There is going to be some big AHA moment tied so couple food practices. Like washing chicken in chlorine or something. I wonder how are the stats in other developed countries. The title says US.
Sugar is 50:50 fructose:sugar and "high"-fructose sugar is 55:45. The slight difference in fructose:sugar between the two is not significant in terms of health outcomes, unless you mean sugar in general.
I can't make sense of your comment, but whatever you're trying to get at is wrong: Table sugar is sucrose. Corn syrup is mostly glucose and contains no fructose. HFCS is commonly produced at 42% and 55% fructose formulations. I don't think HFCS is meaningfully more or less harmful than any other sugar, but chemically there's a significant difference.
Maybe instead of processing food to add more protein into it — even Starbucks sells "protein drinks" now — they should process food to have more fiber instead.
I usually stay out of health convos because it's just not my wheelhouse, but I think most people would benefit from extra fiber. It has an obvious direct benefit to your life the very next time you use the bathroom. I don't know if it is the answer to the rise of colon cancer; this is well studied and seems really easy to work with? We would surely know already. But I do know it's worth doing irrespective of that.
I mean, there's a well-documented link between colon cancer and inadequate fiber intake.
And it's also well-documented that the average Western diet is highly deficient in fiber and that this is a thing which has gotten much worse in the last 75 years.
There also seems to be at least some light evidence that there may be generational effects - that the starting point of your gut is already bad if your mother's was.
The mechanism behind why more fiber helps is pretty straightforward:
Insoluble fiber speeds up gut motility. Faster gut motility means less time for toxins to sit and absorb in your gut.
Also, fermentable fibers serve as substrate for gut microbes, producing short-chain fatty acids (butyrate is one - a primary fuel source for colonocytes - the cells that line your colon).
It also lowers colonic pH, inhibiting pathogenic bacteria.
Lastly, (although there are tons more benefits I'm not listing), soluble fiber is incredible for people trying to lose weight, as highly fibrous foods increase satiety, keeping you fuller for longer.
Uh, what? I have not made a presuppositional argument (I made no argument at all...). I made a statement about my epistemic state - ie: that I would "bet" on low fiber being the major contributor to colon cancer rates. Someone then asserted that it can't be that, and I asked "why?".
> Why would more fiber help?
Because there is an incredible amount of research into high fiber diets being good for your gut, including reduced colon cancer rates. This is the consensus of various organizations such as WHO - high fiber diets have lower risks of colon cancer.
My comment is that it is not ONLY low fiber diets. There are a lot of other risk factors involved. Will high fiber help - absolutely. Is it the be all end all - no I doubt it.
Western diet collapsed its fiber intake well over 80 years ago - it would have shown up already.
> My comment is that it is not ONLY low fiber diets.
Well, you said "can't" and I asked "why", which feels very reasonable to me. Your argument seems to be that it wouldn't account properly for the data - specifically, you're saying we would have seen colon cancer rates rise earlier.
> Western diet collapsed its fiber intake well over 80 years ago - it would have shown up already.
I don't really buy this for a lot of reasons. Probably the two most important are (a) ability to screen historically and (b) the timing isn't particularly "off" for the fiber argument. We did see it already, we've been seeing increases in color cancer risks for decades.
Now, I'm not married to it "just" being fiber whatsoever, but if I were to "bet" on the major contributing factor, naively, that's where my money would go. I think it's very reasonable to not place your bet there.
Should be a betting service for this kind of thing instead of sports betting. Maybe all the men betting sports might read and change their habits based on the betting outcomes (and improve their health).
I would also bet top reason is fiber but it isn't the only reason - multiple factors at play.
The trend has been down, even for this cancer. Such that I agree there were probably some big AHA moments. But I assert they almost certainly happened 50 years ago.
My expectation is that it is less that there has been a growing trend of this cancer getting worse, and far more that we have gotten better at many other cancers. That is, overall, this is good news on progress. Not a scare headline.
I grew up in a fairly industrial area with lots of trades people around me. From my anecdata, I'd suspect you're right. We know more about some cancers and the causes and they are easier to prevent.
The choices, personal or otherwise, I have seen can't be good for your body, and some you're simply not allowed to make anymore.
Ironically, sitting on this laptop typing this might be as bad, but win some/lose some.
But some obvious examples?
Ever dip a shirt in benzene because it cools you down? Apparently it feels like Vicks, but doesn't leave that sticky feeling behind.
A good portion drank 6+ beers a day. I know they must have eaten, but some I never saw consume food. At all.
Some smoked a pack or two of cigarettes a day. Asbestos was in everything.
There was no ventilation/filtration for welders, painters, woodworkers, etc. If you could open the shop door it was a good day.
It has ticked up 1-2 per 100k over the past few decades for that group. Zoom the chart out, and you would probably be excused for assuming it is flat with some noise.
By all means, we should study this more. But the way folks are talking about this is a touch nuts.
It went up by 4 per 100k. And, since it was at 6 in 2000, that's a large increase.
>Zoom the chart out, and you would probably be excused for assuming it is flat with some noise.
That's true of all cancers, if not all statistics.
The concern here is two-fold:
(1) The people under 50 now will be over 50 in a decade or so. We can already see that the trend of colorectal cancer among those aged 50 to 64 was decreasing until 2012, but had since gone up. This will likely get worse. Early onset colorectal cancer is a canary in the coalmine.
(2) Unless this trend is caused by a specific chemical exposure or a purely dietary reason, the behavior/lifestyle/health conditions behind it are likely to lead to other types of cancers. Obesity and lack of exercise have been linked to a lot of cancers. I'm worried about losing progress across the board when these young people reach their 60s.
It was not true of all cancers two decades ago. Which is largely my point. Things are better than they were 50 years ago. Including this. Should we try and make sure we don't reverse that progress? Absolutely.
And it is notable that this research largely pointed to genetics as being ~20% of the cases of early onset results. That combined with how it presents in a very different way from older patients seems to point to us also getting better at spotting it.
All of which is good! It is progress. And I hope we get even better at it.
If you are merely noting it as a concern for "things to continue to watch," I'm fully with you. Read the rest of the comments on this post, though. Tons of people pointing at things that just don't present in the evidence. Fear that we will find that one killer ingredient/process to explain the uptick here; all while failing to acknowledge that we did find many such problems in the past and have made quite astounding progress on it.
That seems like wishful thinking, IMO. Seems more likely we will find it’s due a complex constellation of genetics, diet, lifestyle factors like exercise, environmental exposure, etc associated eith a modern sedentary lifestyle
with no clear smoking gun or single preventative intervention.
It sort of reminds me of when Lesswrong was fixated on a hypothesis that lithium levels in the water supply was the cause of the obesity epidemic. There was a lot of enthusiasm for the idea at the time, and somewhat understandably as it would have been a single variable that could be tweaked for massive societal benefits.
But there wasn’t really any credible evidence to support it. Trying to reduce the complexity of human biology and lifestyle to single cause/effect relationship is an easy and tempting trap to fall into to explain unknowns in medicine.
Not saying it’s actually linked to cancer but it definitely does increase the risk of hemorrhoids, rectal prolapse and bleeding from straining. Which could mean chronic stress at a cellular level repairing damage over the long term.
> An estimated 95% of American adults and children fail to meet daily fiber recommendations, with intake often falling below 10 grams per 1,000 calories consumed
It's tempting to focus on some magic bad ingredient/practice to explain our bad health (like seed oils), but we don't exercise, we eat directly against dietary guidelines, and we eat foods that we know are bad for us.
Now add on to that the social media grifters and industry advocates who tell you that eating poorly is good for you.
I don't blame individuals just trying to live their life though. This is how we've let our whole food environment set up shop.
I don't think I need to enumerate every way our diets are bad in an HN comment, do I? You didn't even want to do it and you're the one gunning for it.
But processed meat consumption would be another good example of where we happily eat against dietary guidelines despite its link with colorectal cancer.
