The last few links I posted seem to point out that taking into account genetic variations, (that many lay people assume are spoilers in the question of what one can do for therapeutic or preventatives medicine by natural methods so to speak), there has to be a role that foods plays and possibly supplementation too, in defining health. All these substances cannot have the observed effects they have without their being some ordinary good in adhering to a regimen featuring their ordinary usage. The only questions that remain it would seem is how to achieve an optimal balance - how to measure this effect. To assume that only Cretans will get a benefit out of eating a Cretan diet is perhaps a naive assumption. Obviously there are some genetic considerations to look at, but all the differentiated groups found so far are extremely small isolates. The ApoA1 Milano group who had such protective HDL was a family group of 25 people in a small mountain village in Italy.
I view it as quite simple. There are poisons and there are foods. You can eat too much of some things and too little. You can get scurvy and beri beri by not eating right. Obviously you are what you eat and proper diet can make an enormous difference. Among the Islands of Japan, longevity and diet varies enormously. One island features fish and vegetable eating groups with low fat intake. They live a very long time and get little Cancer or Heart disease. On other islands, the lifespan is much shorter. One Island in JApan has a life expectancy of only 68. Their diet is high in marinated and salted foods and grains. They suffer from a lot of heart disease and stomach cancer.
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Plant foods are generally considered to be beneficial for health. A higher consumption of fruits, and to a lesser extent vegetables, is consistently associated with a lower risk of stomach cancer. Results on the association between stomach cancer and grain consumption are less clear.
We associated plant food consumption with 25-year stomach cancer mortality at population level in the Seven Countries Study. Around 1960,?12,000 men aged 40-59 years from 7 countries and 16 cohorts were enrolled. In each cohort, dietary information was collected in small random samples. Crude and adjusted associations were calculated for a change of 10% of mean intake. Results differed for the plant foods studied: an inverse association was observed for fruits (adjusted rate ratio = 0.96, 95% confidence interval = 0.91-0.99), a positive relation for refined grains (adjusted rate ratio = 1.07, 95% confidence interval = 1.03-1.12), and no association for total plant foods, vegetables, whole grains, and potatoes.
A high intake of refined grains was correlated with a low consumption of fruits. In conclusion, high intake of refined grains may increase stomach cancer risk. However, because adjustment could only be limited in this study, high intake of refined grains may just reflect the deleterious effect of a diet low in fruits or other characteristics associated with low fruit consumption.
informaworld.com
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