He alth goes through the stomach and intestines
"Love goes through the stomach", they say. He alth goes through the stomach and intestines. "A third of the patients come to the general practitioner or to the internist because of illnesses that are also caused by their diet," explained the Vienna-born specialist Prof. Dr. Herbert Lochs, now working at the Berlin Charité, on the occasion of the Doctors' Week in Bad Hofgastein (March 8th to 14th, 1998). Another example is cancer of the gastrointestinal tract. "Love goes through the stomach," they say. He alth goes through the stomach and intestines. "A third of the patients come to the general practitioner or internist because of illnesses that are partly caused by their diet," explained the Vienna-born specialist Prof.dr Herbert Lochs, now working at the Berlin Charité, on the occasion of the Doctors' Week in Bad Hofgastein (March 8th to 14th, 1998). Another example is cancer of the gastrointestinal tract.
Frequently, diffuse "environmental influences" are seen as the causes of diseases. However, at least for some essential malignant diseases there are very clear connections with defined environmental factors.
It has long been known that around 90 percent of all lung carcinomas are caused by smoking. And the lungs are just an organ that comes into contact with the “environment” – with the cigarette smoke. With a surface the size of a soccer field, the gastrointestinal tract is also exposed to "environmental influences": nutrition - day after day, throughout life.
The connection between cancer of the gastrointestinal tract and nutrition can now be proven by countless statistics. A rather positive example from Austria: While in the 1950s, for example, around 65 deaths per 100,000 men per year were recorded as a result of stomach cancer, in the early 1990s it was "only" 30. The obvious reason: Austrians have a taste for smoked meat pretty much lost since then.
But the matter of "nutrition and cancer" is far from settled. About 14.5 percent of a total of around 30,000 cancers per year are caused by colon or rectal carcinomas. Although the mortality rate as a result of such diseases has reached a plateau of around 35 deaths in men and women per 100,000 people in Austria in the past decade, this does not change the fundamentally deplorable situation.
Everything suggests that fat and meat consumption has something to do with the development of colon cancer. Lochs: "There is a clear connection between the frequency of consumption of 'red meat' and the development of certain forms of cancer. It has to do with fat consumption. Reducing consumption of 'red meat' in patients at risk for colon cancer has a preventive effect."
The total fat content of the diet and especially the proportion of animal fats is also associated with prostate and breast cancer. But it is precisely here that the Austrians are proverbially exposed to too many harmful "environmental influences" via the stomach and intestines. The proportion of fat in the daily calorie intake in Austria is around 45 percent. The recommendation: 30 percent.
At the same time, the proportion of vegetables and fruit (vitamins, etc.) is low. Lochs: "It has been shown that a chronic lack of vitamins (e.g. C, E, D) increases the risk of cancer." Unfortunately, however, the reverse conclusion - vitamins in high doses (tablets), less cancer - has so far hardly been provable. But this circumstance emphasizes all the more that a he althy diet - apart from putting out the last cigarette - is the best cancer prevention.
