It all depends on how you define “very high” fruit and vegetable intake.
Flawed Study Interpretation
Here I am asking everyone to eat lots of fruits and veggies to prevent cancer. But how does that jibe with this study, published last summer? Women diagnosed with breast cancer were asked to eat a diet very high in fruits and veggies to see if they’d live longer, and they did not live any longer, leading to headlines like this: “Diet high in fruits and veggies of no particular benefit…” and “Extra servings of fruits and veggies fail…” And you can always count on the British tabloids: “Cancer fruit flop” and veggies “blow.”
Before you empty out your crisper, though, just what exactly did they mean by “very high” consumption? At baseline, before the study began, these women were eating 3.5 servings of fruit a day. Then, after three years of nutrition counseling, cooking classes, and newsletters meant to boost fruit and veggie consumption, they started out at 3.5, and ended up at the “very high” intake of… 3.4. Fruit consumption went down. No wonder they didn’t live any longer!
Now they did eat a few more vegetables, but combined, after three years, their fruit and vegetable consumption went up only 1.8 servings. That, pathetically, is conventional medicine’s idea of a diet “very high” in fruits and veggies.
To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video. This is just an approximation of the audio contributed by Dianne Moore.
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- W. Kalt, J. B. Blumberg, J. E. McDonald, M. R. Vinqvist-Tymchuk, S. A. E. Fillmore, B. A. Graf, J. M. O'Leary, and P. E. Milbury. Identication of anthocyanins in the liver, eye, and brain of blueberry-fed pigs. J. Agric. Food. Chem., 56(3):705-712, 2008.
- JAMA. 2007 Jul 18;298(3):289-98. Influence of a diet very high in vegetables, fruit, and fiber and low in fat on prognosis following treatment for breast cancer: the Women's Healthy Eating and Living (WHEL) randomized trial. Pierce JP, Natarajan L, Caan BJ, Parker BA, Greenberg ER, Flatt SW, Rock CL, Kealey S, Al-Delaimy WK, Bardwell WA, Carlson RW, Emond JA, Faerber S, Gold EB, Hajek RA, Hollenbach K, Jones LA, Karanja N, Madlensky L, Marshall J, Newman VA, Ritenbaugh C, Thomson CA, Wasserman L, Stefanick ML.
Image thanks to U.S. Department of Agriculture via Flickr.
Here I am asking everyone to eat lots of fruits and veggies to prevent cancer. But how does that jibe with this study, published last summer? Women diagnosed with breast cancer were asked to eat a diet very high in fruits and veggies to see if they’d live longer, and they did not live any longer, leading to headlines like this: “Diet high in fruits and veggies of no particular benefit…” and “Extra servings of fruits and veggies fail…” And you can always count on the British tabloids: “Cancer fruit flop” and veggies “blow.”
Before you empty out your crisper, though, just what exactly did they mean by “very high” consumption? At baseline, before the study began, these women were eating 3.5 servings of fruit a day. Then, after three years of nutrition counseling, cooking classes, and newsletters meant to boost fruit and veggie consumption, they started out at 3.5, and ended up at the “very high” intake of… 3.4. Fruit consumption went down. No wonder they didn’t live any longer!
Now they did eat a few more vegetables, but combined, after three years, their fruit and vegetable consumption went up only 1.8 servings. That, pathetically, is conventional medicine’s idea of a diet “very high” in fruits and veggies.
To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video. This is just an approximation of the audio contributed by Dianne Moore.
Please consider volunteering to help out on the site.
- W. Kalt, J. B. Blumberg, J. E. McDonald, M. R. Vinqvist-Tymchuk, S. A. E. Fillmore, B. A. Graf, J. M. O'Leary, and P. E. Milbury. Identication of anthocyanins in the liver, eye, and brain of blueberry-fed pigs. J. Agric. Food. Chem., 56(3):705-712, 2008.
- JAMA. 2007 Jul 18;298(3):289-98. Influence of a diet very high in vegetables, fruit, and fiber and low in fat on prognosis following treatment for breast cancer: the Women's Healthy Eating and Living (WHEL) randomized trial. Pierce JP, Natarajan L, Caan BJ, Parker BA, Greenberg ER, Flatt SW, Rock CL, Kealey S, Al-Delaimy WK, Bardwell WA, Carlson RW, Emond JA, Faerber S, Gold EB, Hajek RA, Hollenbach K, Jones LA, Karanja N, Madlensky L, Marshall J, Newman VA, Ritenbaugh C, Thomson CA, Wasserman L, Stefanick ML.
Image thanks to U.S. Department of Agriculture via Flickr.
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More on interpreting research:
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More on cancer prevention and diet:
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Also, see my associated blog posts: Breast Cancer and Diet and Eating To Extend Our Lifespan.
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