revek wrote:
Studies suggest that fiber helps reduce the occurence of colon-rectal
cancer. If Atkins done correctly means lots of fiber, then that would
suggest that Atkins could be a viable strategy against colon-rectal
cancer.

Fiber as prevention was only a theory, and it has not panned out.
See the two attached articles.

After Induction, Atkins allows ample high fiber vegetables, a little of
fibrous fruits, and nuts. When one is getting most of their allowed carbs
on Atkins from veggies and nuts, and not eating a lot of LC-engineered
products, there is a lot less waste than on a high carb diet. It is
also of a consistency that is more easily pushed through the tract than
the high volume of pasty waste from a high carb diet. The standard
recommendations of daily fiber might be overstated for a low-carb diet.

I've always gotten most of my carbs from veggies and nuts, and in more
than six years on Atkins, can count on one hand the number of times
I became constipated.

Also, a lot of newbies confuse needing to go less often than on a high
carb diet with constipation. Constipation means difficult or painful
elimination. "Daily regularity" is a phrase that was made up to sell
laxatives. According to various gastroenterology sites, normal bowel
function varies anywhere from 3 times a day to 3 times a week.



October 12, 2000
Study: Fiber Doesn't Prevent Cancer

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 7:02 p.m. ET

LONDON (AP) -- Evidence is mounting that fiber might not prevent colon
cancer after all, with a new study suggesting that one type of
supplement might even be bad for the colon.

The theory that a high-fiber diet wards off the second-leading cancer
killer has been around since the 1970s, but the evidence was never
strong. The concept began to crumble last year when the first of three
major U.S. studies found it had no effect.

In the latest study, published this week in The Lancet medical journal,
European researchers found that precancerous growths, or polyps, were
slightly more likely to recur in those taking a certain fiber
supplement.

The findings demonstrate the difficulty of trying to figure out the
relationship between nutrition and disease, said Dr. Michael Thun, who
heads epidemiological research for the American Cancer Society.

Fiber is particularly complicated, he said, because there are various
types and they all could act differently.

``The concept of a healthy diet continues to be the recommendation for
overall health,'' Thun said. ``But the painful process of clarifying
which ingredients in food do what will take us decades to sort out.''

Thun said the American Cancer Society will revisit its recommendations
on fiber and colon cancer in light of the growing body of evidence
eroding support for the theory that it wards off the disease.

Experts recommend a low fat, high-fiber diet rich in fruits and
vegetables and whole grains because it has been shown to reduce the
risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and some other
cancers.

``There is definitely something dietary going on with bowel cancer, but
we haven't really been able to fix on what it is,'' said Dr. Tim Key, a
cancer researcher at Oxford University who was not connected with the
study. ``The cause of colorectal cancer is very far from understood.''

The latest study, conducted by scientists at the University of
Bourgogne, France, does not address the effect of a high-fiber diet,
but of supplements of one type of fiber -- ispaghula husk, a compound
similar to psyllium that is not part of the average diet.

Psyllium, a grain grown in India, is found in some over-the-counter
laxatives and fiber supplements.

The study, involving 552 Europeans who previously had precancerous
growths in the bowel, found that 29 percent of those receiving the
supplement got at least one new tumor within three years. That compares
with 20 percent of those given fake granules.

The findings may or may not be related to the role fiber in general
plays in bowel cancer but, considered together with other recent
studies, the plausibility of a protective role looks less likely.

``This does produce more evidence for the negative side,'' said Dr.
Lesley Walker, a scientist at the London-based Imperial Cancer Research
Fund, which was not connected to the research.

``But we still haven't got the totality of the evidence we want,''
Walker said. ``There are still some important ongoing studies under way
on the fiber question that should give us some solid answers.''

Sorting out the influence of genes, food, pollutants, living habits and
other factors requires drawing together information from many different
scientific approaches. Those include lab experiments, rat studies,
observations of large groups of people and human experiments.

Information from all of these kinds of science went into the rise and
fall of the idea that fiber prevents colon cancer.

It started when scientists noticed that Westerners get more colon
cancer than poor people in rural Africa. While the differences between
these two populations are too numerous to count, an obvious one was the
Africans' higher consumption of fiber.

Over time, many lines of evidence seemed to support the theory.

People see their risk of colon cancer rise when they move from places
with low rates to areas where it's more common and they adopt the local
eating habits.

Furthermore, the idea made sense. Fiber makes the stool bulkier and
perhaps more likely to dilute cancer-causing substances. It also causes
them to flow more quickly through the digestive system.

The data seemed convincing enough for health agencies to recommend high-
fiber foods as one way of preventing colon cancer.

Then last year, the first major study putting the theory to the test,
in which researchers based at Harvard School of Public Health studied
88,757 nurses for 16 years, concluded fiber doesn't help.

---end article--

from http://www.upmc.edu/newsbureau/science/vatstudy.htm

UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH
RESEARCHERS DEMONSTRATE METABOLIC LINK BETWEEN LARGE
WAISTS AND COLORECTAL CANCER

PITTSBURGH, July 15, 1999 -- People with large waistlines
suffer metabolic changes that significantly predispose them to
developing colorectal cancer, according to new data from a
University of Pittsburgh-led study whose results are published in the
July 7 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. This
information is the first to link intra-abdominal fat, or visceral adipose
tissue (VAT), and its associated metabolic changes with colorectal
cancer, according to the authors.

"For several years, scientists have recognized that obese people are
more likely to develop colorectal cancer. Our study sheds light on
the metabolic process underlying this connection," said Robert
Schoen, M.D., assistant professor of medicine at the University of
Pittsburgh School of Medicine, where he is the medical director of
the Center for Families at Risk for Colorectal Cancer. "The
metabolic parameters we measured, including glucose, insulin and
waist circumference, reveal a risk of colorectal cancer that equals or
exceeds other known risk factors, such as having a first-degree
relative with this disease or consuming a high-fat or low-fiber diet."

The current report is based on a study of 5,849 people age 65 and
older who participated in the Cardiovascular Health Study, a
multi-center observational study of risk factors for coronary heart
disease and stroke. The researchers found that people with increased
waistlines, high levels of glucose (the sugar needed to fuel the body's
activities) and high levels of insulin (the hormone that helps dispose
of glucose) were twice as likely to develop colorectal cancer as
individuals without these characteristics. Individuals in the study who
developed colorectal cancer did not differ from their non-affected
counterparts in terms of smoking, current aspirin use, alcoholic
drinks consumed per week, percent of fat calories in diet or mean
number of vegetable or fruit servings per week. Study participants
were followed for an average 6.5 years.

"A very important finding here is that people with increased amounts
of abdominal obesity, or VAT, do not need to be diabetic to develop
colorectal cancer," remarked Lewis Kuller, M.D., Dr.P.H.,
chairman of the department of epidemiology at the University of
Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health and study
co-investigator. "Nondiabetics appear to have an elevated risk of
colorectal cancer as their fasting insulin and glucose rise, even if
glucose levels do not reach those defined as consistent with
diabetes."

Previous studies have shown that insulin and insulin-like growth
factors (IGFs) stimulate the growth of colorectal cancers. Obesity
appears to decrease the production of proteins that bind with
circulating IGFs, thus exposing the body to higher concentrations of
these substances. More research is needed to clarify the roles VAT,
insulin, IGF and IGF-binding factors play in causing colorectal
cancer, according to the investigators.

Other researchers on the federally funded study include Catherine
M. Tangen, Ph.D., department of biostatistics, University of
Washington, Seattle; Gregory L. Burke, M.D., department of public
health and sciences, Wake Forest University School of Medicine,
Winston-Salem, N.C.; Mary Cushman, M.D., departments of
medicine and pathology, University of Vermont, Burlington; Russell
P. Tracy, Ph.D., departments of medicine, pathology and
biochemistry, University of Vermont; Adrian Dobs, M.D.,
department of medicine, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore,
Md.; and Peter J. Savage, M.D., National Heart, Lung and Blood
Institute, Bethesda, Md.

---end article---


--
jamie )

"There's a seeker born every minute."