Sunday, September 2, 2007

How Do We Learn About Cancer Fighting Foods ?

Mostly, we find out about cancer fighting foods from studies where people are asked about their past eating habits.

Of course, this is problematic. How many of us remember what we had for breakfast a week ago, let alone what our eating habits were like years ago? Add that to the mechanism in our brain that always seems to see things in the most positive light, those negative eating habits may suddenly have been transformed.

This is all very interesting, because recently the results of some longitudinal studies have shown a light on what have been thought to be effective cancer fighting foods. And casts a doubt on some of the previous conclusions.

A longitudinal study is done when a group of people are followed over a period of time and then what happens to them is correlated with the traits the scientists have been tracking. Perhaps the most famous of these is the Framingham studies, from which much of our ideas about lifestyle and heart disease come from.

But the data are much more reliable!

We'll take a look at some of these new studies and how they reflect on what are cancer fighting foods in a future blog. Stay tuned!