol.”
Red meat can also “be included in the diet of people with or at risk of heart disease” and, “Strategies for the prevention and treatment of obesity can include lean red meat.” (How? Very carefully.)
And cancer concerns?
“The balance of evidence indicates that lean red meat, cooked without charring or heavy browning is not consistently linked to the development of colorectal cancer.”
Especially if you don’t eat it, like lead paint.