News flash! Drilling a hole in your skull (called trepanning) won’t cure headaches, epilepsy, or a host of other ailments.
And here’s another piece of sound medical advice: Drinking diet soda won’t cure or prevent colon cancer.
No, I didn’t pull that last one out of thin air… the insane concept that diet beverages could have a beneficial effect toward preventing the return of colon cancer came straight from high-ranking Yale Cancer Center doctors.
And I’m not the only one who was flabbergasted over such an outrageous announcement. Docs around the country are scratching their heads and wondering what’s up with this Yale group.
But considering the amount of press this nonsense received, this so-called study is a lot more than just a curiosity. It’s downright dangerous.
Because the evidence came in a long time ago: These no-calorie laboratory sweeteners can be deadly.
Bursting the bubbles
Anyone dealing with colon cancer — or who has a survivor in their circle of family and friends — will certainly do a double-take on headlines such as “Diet soda linked to reduced colon cancer death.”
Especially when they see that this “study” was led by Dr. Charles Fuchs, who heads the prestigious Yale Cancer Center.
Why, the center even sent out a press release on those “findings” with quotes from Dr. Fuchs that say that his study “clearly shows” that artificially sweetened drinks “help avoid cancer recurrence and death” in patients with advanced colon cancer.
That’s an “exciting finding,” Fuchs said.
Well, I can think of a lot of words for what you’re telling people, Dr. Fuchs, but “exciting” isn’t one of them.
This research consisted 1,000 patients filling out nutrition questionnaires that asked them to tick off what they ate or drank from over 130 choices over the preceding three months. After tallying the results, the conclusion was that drinking one or more full-size diet drink a day lowered their risk of the cancer returning.
But as eAlert readers know, these diet sweeteners are wolves in sheep’s clothing.
Take aspartame (a.k.a. NutraSweet) for example.
Both before and after the FDA approved this chemical, experts from around the globe started sounding the alarm about side effects like cancer, brain tumors, blindness, heart attacks, stroke, and seizures.
Like MSG, aspartame is also a compound called an “excitotoxin.” That means that it can literally excite your brain cells to death!
Then, there’s sucralose, which also goes by the name Splenda.
This spring, I told you about research finding that this benign-sounding, calorie-free sweetener can trigger metabolic syndrome — a host of conditions that can significantly up your risk of heart disease, promote diabetes, worsen IBD, and cause an overgrowth of pathogens (such as E. coli) in your intestines.
Just what a colon cancer patient needs, right?
Then, there’s the sucralose link to leukemia and other blood cancers. That research was presented at the Childhood Cancer Conference in London over two years ago.
Actually, there’s not one synthetic sugar substitute (such as acesulfame-K or Neotame) or saccharin that’s been found to be safe — let alone good for you!
But to all of those published and peer-reviewed studies, Dr. Fuchs has this to say: Although these fake sweeteners have a “checkered reputation” with the public, those “purported health risks” have never really been documented.
Seriously?
As I mentioned, I’m not the only one stunned here. The good doctor’s peers are also in a state of shock.
Dr. Elena Ivanina, a gastroenterologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City said that she “wouldn’t pay much attention” to a study having so many “design flaws.”
“Most people cannot remember what they ate yesterday, let alone three months ago,” Ivanina said.
Another GI specialist said that he hoped the public would be skeptical about this announcement. I hope so, too. But this is tricky territory. People who have survived a bout with colon cancer would likely be thrilled to hear something like this, especially considering where it’s coming from.
As we’ve told you, there are many promising and legitimate findings when it comes to preventing a return of colon cancer. One is a three-step study out of the University of California, San Francisco, that the researchers called a “cancer-control gem.”
The steps were quite simple — eat 5 to 6 servings of fruits and veggies every day, exercise for at least 150 minutes a week, and avoid going from “overweight” to “obese.”
Those habits resulted in a 42 percent lower risk of death for the cancer patients in this study over a span of 20 years!
I also told you about research showing that adding more nuts into your diet can not only help prevent a recurrence of colon cancer, but tip the odds in your favor of never coming down with it in the first place. The type of nuts found to work that magic included cashews, almonds, walnuts, and pistachios.
I will say that it’s hard to imagine where a prestigious doctor such as Fuchs would even get the idea to do such a ridiculous study to begin with.
But whatever the reason may have been for this research, know this: You don’t need to have a degree that puts lots of letters after your name to know when you’re being hoodwinked!
“Could diet soda help curb colon cancer’s return?” Robert Preidt, July 20, 2018, HealthDay, consumer.healthday.com
