CANCER AND DIET

Waikato Independent, Volume XXVII, Issue 2768, 7 April 1927, Page 2

CANCER AND DIET

COMPARATIVE DEATH BATES. EFFECT OF MEAT .EATING. (By Sir W. Arbuthnot Lane, C. 8.) Can anything be more futile and misleading than the statement, made under the authority of the Ministry of Health, that there is no connection between cancer and diet? Fortunately the matter is one on which the intelligent layman is quite as able to form an opinion as any medical man. It is simply a question of evidence. There are certain undeniable facts. . 1. That the manner in which the digestive system functions is directly dependent upon diet. If certain foods are eaten, the contents of the big bowel or the cesspool of the system, are evacuated at regular intervals. If suitable foods are eaten the bowel evacuates a quantity of material after each moal, proportionate in bulk to the amount of food taken.

2. If foods deprived of those factors which stimulate the intestine to action are eaten, the contents of the large bowel stagnate, and the automatic expulsion of the faecal matter takes place only once in 24 hours, and not uncommonly at much longer intervals. The fact that chronic constipation is gen-, orally distressing to the average man and woman is shown by the almost fabulous fortunes that have been made by purveyors of purgative drugs. I would like to point out that there is a Blue Book which contains comparative death rates among people of various occupations in Great Britain. The cancer mortalities gave the following figures: — Clergymen, 45; agricultural labourers, 54; inn and hotel, servants, 102; butchers, 105; seamen, merchant service, 110/ Seamen live largely on preserved food. •’

The clergy probably live as plainly as the agricultural labourers, and both take much walking exorcise anil eat the plainest diet with little meat.

The commission which made an exhaustive inquiry into the subject reported to the Ministry of Health thal their investigations proved conclusively that fatal cancer occurs in populations abstaining from flesh food, and lends no real support to the contention that among such populations the incidence of cancer is low.