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cancer risk

Brassica, Biotransformation and Cancer Risk – (10-10-02)

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Brassica, Biotransformation and Cancer Risk: Genetic Polymorphisms Alter the Preventive Effects of Cruciferous Vegetables

Sorry for the long title, but this article once again moves far beyond what today’s clinicians recognize: the compounds in broccoli and related veggies are good for us. This article begins to look at potential explanations for variations in response to the compounds found in cruciferous vegetables. Genetic variations in enzyme efficiency, variations in levels found in the vegetables themselves (usually based on growing processes) and variations from differences in preparation. Really an advanced article beginning to look past acceptance of benefit into the factors affecting level of benefit.

Nutrition.org — Abstracts: Lampe and Peterson 132 (10): 2991

Read entire article here

These Two Deadly Diseases Linked

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This is not the first time I’ve gotten on a soapbox about how human physiology and disease does not respect the “specialist” boundaries we have created in orthodox, Western medicine.

Cardiology, dermatology, gastroenterology, endocrinology, neurology, obstetrics, orthopedics, urology, nephrology…  You get the picture.  The entire body has been broken up into specialties.  And family practice, pediatrics and internal medicine are merely there to try to funnel out problems to the correct specialty.  It’s a mess, with no respect for the inter-connectedness of the human body.

Every single system interacts with every other one.  Even bone, that we used to view as a stagnant tissue that merely acted as an anchor for bones, is now realized as an extremely active tissue that is affected by gut health and, in turn, affects your risk of diabetes.  In case you’re keeping track, that relationship alone cut across 3 specialties, neither of which views his or her area of expertise in the context of the other.

Until we back up and begin to realize and act like every system interacts with all the others, we will continue to be stuck in this mess of multiple chronic diseases all managed independently.

Here’s the good news: prevention cuts across all disease states and systems.  Let me clarify–lifestyle prevention does this.  Using the medical term of “prevention” would include approaches like statins to lower heart disease risk.  This version of prevention is just short of worthless and certainly does not cut across multiple organ systems.

So why the diatribe?

Of course it relates to this particular study.  Researchers looked at the American Heart Association ideal health / cardiovascular metrics and looked at how they related to developing cancer.  These metrics include:

  1. Non-smoker
  2. Ideal BMI
  3. Healthy diet index
  4. Physical activity
  5. Total cholesterol
  6. Blood pressure
  7. Fasting blood glucose

Overall, these metrics are really pretty bottom of the barrel.  They are very basic requirements and far short of the lifestyle recommendations that I recommend (that can be found by downloading my ebook by clicking here).  Despite how basic they are, here is what researchers found:

  • Those with at least 6/ 7 ideal health metrics had a whopping 51% lower risk of cancer compared to those with 0/7 metrics.
  • A paltry 2.7% of the population meets these simple goals.
  • Smoking played a large role in the overall risk (about 26% of the risk).

Slashed the rates of cancer in half.  Keep in mind that these are all modifiable risk factors.  Kind of begins to blow the heart disease and cancer is related to genetics thing, huh?

Can you begin to see how much lower the risk could go if we achieved these 7 metrics and more?  If you look at these metrics, as I mentioned, they are really the most simple and basics of lifestyle changes.

The bottom line?  If you’re on your way to heart disease, cancer is likely brewing somewhere in your body as well.

CALORIE RESTRICTION LOWERS THE RISK OF CHRONIC DISEASES – (07-30-07)

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Long-term low-protein, low-calorie diet and endurance exercise modulate metabolic factors associated with cancer risk

I would be happy going on record that I’ve never been a fan of the high-protein type diets, feeling that short term weight loss is traded for long term health. These types of diets will kill you if you stay on them long enough.

That being said, I’m really sorry to find a study supporting my position. But even more importantly, this is yet another study finding that calorie restriction lowers the risk of chronic disease. It is really at the point now that we can no longer deny that our culture’s obsession with larger portion sizes and the accompanying additional calories w/o the additional nutrition are killing us more rapidly then we could imagine.

Read entire article here

CHILDHOOD DAIRY INTAKE TRIPLES RISK OF COLORECTAL CANCER IN ADULTS – (05-26-08)

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Childhood dairy intake and adult cancer risk: 65-y follow-up

For those of you still brainwashed into believing that “milk does a body good” you’d better sit down. In this trial, which looked at the adolescents’ dairy intake and the risk of certain cancer 65 years later. They found almost a TRIPLIING of risk for colorectal cancer in the adults who had the highest dairy intake as a child. And this was dairy 65 yrs ago–free from antibiotics, growth hormones and xenohormetic stressors!!

Of course, this can’t compare to a dairy sponsored clinically trials determine that prostate cancer risk is not elevated in infants consuming dairy for 3 yrs…But seriously…how the heck is it that dairy recommendations have infiltrated EVERY public health recommendation from federal down to county when the evidence for it is weak at best? The only answer is that the dairy industry’s money wields massive influence and ability to brainwash an entire country.

Read entire article here

ESTIMATED CONVERSION OF A-LINOLENIC ACID – (05-18-09)

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Estimated conversion of a-linolenic acid to long chain n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids is greater than expected in non fish-eating vegetarians and non fish-eating meat-eaters than in fish-eaters

There has also been discussion about just how much ALA from plant sources gets converted to DHA/EPA. The concerns have been that ALA intake is not enough to keep elevated levels of DHA/EPA without additional supplementation.

Two comments here…first, the conversion seems to be greater than originally thought in several studies, including this one. Second, ALA has it’s own benefits in clinical studies on cancer risk and CVD. The bottom line is that I feel we should get a strong balance of plant based and fish based EFAs. Of course, we could then point out that the ultimate origin of fish based EFAs is algae.

Read entire article here