DIET AND CANCER.

Waikato Times, Volume 101, Issue 16947, 9 November 1926, Page 6

DIET AND CANCER.

After making every allowance for the good earnest p'.-oplc who to to extremes in their efforts to save the race by making 'the individuals eschew most of the food they enjoy, the evidence is in support of the "contention that most men and women eat too well and unwisely. The incidence of cancer has directed attention to tho influence.of diet, since the ravages of the disease are most intense in the richest nations. It is a disease of civilisation and where modern civilisation Is found in its highest form the diseaso takes its heaviest toll. The discoveries last year suggesting that the germ of the diseaso was to be isolated confirmed the theory that cancer nourishes whore there is morbid lissuo and those who blame our diet for its encouragement of cancer insist that faulty feeding provides the morbid tissue favourable to the disease. A fiery war has been waged on the subject, and probably the extremists on both sides are to be blamed for having obscured the realities of the subject with Ihclr vehemence and their readiness to credit opponents with ulterior motives, but when the president of the American College of Surgeons enters tho lists with an empliatio statement that over-eating and ovcr-drlnking were responsible for bringing about a condition in the human body favourable to cancer the subject is likely to receive oven more attention than it has gained in the past. Dr Walter Chapman's statcmeat to the Congress of Surgeons in the United States drew attention lo the fact that vegetarians do not escape cancer, and this (as a contemporary remarks) may be hailed by the antivegotarians as a heavy body-blow for their antagonists, but actually Dr. Chapman has said something which will be welcomed by those students of diet who declare that the evils of tho modern menu are lo be found not merely in tho consumption of meat, but in the unwise use of food other than meat. These people attack the whole of the modern dietary, insisting that much damago is done by unwise combinations of non-meat dishes. Alcohol is attacked, but so also is tea, coffee, and even milk in many instances. The virtues of cooked food aro discounted heavily and we find, also, that the use of highly-refined white flour is assailed. On these matters of detail there is heavy controversy, but undoubtedly the effect of all this argument is to induce people io recognise that they must readjust their ideas of food values. The old ideas have been under suspicion for a long time, and to-day it is safe to say that the majority of the people are their own enemies, that they invite many of their ailments through giving less care to the food they cat than they give to the food given to animals under their care. The explanation of this extraordinary advantage given to the animals, is that men and women cat to satisfy their palates and not their needs, and having more or less freedom in their choice of food they find it harder to accept a diet which requires the elimination of things they enjoy. The animal, having no say in its choice of food, has to eat what has been found to be beneficial, and is the better for it. Many prejudices have yet to be overcome, and they are strong because they are buttressed by a powerful predilection for tasty dishes. Those who would change outdiet and put it on what they deem to be a rational basis, tell us that the home of tho " good cook" is the place where conditions are favourable to cancer and to other diseases that have developed among the civilised peoples. Boldly they declare that practically the whole of the diet in the majority of the homes is wrong, and that where beneficial food is eaten it is taken in damaging combinations. Their enthusiasm may carry them ton far in these sweeping denunciations, but we cannot blink the fact that few people <rive any serious thought to the food they consume day after day, little thought to the real value of the fond they take as fuel for sustaining life without doing injury to tho delicate machinery of the human body. Latterly there has been a general acceptance of the declaration that, terrible though the ravages of tuberculosis maybe the menace of cancer is far more serious and if, as it now appears to bo beyond question, the misuse of food is the basis of the disease's expansion, then our study of dietetics must be intensified and tho people must be prepared to p.it their eating on a basis of bodily needs where now it is governed entirely by taste. The spread of cancer menaces tho most highlydeveloped portion of the human race and if drastic changes of diet are generally accepted as an essential measure of defence against the disease the economic effects in tho world will be farreaching. The people who live to eat, do not eat lo live; they cat to die.