Study: High-Carb Foods Lead To Kidney Cancer

Man shall not live by bread alone, but he could get cancer from it!

If people thought the popularity of the low-carb diet was bad for the bread, pasta, dairy, and rice industries, then they ain't seen nothing yet!

A brand new Italian study released on Friday provided the shocking revelation that a diet rich is bread consumption is directly linked to the most common type of kidney cancer there is called renal cell carcinoma (RCC). This research may be the most damning evidence yet against eating a high-carb diet for health ever again and is proof yet again why livin' la vida low-carb truly is a healthier way to eat for the rest of your life.

Lead researcher Dr. Francesca Bravi, from the Milan, Italy-based Institute of Pharmacological Research "Mario Negri," and her fellow researchers conducted a large controlled study of 2301 Italians adults to determine if diet and nutrition played any significant role in the development of RCC. Dr. Bravi said this is an extremely controversial subject among dietary researchers and she wanted to see if a link existed.

"To our knowledge, no other study investigated the role of cereals on RCC," Dr. Bravi remarked about the reason for her research.

One-third (767 study participants, including 494 men and 273 women) were already diagnosed with RCC when the study began and the other two-thirds (1534 study participants, including 988 men and 546 women) were used as the control subjects in the study because they had not previously been diagnosed with the disease. In fact, there were two control subjects matched up by gender, age, and location with each RCC-diagnosed case.

For everyone who participated in the study, Dr. Bravi and her team looked at their lifestyle, where they lived, who they interacted with, what kind of medical history each of them had, and other appropriate measurements at the beginning of the study.

The participants were also required to take a food frequency questionairre consisting of 78 questions about food and beverage intake was adminstered to determine what the average weekly diet was like for them over the previous two years to see if any of the foods they consumed played a role in the RCC. Alcohol consumption was also assessed in a separate set of questions.

What they found was a "significant direct trend in risk" of developing RCC when foods like bread, pasta, rice, milk, and yogurt were consumed. Here is what the study found regarding the probability of INCREASED risk of the onset of RCC for eating any of the following foods:

Bread -- 94 percent increased risk
Pasta -- 29 percent increased risk
Rice -- 29 percent increased risk
Milk -- 27 percent increased risk
Yogurt -- 27 percent increased risk

The researchers suggest that the greater risk of RCC from these high-carb foods "may be due to the high glycemic index of these foods and their possible involvement in insulin-like growth factors." This is much more serious than the excessive acne caused by high-carb diets which was recently studied.

At the same time, Dr. Bravi found that many of the following low-glycemic, low-carb foods were actually protective against RCC because they DECREASED the risk of developing it:

Poultry -- 26 percent decreased risk
Processed meats -- 36 percent decreased risk
Vegetables -- 35 percent decreased risk

Dr. Bravi said each of these foods were "inversely associated with RCC risk." In fact, she went on to say that there was "no relation" to RCC found in coffee, tea, soup, eggs, red meat, fish, cheese, fruits, potatoes, sugars and desserts.

"Decreasing risk was associated with increasing intake of poultry, processed meat, and all vegetables, both raw and cooked," Dr. Bravi noted in her study.

Vegetable consumption, which is a staple among most healthy dieters including those on low-carb diets, has long been found in studies to contain many vitamins, carotenoids, flavonoids and phytosterols--all of which are good for your body and help keep you healthy.

"The results of this study provide further indications on dietary correlates of RCC, and in particular indicate that a diet rich in refined cereals and poor in vegetables may have an unfavorable role on RCC," the researchers concluded.

The study entitled "Food Groups and Renal Cell Carcinoma: A Case-Control Study from Italy" was published in the October 20, 2006 issue of the International Journal of Cancer.

While the dieting world has been exposed to a lot of crazy diets over the years, this new study just confirms how truly ridiculous these cereal diets you see on television all the time as well as books such as "The Pocket Diet," "The Bread For Life Diet," "The Diet Code" really are when it comes to a healthy lifestyle.

And let's not forget about the government-recommended USDA Food Pyramid. Are they going to back away from these suggestions for grain intake in light of this new study? Don't count on it. It's another reason why YOU must take control of your own health and never allow the government to tell you what is good for you. This study is proof positive they are simply not looking out for the best interests of you and me.

As for me, I'll keep on livin' la vida low-carb proudly because I can be confident my weight will be controlled and my risk of developing renal cell carcinoma is MUCH lower than it would be on the typical high-carb Standard American Diet (SAD). It is SAD indeed.