Does Too Much Protein In The Diet Increase Cancer Risk?

[kevin mckay]

weird study sounds like they are comparing apples to goats to guacamole to many variables for anything conclusive unless I read it wrong?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/12/061207084719.htm

[Mike ODonnell]

"he study involved three groups of people. The first ate a low-protein, low-calorie, raw food vegetarian diet and was made up of 21 lean men and women. Another group consisted of 21 lean subjects who did regular endurance running, averaging about 48 miles per week. The runners ate a standard Western diet, consuming more calories and protein than group one. The third group included 21 sedentary people who also consumed a standard Western diet, higher in sugars, processed refined grains and animal products."

Highly flawed study. They are using endurance athletes only, people who don't exercise and eat sugars....and then the control group.....this is rediculous. Their idea of lean and mine probably differ, were these "edurance athletes" skinny but high BF%? Either way....once again, science is clueless. No wonder most doctors don't have a clue what to tell their patients.

[Scott Kustes]

Is it the protein, the sugar, or the grains? What kind of "animal products" did they consume? Was it standard grain-fed, antibiotic and hormone laden feedlot stuff or healthy grass-fed? Were some of the "animal products" processed meats loaded with salt and nitrates? Were the vegetarians protected by their higher fruit and vegetable intake? Too many variables.

[Jeremy Jones]

I concur with the comparison of the groups. There is no remotely fixed variables between them.

[Jonathan Reik]

"However, people on a low-protein, low-calorie diet had considerably lower levels of a particular plasma growth factor called IGF-1 than equally lean endurance runners," says the study's first author Luigi Fontana, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of medicine at Washington University and an investigator at the Istituto Superiore di Sanità in Rome, Italy. "That suggests to us that a diet lower in protein may have a greater protective effect against cancer than endurance exercise, independently of body fat mass."

Or, it suggests that, as shown in many earlier studies, low-calorie diets (CRAN) improve health risk factors.

Or, it suggests that BMI has little relevance to anything.

Or, it suggests that LSD endurance training promotes cancer.

Or, it suggests nothing at all, since they controlled for only about 5 of the 37 variables.

However, good ol' Luigi draws his own conclusions:
"Fontana says most of us don't eat nearly enough fruits and vegetables or enough whole-grains, cereals or beans."

Huh?