Mice Are Men?

This article titled Low -Fat Diet May Cut Prostate Cancer Risk was in today's NY Times Health section.

You know I gotta say that these are the types of articles that really get my blood boiling. They also give me a good belly laugh. Let's start with the laughter:

"Using a mouse model that closely mimics human prostate cancer, researchers fed one group of mice a diet with about 40 percent of calories coming from fat, similar to the amount found in a typical Western diet. The other group received 12 percent of their calories from fat."

A mouse model. Mice.

And they fed mice a diet that had 40% fat. An animal that isn't designed to eat much fat. Remember mad cow's disease?

OK here's the belly laugh:

"Although the data come from mice, researchers say it’s reasonable to think the finding will translate to people."

Really? I'd venture a guess and say that it's just as reasonable to think that the finding would NOT translate to people.

Who are these researchers? Are these people scientists? Let's see:

"Scientists at Jonsson Cancer Center at the University of California, Los Angeles."

Yep. They're scientists alright. Pretty crummy ones if they actually made this laughable statement. Let's see what else they said:

"Researchers say there are already known benefits to lowering or eliminating processed baked goods and fried foods from the diet."

Careful there you smarty-pants researchers.

Questions: How do they know it is the fat that is the culprit? Why couldn't it be the refined carbohydrates? Or the combination of both the fat and carbohydrate? Or simply the type of fat and not the amount? Or just the fact that the foods are processed which wreaks havoc on our systems?

Do you think that the mice would have had this problem if they were fed only almonds and avocados?

The title of the article should have been:

Mice That Are Fed Foods Consisting Of A Macro Nutrient Content That They Never Would Naturally Eat In The Wild Get Cancer.

Can you imagine a doctor saying:

"Well Mr. Smith, I know you're concerned about your hair loss. But now there's good news! Research shows that if I inject a mouse in the head with the fluid in this syringe, its hair grows much thicker. It's reasonable to assume that if it grows the hair of a mouse thicker, it will work on you too. Shall I go ahead and inject this into your skull now?"

I think you'd bolt.

Comments

[Sam]

hehe, reminds me: scientists had planted amalgam fillings in apes, and checked how much of the mercury made it into the apes brains, and how much damage had been done.
They found significant damage, but authorities disregarded this result because apes are not close enough to humans to be sure the claim would be valid for humans, too.
Maybe they should have used mice instead? :)

[fred hahn]

Perhaps. And that's the rub. Sometimes it's valid sometimes not. But you can't assume it is.

[Griff]

Corn oil is what the mice were given. Polyunsaturated fat, not saturated.
Interesting.
Griff