Dr. McCully's research over the past 40 years
on the pathogenesis
of atherosclerosis has shown the role
of homocysteine in
free radical damage and the protective
effect of vitamins B6, B12 and folate.
With rudimentary laboratories, one could argue that more was accomplished with regards to the
effect of diet
on cancer in the former half
of the century, as revolutionary researchers like Tannenbaum, Rous, and their colleagues provided us with dozens
of animal studies linking diet and cancer by exposing mice to
free radical - laden vegetable oils.32, 33 Several decades later, two other researchers, Dayton and Pearce, provided one
of the few studies revealing what happens when we give humans vegetable oils and their accompanying
free radicals when they randomized men to a corn oil solution and a similar rise in cancer followed.34 It is no surprise that corn oil is often used in animal studies to cause cancer, as the ingestion
of damaging free radicals predictably hastens cancer development.35 Furthermore, these scientists were the first to show that fasting, restricting calories, and cutting carbohydrates could lower the chance
of cancer in animals exposed to dangerous chemicals and carcinogens.