High Protein Diets Cause Cancer, Study Says

A reader asked what I thought of a recent report which hit all the major news networks.  The title of the report is:

Low Protein Intake Is Associated with a Major Reduction in IGF-1, Cancer, and Overall Mortality in the 65 and Younger but Not Older Population

Click here to get your copy.

My first thought was:  "What were the animal proteins these people were eating?  Grain-fed or grass-fed?  They are not the same."

Since the report was pretty heady stuff, I searched around and found this interesting comment.

Briefly:
A 24 hour dietary recall was used to classify subjects and then they were followed for 18 years. Is it possible their diets changed over that time?
 
Next, the work in humans was correlative and observational. It was not an intervention or controlled study. All we can conclude is there is a relationship. 

Most importantly is the authors statistical analysis of the data and their interpretation. If we look at the raw data we see that the rate of cancer across the low, medium, and high protein groups was actually 9.8, 10.1, and 9.0%, respectively. There is no difference. However, the authors did some funky math to come up with this huge difference.

In mice, there was no difference in the rate of cancer growth between the vegan protein (soy) and the animal protein (casein); however, the authors claim there was a "non-significant trend" but they do not report the probability value. If we look at the graph, it is barely discernible and does not exceed the standard deviation.

Why then might the researchers make their conclusions off this lack of evidence? Its quite simple, the senior researcher, V. D. Luongo is the founder and has equity in L-Nutra, a Vegan Based Nutrition System. Luongo designed the study, obtained funding, and played a major role in the writing of the manuscript. This is a serious conflict of interest, and we should hold the publisher of the study, Cellular Metabolism, and their peer reviewers responsible for not identifying these issues. If you want to read more about it you can here at my objective critical analysis.



I strongly suggest that you read the man's more in-depth analysis to understand how "reports" must be evaluated.  In addition, I also recommend this book.

Ted Slanker

Blood and Bone Fertilizer

Hello, I've been shopping at Slanker Farms for about a year now and I couldn't be more impressed with your selection and service, it means a lot to me as I am focusing on real food nutrition to heal a lot of complicated health ailments. 

Since you have the best selection of grass fed products I have come across, I am wondering if you also offer products for gardening and agriculture in addition to diet?  I am looking for some high quality grass fed (if I can find it...) bone meal and blood meal for amending the nutrient profile of my gardening soil.  I have ordered many of your bones before and am fairly certain I cannot process them into a powder, so I was wondering if you have the resources to provide this product?  If not, do you have any suggestions for processing chicken or beef bones into a powder or resources where I might be able to acquire these meals/powders?  Thanks!

No, we do not have those products.  In actual fact, any source for blood and bones will work.  Our blood and bones are no better than any other bones or blood you could obtain for feeding plants.  For feeding yourself though, that is an entirely different matter because animals do not absorb their nutrients like plants absorb their nutrients.  Plants are sustainable life forms and animals are dependent on sustainable life forms.

Plants take up nutrients in ionic form.  Because of the way plants take up nutrients they do not "know" or "need to know" what their nutrient source is.  To survive optimally plants only require the chemicals (various atoms) in their environment to be in a favorable balance.  This is why ALL forms of "fertilizer" can work for plants when applied properly.  Only misinformed people get into a twist about “types” of plant food rather than the actual chemistry (atoms) they are applying when feeding their plants.  Sometimes, in their desire to be what they believe is "natural," some folks are starving the plants they are trying to help.

To avoid this problem ranchers and farmers take a lot of soil tests before they make applications.  They want to address their soil deficiencies EXACTLY in order to optimize production.  The level of sophistication in fertilization technology today would blow the mind of the average citizen.  That's because what many people do with the best of intentions is really backward compared to what should be done.  They just do not understand soil chemistry or plant biochemistry.

Feeding your body is not the same as feeding your plants.  We are not planted in the soil taking in our nutrients one ion at a time and getting our energy from the sun.  But that's what plants are doing.  Therefore the question is; "Will applying blood and bones restore the proper balance of atoms that are deficient in the soil I am trying to enhance?"