Saturated Fats and Cancer

With regard to fats in the diet there is some evidence that an excessive use of both animal fats and polyunsaturated fats are equally undesirable in cancer prevention. Animal foods are natural only to carnivorous animals and so it is hardly surprising that animal fats should be injurious to health. Polyunsaturated fats from plant foods are essential to health but should be obtained from the food sources of nuts, seeds, beans, wheatgerm, olives, advocados etc. When it was first determined that polyunsaturated fats could reduce blood cholesterol levels, some devotees where drinking these oils by the bottle. Nature requires more subtlety than this, one tablespoon daily being all that is required. The oils in plant foods contain vitamin E, a vitally important nutrient much of which is lost if the plant oils are extracted with heat. Lack of vitamin E can cause premature ageing, wrinkles and loose skin and can pre-dispose toward heart and circulatory disorders. For this reason it may be wise, if margarine and polyunsaturated oils are used extensively, to take a vitamin E capsule daily. It is particularly important that polyunsaturated oils should not be allowed to go rancid because they can produce a potent carcinogen (cancer causing agent) called malonaldehyde. Oils shoud therefore be bought in small quantites, preferably cold pressed and kept refrigerated. The temptation to heat oils to high temperatures for the purpose of frying foods is also an unwelcome habit. Polyunsaturates ought to be provided naturally in the diet from food sources, or used in the form of cold pressed oil which can be used in salad dressings, olive oil probably being the best. The equivalent of 1 tablespoon from food, or as a supplement, is all that is needed daily.

Low protein intakes tend to correlate with low incidences of cancer as any study of primative races of healthly inhabitants will show. The Hunzas consume about 50g of vegetable protein daily. Mormons and 7th day adventists both observe healthly lifestyles and have low incidences of disease. The adventists, however, are vegetarians and experience a much lower cancer rate than the meat eating Mormons.