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Obviously, it would be speculative given many factors that contribute to cancer like healthy eating, drinking, smoking... but it is interesting that in the top
by al_ramich 8y ago
Obviously, it would be speculative given many factors that contribute to cancer like healthy eating, drinking, smoking... but it is interesting that in the top 50 countries with the highest rate of cancer, there are no Muslim countries. Fasting could be a factor that contributes to this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_cancer_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_cancer_ra...
- jinder 8y agoPerhaps - but it's mostly rich countries on that list. If you die of malnutrition, preventable disease etc you might not live long enough to die of cancer.
- ggg9990 8y agoBut there are many absurdly wealthy Muslim countries.
- RandallBrown 8y agoBut is the whole country absurdly wealthy? A rich ruling class might not be large enough to offset the numbers.
- carlmr 8y agoIn the cases I can think of the whole country is rich, but they have a large number of slave-workers. Not sure if the slave-workers are counted in their health statistics or just seen as property anyway.
- baud147258 8y agoOr the slave-worker are foreigner, from Philipines or India, so are not counted in the national health statistics
- carlmr 8y agoAll of them are foreigners Half of Dubai is Nepalese.
- baud147258 8y agoThere's nearly 200000 Filipinos in Qatar
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- hellofunk 8y agoBut fasting occurs in other cultures and religions besides Islam, so I don't see the relevance of this.
- tomcooks 8y agoA month long TOTAL fast happens only in Islam, correct me if i'm wrong
- mrob 8y agoA month long total fast (no food or water) would kill you. Islamic fasting during Ramadan is only from sunrise to sunset.
- reitanqild 8y agoAnd it is the lack of water that will kill one
- tomcooks 8y agoWait are you telling me that if i don't drink liquids for 3 days i'll die of dehidration? Big if true. /s I was pointing out Islam is the only TOTAL fasting (food+water) major religion, versus food-only fasting happening elsewhere.
- francisofascii 8y agoCatholics "fast" during Lent, but that typically just means two days where they don't eat between meals. For a typical Muslim, what is involved with fasting?
- Balero 8y agoRamadan is a month of fasting, where no food or water is consumed whilst the sun is up. Children, elderly, pregnant women and the ill are all exempt. Plus there's some interesting rules if you're in an unusual geographical position (in the ISS or North pole, so the sun never goes down). Dietary wise it's closest to intermittent fasting, as you normally wont eat for 8-14 hours of the day, then have a big dinner. I had a bodybuilder friend who used it as an enforced time to cut weight.
- raverbashing 8y agoNot in the top 50, but curiously in the top 51 And of course, it's a combination of multiple factors (cultural, climate, and people dying by other means before being affected by cancer)
- al_ramich 8y agoyes, interestingly Turkey being one of the more westernized Muslim countries. Nothin implied, just interesting.
- bad_user 8y agoHeard somewhere that at least 40% of cancers in the western world is due to the diet, this figure supposedly being Officially recognized: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/mm6639e1.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/wr/mm6639e1.htm Our modern diet and lifestyle leads to a massive hormonal imbalance. E.g. many have started to blame insulin resistance for many cancers, which is also the leading cause for type 2 diabetes and obesity. I suspect that countries with low cancer rates or low rates of type 2 diabetes simply haven't adopted the western diet.
- closetCS 8y agoJust curious, what kind of diet is considered "Western"? I would assume you are talking about diets high in sugar and carbs, but I'm sure other Eastern cultures eat plenty of high carbohydrate diets too right?
- bad_user 8y agoTwo things define the western diet: 1. high in refined carbohydrates 2. snacks between meals Yes, there are Asian cultures with diets high in carbs that don't suffer from our epidemic. But those diets aren't high in refined carbohydrates or other crap we've been told to eat to lower the fat intake (e.g. margarine).
- kevin_thibedeau 8y ago> snacks between meals Where is it written that thou shall only eat three meals a day? This is in itself a Western cultural bias.
- bad_user 8y agoThere is a high correlation between snacking and obesity. The obesity crisis started in approx 1977. If you look at the the eating patterns from 1950, people ate less meals per day back then, an average of 3. There's also a scientific explanation for it: when you snack, insulin goes up. By having 6 meals per day, like the average American now does, the insulin never goes down during the day. The body then develops insulin resistance, leptin resistance (satiety hormone) and it's all downhill from there.
- icantdrive55 8y agoI think what saves them is lack of alcohol.
- vanderZwan 8y agoPerhaps a more useful analysis of this would be to look at cancer rates among Muslim communities and other communities that fast within a diverse country, since the populations would be more comparable in that case (or at least less incomparable, because there are probably still a ton of factors to consider).
- roystonvassey 8y agoI suspect that this is influenced by rates of under-diagnosis in third-world countries, rather than a factor of diets itself.[1] 1. http://www.who.int/dg/speeches/2010/iaea_forum_20100921/en/ http://www.who.int/dg/speeches/2010/iaea_forum_20100921/en/
- misja111 8y agoIt can't be the only reason. Saudy Arabia and Dubai are not exactly third-world countries. Here's a world map showing population cancer rate: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-population-with-cancer https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-population-with-... Definitely cancer is positively correlated with wealth, but there is clearly another factor as well.
- Retric 8y agoIf you look at % of population over 65+ you will see a rather similar map. In the US that's 15.6% where Saudi Arabia is 3.2%. 1/5th the old people generally means ~1/5th the cancer rates. PS: This also explains much of the increase in cancer rates globally: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.65UP.TO.ZS https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.65UP.TO.ZS
- mikkelam 8y agoDubai is an emirate. The country is United Arab Emirates
- theprotocol 8y agoI highly doubt this hypothesis. Muslim people do not fast at night time. On average, they tend to eat much more during Ramadan what with the vast array of seasonal sweets. The true difficulty of fasting during Ramadan is not being allowed to drink water during the day.
- evfanknitram 8y agoRegarding the "true difficulty" I don't think you can generalize like that. For example I suspect it depends on where you live, what hours fasting is, temperature and so on. My friends here have told me that the main problem is to eat enough during the night because after fasting for 18 hours your body get used to it. I assume similar to my issues eating a bkg breakfast in the morning directly after waking up.
- theprotocol 8y agoFair enough. It was an orthogonal comment anyway.
- jnbiche 8y agoAs someone who has fasted an entire Ramadan along with Muslim friends, I completely agree that lack of water during the day was the hardest part about the fast for me. Along with lack of caffeine. Bad headaches were routine for me. Not eating food for 12 hours isn't very hard at all.
- phyzome 8y ago« The true difficulty of fasting during Ramadan is not being allowed to drink water during the day. » What?! To hell with that. That's just dangerous.
- raverbashing 8y agoWell, "dangerous" is relative. And some do drink water. Still, I don't care for dietary guidelines mandated by religious bodies.
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- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- mikkelam 8y agoGot damn, why is my country in the top :(
- al_ramich 8y agonot enough fasting?
- bayesian_horse 8y agoI've heard many Muslims actually gain weight during Ramadan. As a fasting schedule, it is rather self-defeating. Even not drinking water during the day is not such a big problem, if you go about it smartly. On the other hand, complaining about Ramadan seems to be as big a part of the tradition as the eating after dark.
- andreygrehov 8y agoSomething tells me that it's not about fasting, but the quality of food. I'm originally from Ukraine, where fasting is not popular by any means and the cancer rate is 2.5 times lower than in US. I moved to New York 5 years ago, the first thing I noticed was how fake the food is. Seriously, I was like, why the hell the food in the most popular city in the world is tasteless, is it made of plastic? Anyways. Long story short. My hypothesis is that rich countries have access to a more powerful factories/hardware/etc. to produce a lot more processed food.