Eat to Live 81
The other side of the story is that in the past ten years it is not just
ihe fat in animal foods that causes cancer and heart disease. Animal
protein is also getting a bad rap by legitimate nutritional researchers
and scientists in studies. Scientists have discovered a link between
animal protein and cancer in both laboratory and human epidemio-
logical studies, and reducing one's consumption of animal protein
slows the aging process.^49
Animal-product consumption in general is proportionally associ-
ated with multiple types of cancer. A massive international study that
amassed data from fifty-nine different countries showed that men who
ate the most meat, poultry, and dairy products were the most likely to
die from prostate cancer, while those who ate the most unrefined plant
foods and nuts were the least likely to succumb to this disease.^50
Another recent study from Germany found colon cancer and
rectal cancer decreased by about 50 percent in adult vegetarians.
However, a significantly greater reduction of cancer and all-cause
mortality (about a 75 percent reduction) was related to being on a
vegetarian diet for more than twenty years.^51 The degree of protec-
tion correlated well with number of years on a vegetarian diet. Other
studies on vegetarian diet in different countries show almost the
same thing.^52 The causes start accumulating early.
There is considerable evidence that exposure to certain outlawed
pesticides, especially PCBs and DDT, may promote further patho-
logic changes. Women who have breast cancer have a higher con-
centration of these chemicals in their breast tissue than do women
who do not have cancer.^53 This has also been noted in Long Island,
where there is a particularly high rate of breast cancer. Researchers
hypothesize that the increased exposure to these chemicals, still in
our environment, is the result of eating coastal fish. Added to all of