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The Center for American Progress reports:
African Americans, a group plagued by significantly high rates of obesity, heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, and other physical ailments. A recent study suggests the answer may lie in the diets of their counterparts across the Atlantic Ocean in the rural parts of the Motherland.
In a study conducted at the University of Pittsburgh, 20 African Americans and 20 South Africans switched diets for two weeks. In this time, the Africans consumed traditional American food--meat and cheese high in fat content--while African Americans took on a traditional African diet--high in fiber and low in fat, with plenty of vegetables, beans, and cornmeal, with little meat.
After the exchange, researchers performed colonoscopies on both groups and found that those in the African diet group increased the production of butyrate, a fatty acid proven to protect against colon cancer. Members of the American diet group, on the other hand, developed changes in their gut that scientists say precede the development of cancerous cells.
[...]"we used biomarkers and looked at the proliferation rate that has been tied to cancer," Dr. Stephen J. O'Keefe, the lead researcher, told ThinkProgress. "We were astounded by the gravity and the magnitude of the changes [which] happened within two weeks."
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday May 17 2015, @02:32PM
My generation was taught to eat a little of everything - to eat in moderation. Now, they have to talk people into switching an unhealthy diet for a healthy diet, then submit to having people look up their arses to verify what we were taught all those years ago.
People, you can find your grandmother's nutrition guides, and learn just about everything you need to know about nutrition. Eat some legumes, eat some taters, eat a little meat, make sure to get some fruits and nuts, don't forget your fresh veggies, avoid high sugar content foods, avoid additives and preservatives. And, most important of all - LIMIT YOUR CALORIES ACCORDING TO YOUR ACTIVITY!!
Wow - is it really that complicated? People ate healthier than the average American hundreds and thousands of years ago. Long before mankind could define a calorie, people were eating healthier than the average America does today. It's largely intuitive, but we allow advertising to overwhelm our better judgement.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 17 2015, @02:38PM
People, you can find your grandmother's nutrition guides, and learn just about everything you need to know about nutrition.
My grandmother died of diabetes.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 17 2015, @02:48PM
No! We need the smart people in Government to tell us what to eat!
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 17 2015, @03:12PM
That's cute.
Next time sign your own name, chump.
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 17 2015, @03:15PM
As Agent 86 would've said, that must be Pro-gewg_ ...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 17 2015, @05:39PM
I should expect hijackers like you if I keep posting as ac. Chump.
Let's have laws against it. That's better than logging in!
-- gewg_
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 17 2015, @10:25PM
Why do you keep replying to yourself, gewg_?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 17 2015, @07:25PM
Hey'ya there buddy, this is your pal Ethanol-fueled posting anon because I'm drinkink beer at a beach bar. Anyway, the point of this message is to let you know that the person who submitted the story about the California drought and Gay Bathhouses in your name was actually me!
Hahahahaheeheeheehoooooooo!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 17 2015, @10:09PM
As an outsider, I don't understand what's going on here.
So some AC who signs his comments "-- gewg_" is pretending to be the registered user Ethanol-fueled, and this "-- gewg_" AC keeps replying to his own comments for some reason?
Why?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 17 2015, @11:02PM
What's to explain?
I sent in a story from one of the most reputable and impartial news sources in the entire world and some establishment chump is impersonating me and mocking me! He must hate progress!
It's so unfair.
--gewg_
(Score: 2, Insightful) by kurenai.tsubasa on Sunday May 17 2015, @03:06PM
Unless TFS is radically different from TFA (which I am proud to say that, in keeping with tradition, I have not read), I think you're utterly missing the point.
Blacks living in the USA suffer disproportionately from different diseases, especially cancer. It would be very interesting if it turns out that non-blacks have some kind of difference that indicates a different diet. In other words, what was healthy for your (presumably non-black) grandmother may not be healthy for a black grandmother.
Let's hope that Jessie Jackson et al don't turn this into some kind of racism SJW drama since even a passing look at how blacks' risk for different diseases is different from non-blacks indicates that skin color isn't the only difference.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Runaway1956 on Sunday May 17 2015, @03:18PM
Personally, I'll just hope that Jessie Jackson, Al Sharpton, and a couple handsful of other verbose black activists have extremely poor dietary habits. And, I'll toss Shrillary Clinton in with that couple handsful . . .
(Score: 1) by tftp on Sunday May 17 2015, @06:22PM
In other words, what was healthy for your (presumably non-black) grandmother may not be healthy for a black grandmother.
Perhaps; but both would know what is and what is not good for their own genes. Human diet varies wildly even within one race - take a tribe like Inuit who live on the shores of the Arctic Ocean and eat primarily fish and meat, and compare them to Greeks and Italians who have a wider choice, and who'd probably be unhappy with an all-meat diet.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Sunday May 17 2015, @07:45PM
Sorry, but TWO WEEKS is just too short for the body to adapt.
Its a nonsense study, they didn't wait long enough to actually see any change in cancers rates, or any long term change in gut chemistry or biota.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Sunday May 17 2015, @07:51PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Kell on Sunday May 17 2015, @11:16PM
+1 common sense
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Sunday May 17 2015, @08:52PM
Sure. But it's plenty of time for the guts flora to change - which is what this study seems to be about.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday May 18 2015, @12:59PM
As a point of comparison I occasionally try a meal of "traditional American food" like Taco Bell or McDonalds and sometimes my bowels have reacted in as little as 6 hours. At most, Mt Saint Helens has begun its eruption as much as 12 hours later. Perhaps a better analogy would be that natural gas pipeline explosion that vaporized that CA subdivision a couple years back. How people survive a continuous diet of that stuff instead of real food mystifies me. Anyway this would theoretically point to 28+ "intervals" to blow out the remains of good food and replace it with the remains of "sorta food-like" so this seems a good engineering design.
I always assumed most of the issue was food sanitation, a restaurant that doesn't care about some laws like citizenship laws almost certainly doesn't care about or enforce food safety regs either. Although it might be the food itself as per the article.
(Score: 2) by Balderdash on Monday May 18 2015, @06:10AM
Yes they did. It was really, really fast cancer.
I browse at -1. Free and open discourse requires consideration and review of all attempts at participation.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday May 17 2015, @09:16PM
Yeah... it is well known that a diet "high in fiber and low in fat, with plenty of vegetables, beans, and cornmeal, with little meat." would be disastrously unhealthy for a black (or is it for a white) grandmother.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Sunday May 17 2015, @06:01PM
That is true, but let's concede that the levels of physical activity of the average person in our grandparents' time was much higher than now. My grandparents ate hearty meals without regard for low-carb, low-fat, or any of the other dietary prescriptions they give us today, but they also did much more physical labor, including farm work and using manual tools than we do now. Cubicle farms were unknown in their time, and even being a typist required a lot more caloric expenditure than typing on a computer does now (have you ever tried to type on one of those old mechanical typewriters?). Longshoremen didn't have forklifts and powered dollies, only muscle power.
I think we can safely say that we don't want to go back to the mechanics of their time purely for the sake of calorie burning; it's good that we can electro-mechanically multiply our productive efforts. And that we're on the verge of even more widespread productivity through widespread robotics and other physical augmentation means we'll probably need to burn even fewer calories. So it makes sense that we should not eat the same diets our grandparents did, and ought to adjust what we do now in healthier directions.
But, there are some indications that is happening on its own anyway. McDonald's sales continue to slide, which they themselves have attributed to consumers' tastes moving toward healthier options. Also, the consumption of super foods like raspberries, kale, flax, chia, whole grains, and so on continues to skyrocket. Organic, local, artisanal foods are still niche, but are making gains.
Personally, I am returning to growing my own produce because it tastes so much better than even the stuff you buy at Whole Foods, because I can pick it exactly when it's ripe.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday May 17 2015, @07:54PM
artisanal foods !!!
Never mistake a passing fad for an improvement.
And lets not forget to look at just a few more things than your personal hit list of nutrition trends ... [google.com]
.
.
.
Go ahead, click on it, its a useful interactive tool.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 17 2015, @06:12PM
My generation was taught to eat a little of everything - to eat in moderation.
Saying "a little of everything" and "eat in moderation" is useless to the ignorant people who need better diet advice. The rest of us who know what you actually wish to mean don't need such advice.
How well would literally a little of everything actually work today? All depends on what you start with doesn't it? A little serving each of M&Ms, Cheetos, Lays, Doritos, Coca Cola, Mountain Dew, deep fried Mars Bars, cotton candy, cake with cake frosting, cookies, doughnuts, sugar laden cereals, fruit juices, milkshake, Cheez Whiz, Velveeta, Jell-O, popcorn, margarine, a little serving each of the hundreds of different candies and "chocolates" out there, jams/jelly, french fries, etc.
You might kill yourself before you even complete the full list of very unhealthy foods and started into the list of slightly less unhealthy foods like burgers, hotdogs and pizza ;).
And what's moderation? A big spoonful of trans-fat laden margarine a day instead of a bowl? Or a spoonful of margarine a year?
Perhaps starting here might be more useful: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/healthy-eating-plate/ [harvard.edu]
May not be the best but it won't kill you as fast as one of those junk/fad diets.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday May 17 2015, @06:33PM
I'm laughing my ass off - but you're probably right. How many high school grads today even know what the "food pyramid" is?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 17 2015, @08:53PM
I don't know, but they should know it's a piece of garbage.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Sunday May 17 2015, @06:35PM
People ate healthier than the average American hundreds and thousands of years ago. Long before mankind could define a calorie, people were eating healthier than the average America does today. It's largely intuitive...
It is not so simple as all that. Different groups of people evolved with different diets, depending on what was available. One's body may react quite poorly to what is considered a healthy diet from another area of origin.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday May 17 2015, @08:10PM
I find it to be a stretch to say that people evolved with different dietary needs. Evolution takes place on geological time scales. The few tens of thousands of years since all of mankind was concentrated within a small area in Africa haven't seen us evolve into separate species. Sub-species, maybe, but our dietary needs don't differ substantially. The greatest difference amongst us is almost no difference at all - less than the difference between coyotes and wolves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 17 2015, @09:24PM
Call fud - lactose and alcohol (in)tolerance are clear examples where dietary needs/abilities have changed on a timescale of millenia
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Monday May 18 2015, @06:20PM
I find it to be a stretch to say that people evolved with different dietary needs.
I meant the word evolved as "changed over time", not forming a new species. There are certain races and subgroups of people who are far more prone to certain diseases (think sickle cell anemia or Tay-Sachs disease for instance) and a lot of that is due to local conditions. Carrying the sickle cell trait is a great advantage in the malaria belt. The same is true of diets. Lactose intolerance, for example, affects 90-100% of East Asians, while affecting less than 20% of Northern Europeans. Evolution into new species is generally slow, but natural selection works very quickly on populations. Those that tolerate a local diet tend to survive and reproduce better than those that do not.