Diet - Eggs or no eggs?

@drcopp
Hi, and thanks for the links on the nutrition stuff. They are fascinating and provide sime excellent questions to the medical world who largely seem oblivious to the impacts of what we put into our bodies each and every day (other than meds)!

I am sooo glad my husband & I are about to turn 78. I love eggs & cheese, and he loves milk & meat too much to give it up for his PC (maybe cut back just a little?) Don't do as I say or do, though! I do love, love, love vegetables and force them on my husband.

@drcopp I guess I’m a dead man, then. After becoming allergic to ted meat from a tick bite, I ate only chicken, turkey and fish for six years - many times eating poultry 4X/week.
Also, I eat eggs - either in foods or alone scrambled or hard boiled. I really have a hard time with the ‘evidence’ produced in this article; the amounts consumed are so minimal that almost every male on earth should die of metastatic PCa.
And where are all those years of evidence linking red meat to increased rates of PCa? Sorry, don’t buy it…
Not attacking you - and many thanks for the article - but until better head to head studies are done, I plan on continuing my present diet.
Don’t have the link, but do some research on flax seed oil re: prostate cancer. Total misinformation based on anecdotal observation. Turns out the men with PCa had a genetic metabolic flaw which predisposed them to build up high levels of ALA in their prostates…which again had nothing to do with getting the disease!
Phil

@heavyphil Exactly. And for another example, look at the whole glucose thing. Does glucose feed cancer cells? Sure. Does that mean eating less sugar can starve your cancer? Not that we know of.

Your body breaks down everything you eat into glucose, and your brain is an especially heavy consumer. If you ever somehow got your blood sugar low enough to slow cancer spread, you'd be in a coma (or worse).

p.s. It's a great idea to moderate consumption of refined sugar to lower the risk of type 2 diabetes, but that's a different discussion.

@heavyphil
Hi Phil:
Media bias is a big player and many studies had company board or their own biased researchers were sponsoring the study.-there is now clear and large study data that show us what to eat and not eat. The large nurses study, along with the
Mediterranean Diet was even a better choice than the American diet.
See this short video, very good panel guidelines: https://nutritionfacts.org/video/how-big-meat-manipulated-the-science/
The top of the research chain is this group: See the attached American Dietetics Association Position Paper that showed the difference in health between Seventh Day Adventists and S. Baptists, shown pretty conclusively to large differences. The Vegan or Veggie diet was evaluated as not only helping our health, but were preventative against the big 5 that will kill Americans.

@drcopp I totally agree with you on the point that the ‘American Diet’ is NOT the ideal - or even close to it when you consider things like Wonder Bread, Pop Tarts and Cheetos (but I do love’em!).
However, saying things like ‘less than one egg per day’ is going to kill me but ‘less than one serving of broccoli’ is going to prevent me from dying from cancer is somewhat magical thinking, IMO.
I am not against vegan in any of its forms - it’s a lifestyle choice based on various factors - some for health and others on moral grounds; but it’s the preaching that gets to me - the unvarnished zeal of the true believers.
I believe in ALL things in moderation whether it’s diet, exercise or anything else. Graveyards are full of Seventh Day Adventists and Southern Baptists and I will wager that the Adventists lived longer not for their vegetarian ways but because of the overly unhealthy diet of the old south - smoked meats daily, processed foods, incredible amounts of sugar, smoking, dipping…this is NOT moderation!
This topic of diet is a hotly debated one on the forum and it comes up frequently. It is wonderful and exciting that we can share our opposing views politely - and provide what we feel is evidence to support our position(s). Too bad the rest of the world doesn’t seem to be doing that…
But in the end, we all make personal choices and I applaud your choice to follow a diet which allows you to sleep soundly at night…
Best in health,
Phil

@drcopp At its best (skipping all the fried foods, simple carbs, etc), the Mediteranean diet can be great. The American southwest diet at its best (lots of beans, corn, avocadoes, etc) — also great. The Japanese diet at its best (lots of fish, rice, fermented foods) — you guessed it, great again. And so on.

In fact, as @heavyphil implied, you can make almost any diet healthy with moderation and careful selection, or unhealthy if you take it to excess.

I don't think anyone disagrees that healthy eating is a very good idea. I think the problem comes with what Phil rightly identified as magical thinking. Cancer is one of the most extreme cases of being out of control (cells are literally dividing faster and faster), so the temptation of being able to convince yourself you're IN control again through some kind of protective fiction — do/don't eat X, do/don't participate in activity Y; pray to diety Z; etc. — is very powerful.

A good discussion-the American Dietetics paper nails the truth of the matter though. The true, whole food, vegan or veggie diet is actually proved by them to be preventable for many cancers. Again, my urologist gave me kudos each time he asks me what I eat. The IFC-1 progenitor cells are one of the differences, as they stimulate and promote cancer growth.

Thanks Phil-
It's good to keep in mind holistic perspectives-for example, one can cross the freeway between San Jose and Loma Linda, CA and see vast differences in lifestyle and health outcomes. The Seventh Day Adventists live in one of the few Blue City regions in the world-they exercise a lot, and have the most healthy population and largest numbers of 90 and 100 year old's, whereas San Jose has some of the worst health outcomes and life expectancy, as many in typical American cities.
So much conflict exists in that we all have our favorite foods and customs. Yet, as the medical expert that heads up the website that I shared said, "let's think about this, bacon has been classified as a class I carcinogen, do you want a small dose or larger dose-it's still bad for us in any amount and has the potential to set loose havoc in our bodies."

So yes, people with elevated levels of IGF-1 also are more likely to develop prostate cancer, but major changes in your diet can affect total IGF-1 levels by only a tiny amount (like, 1–4%, I think) — it's mostly generic predisposition. (Note that I am not a medical or scientific professional.)

It makes sense not to eat too much bacon anyway, because of the high salt and saturated-fat levels when our cancer meds already increase our risk of developing heart disease, but again, a little bit of bacon in your Mediterranean-diet pasta carbonara 🙂 from time to time isn't going to move the needle, statistically speaking. Just don't eat a mound of bacon for breakfast *every* morning on top of your 3 eggs and buttered toast.

Like Phil wrote, it all comes down to moderation, not prohibition.

p.s. I've been vegetarian since 1997. I wish not eating bacon had helped me. 😕