The milk we drink... link to cancer

www.vegfriend.com/m/discussion?id=6472124%3ATopic%3A204760

i'm slowly learning that what we eat and our environment can play a major role in issues like our battles with cancer. Not that I change any habits drastically or become a preacher about it, but there is no doubt in my mind about a link.

Also watch a documentary called Gasland last night about fracking in the U.S. and the effects it has on our water, environment and food we eat. Really scary stuff.

davidg,
"Gasland" was proven to be a hoax, and most of the dramatic shots of water on fire was natural occurring methane and not fracking. Other shots were deliberately staged.
"The China Study" was very compelling about the influence of diet on various diseases because the number of people studied were so large and the documentation and isolated control groups were well put together.

Nothing in the article says how the link was made, so I did some digging.
Looks like this is the original study from 2005

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16125328

Interestingly, there is correlation (not causation) with milk use and no mention of what kind of milk is used (pasteurized, from big farms, etc).

In my opinion, this study is not worth the paper it's written on. I am wondering who paid for it?

"Gasland" was most certainly NOT a hoax. Altho I'm sure anyone could dig up a link to "prove" it is. The fact is that several counties in PA and WVa have citizens being sent bottled water by some of these fracking companies because they've either polluted the underground drinking water aquifers or individuals wells with either the fracking practice itself releasing Natural Gas into the water or by the chemicals used to lubricate machinery or actually frack the shale.

There's a reason New York State just put the brakes on with this in upsate NY. All that water that supplies NYC comes from up there and it sits right on top of this shale. If something goes wrong, and with most things that revolve around quick, cheap energy it inevitably does, that would be an impossible scenario for this country to deal with.

Make all the jokes you will about NYC, but any potential for an environmental disaster that a fracking endeavor would cause needs to be taken very seriously. Fracking might work, but the it's still a very young and potentially environmentally dangerous practice.

I will stay out of the milk and nutrician part of this, but fracking is a potential major hazzard in the making. In the states that are making huge amounts of money and creatiing the related jobs attached to it on the surface - sounds good for now, but afraid that is going to come back big time in major evironmental damage - just in quest of "cheap" oil. Have to be careful for what one wishe's for.

david in sc

John - I think the dangers of fracking are being exposed. I'm no activist but it seems pretty clear that it's not a carefully thought out plan. As for Gasland being a hoax, I suspect that came from an industry funded counter attack perhaps. I've seen them do that to other film makers who expose certain industries.

Anyway, thought it was a very interesting and informative documentary which was also shot very well. Caught my attention the way Roger and Me did a few decades ago.

It's good to be skeptical about things; I don't want this to be a political thread.

In the film's signature moment Mike Markham, a landowner, ignites his tap water. The film leaves the viewer with the false impression that the flaming tap water is a result of natural gas drilling. However, according to the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, which tested Markham's water in 2008, there were "no indications of oil & gas related impacts to water well." Instead the investigation found that the methane was "biogenic" in nature, meaning it was naturally occurring and that his water well was drilled into a natural gas pocket.

This is one of several examples where the film veers from the facts. A second depiction of a flaming faucet in the home of Renee McClure also misleads viewers about the connection between natural gas development and methane in water wells. McClure's well was sampled by the state of Colorado and it, too, showed only naturally occurring methane.

The film's claims are so egregious that the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission was compelled to set the record straight. The COGCC information sheet corrects the film's misleading depictions and addresses false allegations of methane migration in Weld County.

Later in the film, natural gas is again falsely accused when the film flashes the words "35 mile fish kill Dunkard Creek Washington County PA.' The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency investigated this incident and tied the fish kills to coal mine run-off. Here is the official report.

It doesn't take a lot of fact checking, arguments, lobbyists, competing documentary films, etc..to understand that continuing to extract fossil fuels is a losing battle. We will run out eventually, that's a fact. It will, more likely than not, have harmful impact on our environment. If history repeats itself (and it always does) it will lead to more wars.

It's just common sense, people.. Don't we want to be looking to the next energy source instead of spending so much time and energy looking to squeeze every last drop of the old source? Really, we should be more ambitious and forward thinking than that! I say drop fossil fuels completely and move on to renewables.

I find this thread very depressing, and not very much related to prostate cancer.

We live like gods in this country.  We sit in 3,000 square foot homes, drive SUV's, squander electricity and precious materials on every gadget science can invent,  and what do we do?  We curse those who provide our electricity.  We curse those who provide our heating fuel and our gasoline.  And we curse those who manufacture the pharmaceuticals that keep us alive.

Everything's a conspiracy.

Sorry, I can't live that way, and I'm not a happy man when I think that way.

I read (audio Version) The China Study which is a very well researched effort and is backed up by MDA own public statement and other research written in Cancer publication about the link to animal by products intake and cancer.

While I was visting MDA, I read an article they had posted about a study conducted in Jordon and as they consume more animal products due to increased income, (many countries are being affected by this as they gain more financial wealth, i.e. China), Cancer, obesity, heart disease, diabetics, etc go up at the same rate.

Cancer and these other illnesses are most common in industrial nations, rare in non industial nations.

The China Study relates that when a family comes to an affluant country, within one generation, the
children assume the host countries rates of cancer and the above illnesses though they came from a country that had hardly any of these illnesses.

It lead me to cut down drastically eatting esp Red Meat, Pork, which I have not had now in four years. I still eat chicken, turkey and sea food, but at a minimum. Much more veggies, fruit and meatless dishes or meat substitutes such as Black Bean burgers at most resturants.

Bladder Cancer in my case probable was caused by me microwaving my mid day lunches and increasing my exposure to the chemicals getting put into my bladder. But Iwant to live a better life style now that I am getting a second chance to do so

BTW, There are EM hazards that you may or may not be aware of. My dog came down with cancer in his mouth. After he was diagnosed, I realized it was probably caused by him laying his head against a lamp cord when sleeping, for years. He must have liked the feeling of that.
There are relatively inexpensive Gauss meters available to check the strength of stray magnetic fields, for those who might be concerned about a potential problem.

Growing up squirrel and grouse hunting the hills and hollows where my grandfather had worked the thinner remnants of the Southeastern Ohio Nelsonville Coal following his return from World War I birthed a love of nature that burns just as brightly 40 years later.

Grandpa spent a month in the hospital in France in 1918, worked 40 years in the mines, a lot of it under 4’, was in 7 accidents and had somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 broken bones and 3 missing fingers. He chewed Mail Pouch smoked stogies ate half of a pie every Sunday weighed maybe 150 soaking wet and lived to 84 years old. When the rural water supply came, he wouldn’t drink the water. There was an old well dug about 15’ deep down the lane with a hand pump. He had an old yellow rust stained plastic bucket and a red metal glass he used as a scoop. The bacteria and iron content of that water would scare you to death. Couldn’t go to the bathroom under the same roof where you cooked food, so at the end of the walk at the side of the hill was his outhouse. He died of prostate cancer in 1976. Probably would have lived into his 90s but for that.

My proclivity was toward math and science. I wanted a job where I could use that ability and be outside, since I loved the woods and the hill. Fortunately, there was a school 60 miles from home that offered a BS in Petroleum Engineering. Never knew there was a job where someone would pay you to think- loved it so much went on to Stanford for an MS PE. Took every 280 and higher level course they had, completed the degree in 10 months, got one B (missed the method of characteristics final exam question in ME280B).
I have solved the Diffusivity Equation analytically and numerically , written a fully implicit reservoir simulator that solves the Jacobian of a penta-diagonal Matrix. Invested over $200 MM in the oil and gas business, was there when the first analytical solutions to the flow equations for horizontal wells with multi-stage fractures were being developed in the early 80s.

I understand Rock Mechanics and concepts such as Young’s Modulus and Poisson’s ration which govern the initiation and propagation of hydraulic fractures in in-situ rock layers. The science is 60 years old. If I gave you a billion dollars to propagate a frac from say 2,000’ underground to a fresh water source near the surface you couldn’t do it. Most of the gas drilling is 5,000’ or deeper.

Nobody has to trust me --cause hey I am in the oil business. Everyone wants more scientists and engineers in the US… we have delivered the hope of energy independence and great economic opportunity to a nation who would rather listen to Matt Damon and that dude from The Office.

Clocknut rules.

actually, I listen to scientists and experts on how what we do to/in the environment can affect my health and that of my children. I certainly don't listen to Matt Damon or any Halliburton spokesman, that's for sure.