Why Isn't There More Cancer? By Colin Champ
 

Dr Champ, way back when writing as The Caveman Doctor, was the doctor who most influenced me to take the seriousness of just being fat, an overweight BMI, as the biggest modifiable risk to prevent a cancer reoccurrence.

-Fat mass produces an overabundance of hormones and inflammatory chemicals that work against our immune system and metabolism. Are we minimizing it?

Highly recommend his website, research papers and monthly newsletter.
Especially good for debunking the myths around the Ketogenic Diet and Cancer.
https://colinchamp.com/the-ketogeni...-stand-in-2018/

Just bringing it up, because they never talk about the anti-nutrients, like lectins, which can be a serious problem to the sensitive. I found a mega-study which revealed this is another one of those "it worked in a petri dish/mouse" kind of thing.

It might be true. But it might be only half the story, as so many early studies have gone by the wayside.

Also, this article should mentioned the use of glycophosphate with it showing up in grain products. With the big plant-based push, are people eating more? It's a known hazard with groundskeepers and golf course personnel getting cancer and neuro-logical disease.

Of course, I think we know how sugar itself feeds the cancer. They have it on film.

"Sugar feeds cancer" is a persistent myth. I believed it for some years after my diagnosis, but the latest research shows it is only indirectly involved. Mayo Clinic summary for patients.


https://connect.mayoclinic.org/blog...le-in-cancer-1/


https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/obesity/index.htm

While this wording is accurate, it is not direct. I think pinning things to CVD, diabetes, and cancer as all metabolic diseases is a step forward.

People who are not familiar with science don't understand this. They need simple certainty, and if they want to wait for scientific consensus to catch up, that is their business, I suppose.

But I have to "nutshell" it for them with informal conversation. So feel free to correct me!

But face to face, I do what Gloria Swanson used to do. Point out that it's poison :)

Certainly a symptom of metabolic derangement, which is not a word I use lightly. But the last few years has been a cascade of new research which explains lots of things, including how sugar makes you metabolically deranged. That leads to overconsumption and overweight.

Sugar awareness is already underway. Despite the best efforts of the beverage companies.

At a MRI facility this week..there was one other women in the waiting room who was a normal weight...and ten obese women, all had abdominal obesity, a waist to height ratio far into the unhealthy range. I observed and wondered if any had heard "Sugar Feeds Cancer", had they also heard that the Keto Diet allows them to eat all the butter and bacon they want, or make Keto Treats with AS and loads of fat.

Every major cancer center still has a similar position to Mayo Clinic.
It's not directly the diet, but being overweight for 13 cancers, uterine cancer has particularly strong signal https://optimisingnutrition.com/what-is-a-healthy-bmi/

https://colinchamp.com/a-basic-life...ncer-treatment/

The only thing is that there seems to be exceptions to every "rule", so maybe I just happen to have known many exceptions to the rule of obesity being related to cancer (I'm including the treatment and recurrence status, because to me it seems just as pertinent as the original diagnosis and weight status):

Of the women I knew who have died from cancer, the one was thin her entire life - ovarian cancer, recurred after initial treatments, died in her mid-40's.

The other was at most only slightly overweight for a few years as an adult (and as an Amish woman, she'd spent most of her adult life pregnant or nursing, so the little-extra was necessary to sustain the pregnancies and milk production. In her case, it was breast cancer - Died at age 35.


Those who have been diagnosed but survived, and have had no recurrence:

One woman with breast cancer (caught while she was no older than early 30's, treated with no recurrence) was never overweight.

Another woman with breast cancer - caught and treated at age 70, no recurrence - overweight (but not obese), later diagnosed with diabetes.

Another with ovarian cancer - never overweight, caught very early while in her 20's, treated. No recurrence.


Those are the only ones I can think of right at the moment - not because most were exceptions to the rule of obesity being linked to cancer, but because they were the cancer patients I was closest to long enough to know their pre-cancer weight status, and the outcome of their illness.

I could name dozens of women who have been obese or morbidly obese for 4 decades or longer - and yet have made it to their 60's or 70's with no cancer.

I'm not saying the statistics are wrong, but sometimes what you see in real life completely contradicts it.

Just as an aside on the topic of cancer risk -

I spent the first 12 years of my life living on a farm across the road from a stone quarry that had high amounts of asbestos in the rock. Dust which contained lots of asbestos would billow down into the hollow where the farm was located. Everything was covered with that dust - the yard, the fields, inside the house (because of course there was no AC, so we had to have windows open)

Since asbestos was so common in the rock in that area, my brother often found rocks on the farm with asbestos fibers in them - we'd play with those rocks, fascinated that no matter how many times we tried to set fire to them, we couldn't get the asbestos fibers to burn.

After constant exposure to asbestos dust for 12 years and playing with rocks that had asbestos in them, one would think that at least some member of my family would have ended up with lung cancer - none of us has ever had any kind of cancer. I'm the only one in the family who has been overweight or obese (and that for most of my life). I'm 70 - brother is 72, sister is 65.

In addition, my brother and I were from the era when obstetricians regularly did x-rays of the pregnant woman's abdomen throughout pregnancy.

Oh and also when I had my tonsils removed at age 6, the surgeon said he was unable to remove my adenoids because they were too large. I was given radiation treatments to stop the growth of my adenoids because with the rate they were growing, otherwise he claimed I would have ended up completely deaf by age 14.

Of course we all played outdoors in the sun (and asbestos dust) for hours on end - no sunblock at all.

If anyone on this planet is a powder keg for cancer based on carcinogen, radiation, and UV exposure, obesity, and high insulin levels - you'd think it would be me. I have no explanation for how I've made it to age 70 unscathed.

Cancer is complete cated, yet its also very simple.

Cancer runs in my family. When not if. Ive looked for answers, looked to Dana Farber fir answers. But found no prevention just offering drugs when the cancer pops up.

I kept digging on line. Holding onto my basic genetics education, based on a couple semesters of breeding livestock,that this formula cannot be ignored:

Genotype + environment= phenotype

Lits of money went into livestock in the USA, especially dairy cows.

Genes exhibiting at 35% are few. Most are at 10-20%. This makes changes in genetic frequencies a slow generational process.

With effort it gave us the commerical meat chickens we all buy at the supermarket. A fast growing, big breasted chicken.

Environmental factors are the BIGGEST factor. 75%

We have changed our environment significantly in 100 years. Three meals a day has become three meals plus 2-3 snacks. ( That was recommendation by a reg dietitian to me in an appointment, to manage gestational diabetes. I dropped the handouts in trash and believed in DANDR.) The exposure to chemicals in everyday cleaning agents, chemicals contaminating water, our foods covered in Roundup( one of many ) and Apeel, antibiotics starting as infants, dental treatments for cavities.

I listened to a podcast today proclaiming during WWII that 45% of our food was attributed to Victory Gardens and home grown meats and eggs.

Then she discussed remote groups of people with zero dental issues and almost NO cancer. Hummm? 🤔 Why?? Or better, why not??

I cant control the air I breathe but at least government regulation has removed leaded gas, its going after diesel exhaust. Tobacco use has been reduced markedly since the scandal where the tobacco companies put earnings over health of the users.

And these examples are tip of the iceberg.




Imho our genetic will dictate the kind of cancer but the environmental exposure will trigger it.

I am at risk for diabetes2, colon cancer , breast cancer and ovarian cancer.. What are the triggers???

Ive suspected and found recent confirmation that Vitamin D is preventative. Thank Goodness, I never out sun blick on my kids , unless going out on water. My mother sunbathed all year long ,including a sun cabinet: her cancer developed years after it developed in her mother, and years after stopping the excessive sun exposure.

Vitamin D levels matter!!

We dont fast anymore. Its was originally due to lack of food,not its a planned day to skip breakfast or dinner, or skip a whole day. We are consumed by what we eat but fail to realize NOT eating had real health impacts.

If excess skin, leftover from rapid weight loss, is a problem, then fasting is the fix. The body can remodel. It can use autophagy to restructure the biggest organ, the skin. I can imagine what it can do throughout the body.

......how we live today results in cancer.......looking back to when we were cancer free gives answers. Look at how the peoples who live the old ways are free of "modern" diseases.

No teeth decay
No obesity
Regular exercise
Limited chemical exposure
Fresh foods, home grown, no chemicals
Fermented foods
Breast feeding all babies
Chew real good, not mush.

For me the biggest issue is how to live the better life surrounded by the "modern" lifestyle that creates disease and cancer.

For me, the cancer connection with sugar comes from the fact that we have two systems: fat burning or carb burning. Carb burning is one of those short term things you get into when the berries ripen, and when the harvest comes in, and things like that.

But most of the time we wouldn't have enough carbs to be sugar burners. We'd be in ketosis.

Since carbs are not essential, ketosis must be our natural state, and it even builds in an indulgence for the winter solstice holidays 🤣

Maybe the thing is that our sugar burning system is not meant to be something we're in 24/7 & all year.

I look forward to receiving emails from Colin Champ. With the utmost respect for all on this forum. I suggest that the Colin Champ reference where he is claimed to be debunking be read very carefully, as I see differences with a few of the conclusions discussed on this thread. The thing to keep in mind is that the findings to date are very nuanced among those actually carrying out the research. So when I hear information from those selling subscriptions to dietary approaches, I want to find additional information from those actually conducting the research before I buy what's being sold.

The quest to chase lower blood glucose is an admirable one in the absence of being able to easily measure insulin at home based on diet. However, there are limitations to glucose readings, and it's not always a marker for good/bad health and certainly not an indicator that the measures being taken to fight or prevent cancer are working. The interesting thing is that all can be right to a degree, but the degree to which one would make lifestyle changes means everything, and we've not got a set of fundamentally sound recommendations that when applied to everyone, will have the same results. Yes, we are all snowflakes . . .

Here's an interesting presentation by Dr. Champ in October of the same year (2018) when he wrote the article referenced (January):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCK6t966xx0

Here's another by Dr. Thomas Seyfried who is doing cancer research and has occasionally cited Dr. Champ's papers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIUi8_rWBlA

The curious thing about debunking keto is that many have an alternative that they are selling. That's fine, and I respect that, but for the many who have found that being in fat burning mode regularly helps to maintain a healthy weight and can function as a prevention for metabolic disease, these facts can't be discounted. It appears that what originally started as a protocol to improve health by reducing carbs has now developed opposing camps. In reality, the lifestyle that I lead may not work well for many, so I have no right to claim that my way is the answer for anyone else but me. But it has worked very well. Chasing a specific blood glucose level before I'm able to eat, not so much when speaking from direct experience.

I found this meta-study:

Diabetes, Glycated Hemoglobin, and Risk of Cancer in the UK Biobank Study

Sample size almost half a million, 54% women.



There you go, clear connections with elevated blood sugar and cancer. The why needs to be untangled but "normal blood sugar control" is always going to win in a health contest.

They can't do it with drugs as well as a person can with proper diet. Medically, that is something preferable, as most people prefer their own limbs instead of the finest prosthesis, no? They justify the drug for something the patient can do better by themselves, like getting Prozac because it's cheaper than actual therapy.

And at this point we have people who grew up/lived through all the bad food advice and I think they have given up. Learned helplessness.

Because their brain only sees the junk as "food." They can't even imagine what it's like to eat properly because none of them did as plant-based moved inexorably into everything. It's now got a grip on their critical thinking but most of the people they know thinks this same way, from the same struggles.

We are telling them the exact opposite every authority in their lives has told them to do, and death by meat and fat is the one they have feared for years. They don't know it's a lie.

But then again, I'm watching a woman living in Spain (Cabana Chronicles ) who no longer has symptoms of MS on a carnivore diet and her neurologist pats her on the head (metaphorically) through eight years knowing she has refuses the drugs and tells her, "Then you don't need a MRI."

But she needs one. To see if the lesions left and so she doesn't have to pay ten times the going rate to get insurance for a doctor who is doing nothing because she reports no symptoms. But since "MS can't be cured" she has restrictions on her license and other things that she shouldn't have to do.

They have to ignore people like that. Even doctors. Every bit of their training tells them so.

That 2020 Biobank study is one of about 6 other similar studies
related to the one Optimizing Nutrition used for its BMI article, posted here before, using a sample of 3.6 million adults. Optimal BMI for Longevity and Optimal Health (And How to Achieve It)https://optimisingnutrition.com/what-is-a-healthy-bmi/

Risk of 16 cancers across the full glycemic spectrum: a population-based cohort study using the UK Biobank https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32859587/

Neither of these articles has associations to diet. There are diabetics who use the high carb Mastering Diabetes, Dr. Mcdougall Starch Solution or Dr. Bernard Reversing Diabetes plans. I think lowish carb is better for controlling BG, but a Low fat high carb diet is another option to lower HbA1c.

Yes! I have also come to think that ketosis would be our natural state, and a state we would only leave occasionally (seasonal sweet fruits, etc). Eating a lot of sugar, which is something so many modern day people do because sugar seems to be in virtually all processed foods, creates a situation in which the body is over-producing insulin almost continually. I'm not diabetic or even near it, but if I eat a lot of sugar I feel quite sick, surely that is my body telling me to cut back immediately. I always feel best, healthiest, most energetic, most clear headed when I'm not eating any sugar at all.

For anyone still naive enough to think that sugar doesn’t negatively impact metabolic health and accelerate diseases like cancer and dementia, here’s an excellent presentation by Dr. Richard Johnson:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hhSiFc8_zA4

I’m not sure who is funding these communications by the Mayo Clinic, but obfuscation about the primary causes (chicken or egg) aren’t helpful. The culprit, as Johnson explains is fructose and the fructose pathway, recently clarified in research. Depending on one’s phenotype, you can experience metabolic derangement whether obese or slim if this pathway is unnecessarily turned on with frequency. While some think you can simply cut back on fruit, fructose is found everywhere (table sugar, anything with HFCS, alcohol, etc.) and the pathway can even be turned on by salt. Consumer beware.

This reminded me of the clues found in extreme athletes, like Mark Sisson of Mark's Daily Apple. String-bean physiques on marathon runners is not a guarantee of dodging diabetes. I also think that phenotype varies the way our symptoms of metabolic derangement are expressed.

I must have a dock crane-sized linkage about the fructose pathway, because my pancreas is apparently based on a primeval environment. Anything more than summer berries and I break out in fat. :) My body is saying that these things are scarce and I must eat it all. :lol:

But it has many more implications than counting my carbs and seeing my results, because now we are in health territory. I always had to be pressured to eat my vegetables and now I don't have to, because it seems that I have a high sensitivity level to all the anti-nutrients in plants. My tastebuds rejected them because they weren't offering me much in the way of protein or vitamins.

Someone else, who always found them delightsome, might get more from them. I know my carnivore experience has retrained my own body about "what is food." By this time, years into serious ketosis, I love the mental feeling of running on fat. DH turned to butter to make his fat quota, because he's the kind who squishes his burgers.

His "grease" is my favored fuel. But this was also the way his mother cooked. He's cooking for himself now, I point out. Does he even know what he likes? Because he has been shifting his tastes, and losing more weight, when he concentrated on protein and fat, and we cut down on his favorite carbs.

Now, while he has a favorite on occasion, he chooses something under his new definition of "treat." He will sensibly choose the German bakery where the baker uses fresh apples and real butter.

Because it tastes so much better. He no longer craves the rock-bottom processed version. That is taste buds working for us, not against us.

Plus, convenience is not a factor when we have to park downtown, in a different town, and walk to the bakery. This makes it more of an occasion (bakery has great coffee) and less of an impulse buy.

Literally streets ahead of sitting in the donut company's drivethrough.

Maybe there isn't "more cancer" because some people get taken out by heart disease, first, which is happening at younger ages. All those "middle-aged diseases" appear at younger and younger ages, as obesity rises worldwide.

A cartoon detective could follow these clues to a helpful conclusion.

Today I have my oncologist appointment, 17 1/2 years after diagnosis of breast cancer. Already had a clean MRI so we often just chat about diet and exercise. His wife eats "Paleo", he is a whip thin runner, so he wants to know what I do now to maintain a steady 22 BMI. I’ll share:


A healthy BMI is now my "big why".

Janet, my thoughts are with you, and I'm certain the superb metabolic health you've achieved will continue to serve you well. Your focus on health and learning to adapt to optimize your WOE to achieve health has served you well. Sharing the information as you travel your journey is one of the bonuses we get on this forum. While we all don't get the same results, using your reports of success or not has enabled many of us to experiment and find better ways to evolve beneficially.

Great, insightful comment, WB. The reason I used the term phenotype (instead of genotype) is due to the fact that our genes are expressed in part due to our genetic makeup, and most likely in a larger part by our environment, which includes everything we are exposed to including what we eat and drink. In addition to Mark Sisson, we can include Tim Noakes, Mark Cucuzzella, and Sami Inkinen, who were competitive endurance athletes with little body fat who had to fight diabetes. Yes, we are all unique in certain ways we respond to foods and how our genes are expressed, but achieving a good degree of metabolic health levels the "playing field" and makes life a lot easier.

Sharing another video interview sponsored by Levels with the title:

Is Fructose a Driver of Alzheimer’s Disease? | Dr. Richard Johnson & Dr. Rob Lustig


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbWE-J1JpKs

Very informative, detailed discussion by two who came to the same conclusion from different directions. This covers all topics of metabolic derangement caused by the fructose pathway. By the middle of the discussion, they agreed that they need to publish together, as their respective studies start to supply a fuller picture of metabolic derangement due to diet. It's one of those that us geeks will watch or listen to more than once. Very valuable, actionable information.

About Levels
As a side note, the video sponsor, Levels, provides a method of continuous glucose monitoring without a prescription, which is currently required in the US to get a CGM device and usually requires insurance coverage to defray the cost. The Levels monitoring system is very expensive, as it's a subscription that includes a CGM and a phone application. The price of the Levels phone App subscription is $199/year, the CGM is a Dexcom 7 with monthly supplies of replacement sensors for $199/month. To get started, the price for the first month is $407 on sale, with $199 charged every month thereafter.

The FDA has approved purchase of CGMs without needing a prescription to begin this summer. I have a few family members who would like to wear them to track their BG responses from meals and other activities. Does anyone know where a reasonably-priced CGM system can be purchased??? Levels is not a reasonable option for someone who doesn't have T1D or T2D at its current pricing.

Here's another excellent interview with Dr. Thomas Seyfried that belongs in this thread based on subject matter. It's far ranging on all topics of metabolic health, diet, cancer causes, and prevention. Not familiar with the interviewer until this interview. She stays on point and asks good questions:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwhRskOPwVk

I was going to add Dr Champ's excellent new article, If Society was a Patient https://colinchamp.com/if-society-was-a-patient/
but Gary Taubes' Sub Stack article needs to take precedent.

Life Lessons from the Recently Departed?
A short discourse on the limits of evidence

https://open.substack.com/pub/unset...cently-departed


The "chance" aspect is what makes cancer and other diseases so scary and open to wild speculation (it's the saturated fat!, sugar, fructose, PUFAs, GKI ratio, or any other one solution!). Any doctor who proposes that they have a diet that prevents cancer, or not eating sugar will reverse cancer, needs to read this.

To Dr Champ, simply following a low carb or low fat diet without also considering nutrients and exercise and maintaining a healthy weight, is not an optimal lifestyle. I met him once as a patient, he was part of my process to focus on getting more nutrients and maintaining a healthy BMI.

Dr Champ writes:

As they say in quantum circles, randomness is only a lack of information. :lol: But we can't get enough information in bodies that evolution worked on over zillions of years. Much less the individual changes as different peoples spread over the globe and ate different, local, stuff. Then adapted in different ways.

I see some recognition of how food works happening in the population. Had a lovely brunch Sunday, first time in MONTHS for what used to be a routine gathering. But my heart aches to see how much one couple is relying on modern medicine and pills, another had a scare and is willing to adjust their diet to Mediterranean, and the two people who think they don't have to, yet.

It's a great place and I'm able to eat there without worry, but more and more, I can't eat the way they do, and I don't want to be the "ghost at the feast" so I don't say anything. But in my area, gluten free is easy to find in my little tourist town. And that's why. The bigger population is doing things to the restaurant where there are still actual cooks in the kitchen, and even local ingredients.

That tells me awareness of individual food needs/nutrition is growing, along with the explosion of autoimmune.

Just in the last twenty years look at the revolution in how we look at food. There's bad, as the increasing wave of absolute junk with healthy stickers plastered all over them.

But we also have new science in bioavailability, including the recognition of the food matrix, with its role in proper fuel and supplies. We haven't updated our vitamin RDA and maybe we should. Protein is finally getting its due as a macro-nutrient, for instance.

JEY and I are excellent examples of how wide the range is, because my macros and hers are so different, in terms of low carb flexibility. But we both avoid junk. I think that is the biggest and best first step anyone can take.

We've all been marketed to about "harmless indulgences" but that was before they put stuff in the food. Before we knew they distorted research for decades. Before we had 80% of the population suffering some form of metabolic derangement.

Judging from the brunch conversation, everyone is at least talking about their health. Thinking about it. It's the first step.

After all, these are the civilians. They don't have the training or the motivation we do! :lol:

Back after reading and this:



was an enlightening paragraph for me. Because it kind of emphasizes that this is an individual quest. For DH, a musician, it's about rock stars... and when we lose them. He knows their history of poor behaviors which offer more explanation when they are young than when they are older and perhaps have been compensating for that time period.

So many variables, really, that what we need to do is study people who have successfully figured out what they should eat, losing weight and easing health conditions. That's the new patterns, not made up confusing "Mediterranean" diet stuff.

And that work has been done.

That was the paragraph that caught my eye as well. Bernstein being able to manage and thrive with T1D is something very rare and worth noting.

Reading Taubes' article prior to it being changed from Bill Walton dying of prostate cancer to colon cancer, it's well done and asks the key questions. It also reinforces some facts: 1) we are all different and luck or whatever we want to call fate is often at play in random ways, 2) arguing about which dietary approaches are preferable is always confusing, especially when those who refer to themselves as "experts" are involved.

Good post by Janet. I'd make one clarification on the following statement:

Agree that I'm always skeptical of anyone touting (sometimes selling) any diet that purports to prevent cancer. I would also argue with anyone claiming that not eating sugar reverses cancer unless it can be proven in multiple trials. Reversing cancer is a tall task dependent on lots of things including fate/luck. Not eating sugar to avoid metabolic disease including cancer seems to me to be the best bet when dealing with the same fate/ luck. We do have science showing lower risk of cancer with the avoidance of dietary sugar.

My third thought is a non sequitur, but something I've been contemplating off and on for the last 20 years: How in the world is Keith Richards still alive!!!!! :bash:

LOL, my exact thought when WearBear wrote "Rock Stars"!

The comment about Rock Stars sent me to google to find out what Mick Jagger eats. (I already knew he spends hours almost every day exercising - can't dance like he does on stage through an entire concert if you don't keep your muscles in shape)



Assuming this was from an actual interview with Jagger, interesting that he turns to keto for energy and body fat management.

There was also a small amount of info about Keith Richards diet:



There's an article from back in the early 90's about Keith's drug, smoking, and alcohol habits - way too much that would need to be ****ed out to quote on here, but the gist of it is that even by that time he wasn't keeping drugs and pot around, and he was also being very picky about the quality of the drugs and pot he used, so while he wasn't going to turn it down if someone offered it to him, he wasn't doing much of it by that time.

Apparently he's given up almost every vice since then - and now only drinks occasionally.

If you don't mind the language, you can read it here:
https://www.dingonet.com/articles/a...cracklepop.html

The way that he looks so haggard and so wrinkled though - to me a lot of that comes down to genes.


But as a group:

Also, the original Stones were all poor kids at a time when Britain struggled to get everyone their minimum rations. They have always been thin, too. There were studies done after WWII showing that not overfeeding children helped them maintain a healthy weight when they grew up. This British generation wasn't immune, but there was important lessons there.

And they are all older than me :) but I already know that what matters as we get older is much more how we feel than how we look. How much keto? I was likewise intrigued by that mention. Gee, maybe the keto is what is doing it, and the Mediterranean, which encourages bread and pasta, is the indulgence.

A common saying around our house, from the movie Wayne's World, is "You know Keith Richards cannot be killed by conventional weaponry."

But science has not yet discovered why :lol:

Fascinating, especially the amount of exercise a day. If you had said 50 years ago that these two would still be alive, popular, and performing grueling concert tours today…would never have believed it.

WearBear…I wondered if "keto" is used to eat enough fat for energy. Three hours of intense exercise requires a boatload of calories, high-fat keto can be used to recover and gain weight. The original therapeutic use of "keto" to control seizures without dying from lack of energy.

My take on the number #1 Longevity factor…his 28” waist, a waist half height, or BMI < 25. https://optimisingnutrition.com/what-is-a-healthy-bmi/

But I think this kind of comparison is also an indicator of more money/less stress in their environment. Not that they don't work, but it is in bursts, with layers of luxury a common traveler doesn't have.

Also, I've been told that working is something they do when they want to, meeting large expenses, from multiple exes and children to high levels of their own self-care.

I know they have chefs and coaches and housekeeping staff. They're not packing a lunch in their kitchen, a suitcase in their bedroom, and taking a bus to the airport.

Stress is a big factor in health and it does sound better to me!

While the UK as a whole was relatively poor and rationing food for several years after WWII, the guys in the Rolling Stones were not actually poor when they were growing up. I was kind of shocked a while back when I read that unlike most 60's rock groups, the Stones did not grow up poor, and were relatively well off.




The only other thing I've come across about Keith's childhood was from the article linked in the other post - that apparently his family has a very strong tolerance for alcohol, although he insisted that he couldn't get drunk any more, that alcohol just didn't affect him any more.

That might have something to do with why he supposedly only drinks "occasionally" now - if you're not getting a buzz from it, why bother with it any more?

Who knows how much of that interview was true and how much of it was just alcohol infused nonsense though - if someone is sitting right in front of you drinking hard liquor and insisting that they're not drunk because they find it impossible to get drunk any more, how reliable is that?



Jagger's dad was a phys ed teacher though, so Mick was brought up in a home where his dad made sure he got plenty of exercise all the time. That physical education probably extended to his dad making sure the family had as much of a balanced diet as possible (4-food groups, since this was back before the low fat/high fiber era), which it sounds like is what he eats most of the time now.

Rationing during their early childhoods might have had something to do with them not overeating and gaining too much weight to begin with, but I would imagine that most of it was simply a matter of - you just didn't overeat back then, because there was so much less addictive food around than there is now. It doesn't sound like they've drastically changed their eating habits to include fast food or UPF's either - easy to eat whole foods when you have someone doing all the shopping, prep work, and cooking for you after a hard day of exercising and dancing or practicing your guitar licks, especially if there's no financial worries about not letting good food go to waste.

If they didn't grow up being pushed to eat everything on their plates, there also isn't that internal guilt that pushes some of us to finish everything even when you feel like you're done.

(Apparently the GLP-1 drugs help overcome that guilt to eat it all too - I hear "I was too full, and just couldn't finish more than half of it")