Friday 22 February 2013

We've had our chips/I'll drink to that

From The Daily Mail:

Men who eat fried foods more than once a week may increase their risk of prostate cancer by a third. New research suggests that junk food staples such as chips, fried chicken, battered fish and doughnuts may play a significant role in the formation of aggressive and life-threatening forms of the disease.

Although previous studies have suggested poor diet can affect a man's chances of getting prostate cancer, this is the first to indicate that deep-fried convenience foods in particular pose such a big danger...

Nearly 40,000 cases of prostate cancer are diagnosed every year in the UK and 10,000 men die from it - the equivalent of more than one an hour. The risks increase with age, with men over 50 more likely to develop a tumour, and there is a strong genetic element to it.


So about one male death in twenty-five is caused by prostate cancer (a surprisingly large figure), i.e. your risk of dying from it is 4%, let's call it 3.5% for non-chip eaters and 4.5% for chip-eaters, and in absolute terms, your additional risk of dying from it (rather than from anything else) is about one-in-a-hundred if you tuck into the tastiest food known to mankind. Seems like a small price to pay.

From News Track India:

As coffee drinking increased, the risk of death decreased. This is what a large study of nearly half a million older adults followed for about 12 years has found.

Study author Neal Freedman, PhD, MPH, National Cancer Institute, discusses the significance of these findings and the potential links between coffee drinking, caffeine consumption, and various specific causes of disease in an interview in Journal of Caffeine Research, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers.


Yeah!

Has anybody gone to the bother of doing a meta-study of all these bits of research, half of which say coffee is slightly bad for you and half of which say coffee is good for you, which averages out to a nice round "it has no effect whatsoever".

8 comments:

Kj said...

Has anybody gone to the bother of doing a meta-study of all these bits of research

I don't think that would be good for future health-quango funding, which is a "growth sector".
Personally I'm going for a nice, sudden but fatal heart attack, before I get any of the nasty, long-wound stuff like PC. As I also eat a fair bit of the gift from God that is fried foods, so this means I have to up my intake of tobacco and coffee to engineer my demise at the right time.

Anonymous said...

I have a confession to make. According to my calculations my risk of death is 100%. Do you think I'm eating too many chips or not drinking enough coffee?

I blame it all on the government myself. It's a scandal and they should do something about it!

Mark Wadsworth said...

Kj, I believe that a chips, coffee and cigarette-based diet will help you achieve your aim of a nice clean heart attack. But avoid red wine, apparently that protects against heart attacks.

AC, nobody eats too many chips and most people don't drink enough coffee.

DBC Reed said...

Has anybody seen an Eat More Chips lorry recently?There was a discussion of how unPC these were in the Guardian,which I could scarcely credit,then one passed in front of my car at the T junction at the top of our road.
PS Just seen there is a magnificent collection of photos of Eat More Chips lorries on the Net.There is even toy version: I now covet one of these very intensely!

Mark Wadsworth said...

DBC, I think I did see one, but it didn't register.

DBC Reed said...

A boxed toy Eat More Chips Lorry went on e-Bay for over £40 plus £8 postage.I've therefore had it with capitalism!They get you yearning for absolutely pointless things ,then make sure you can't have them.

Mark Wadsworth said...

DBC, at the extreme, capitalism isn't about satisfying desires, it's about creating them.

DBC Reed said...

MW I'm over this mad impulse now ,a little diminished perhaps.The Eat More Chips lorry would have only joined such things I once had to have at all costs ,such as the Discomatic portable jukebox that I tracked down remoreslessly and which stopped working as soon as I tried to enhance its performance.