What do tumors and bellies have in common? They both get bigger on a high-carb diet.

A new study on mice finds that a low-carb diet can slow, stop, and even prevent cancer.

Researchers from the British Columbia Cancer Research Center in Canada injected different types of tumors into mice and then put them onto either a typical Western diet (55 percent carbs, 23 percent protein, and 22 percent fat), or a low-carb diet (15 percent carbs, 25 percent fat, and 60 percent protein).

Even though the diets had the same number of calories, the carb-happy mice put on more weight. Even more alarmingly, their tumors grew consistently faster — as if they were powered by carbs.

The researchers also carried out a similar experiment on mice predisposed to breast cancer and found that nearly half of those on the Western diet got the disease in their first year… versus none among the low-carb mice.

Over the longer term, only 30 percent of the low-carb mice developed the disease before they died, versus 70 percent of rodents on the high-carb diet.

The researchers wrote in Cancer Research that although the rodents had a two-year life expectancy, only one of the mice in the high-carb group reached it — while half the mice in the low-carb group reached or beat that expiration date.

Obviously, it’s a study on mice — not people. But the researchers say the connection was so strong that it seems highly likely that it would apply to humans as well.

And that means if you’re not on a low-carb diet yet, you might want to get started on one ASAP.

In addition to lowering your risk for cancer and causing tumors to starve, a high-protein diet low in sugar and other carbohydrates can slash your risk for diabetes, heart disease and more.

And if you’ve heard that a low-carb diet is bad for your arteries, you heard wrong: A recent study found no difference in vascular health between low-carb dieters and those who tried the low-fat approach.

Another mainstream myth bites the dust!

If all those health benefits of a low-carb diet aren’t enough, consider this: It’s also the fastest way to lose weight… and the surest way to keep it off for good.

Many people who undergo heart bypass surgery find themselves battling an unexpected side effect: depression.

Doctors are quick to give these folks antidepressants along with all the other drugs that follow heart surgery.

As it turns out, that’s the exact wrong approach.

A new study published in the Archives of General Psychiatry finds that cognitive behavior therapy – most folks call this talk therapy – is far more effective in treating those post-op blues. Supportive stress management also worked fairly well with this group.

But guess what had almost no effect at all?

That’s right… those antidepressants.

The researchers followed 123 depressed bypass patients. Forty-one of them were given talk therapy, 42 were treated with supportive stress management and 40 were just given usual care.

In each group, half the patients took antidepressants.

At three months, 71 percent of the patients in the talk therapy group said their depression had lifted. That number grew a tad to 73 percent at the nine-month mark. Supportive stress management was less effective, with 57 percent reporting improvement at those same points, but still far better than the usual care patients, only a third of whom reported improvements at six and nine months.

The researchers said the drugs had no impact on the outcome.

Of course, I could have told them that.

I’ve never been an advocate of antidepressants unless absolutely necessary. In many cases, they’re unreliable and have nasty or even dangerous potential side effects. They treat only the symptoms, not the cause, and often don’t work at all in the long run.

But many doctors feel hog-tied without their prescription pads, so the 20 percent of heart bypass surgery patients who end up fighting major depression usually end up with more meds.

Another 20 percent of bypass patients encounter milder forms of the blues, and many of them are unnecessarily put on antidepressants as well.

It’s time docs stop treating conditions based on what they read in drug company brochures and look at what really works instead. This latest study is only the most recent in a growing body of evidence against antidepressants. In fact, back in 2005 the same journal published a study showing talk therapy was just as effective as drugs in a more typical group of depressed patients.

And I can tell you right now there are other drug-free treatments and therapies that will work in just about any group of depressed patients, regardless of whether or not they’ve undergone bypass surgery.

Sometimes, a simple nutrient regimen is all it takes to turn the depression around.

When you can get that kind of success without drugs, why fool with them in the first place?

Is a low-fat diet better for your heart?

You can bet your ticker it’s not – but you won’t learn the truth by reading the latest study to hit the mainstream media.

The study, funded by the National Institutes of Health and published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, compared the maintenance phases of three diets: the low-carb, high-fat Atkins diet, the more moderate South Beach Diet, and the low-fat Ornish vegetarian diet. 

It found the Atkins diet to be least heart-friendly.

You might think they followed hundreds or even thousands of people on these diets for years at a time. But it turns out they looked at 18 people, each of whom tried each diet for four weeks, with a four-week “washout” period in between each one.

That’s it – just 18 people for four-week periods. Do you feel cheated yet? I know I do. 

What’s more, they based their findings on cholesterol levels and blood vessel dilation measurements in the arm.

The trouble is that those changes in blood vessel dilation can be caused by any number of things, such as a problem in the adrenal glands. In a group as small as 18 people, all it takes is one person experiencing one of those causes to skew the results one way or another.

Dr. Atkins was in many ways a visionary. He had the right idea when the declared that carbohydrates, not fat, are the enemy. Especially those refined carbs in all our processed foods. And he was bold enough to speak out against low-fat madness at a time when it was very unpopular to do so.

But there is still so much more to a diet than just fats versus carbs, just like there’s more to a diet than caloric intake. Nutrients and minerals play a crucial role in our bodies, yet few dieters consider that when planning their meals.

For example, our potassium to sodium ratio should be at 7 to 1. But most people take in far less potassium because our processed foods are packed with sodium. And a potassium deficiency can have a direct impact on your heart, no matter what kind of diet you stick to.

Correcting this potassium deficiency can also help you put a permanent end chronic fatigue. I’ve outlined a simple, 90-day cure for fatigue in the June issue of Health Revelations.

Most of us know how important it is to watch our weight, even if we sometimes let the belt buckle slip a notch too far.

We’re also concerned about our cholesterol levels. In fact, if the sales of those unnecessary drugs so many people take to control their cholesterol are any indication, it’s a national obsession.

But how about our triglyceride levels?

Those fatty particles found in our blood are every bit as important – but it seems we’re paying them no attention. A new study shows that a third of all Americans have elevated levels of triglycerides.

The study, published recently in the Archives of Internal Medicine, looked at 5,610 people over 20 years old. It found that 33.1 percent of them had triglyceride levels considered borderline high or worse. It also found 17.9 percent of them had levels that were just plain high.

It’s important to keep an eye on these levels because along with cholesterol, triglycerides are a good indicator for heart disease and other problems.

And like those cholesterol levels, what you eat has a direct impact on the amount of triglycerides floating around in your blood. It happens while your body is converting carbs to fat. The more carbs you eat, the more your body has to work with. So you get fatter and, at the same time, you end up with more triglycerides in your bloodstream.

It’s a result of what I call the Torture Chamber Diet that has us all loading up on low-fat, high-carb foods and, as our national health proves, is killing too many of us too early. 

Now, let’s say you show up for your physical, get your bloodwork done and your doc notices that your triglycerides are elevated. Chances are, the first thing he’ll tell you to do is go on a low-fat diet, and offer you some eating tips.

That’s your ticket into the Torture Chamber.

As we’ve just seen, the very diet he’ll tell you is good for you is also the same lifestyle that will lead to more fat in your body and more triglycerides in your bloodstream, because the Torture Chamber Diet is based on carbs.

By the time your next physical rolls around, you’ll be even worse off – even if you’ve done exactly what he told you to.

The secret to good dieting is understanding the very basic principle that eating fat doesn’t make you fat any more than eating a banana will turn you into a banana. You need a certain amount of healthy fat in your meals, and any diet that tells you otherwise is just plain wrong.

The key to a good diet is balance. Ease off the carbs, enjoy good proteins and a small amount of healthy fat (especially those that provide omega-3 fatty acids) and you’ll do more than get your triglycerides under control – you’ll be on the road to overall good health.

The best part of all is you’ll get to stay out of the torture chamber for good.