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Fighting cancer with green tea, reishi extracts

Scientists have long suspected that certain traditional Asian herbs such as lingzhi and green tea contain components that can effectively fight a range of cancers.

Now, a research team helmed by Dr Josh Zhu, senior director of Pharmacology and Clinical Affairs at the Pharmanex Clinical and Pharmacology centres in Beijing, has found conclusive evidence that a combination of green tea and reishi (another term for lingzhi) extracts inhibits cancer growth and may even postpone certain death.

Explaining his team's findings, Dr Zhu says: 'We started the research in 2004 taking extracts from green tea and reishi. We realised that both these herbs have beneficial selective functions. Together, they help to kill off cancer cells and arrest tumour growth.'

The team had inoculated laboratory mice with cancer cells before treating them with green tea and reishi extracts. According to Dr Zhu, results showed that the treated mice had 'prolonged lives' compared to their untreated counterparts.

The fact that green tea is beneficial isn't new; neither is the claim that reishi aids the immune system, but this is the first time supplements of the two had been tested in a rigid, clinical setting and found effective, explains Dr Zhu, who was formerly medical director at Beijing Friendship Hospital.

Traditionally, green tea is widely consumed in East Asia. Each year, about 2.5 million tonnes of tea are manufactured from the dried leaves and leaf buds of the shrub Camellia sinensis. Green tea, which is not fermented, is made by steaming or pan-frying tea leaves before drying them. It accounts for almost 20 per cent of world tea production and has been used medicinally as a stimulant and digestive remedy for about 5,000 years. Because of the curing process, the properties of the green tea are very similar to that of the fresh leaf, giving it higher medicinal ratings than black tea.

Previous studies in animals and test tubes have suggested that the polyphenols in green tea can inhibit the growth of breast cancer cells. In one study, for example, researchers found that women who consumed the most green tea experienced the least spread of cancer, particularly premenopausal women in the early stages of breast cancer. They also found that women with early stages of the disease who drank at least five cups of tea every day before being diagnosed with cancer were less likely to suffer recurrences of the disease after completion of treatment.

The addition of reishi into the remedial mix helps to strengthen the immune system even further, claims Dr Zhu, who graduated from Capital University of Medical Sciences, Beijing, and from Stanford University.

Hailed as the 'mushroom of immortality', reishi is a good source of triterpenes and biologically active polysaccharides with presumed medicinal properties.

Citing the case of his own father-in-law, Dr Zhu explains: 'My father-in-law was diagnosed with leukaemia at age 85. Because of his age, his doctor recommended only a half-dose of chemotherapy, with the intention of improving the quality of end-life. We added reishi and green tea to his medicine routine and miraculously, he reached clinical remission and lived on for another two and a half years. Finally, when he died, it wasn't of cancer, but of a heart attack.'

Currently, there are numerous products in the market selling green tea as well as reishi extracts. Dr Zhu cautions, however, that there are different 'grades' of green tea and reishi, so not all supplements are created equal.

Asked if taking supplements is the same as eating the real thing, Dr Zhu claims the former may even be superior. 'Natural green tea, for example, contains caffeine, which works on the nervous and cardiovascular systems. Too much caffeine may not be good for the heart,' he says. Unlike tea leaves, green tea supplements do not contain caffeine.

Moreover, reishi mushrooms do not come cheap, and not many people know how to prepare it, so supplements are a much more convenient alternative.

'It is easier to pop a pill than to eat or drink the actual herb,' says Dr Zhu, who represents a new breed of doctors seeking to turn traditional Chinese medicine into a science, by applying stringent standards in the selection and testing of products.   - 2007 October 27   SINGAPORE BUISNESS TIMES

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An antioxidant in fruit can increase 40-fold the effectiveness of a chemotherapy drug for cancers of the head and neck, a University of Hong Kong study has found. - 2007 October 16

Blueberries fight cancer, say experts

An antioxidant found in blueberries and grapes may offer protection against colon cancer, according to a US study that suggests the fruit should be added to the list of cancer-fighting superfoods.

In a small American Chemical Society study on rats, the berry antioxidant pterostilbene appeared to afford the animals a measure of protection against this type of malignancy.

Researchers suspect that its cholesterol lowering action may be key given the link between colon cancer and the high level of saturated fats and calories in modern diets.

Separately, researchers at Ohio State University said they have begun clinical trials on humans to see if blueberries could prevent the development of esophageal and colon cancer. In tests, rats fed a diet of 5 percent to 10 percent berries had a 60 percent reduction of tumors of the esophagus and up to 80 percent reduction in colon tumors.

A third study, at the University of Alabama, suggests chemicals found in grape seed extract may protect against skin cancer by inhibiting the suppression of the immune system caused by ultraviolet light exposure.

Meanwhile, researchers at the University of California, Davis found that in a head-to-head comparison of organically grown kiwifruit versus those traditionally grown, the organic fruit had significantly increased levels of polyphenols, a higher overall antioxidant level and higher levels of vitamin C. - AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE   27 March 2007

WELLNESS

According to a bulletin put out in December 2006 by ECONOMIST.com  Cancer-causing chemicals have been detected in tofu sheets, duck eggs and fish from mainland China bound for—or already in—Hong Kong. On November 25th, the Bureau of Industry and Commerce in Guangzhou, in Guangdong province, said it had found traces of formaldehyde, a known carcinogen, and boric acid, a dangerous pesticide, in about one-third of the bean-curd sheets it had tested. Both chemicals are banned in food production on the mainland. This is a particular concern for Hong Kong, because up to half the city's bean-curd sheets are imported from the mainland—mostly from Guangdong.

Duck eggs containing Sudan Red, a banned carcinogenic dye, have also turned up in Hong Kong shops, despite assurances from York Chow, the local Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food, that none had been imported. And in late November malachite green, a carcinogenic antibiotic, was again found in freshwater fish farmed on the mainland. Traces of the chemical have been found in imported fish since August 2005, when a host of species were temporarily taken off the menu. These discoveries have prompted calls for stricter food regulation and for another round of meetings between the city’s food-safety officials and their mainland counterparts.

Stay away from French fries and spring rolls - that's the message from the government.

The call came after members of the Legislative Council were told that fried foods generated high levels of a cancer-causing chemical which could also result in nerve damage.

The council's food panel meeting was told yesterday a study showed that many popular Chinese fried foods like fritters and spring rolls produced high levels of acrylamide, a chemical which can cause cancer in animals and which has a toxic effect on the nervous systems of humans.

Among Western foods, fried potato chips were found to contain the highest level of the chemical, according to a study by the Swedish National Food Administration (NFA) in April last year.

Others with high levels of the chemical included cookies and toast.

The study also found the chemical is formed when foods, particularly those rich in carbohydrates, are cooked at temperatures above 120 degrees Celsius. Raw foods and foods prepared by boiling do not contain appreciable levels of acrylamide. Acrylamide has long been used to make polyacrylamide materials which have a variety of industrial uses, including the treatment of drinking and waste water, and the manufacture of plastics, paper and cosmetics.

However, the World Health Organisation's (WHO) International Agency for Research on Cancer said, so far, there was no evidence to show that the chemical was carcinogenic to humans though it was known to cause cancer in animals. But it has been found to cause nerve damage in people who have long-term exposure to high doses at work.

The WHO has established a safe intake level of 0.5ug/kg body weight per day concerning its effects on the nervous system. The dietary intake of the chemical in a Western diet ranged from 0.3 to 0.8 ug/kg body weight per day.

Following the NFA's study, the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department conducted a study on 450 samples of starch-containing Asian style foods cooked at high temperatures, including fried rice, fried noodles, fried dim sum, fried squid, deep fried taro dumpling, spring rolls, grilled sausages, deep-fried fish balls, instant noodles and snacks such as potato crisps.

It showed most Asian food products had low levels of acrylamide compared with Western style foods.

But high levels of acrylamide were found in some products, such as deep-fried taro dumplings (190 ug/kg), fried fritters (130 ug/kg), spring rolls (60 ug/kg) guo-ba (67 ug/kg), Japanese teppan-yaki soba (84 ug/kg), and Indonesian style grilled fish slices (93 ug/kg).

``Local staple food such as rice and noodles that had been subjected to frying, deep-frying and baking had a median level of less than 3 ug/kg, while breads such as sandwich bread, pineapple buns, deep-fired buns and toast had a median level of less than 10 ug/kg,'' consultant (community medicine) for the department, Ho Yuk-yin, said.

Instant noodles, popular snack food items such as grilled sausages, deep-fried fish balls and deep fried octopus had levels of less than 3 ug/kg. The study found that food cooked at lower temperatures or longer frying times produced lower levels of the chemical. ``For example, the acrylamide level in a fried fritter sample reached 280ug/kg after being fried at 210 degrees Celsius for five minutes. But the product prepared at a frying temperature of 170 degrees Celsius for 12 minutes produced a lower level of 150 ug/kg even though the brownness was the same,'' Ho said.  - Cannix Yau  Hong Kong Standard   25 June 2003

We threw away our McCains French Fries and Cheerios after watching a story on CBC Marketplace

Acrylamide is well known - it’s used in making synthetic rubber and plastic. But the discovery of acrylamide in food is so new - no one knows if the levels found are ssafe. What is known, is that acrylamide causes cancer in animals     - CBC

The test results

- Wendy Misley  CBC Marketplace     14 January 2003

Toxic chemicals common in body 

When scientists sampled Andrea Martin’s blood and urine to see what toxins she’d picked up from the world around her, she got a surprise. “I had 95 chemical contaminants in my little body. And it was very mind blowing,” said Martin. The test results indicate that we all pick up tiny amounts of an astounding number of chemicals that are known to be dangerous in larger doses. 

Martin and eight others were tested by Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York and an advocacy organization called the Environmental Working Group.

On average, the nine participants had traces of 53 chemicals known to cause cancer in human or animal tests. In addition, they had an average of 62 chemicals toxic to the brain or nervous system, plus 55 associated with birth defects.

The scientists did not find any single substance in amounts the government describes as unhealthy, but said the sheer number of chemicals was unnerving, especially given the uncertainty about the health effects of trace amounts.

”(This is) irrefutable proof that humans carry in their bodies scores of industrial contaminants, most of which didn’t exist 75 years ago,” said Jane Houlihan, co-author of the study. 

Scientists have found chemicals called pthalates, which are known to cause birth defects in animals, in many personal care items like makeup, hairspray, soap and also plastic food wrap.

Other chemicals found in the participants’ bodies target the nervous system, including:

• Acetone in nail polish

• Synthetic fragrances in perfume and soap

• Poisons in weed killers and bug sprays

• Perchloral ethyline in dry cleaners

• Zylene in paint, which can also cause organ damage

Some chemical manufacturers called the study nothing but hype.  

“I think it was an attempt to be more alarmist than necessary, and sort of over-inflate the message and the facts,” said Jay Vroom of Croplife America. 

But for those intent on avoiding even traces of toxic chemicals, the study’s authors suggest eating organic produce, minimizing fatty foods since chemicals concentrate in body fat, minimizing the use of beauty products, avoiding stain removers and avoiding seafood known to be high in mercury.      

 These precautions may be more hassle than many care to deal with, but the scientists in charge of the study say it is amazing how many potentially toxic chemicals get in our bodies.

Biomonitoring our bodies
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have embraced "biomonitoring." The technology allows researchers to measure chemicals directly in blood and urine rather than having to rely on exposure estimates based on air, water or soil samples. 

Breast Cancer
CDC and Danish researchers found that the risk of breast cancer significantly increased with increasing levels of dieldrin, a pesticide, in women's blood. This result suggests that exposure to dieldrin and other "organochlorine" compounds may increase the risk of breast cancer.

Water
Trihalomethanes, chemicals that evaporate easily into the air, are thought to be linked to birth defects, bladder cancer, and colorectal cancer. Formed during the water sanitation process, they are often found in drinking water. The CDC's lab developed a way to measure trihalomethanes in blood, and it's being used in studies to find out how much enters people's bodies and whether the chemicals are causing illness.

Children & Pesticides
Methyl parathion, a pesticide that should never be used indoors, has been found inside thousands of homes in at least seven states and led to the deaths of two children in Mississippi. In response, the CDC's Environmental Health Lab developed a method to measure methyl parathion in urine and did so in more than 15,000 people. The results helped identify who needed treatment and who needed to be moved out of their homes until the homes could be cleaned.

Tobacco Smoke
The CDC's lab developed ways to measure cotinine -- a chemical formed by the breakdown of cigarette nicotine in the body -- in saliva, blood, and urine. These methods are being used to find out: how much secondhand smoke is getting into children, adolescents and adults; what levels of chemicals in tobacco smoke cause health problems; how well actions to protect people from secondhand smoke are working; and how well actions to help smokers stop smoking are working   - Robert Hager   NBC News     30 Jan 2003

"These [negative] emotions accumulate day by day and cause spleen and stomach energy deficiency and liver energy stagnation. These conditions will cause the body to create a lump. When energy stagnates in the meridians over time, a small seed can progress to a cancerous mass. Then the five major organs will spiral out of balance. The problem is called breast cancer."  - —Dr. Chen, Wai Ke Zheng Zong, Circa 1400 A.D.

SOME CANCER FACTS:

1. Every person has cancer cells in the body. These cancer cells do not show up in the standard tests until they have multiplied to a few billion. When doctors tell cancer patients that there are no more cancer cells in their bodies after treatment, it just means the tests are unable to detect the cancer cells because they have not reach the detectable size.

2. Cancer cells occur between 6 to more than 10 times in a person's lifetime.

3. When the person's immune system is strong, the cancer cells will be destroyed and prevented from multiplying and forming tumors.

4. When a person has cancer it indicates the person has multiple nutritional deficiencies. These could be
due to genetic, environmental, food and lifestyle factors.

5. To overcome the multiple nutritional deficiencies, changing diet and including supplements will strengthen the immune system.

6. Chemotherapy involves poisoning the rapidly-growing cancer cells and also destroys rapidly-growing healthy cells in the bone marrow, gastro-intestinal tract etc, and can cause organ damage, like liver, kidneys, heart, lungs etc.

7. Radiation while destroying cancer cells also burns, scars and damages healthy cells, tissues and organs.

8. Initial treatment with chemotherapy and radiation will often reduce tumor size. However prolonged use of chemotherapy and radiation do not result in more tumor destruction.

9. When the body has too much toxic burden from chemotherapy and radiation the immune system is either compromised or destroyed, hence the person can succumb to various kinds of infections and complications.

10. Chemotherapy and radiation can cause cancer cells to mutate and become resistant and difficult to destroy. Surgery can also cause cancer cells to spread to other sites.

11. An effective way to battle cancer is to starve the cancer cells by not feeding it with the foods they need to multiply.

12. Meat protein is difficult to digest and requires a lot of digestive enzymes. Undigested meat remaining in the intestines become putrefied and leads to more toxic buildup.

13. Cancer cell walls have a tough protein covering. By refraining from or eating less meat it frees more enzymes to attack the protein walls of cancer cells and allows the body's killer cells to destroy the cancer cells.

14. Some supplements build up the immune  system (IP6, Flor-Essence, Essiac, anti-oxidants, vitamins, minerals, EFAs etc) to enable the body's own killer cells to destroy cancer cells. Other supplements (Maitake e.g.) are known to cause cancer cells apoptosis, that is induce cancer cells to commit suicide.

15. Cancer is a disease of the mind, body, and spirit.  A proactive and positive spirit will help the cancer warrior be a survivor. Anger, unforgiveness and bitterness put the body into a stressful and acidic environment. Learn to have a loving and forgiving spirit. Learn to relax, enjoy and trust God.

16. Cancer cells cannot thrive in an oxygenated environment. Exercising daily and deep breathing help to get more oxygen down to the cellular level. Oxygen therapy is another means employed to destroy cancer
cells. 

17. Cancer can be reversed with nutrition, supplements and clinically proven complementary and alternative therapies.

18. Cancer can be healed by divine intervention of God

SUMMARY OF IMPORTANT INFO:

1. Sugar is a cancer feeder. Avoid sugar.  Sugar NutraSweet are made with Aspartame, a chemical that is harmful to the body. A better natural alternative is Manuka honey in small amounts.

2. Milk causes the body to produce mucus.  Cancer thrives on mucus. A better calcium alternative is unsweetened Soya milk. Milo, Horlicks, Ovaltine are all milk-based, so it is best to avoid.

3. Green tea has anti-cancer properties. It is a better substitute for coffee and tea, which have caffeine, bad for people with cancer.

4. Table salt has a chemical added to make it white in color. Better alternative is Bragg’s aminos or sea salt.

5. Meat like pork, beef, chicken contain livestock antibiotics, growth hormones, parasites, etc which are all harmful for people with cancer. It is better to eat fish, or eat a little free-range chicken. Meat protein is difficult to digest and requires a lot of digestive enzymes. Undigested meat remaining in the intestines become putrefied and leads to more toxic buildup.

6. Cancer cell walls have a tough protein covering. By refraining from or eating less meat it frees more enzymes to attack the protein walls of cancer cells and allows the body's killer cells to destroy the cancer cells.

7. Water - best to drink purified water, filtered or distilled, to avoid known toxins and heavy metals in tap water.

8. To obtain live enzymes for building healthy cells try and drink fresh vegetable juice (most vegetables including bean sprouts) and eat some raw vegetables 2 or 3 times a day. Enzymes are destroyed at temperatures of 104 degrees F (40 degrees C). [A diet made of 80% fresh vegetables and juice, whole grains, seeds, nuts and a little fruits helps put the body into an alkaline environment. About 20% can be from cooked food including beans. Fresh vegetable juices provide live enzymes that are easily absorbed and reach down to cellular levels within 15 minutes to nourish and enhance growth of healthy cells.]

RECIPES - CANCER FIGHTING FOODS
SOUPS - It is not necessary to add sauce as there is natural sweetness and flavor from the ingredients. Most of these involve cutting the ingredients into bite-sized portions before adding to boiling water.
Measure water (filtered or purified) to use with small soup bowls, depending on how many persons are eating.
(Pots – use glassware, stainless steel, ceramic or clay)
1. Watercress and carrot soup
2. Radish and carrot soup
3. Lotus root and red dates soup
4. Hippocrates soup - leek, celery, big onion, potato, tomato
5. Fresh corn and Soya beans soup (presoak the Soya beans for 3 hours. Discard water. Boil beans in hot water. Fresh corn can be added when the beans are softer)
6. Black beans, white beans and small onions (shallots) soup Presoak black beans about an hour. Discard water. Boil the black beans first.  Cut small onions into thick slices. Then add small onions and white beans.
7. Potato, carrot and onion soup
8. Winter melon, carrot and red dates soup

VEGETABLES - Vegetable dishes - most of these taste nice with just garlic and Bragg's aminos or organic miso. Avoid using non-stick pan as the chemical coating can come off into the food. Instead  of heating the pan and adding oil first, we use water  to fry the vegetables. This is to avoid letting the oil reach high temperatures, which can be carcinogenic.)

Method: Heat pan with a little water. Add minced garlic and cook a while. Add vegetables and a little oil and more water as needed. Cover and let it steam cook. Turn off fire and add Bragg's aminos or organic miso.
1. Bean sprouts with carrot strips. Cook the carrot first before adding the bean sprouts.
2. Bean sprouts with tau gua. Cut tau gua into small pieces. Cook in water. Remove tau gua. Add some water to pan and add minced garlic. Add bean sprouts. When almost done, add in tau gua, and Bragg's  aminos. You may add spring onions or parsley for more flavor.
3. French beans with tau gau (same as for 2)
4. French beans with garlic
5. French beans with carrot
6. Bitter gourd with garlic
7. Long beans with garlic
8. Chye Sim with garlic, or with fresh fish cake cut into slices
9. Spinach with garlic (not to often as it has oxalates)
10. Spinach (puay leng) with garlic and mushrooms)
11. Xiao bai chai with garlic
12. Jie Lan with garlic, or with garlic and carrot
13. Angled loofah - cooked with garlic and an egg
14. Tau gua and tau pok in black sauce and garlic
15. Tau gua, gau gee (bean curd sheet) in black sauce and garlic
16. Tau hu with garlic and seaweed
17. Many vegetables can be eaten raw  without salad dressing - cabbage, cauliflower, green  pepper, celery, cucumber, carrot, asparagus spears, corn on  cob, etc or a little olive, and Braggs FISH (twice a  week is sufficient) - steamed or cooked with water,  garlic, ginger, spring onions, tomatoes, parsley  and a little Bragg's aminos.)

PORRIDGE - Use brown rice, unpolished rice or mixed with some white rice.
1. Sweet potato, unpolished and white rice
2. Shredded carrot with unpolished and white rice
3. White bait (fresh or dried), shredded  carrot, ginger, unpolished and white rice

RICE - use brown rice or unpolished rice or mixed with some white rice. Unpolished rice takes longer to cook, so cook unpolished rice first before adding white rice.

RAW FOODS - Almonds (presoak 10 almonds in some water and keep in the fridge for 24 hours.  Peel and discard skin before eating.) Walnuts, cashew nuts, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, nori seaweed (tear into small pieces to eat with some raw vegetables)

FRUITS - require different digestive enzymes from other foods. It is best to eat fruits either one hour before any meal or two hours after a meal. If fruits are eaten after a meal they will ferment in the stomach together with the other food and the nutrients would not be fully absorbed. It is good to eat papayas and pineapples for the enzymes papain and bromelain to digest protein. Apples and apple juice are also good. It is helpful to drink half a glass of warm water with some lemon juice first thing in the morning on waking.

BREAKFAST - rolled oats, whole meal bread, miso, vegetable soup, porridge etc. Bread spreads - almond, butter or organic fruit jam are preferred to margarine. Margarine is hydrogenated fat, which is harmful. Avoid all hydrogenated fats. Let's all be more health conscious!!!!!!

NEWS STORIES 
Cancer Where You Least Expect It:
Analyzing Risks in Your Family Tree

Cancer risk can lurk in some surprising places in the family tree.

About 10% of common cancers are the result of heredity, but sometimes the risk isn't obvious. Many women, for instance, think they are at risk only if their mother's family had breast cancer and don't realize paternal risk plays just as much of a role.

Similarly, if a man's family has a high incidence of breast cancer, it could increase his risk for prostate cancer. A family history of ovarian cancer may increase a man's risk for melanoma, prostate or colon cancer.

Indeed, many seemingly unrelated cancers -- such as melanoma and pancreatic cancer or colon and endometrial cancer -- sometimes share a common genetic thread. But despite the revolution in genetics under way, hereditary risk for cancer often goes undetected. Fewer than one-third of patients have assessed their family health history, according to a report published last week by the Centers for Disease Control. In a bid to increase awareness of the link between family history, cancer and other diseases, the surgeon general has declared Thanksgiving Day "Family History" day, urging families to talk about their health in between helpings of turkey and pumpkin pie.

Even though most cancer isn't genetic, tracking down the people who do have genetic risks will go a long way toward catching and even preventing many cancers earlier, because people at known risk will be able to seek more aggressive screening and monitoring. Even a single case of cancer at an early age in the family, such as breast cancer before 45 or colon cancer before 50, should prompt a trip to a genetic counselor.

Genetic risk is so complex and confusing that even many doctors get it wrong. That was the case with 69-year-old Samuel Tauster, a Manalapan, N.J., chemist whose mother and cousins all died of breast cancer at an early age. After doctors told family members that breast-cancer risk could be passed only from mother to daughter, he didn't think his own children had to worry.

Later, he learned the doctor had been wrong. As a result, earlier this year, Mr. Tauster, his brother and sister were all tested for BRCA, a genetic mutation that triggers breast cancer in 50% to 85% of women who carry it. Mr. Tauster and his brother both tested positive for the mutation, and later so did his two daughters and his niece.

All three women opted for surgery to remove both breasts and ovaries as a preventive measure. "If I knew I was at high risk I would have been getting checked more often," says Mr. Tauster's 44-year-old daughter, who asked not to be named.

BRCA mutations have been linked with melanoma, prostate, gall-bladder, colon, pancreatic and male breast cancers. Alison Estabrook, chief of breast surgery at St. Luke's Roosevelt Hospital in New York, recently saw a 36-year-old patient whose father and paternal grandfather both died of prostate cancer. The woman and her two sisters tested positive for BRCA.

FAMILY RISK Here's a look at some of the little-known links between various kinds of cancers in families. A strong family history of… May signal higher risk for … Breast cancer Prostate, colon or ovarian cancer Ovarian cancer Breast, pancreatic, colon, prostate, melanoma or gall-bladder cancers Colon cancer Ovarian, stomach, kidney, or endometrial cancers Melanoma Melanoma, pancreatic cancer Sarcoma Sarcoma, breast cancer, leukemia Source: National Society of Genetic

"If your father had colon or prostate cancer in his 40s, that might be a reason to be tested," says Dr. Estabrook. "But most people wouldn't link that with breast or ovarian cancer."

Researchers have identified several other hereditary links to cancer, although most are relatively rare. At least six genetic mutations are linked with hereditary risk for colon cancer, but families with the genes may also have higher rates of endometrial, ovarian, stomach, kidney, thyroid and childhood liver cancer. Rarely, pancreatic cancer may be linked to one of four genes that increase risk for melanoma. A family history of sarcoma can signal a genetic risk for melanoma, leukemia, breast, brain and adrenal cancers.

Figuring out whether there's a genetic link between cancers in your family is virtually impossible to do on your own. Seemingly obvious patterns, such as a high occurrence of melanoma in one family, may be misleading. While skin cancer appears to run in families, the reason often isn't genetic. The pattern instead may be due to the fact that the entire family regularly spent summers at the beach and everyone was exposed to the same harmful rays, says Peggy Cottrell, a New York genetic counselor who works with Dr. Estabrook.

To be sure that cancer isn't in your genes, the best bet is to talk with a genetic counselor. A risk assessment costs between $125 and $300 and likely will be covered by insurance with a doctor's referral. In addition to early-age cancer in the family, other reasons to discuss risk for carrying a gene include male breast cancer, ovarian and breast cancer in the same family, or any unusual cancers or clusters of a single type of cancer.

A genetic counselor will also want details about how the disease affected family members and where it occurred. Cancer found in both breasts or both kidneys, for instance, may be more significant than an occurrence on one side of the body. A melanoma lesion on the tip of the nose suggests the disease is due to sun exposure, while melanoma on the sole of the foot may signal a hereditary syndrome, triggering further testing.

Many people who seek genetic counseling are reassured that their risk is the same as everyone else's. But for those who go on to get tested for a cancer gene, insurance typically pays for the blood work, which can cost between $750 and $3,000, depending on the gene being studied. Even if a gene isn't identified, it's possible that a genetic risk still exists but the unique mutation wasn't found by the test. As a result, those who test negative for a cancer gene are often advised to undergo regular screening and monitoring, says Dawn C. Allain, ex-president of the National Society of Genetic Counselors and a genetic counselor at Waukesha Memorial Hospital in Waukesha, Wis.

The Department of Health and Human Services has launched a new Web tool at www.hhs.gov/familyhistory that allows you to track family health patterns that might signal higher risk for cancer or other diseases. The National Society of Genetic Counselors offers a database at www.nsgc.org/resourcelink.asp that helps you find a genetic counselor in your area.  - by Tara Parker-Pope   WALL ST JOURNAL    16 Nov 2004

• Qigong exercises for Breast Cancer
• Aspirin to prevent Breast Cancer?
• Promising news about Cervical Cancer
• Letrazole - Drug cuts risk of breast cancer (CNN report)

Cancer as a 'reversible disease'
Doctors at a centre in B.C. are involving cancer patients with their own healing in a holistic approach, with surprising results

When Dennis Thulin was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1999, he wanted to play an active role in searching for a way to get healthy again.

In the hope of avoiding the invasive, traditional treatments of surgery or radiation therapy, he changed his diet, began to exercise more, had his mercury fillings removed, started to relieve stress through meditation and fasted to detoxify his body.

The attitude of his doctors, he said recalling the frustration he felt then, was that "everything I was doing was a waste of time."

But he thought differently, and when he learned about the Centre for Integrated Healing -- where doctors seek to combine traditional medicine with alternative approaches that empower patients -- Mr. Thulin went to investigate.

"I was euphoric," he said of his feelings after he visited the clinic for the first time and learned the philosophy of the team that runs the only centre of its kind in North America.

"It's a wonderful place with a wonderful attitude," said Mr. Thulin, who is on a treatment program at the centre, where he now works as a volunteer.

"It's a whole different attitude. It's not just a doctor saying do this, this and this," said Mr. Thulin. "There's so much support and love in that place. That's what blows people away. It's not like a typical cancer clinic."

Founded by Dr. Roger Rogers and Dr. Hal Gunn, the centre stresses that emotional and spiritual healing is as important as physical healing.

Dr. Gunn said that before the centre was established, he went on a tour of cancer facilities in the United States, where he found clinics were offering one aspect or another of complementary care. Some clinics focused on diet, others keyed on stress reduction, or meditation. He and Dr. Rogers, who in 2001 was awarded the Order of British Columbia for his work on cancer care, wanted a fully integrated facility that offered a broad spectrum of treatment.

Patients begin with 12 hours of seminars and workshops that cover "complementary cancer care and healing, meditation, healthful nutrition, visualization, group sharing, decision-making, vitamins and supplements."

Dr. Gunn believes that the centre is where health care is headed in the future.

"There's more and more interest in this approach," he said yesterday. "I think that what has happened in conventional medicine is that we've been focused in the 20th century on treating the end result of the disease with chemotherapy and radiation and surgery. And those treatments have certainly been helpful in many circumstances but those treatments . . . don't address the cause of the disease."

Linking prevention and treatment, the mind and the body, the Centre for Integrated Healing has accomplished some amazing results.

One patient, Joanne, had inoperable lung cancer but, after treatment at the centre, a recent MRI scan of her lung "showed only residual fibrosis at the site of the original tumour."

Another patient, Jerry, had multiple myeloma and was given two years to live. The centre's program led him back to health and more than a decade later "his blood test results are now almost within the normal range." He has recently qualified for life insurance.

"Why some people are able to recover from incurable cancer is still a very interesting mystery," said Dr. Gunn. "But there's so much about the immune system and the relationship between the mind and the spirit and the immune system that we don't understand. I think it's important to embrace that mystery and be open to it."

Dr. Gunn says that 25 years ago, heart disease was seen as an irreversible condition. Now doctors stress the importance of a holistic approach to address the underlying causes.

"I believe we will come to understand cancer in the same way -- as a reversible disease," said Dr. Gunn.

While the hard science isn't in yet, the Centre for Integrated Healing has taken a leap of faith that the relationship between the mind and the body is a key to helping cancer patients recover.

Mr. Thulin, who is still battling cancer, agrees.

"Complementary medicine doesn't mean a cure for cancer -- but neither does traditional medicine," said Mr. Thulin. "What the centre is showing is that they work well together."   - by Mark Hume     Globe and Mail      May 7 2004 

Easier Colon Screen

For those who flinch at the thought of a colonoscopy, there's a new option. The PreGen-Plus test, rolled out last year by Exact Sciences screens the patient's stool for DNA shed by a cancer or precancerous polyp. It's a noninvasive alternative to the procedure that snakes a five-foot long fiber optic tube through the colon. Here, the patient simply takes a stool sample to a lab.

Early results show the PreGen-Plus more than twice as effective at finding cancers and large polyps than the most-commonly used noninvasive screen, the fecal occult blood test, which checks a sample stool for hidden blood. In a study involving almost 5,500 patients, it was four times more likely to find cancer in average-risk, asymptomatic patients. (However, since the fecal occult test is supposed to be done every year -- vs. three to five years for the DNA test -- its effectiveness would improve over time. Neither stool test is as good at spotting cancer or polyps as a colonoscopy.) The new test costs $795, vs. about $15 for the fecal occult and $1,500 to $2,500 for a colonoscopy. Insurance generally covers each.

Robert Smith, the American Cancer Society's director of cancer screening, calls the DNA test "quite promising," but is withholding final judgment until there is additional testing.  - By Carol Marie Cropper    Business Week  15 Mar 2004

Researchers find missing link between hereditary and sporadic breast cancers

An international team of researchers, including several from British Columbia, has discovered a new gene for breast and ovarian cancer they believe may be a missing link between hereditary and sporadic forms of breast cancer.

If the findings hold true in further studies, they may help doctors determine at an early stage which women have a highly virulent form of cancer so they can tailor treatment accordingly.

"We see these mutations in breast cancers that have a particularly aggressive behaviour," said Dr. David Huntsman, a genetic pathologist with the British Columbia Cancer Agency.

"And these are breast cancers which, since they're node negative breast cancers, we would have thought they would have been less aggressive tumours."

The findings were published Wednesday in Cell, one of the most prestigious international scientific journals.

"Dancing on the tables occurred when we heard it got into Cell," Huntsman admitted in an interview from Vancouver on Tuesday.

The team, led by researchers at Cambridge University, has shed light on a conundrum which has puzzled breast cancer researchers for some time involving the activity of a gene known to cause some hereditary breast cancers.

BRCA 1 and BRCA 2 are genes which help restore damaged DNA before it can become cancerous in normal breast tissue. But women who carry a mutated form of these genes run a high risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer.

Breast cancers attributable to these mutations make up only a small portion - less than five per cent - of all breast cancer cases. The rest are sporadic cases which occur in women without strong family histories of the disease.

Researchers haven't been able to figure out why the BRCA genes aren't implicated in the development of sporadic breast cancer - why they behave normally in 95 per cent of women with breast cancer but not in the other five per cent.

While trying to puzzle that out, the British teams discovered a new gene, which they dubbed EMSY. The gene, which produces a protein of the same name, interacts with BRCA 2.

With the help of scientists at the BC Cancer Agency and Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute, the researchers determined that in some sporadic cancers the problem isn't BRCA 2, it's EMSY.

"What they've discovered - and we've determined the clinical relevance of their discovery - is that instead of having abnormalities in BRCA 2 itself, it's its partner gene EMSY which is abnormal in the cancers," Huntsman said.

By studying hundreds of tissue samples from the cancer agency's breast cancer archive, they saw that in 13 per cent of sporadic breast cancers, EMSY ran amok. For some unknown reason, the gene reproduced itself many more times than it should have, creating too much of its protein.

Examination of the clinical files of the women showed these cancers were very aggressive; women with extra copies of the EMSY gene survived an average of 6.4 years, compared with 14 years for women with normal EMSY levels.

The difference was particularly striking in women whose cancers had been caught before they moved into the lymph nodes. Such early detection is generally thought to improve survival chances but not so with the women who had the mutated EMSY gene.

"Discovering such an important new gene is very exciting and gives us a piece in the jigsaw we've been looking for," Prof. Tony Kouzarides, leader of the Cambridge team, said in a statement.

"It's going to give us new lines of investigation and potentially exciting angles of attack."

Huntsman said future research will look at whether this type of breast cancer responds better to some forms of existing chemotherapies than others. As well, the researchers are hoping they may be able to figure out how to turn off the mutated EMSY gene in these types of tumours.

"If we could develop a drug that would work really well for 13 per cent of breast cancer women, and use a test so that we could just target those 13 per cent of women and offer just those women the drug, we will have made a huge difference," he said.

But he cautioned it will be some time before research can be translated into changes in treatment.

"This is a tantalizing lead which may be a useful test for the laboratory, but a lot of work has to be done before it's ready for prime time."    - by Helen Branswell   Canadian Press    25 Nov 2003

Antibiotics increase breast-cancer risk

SEATTLE -- Women who use a lot of antibiotics appear to face a heightened risk of breast cancer, a new U.S. study has found.

The study, by researchers from the University of Washington in Seattle, said women who used antibiotics of any kind for a total of 500 days or more over nearly two decades faced a 1.5 times greater risk of developing the disease than women who took no antibiotics.

Women who filled more than 25 prescriptions over an average of 17 years were twice as likely to get the disease.

Lead researcher Christine Velicer and her colleagues made the link by reviewing medical data from 10,219 women enrolled in a state health plan.

"We found that increasing cumulative days of antibiotic use and increasing cumulative number of antibiotic prescriptions were associated with increased risk of incident breast cancer, after controlling for age and length of enrollment," the researchers reported.

The study will appear later this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The study cases included 2,266 women older than 19 years with primary, invasive breast cancer enrolled in the health plan, and 7,953 randomly selected female health plan members who did not have breast cancer in the control group. It compared the antibiotic use of both groups.

"The strength of the association is big and real," co-author Stephen Taplin, a senior scientist at the National Cancer Institute, told reporters.

"It's more than you would expect by chance alone."

The researchers stress the need for further study. However, the finding is raising significant concern because antibiotics are widely overprescribed in Canada and other countries.

Health Canada and other agencies have campaigned for years to urge restraint in their use. Overpresciption has led to such problems as drug-resistant bacteria such as methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), which is endemic in many provinces.

The report said increasing the cumulative days of antibiotic use was also associated with death from breast cancer, even when the researchers took age, length or enrollment and the use of hormone replacement therapy into account.   - By Brad Evenson     Canwest News Services    17 Feb 2004

Exercise delays breast cancer in women with inherited mutated genes: study

WASHINGTON (AP) - Women who inherit mutations of certain genes are at an 82 per cent lifetime risk of developing breast cancer and have a 23 to 54 per cent risk of ovarian cancer, according to a study that analysed the health records of more than a thousand Jewish women.

The study, appearing Friday in the journal Science, also found that exercise and maintaining a healthy weight during adolescence delays the onset of breast cancer even in women who have mutations of the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene.

Finding that cancer could be delayed, even for high risk women, by exercise and sensible eating during the teen years is "a source of hope," said Mary-Claire King, first author of the study and a professor of genome sciences at the University of Washington, Seattle.

King said the study found that women who exercised actively when they were young - either dancing, or in team sports, or just walking a lot - and who maintained a healthy weight through the age of 21, were somewhat protected from breast cancer.

"If they carried the mutation, they still had a very high risk, but their age of diagnosis was pushed to later in life," she said.

The study helps to clear up some of the confusion about the risks associated with the BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene mutations, said Dr. Kenneth Offit, a physician and researcher at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

Earlier studies had suggested that the breast cancer risk from the gene mutations ranged from 25 to 80 per cent. The new study firmly nails the lifetime risk at 82 per cent. For ovarian cancer, the study found the lifetime risk was 54 per cent for BRCA1 and 23 per cent for BRCA2 mutations.   - Associated Press     24 Oct 2003

Alcohol ups breast cancer risk: study

Drinking alcohol is a greater risk for breast cancer than cigarette smoking, and the risk increases with every drink, according to a Queen's University researcher.

"About 4% of new cases of breast cancer can be attributed to drinking alcohol, which in Canada means alcohol will account for an astounding 700 new cases," said Kristan Aronson.

"Alcohol is clearly an independent risk factor for breast cancer, quite apart from any other risk factor such as smoking, number of children and age at birth of first child," said Dr. Aronson, whose study is detailed in the April edition of the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

Dr. Aronson and her colleagues used evidence from 53 epidemiologic studies, involving tens of thousands of women worldwide.

She found the risk of breast cancer is higher for women who drink and don't smoke than for those who smoke and never drink. "The risk increases by 7% with each 10 gram drink of alcohol per day -- about one drink."

Dr. Caroline Hamm, the head of research at the Windsor, Ont., Regional Cancer Centre, said: "It's very important for women to be aware of the risk and realize that having three drinks per day is a lot worse than one per day."   - Veronique Mandal     CanWest Global   29 Apr 2003

Is That Cancer Test Worth Taking? 
Screening methods are becoming more sensitive, but the results are often ambiguous

Medicine is perhaps the most inexact of all sciences, and nowhere is this more evident than in the realm of cancer screening. For most cancers, by the time you notice something is awry -- an uncomfortable growth, bone pain, a persistent cough -- the cancer has spread, and your chances of survival are greatly reduced. So it seems like common sense that the earlier and more often you screen for cancer, the better your chances of beating the disease.

Think again. Plenty of physicians question the usefulness of some of the most frequently administered diagnostic tests. They even disagree about whether early detection of some cancers will make any difference to the patient's survival. Only one test, for cervical cancer, has proven to be a clear win. This deadly cancer has been almost eliminated since the advent of routine pap smears in the 1950s.

The problem is that our bodies are likely riddled with minuscule tumors. Most are harmless and will probably stay that way. Others may grow, but so slowly that they never pose a threat. Plus, your immune system vanquishes tiny malignancies every day. Yet as screening becomes more accurate, these tiny tumors can be detected, setting off a cascade of costly and possibly dangerous procedures such as biopsies, surgeries, and chemo.

That's why virtually every cancer specialist is opposed to full-body CT scans. These high-resolution pictures can reveal all kinds of growths that rarely threaten health. But once detected, an odd-looking clump of cells is hard to ignore, and patients can quickly face a spiraling number of medical decisions over what could be a non-issue.

Most tests are more useful, depending on your risk factors. Everyone, of course, is at some risk -- the American Cancer Society estimates that one in three people will develop the disease. About 5% of all cancers are inherited, but the rest are caused by a mix of genetic mistakes and environmental factors such as tobacco smoke, excessive sunlight, or diet.

The biggest risk factor is age. The longer we live, the greater the likelihood that malfunctioning genes will trigger out-of-control cell growth. That's why cancer is the leading cause of death for men age 60 to 79 but comes in fifth among causes for those 20 to 39. Consequently, most cancer specialists say the magic number for cancer screening is 50, the age when most standard tests are recommended. High-risk patients may want to start earlier. But keep in mind that no test is 100% accurate -- and that standard recommendations may not be your best course.

-- COLON CANCER
Colon and rectal cancer kill some 60,000 Americans each year, and oncologists believe these deaths could largely be avoided with early detection. A colonoscopy, in which a physician inserts a lighted tube and camera through the entire colon to look for diseased tissue, is both accurate and safe.

It can also be preventive. If the doctor sees polyps that are often precursors to cancer, they can be removed during the procedure. If none are found, a second colonoscopy isn't necessary for 5 to 10 years. "Colon screening should be high on the list of things everyone should be doing," says Dr. Victor Gann, professor of medicine at Columbia University. Unfortunately, everyone isn't. A study just reported by Dartmouth Medical School found that more U.S. men are screened for prostate than for colon cancer, even though the prostate screening test has not been proven to reduce cancer deaths, while screening for colon cancer has.

-- PROSTATE CANCER
The test for prostate cancer is a bad combination of high sensitivity and low specificity. A blood test measures an enzyme called prostate-specific antigen (PSA), which rises when the prostate is enlarged. However, PSA can rise for all kinds of reasons, so the test produces a high percentage of false positives, triggering unnecessary biopsies.

In addition, this is often one of the slowest-growing of all cancers -- it is frequently said that more men die with prostate cancer than from it. Thus, PSA tests for men in their 70s and 80s are often considered irrelevant. For men in their 50s or those at high risk, it can be more useful. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), a federal advisory board, says there is insufficient evidence to recommend for or against routine prostate cancer screening, and the American Medical Assn. advises that patients interested in the test should be informed of the potential for harm as well as benefit. "But in the era of assembly-line medicine, you don't have time to do that," says a New York area internist. "Most internists I know order the test because it's easier to give patients what they ask for."

-- BREAST CANCER
There is also no definitive answer about the usefulness of breast-cancer screening. The USPSTF recommends mammograms every one to two years for women 40 and over, but cancer specialists acknowledge that there is no data proving that the test saves lives. There are more treatment options when breast cancers are detected early, however, so specialists see little downside. A newer test called ductal lavage involves extracting a few cells from the nipple area and examining them for atypical cells. If abnormalities are detected, a woman's risk of breast cancer increases fivefold.

-- LUNG CANCER
Lung cancer kills more people every year than colon, prostate, and breast cancer combined, and it's easy to determine who's at risk: 95% of lung-cancer victims are smokers or ex-smokers. If you fall into that category, you can have an annual X-ray, but by the time most tumors are detectable, they're usually too large to be successfully treated. A new test called a spiral CT scan is more accurate -- and expensive. A scan can run $500 or more, vs. $50 for an X-ray, and few insurers cover it. The technology spirals low-dose X-rays around the body as the patient is transported through a metal tube. Studies have found the spiral CT vastly better than X-rays at detecting tumors that are still small enough to treat, but the scans also produce far more false positives, leading to unnecessary biopsies. And there's no proof that early detection extends survival.

Ultimately, consumers must keep in mind that no test promises safe passage, whatever the result. But if you're over 50 and haven't had any, talk to your doctor. A test might not save your life -- but then again, it just might.    - Catherine Anst    Business Week   7  Apr 2003

Not all cancer cells can spread to other parts of the body, researchers say

Researchers studying breast cancer have found that only a small percentage of tumour cells are capable of moving on and creating new cancer elsewhere in the body - a discovery they hope will lead to ways to target the most dangerous cells.

Only between one per cent and 15 per cent of cancer cells were capable of forming new malignant tumours in a study done at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center. The findings are reported in Tuesday's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"The first step was to identify the cells, the next step is to try to find out what makes them tick and then to target them with new therapies," said Dr. Michael Clarke, who led the team.

Tests showed that these cells were able to develop into various types of cells present in a tumour, somewhat like a stem cell can develop into any of a number of normal tissues in the body.

Like stem cells, these dangerous cancer cells "make copies of themselves - a process called self-renewal - and produce all the other kinds of cells in the original tumour," Clarke said. Similar cells have been identified in human leukemia, but these are the first to be found in solid tumours, he said.

The researchers plan to begin looking at other types of cancer to see if they also have similar danger cells.

Dr. Max Wicha, who was part of the research team, said the finding helps point the way to more effective treatments.

"What we are working on now is finding out what makes these tumour stem cells different from the other cells in a tumour. Now that we can actually identify them, we can start developing treatments to specifically target and hopefully eliminate them.

"If we are to have any real cures in advanced breast cancer, it will be absolutely necessary to eliminate these cells," Wicha said.

For women with cancer, "for the first time, we can define what we believe are the important cells - the cells which determine whether the cancer will come back or be cured," he said in a statement. "Before this, we didn't even know there were such cells."

Clarke emphasized that the findings were not a cure, but rather "a very promising lead, which will focus our efforts to try to find a cure for cancer."

Dawn Willis, scientific program director for the American Cancer Society, said the findings are interesting, but were still a long way from clinical usefulness.

Clarke agreed that the work is some steps away from being useful to the average cancer patient. The team hopes to find pathways to target the danger cells this year, but finding drugs to attack those targets and developing ways to use them could take five to 10 years, he admitted.

Still, Willis - who was not part of the research team - called the findings "a critical observation."

The researchers used breast cancer cells removed from patients and sorted the cells into groups according to the proteins present on the surface of the cells. They then injected the cells into the mammary glands of mice.

The one cell type that consistently caused tumours to develop had a protein called CD44 and little or none of a protein called CD24, they reported.

"As few as 100 to 200 of these tumour-inducing cells, isolated from eight of nine tumours in the study, easily formed tumours in mice, while tens of thousands of the other cancer cells from the original tumour failed to do so," Clarke said.

The scientists repeated the experiment up to four times. First, 200 cells with the unique two-marker surface pattern were isolated from the original human tumour. When these cells produced a breast tumour in a mouse the researchers isolated 200 cells from it with those markers.

Those second generation cells were then injected into another mouse, producing another tumour. Once again the tumour was harvested, tumour stem cells were separated, and injected into another mouse.

Each time, these cells provoked the growth of a tumour, Clarke said.

The University of Michigan has applied for a patent on the identity and function of tumour stem cells.

On the Net:   Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: pnas.org    -   Randolph Schmid      Canadian Wire  Canada.com   24 Feb 2003         

Study: Garlic May Prevent Cancer

Men in China have the lowest rate of prostate cancer in the world, and a diet rich in garlic, shallots and onions may be one of the reasons.

Researchers at the National Cancer Institute report in a new study that a diet with lots of vegetables from the allium food group - which includes garlic, shallots and onions - reduces the risk of prostate cancer by about half. And the common Chinese diet includes hearty servings of these vegetables.

The study, appearing this week in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, is based on interviews with 238 men with prostate cancer and 471 men who were free of the disease.

Men in the study, all residents of Shanghai, China, were asked how frequently they ate 122 food items.

The results showed that those who ate more than a third of an ounce a day from the allium food group were about 50 percent less likely to have prostate cancer than those who ate less of the foods.

"We checked on many food items and the allium food group stood out (as protective against prostate cancer)," said Ann W. Hsing, an NCI epidemiologist and the first author of the study. "But the conclusions need to be replicated in another study." She said the study was conducted in Shanghai because China has the lowest rate of prostate cancer in the world.

Scallions seemed to be the most protective. According to the study, men who ate about a tenth of an ounce or more a day of scallions reduced their prostate cancer risk by about 70 percent. For garlic consumption of the same amount, the prostate cancer risk was reduced by about 53 percent.

Hsing said that the typical Chinese diet is much more heavily seasoned with garlic, scallions and onions than is the traditional American diet. But even so, the amount of allium vegetables consumed is measured only in fractional ounces. For instance, the study suggests that an effective level of prostate cancer protection can be achieved with about one clove of garlic a day.

"The reduced risk of prostate cancer associated with allium vegetables was independent of body size, intake of other foods and total calorie intake," the study authors reported.

Hsing said the study reinforces earlier studies that have linked high vegetable consumption to a reduced risk of prostate cancer. For instance, earlier studies have found that that eating tomatoes and tomato products can lower risk of prostate cancer. Italy, where tomato sauce and garlic are favorites, has one of the lowest rates of prostate cancer in Europe, said Hsing.

Janet Stanford, a cancer epidemiologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, said the study by Hsing and her co-authors continues to support the general finding that "eating vegetables is a good thing."

Stanford said her group, in an earlier study, linked broccoli, cauliflower and related vegetables to a reduced prostate cancer risk, while a high fat diet increased the risk.  

"This shows that your mother was right," said Stanford. "Eat more vegetables."

The Shanghai study was conducted by researchers at the National Cancer Institute, one of the National Institutes of Health, and at the Shanghai Cancer Institute in China.   -   Associated PressYahoo!        November 6,  2002

Cause of Cancer according to Traditional Chinese Medicine  (link) According to TCM, the root cause of breast cancer is the stagnation of vital energy or Qi in the meridians (energy pathways) that run through the breast area, and the dysfunction of one or more of three major organs — the kidney, stomach, and liver. Oprah Winfrey's feature on Breast Cancer  (link to video clips) Diet and various Food requirements

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Removing breast cancer lumps can save as many lives as mastectomies, according to two reassuring, 20-year-long studies. The research highlights the importance of genetic counselling in understanding cancer risk.

Researchers say the fear of breast cancer is so great that many women have needlessly undergone mastectomies. Breast-saving methods such as a lumpectomy and radiation were equally effective, they found.

Screening and counselling weren't common for most of the 20th century and preventative mastectomy, or removal of the breast, was the surgery of choice for women at risk of breast cancer.

In the 1980s, early data began to suggest that in women whose tumours have not spread, cutting out only the diseased tissue worked as well as mastectomy.

Two studies published in Thursday's issue of The New England Journal of Medicine tracked large groups of women for 20 years after they underwent either mastectomies or lumpectomies for breast cancer.

Similar survival rates for mastectomies, breast-saving surgery

Both an Italian study on 701 women and an American one on 1,851 women found little survival difference between the mastectomy and lumpectomy groups.

Researchers at the University of Toronto also interviewed 75 women who had preventative mastectomies in Ontario between 1991 and 2000. Their study appears in the Oct. 16 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

They found almost all of the women had greatly exaggerated their risk of getting breast cancer.

The women were divided into three groups:

Women who had little or no family history of breast cancer perceived their risk as being about 80 per cent; in fact, it's closer to 12 per cent

Women with a family history thought their chance of getting the disease was about 74 per cent; it's actually 19 per cent

Women who carried one of two mutations linked to breast cancer came close to understanding their real risk

U of T nursing Prof. Kelly Metcalfe led the study. Metcalfe said women fear breast cancer more than almost any other disease, and many families have at least one relative who developed it.

Cathy Degrasse of Ottawa Hospital's Women's Breast Health Centre said all the media and political attention around breast cancer have a downside of driving women's fears and inaccurate perceptions.

The researchers say a genetic test to detect breast cancer mutations didn't become widely used in Ontario until the end of the study.

Once the test was available and women could receive better risk counselling, they became better informed about their real risks. - 16 Oct 2002    Canadian Broadcasting Corporation  CBC

Awareness turns to terror

Breast cancer: Public relations campaigns belie high survival rate

It's been three years now since Rita Salis felt the lump in her breast, a tiny mass as palpable as the fear in her voice as she remembers it. "Nothing is as scary as breast cancer," says the Calgary real estate agent.

But after the lump was removed, Salis wanted to forget about it. Instead, she feels like a marked woman. "I get all kinds of breast cancer mail," she says. "I meet breast cancer people and get invited to breast cancer charity dinners and breast cancer awareness runs. It can take over your life. For a lot of women I know, it has."

Amid races for a cure, pink ribbon campaigns and solemn, black-and-white TV ads, one cannot easily ignore breast cancer.

But new research suggests all this "awareness" has created an oversized fear of the disease. It has driven some women to seek such desperate and needless measures as cutting off their breasts to avoid a cancer, even when they have no risk factors.

"Women are somehow getting the idea they're at high risk for developing breast cancer," says Kelly Metcalfe, a professor of nursing at the University of Toronto. "I think it's that women are constantly bombarded with breast cancer. We need to be aware of it, but we don't need to be terrified."

Not only do 95% of women surveyed overestimate their chances of getting breast cancer, a few hold wildly exaggerated ideas about its danger. Critics say this has spawned a cult of survivorhood, so that otherwise healthy women who have tiny lumps removed are reverently deemed "breast cancer survivors" as though they had beaten insurmountable odds.

In reality, breast cancer is among the least fatal of cancers, with a 93% survival rate if detected and treated early. "Surveys show women ... think 40% of all deaths are due to breast cancer, when it fact it's 4% of all deaths," says Cornelia Baines, a professor of medicine at the University of Toronto. "But nobody, nobody understands that."

Indeed, the reason "breast cancer survivors" have become a potent political voice is because -- unlike heart attacks or lung cancer -- so many women survive breast cancer. And the odds are slowly getting better. Between 1973 and 1992, the incidence of breast cancer rose slightly, a possible effect of more mammographic exams in the mid-1980s finding more cases. Incidence has since stabilized, but the death rate has fallen. In 1990, breast cancer killed 31 per 100,000 women. Last year, less than 26 per 100,000 succumbed to the disease. Most experts attribute the decline to better treatments, including the use of the drug tamoxifen.

The disease now ranks as the fourth leading cause of death for Canadian women, after heart attacks, strokes and lung cancer. Roughly one in two women will eventually die of heart disease or stroke, compared with one in 25 who will eventually die of breast cancer. A better gauge, however, is the years of life lost.

Each year, breast cancer steals about 94,000 potential years of women's lives in Canada. Lung cancer costs women 110,000 years. Cardiovascular disease and injuries each cost women about 90,000 years of life.

As recently as the early 1980s, breast cancer was a largely taboo subject, and research dollars were scarce. But the success of AIDS activists in lobbying for research funds showed the breast cancer community it needed to act. Using many of the tactics of AIDS groups, it staged protests, lobbied politicians and created symbols of solidarity and awareness such as the pink ribbon. It succeeded.

But along the way, many women started to worry too much. One of them was Denise Howe. In 1993, the Fort Erie primary school teacher made a fateful decision. "My mother died of breast cancer when she was 73," says Howe.

"We were told that a family history raises your chances. I had just had a baby daughter, and I was paralyzed [with fear] I would get breast cancer, too."

So a few weeks after weaning her baby, Howe took a bus to a clinic in Boston and had both her breasts removed. It is a decision she has come to regret. She didn't know that because her mother's cancer developed late in life, it did not significantly elevate her own chances of getting the disease.

"I've since separated with my husband," she says. "I'm in my forties now. Who is going to look at a breastless single mother of my age?"

Some worry is fed by recent advancements in genetics. An estimated 1% of women carry mutations in genes called BRCA1 or BRCA2. These mutations genes are believed to cause 3% to 8% of all breast cancers. Having an altered BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene may raise a women's risk of developing breast cancer from about 11% to anywhere from 50 to 85% during her lifetime. That's a big increase, but it's important to remember 99% of women don't carry these genes.

To a degree, the medical industry has fostered hysteria by frightening women into having a mammogram. In the early 1980s, the American Cancer Society put ads in The New York Times that warned, "If you're 35 and haven't had a mammogram, you need more than your breasts examined." However, long-term studies show mammography screening before age 50 offers no medical benefit.

Another frightening message was the oft-repeated statistic that women have a one-in-nine chance of developing breast cancer in their lifetime.

"Women aged 25 didn't hear that was one-chance-in-nine by the time I reach 80," says Baines. "They heard that I've got one-chance-in-nine by tomorrow."

In fact, evidence shows a 20-year-old woman has one chance in 93,800 of getting breast cancer.

This misperception can lead women to take desperate actions. In a study published recently in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Metcalfe surveyed 75 patients who, like Howe, had both their breasts removed to avoid developing cancer. She found 30 of them estimated their risk of getting cancer to be 100%, a gross overestimate she calls "troubling."

"Women have an 11% chance of getting cancer in their lifetime, but it's not 100% like some of the women in our study were saying," says Metcalfe.

Part of the problem, say critics, is women have absorbed the fear of the breast cancer message without absorbing the information.

Several weeks ago, the charity Rethink Breast Cancer surveyed 1,000 women aged 20 to 35 across Canada, and found 95% of them overestimated their risk.

"You could say the majority still view breast cancer as a death sentence," says executive director Mary-Jo DeCoteau. DeCoteau, and her co-executive director Alison Gordon-Farber, have created ads that inject humour into the conventionally solemn world of breast cancer. Their most recent effort, "Man Breasts," has met with widespread praise, but criticism from a few people who don't like treating breast cancer with irreverence.

"There is a kind of dominant breast cancer culture out there," says Gordon-Farber. "And it's very much the angel pin and the comfort heart, pink ribbons and teddy bears -- all things that are very stereotypical feminine iconic images."

DeCoteau says while this culture may comfort some women, many turn away before finding out how to gauge their risk and learning detection methods such as breast self-examination. "Yes, breast cancer awareness is huge, but why are all these smart young men and woman that I know so misinformed?" she says.

For Salis, the memory of breast cancer is something she carries lightly, like the time she got hit by lightning during a hike in the Rocky Mountains. After lying stunned on the ground for about 15 minutes, she found herself unscathed.

"That could have killed me, too," she says. "But I don't call myself a lightning bolt survivor."

LITTLE IS KNOWN FOR CERTAIN ABOUT PREVENTION:

Breast cancer prevention is not a precise matter. Studies have found factors that might contribute to the disease, or its prevention, but there is little certainty.

What should women do to minimize their risk? Eat more fruits and vegetables, says the Canadian Breast Cancer Initiative's report on environmental and lifestyle risk factors for breast cancer. Fish oils, soy products and vitamins are all helpful. Reducing consumption of dietary fat is considered wise.

The evidence linking alcohol consumption to breast cancer is weak and inconclusive.

Increased body mass index is linked to a higher risk. Large breast size may also be a factor, but the current data is inconclusive.

Some studies suggest exercise may reduce risk by over 40%, while others have found little or no effect.

Researchers have noted a very tiny but statistically significant association between smoking and breast cancer.

Some studies have suggested such chemicals as pesticides or low-dose radiation may pose an increased risk.

The very reason breast cancer is so frightening is that, unlike lung cancer or heart disease, no one really knows how to avoid it.    - Brad Evenson,      National Post            17 Dec 2002

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For those who have been diagnosed with Breast Cancer, we highly recommend reading this book before you proceed with any treatments.    

  
This book is an authoritative guide to beating breast cancer by highly regarded surgeons in Vancouver, British Columbia.   Having gone thru this experience ourselves, for me, best way to tackle the illness was to read everything about it.  

My surgeon Dr. Kuusk is one of the authors and coincidentally Dr. Olivotto, another author of this book, is married to fellow Crofton House School graduate, Sara Bell-Irving (former Lieutenant Governor's granddaughter).   

Make sure to have the Third edition though as technology and approaches keep change in this challenging area.

Note:  According to Jan Bell-Irving, Director  of Canadian Cancer Society:

There is so much misinformation in this article it is hard to know where to begin. I don't think survivors get bombarded with info - we do have privacy legislation that protects us all from list selling and exchanging. Also survivor rates are not 93% - I do not know the figure but it would be closer  to 50 - 70 % etc...  - Jan Bell-Irving can be reached at  jbellirving@bc.cancer.ca

"It's all about living.  I'm fighting to live and I will live"

When Global TV news anchor Beverly Thomson announced she had breast cancer, there was an emotional outpouring of support from her viewers.

People of all ages and from all walks of life offered their best wishes and stories in phone calls, cards, letters and e-mails to try to help the woman they had come to know from watching her almost every night on TV.

Those messages of encouragement -- which Thomson describes as "overwhelming" -- form the basis of the documentary Where there Is No Fear, which airs on Global today at 12:30 p.m.

In the documentary, Thomson shares the experience of discovering a lump and being diagnosed last May. At 38, with no history of breast cancer in her family, she was an unlikely candidate for the disease.

She brings the camera into the chemotherapy room and even talks about losing her hair. She discusses in detail the impact breast cancer has had on her life, her family and her career.

"It's all about living. I'm fighting to live and I will live," an emotional, yet composed Thomson tells the camera.

As a journalist, she initially felt uncomfortable about "becoming the story." However, she gradually realized that her message -- that cancer is not necessarily a death sentence -- was more important. Her goal, she says, was to demystify the treatment process.

"I found it incredibly difficult to be the focus and not to be the one asking the questions," she said.

"There is a lot of personal emotion, and you don't want to feel displayed. I was afraid people might be aghast at how I looked but I just know that the message transcends all that. People think chemo is a fate worse than death ... They don't know what chemo is about. It's not about dying it's about living."

In the documentary she also talks about some of her darker days and how she fell apart once after looking at photos of her children -- Taylor, nine, and Robbie, six.

Thomson's husband, Rob Dale, a stay-at-home dad, speaks poignantly in the documentary about the new strengths he has seen in his wife. He describes how he watched her pull herself out of bed one day to attend a breast cancer fundraiser.

"She said she had to go. She put on her game face and the event went off without a hitch," he tells the camera proudly.

The ordeal was terrifying, Thomson admitted, but she said the public support helped her tremendously.

"It's absolutely incredible. I never expected it. Cancer survivors and people who have experienced cancer in their family shared incredibly inspirational and private stories., I was so moved by it all I don't have the words."      - Susanne Hiller    Canadian Press   National Post  26 December 2002  

Perfect breasts	(o)(o)
Fake silicone breasts	( + )( + )
Perky breasts	(*)(*)
Big nipple breasts	(@)(@)
A cups	o o
D cups	{ O }{ O }
Wonder bra breasts	(oYo)
Cold breasts	( ^ )( ^ )
Lopsided breasts	(o)(O)
Pierced Nipple Breasts	(Q)(O)
Hanging Tassels Breasts	(p)(p)
Grandma's Breasts	\ o /\ o /
Against The Shower Door Breasts	( )( )
Android Breasts	| o | | o |
Martha Stewart's Breasts	($)($)
Mammogramed Breasts	___ ___

We also found the experience of possibly having a serious illness brought out the best and worse in people's characters.   We shall always remember SHKP's Assistant to Chairman,  Donald Leung in Hong Kong for his extreme thoughtfulness and delivering this book personally to us during that difficult time, even though ours was not cancer.   We recommend this high to any person's reading list, whether ill or not.    It is an uplifting and true story of unconditional love.

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