Surprising new research scheduled to be unveiled at a major cancer meeting next month suggests that cashews and other tree nuts might be as effective as some of oncology’s most effective treatments at keeping colon cancer from recurring after surgery — and even keeping patients from dying.
If the benefit is real, a daily handful or two of cashews (cost: less than $1) could work as well as standard chemotherapy (cost: thousands of dollars).
But the reported benefit comes with a big “if.”
Although the study is from a respected clinical trial, this finding was not from the original research but, instead, an add-on. The original trial randomly assigned colon cancer patients to either of two drug treatments. Later, researchers looked at cancer survivors who simply went about their lives, doing as they pleased, and tried to evaluate whether eating nuts was associated with better outcomes.
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In that kind of observational study, it’s not possible to say whether a given behavior — in this case, eating nuts — caused an outcome, or was instead simply associated with the true cause.
The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion, and analysis. Read full, original post: Can cashews keep colon cancer patients alive? Study says yes — but cautions abound
