As Obesity Levels Rise, Rare Cancer Weighs In

It’s a steady drumbeat. Day after day we hear about how a sedentary lifestyle mixed with a heaping helping of saturated fat is more than a simple recipe for how to put on pounds fast – it’s a recipe for how to get cancer. But not just the ones we hear about all the time…even the rarely diagnosed ones.

Ever heard of cancer affecting the small intestine? Up to now, the small intestine has largely been immune to cancer, but researchers from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) believe that diets high in saturated fat dramatically increase the risk of cancer for this all-important organ.

Even though the small intestine makes up 75 percent of the digestive tract, a mere 6,100 cases of cancer affecting the small intestine will be diagnosed this year. Of course, even one diagnosis is too many, but when one considers the 170,000 Americans believed to be diagnosed with lung cancer this year alone, small intestine cancer is comparatively small. But if the rates of obesity continue to rise, so too will this cancer.

Using food frequency questionnaires for 500,000 men and women, the NCI researchers looked at small intestine cancer diagnoses, with a keen eye on whether or not there was an association between the participants’ eating diets high in saturated fat, and if their saturated fat intake came from red meat.

While the participants did not find an association between red meat consumption and small intestine cancer diagnoses, they did find one between just how high the participants’ diets were in saturated fat and small intestine cancer diagnoses. Those who had the highest saturated fat intake were three times more likely to be diagnosed with small intestine cancer compared to those with low saturated fat intake (i.e. a 3.18-fold increased risk, to be exact).

This research suggests that one doesn’t need to make too broad a stroke in maligning all red meats. As I wrote recently, so long as red meat is eaten sparingly and so long as it comes from organic sources, red meat can be part of any balanced diet. The best sources for red meat are bison, which has less than a gram of saturated fat in a 3 ½ oz. cut. Another red meat source that’s low in saturated fat is venison, with just over one gram of saturated fat per 3 ½ oz. cut (think about it: have you ever seen a fat deer?).

I often feel like I’m the bearer of bad news. But when I stop and think about it, what may seem like bad news is in reality good news – depending on how one applies the news to their life. After all, knowledge is power and when supplied with the knowledge of what foods to eat and what foods to avoid, one is better able to approach health in an informed manner.

That’s my goal with each and every posting: keeping you informed on how to stay as healthy as possible, as naturally as possible.