There’s nothing quite like that feeling when they tell you your cancer is gone. And with a less than stellar 5-year survival rate, getting the all-clear on your colon cancer is especially sweet.
But don’t make big plans to celebrate with a special dinner at your favorite steakhouse just yet. Because then they’ll hit you with the bad news. Life, as you knew, is OVER, pal.
And if you want to stay healthy… ensure the colon cancer never returns… and to remain ALIVE… they’ll insist you need to quit many of the foods you love forever. And topping that list is red meat.
If you’re a colon-cancer survivor (or simply trying to reduce your risks), you may have heard that advice yourself. And perhaps you’re already mourning some of your favorite meals.
If so, I’ve got an exciting new message for you today. Go ahead and break out the steak knives!
It turns out red meat may not be the colon-wrecking villain it’s been cast as, after all. In fact, meat could be a perfectly safe option even if you’ve survived a battle with colon cancer.
Is meat truly bad for cancer survivors?
Red meat gets blamed for nearly everything these days, including obesity, heart disease, and cancer (including, of course, colon cancer). But meat simply isn’t the bogeyman it’s been made out to be in most cases.
Maybe you’ve heard the phrase “correlation doesn’t mean causation” before. It simply means that just because a surface association is seen between two things doesn’t mean the one CAUSED the other.
Let’s forget about colon cancer for just a moment and take a look at a made-up example. A study could find that people who wear black shoes end up in more car accidents than folks who wear brown ones. But that doesn’t mean wearing black shoes will cause a car accident.
Other factors could be behind that link. For example, perhaps more young men wear black shoes, and young men also tend to drive faster cars and take more risks.
When it comes to red meat we’re seeing the same sort of effect. Because the biggest meat-eaters are often the heaviest consumers of some riskier foods. That includes carbs such as having a potato, dinner roll, or white rice with a steak or a bun on a burger.
And many of the elevated risks likely come from overdoing those types of foods… not the meat itself.
Meats not linked to higher colon cancer risk
The new study attempted to separate the effects of both red meat and processed meat from those other risky foods. And what the researchers found is turning conventional wisdom upside down.
Over eight years, NEITHER made a difference in patients who had survived a battle with stage-3 colon cancer. They had the same chances of recurrence as everyone else. Plus, they had the same risk of death from the disease as everyone else.
Even more amazingly, the patients who had seven or more servings of red meat per week also had a 16 percent LOWER risk of recurrence or death than folks who ate little to no red meat.
Just imagine how ripped off you’d feel if you caved in to the standard advice to quit meat. But then you ended up in a new life-or-death battle with cancer anyway. Talk about unfair.
Of course, even with meat, the usual advice applies. And that, of course, is all things in moderation. Because overdoing ANY one food will lead to an unbalanced diet. And that can raise your risk for all kinds of things.
And honestly, I would still advise against going to town on processed meats. Even if the study didn’t find them risky for colon cancer survivors, there are plenty of other dangers associated with them.
Prior research has linked processed meats to other forms of cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and early death. Instead, opt for fresh and organic meats, which you can now enjoy without guilt.
Colon cancer may not be linked to meat. But we do have some evidence of other things that may be. I wrote about a potential link between colon cancer and LACK of sunlight in THIS earlier report, for example. Plus, I warned readers about a common medication with ties to climbing colon cancer cases.
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