Tag: Cancer

Kidney Toxins Created by Meat Consumption – By Dr. Greger

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As I discuss in my video How to Treat Heart Failure and Kidney Failure with Diet, one way a diet rich in animal-sourced foods like meat, eggs, and cheese may contributeto heart disease, stroke, and death is through the production of an atherosclerosis-inducing substance called TMAO. With the help of certain gut bacteria, the choline and carnitine found concentrated in animal products can get converted into TMAO. But, wait a second. I thought atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries, was about the buildup of cholesterol. Is that not the case?

“Cholesterol is still king,” but TMAO appears to accelerate the process. It seems that TMAO appears to increase the ability of inflammatory cells within the atherosclerotic plaque in the artery walls to bind to bad LDL cholesterol, “which makes the cells more prone to gobble up cholesterol.” So TMAO is just “another piece to the puzzle of how cholesterol causes heart disease.”

What’s more, TMAO doesn’t just appear to worsen atherosclerosis, contributing to strokes and heart attacks. It also contributes to heart and kidney failure. If you look at diabetics after a heart attack, a really high-risk group, nearly all who started out with the most TMAO in their bloodstream went on to develop heart failure within 2,000 days, or about five years. In comparison, only about 20 percent of those starting out with medium TMAO levels in the blood went into heart failure and none at all in the low TMAO group, as you can see at 1:21 in my video.

So, those with heart failure have higher levels of TMAO than controls, and those with worse heart failure have higher levels than those with lesser stage heart disease. If you follow people with heart failure over time, within six years, half of those who started out with the highest TMAO levels were dead. This finding has since been replicated in two other independent populations of heart failure patients.

The question is, why? It’s probably unlikely to just be additional atherosclerosis, since that takes years. For most who die of heart failure, their heart muscle just conks out or there’s a fatal heart rhythm. Maybe TMAO has toxic effects beyond just the accelerated buildup of cholesterol.

What about kidney failure? People with chronic kidney disease are at a particularly “increased risk for the development of cardiovascular disease,” thought to be because of a diverse array of uremic toxins. These are toxins that would normally be filtered out by the kidneys into the urine but may build up in the bloodstream as kidney function declines. When we think of uremic toxins, we usually think of the toxic byproducts of protein putrefying in our gut, which is why specially formulated plant-based diets have been used for decades to treat chronic kidney failure. Indeed, those who eat vegetarian diets form less than half of these uremic toxins.

Those aren’t the only uremic toxins, though. TMAO, which, as we’ve discussed, comes from the breakdown of choline and carnitine found mostly in meat and eggs, may be increasing heart disease risk in kidney patients as well. How? “The cardiovascular implication of TMAO seems to be due to the downregulation of reverse cholesterol transport,” meaning it subverts our own body’s attempts at pulling cholesterol out of our arteries.

And, indeed, the worse our kidney function gets, the higher our TMAO levels rise, and those elevated levels correlate with the amount of plaque clogging up their arteries in their heart. But once the kidney is working again with a transplant, your TMAO levels can drop right back down. So, TMAO was thought to be a kind of biomarker for declining kidney function—until a paper was published from the Framingham Heart Study, which found that “elevated choline and TMAO levels among individuals with normal renal [kidney] function predicted increased risk for incident development of CKD,” chronic kidney disease. This suggests that TMAO is both a biomarker and itself a kidney toxin.

Indeed, when you follow kidney patients over time and assess their freedom from death, those with higher TMAO, even controlling for kidney function, livedsignificantly shorter lives, as you can see at 4:44 in my video. This indicates this is a diet-induced mechanism for progressive kidney scarring and dysfunction, “strongly implying the need to focus preventive efforts on dietary modulation,” but what might that look like? Well, maybe we should reduce “dietary sources of TMAO generation, such as some species of deep-sea fish, eggs, and meat.”

It also depends on what kind of gut bacteria you have. You can feed a vegan a steak, and they still don’t really make any TMAO because they haven’t been fostering the carnitine-eating bacteria. Researchers are hoping, though, that one day, they’ll find a way to replicate “the effects of the vegetarian diet…by selective prebiotic, probiotic, or pharmacologic therapies.”

For more on this revolutionary TMAO story, see:

For more on kidney failure, see Preventing Kidney Failure Through Diet and Treating Kidney Failure Through Diet.

In health,

Michael Greger, M.D.

Cervical Health Awareness

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The most common advice on reducing the risk of cervical cancer is centered around a healthy lifestyle, with three major components:

1. Screening

Regular screenings can catch pre-cancerous changes early on, which can be “treated before they have a chance to turn into cancer”. The American Cancer Society reports that cervical cancer is  “most frequently diagnosed in women between the ages of 35 and 44”, recommending that women in that age range have both PAP and HPV tests every five years. Women ages 21 to 29 should have a PAP test every three years and tested for HPV only after an abnormal PAP test result. Both tests can be done in a doctor’s office or clinic. 

  • The Pap test (or Pap smear) looks for precancers, cell changes on the cervix that might become cervical cancer if they are not treated appropriately.
  • The HPV test looks for the virus (human papillomavirus) that can cause these cell changes.
2. Healthy Diet

Eating a diet rich in fruits and vegetables helps to reduce the risk of cervical and other cancers. Opt for fruits and vegetables abundant in the following vitamins and nutrients:

Beta-carotene is an “anti-oxidant that becomes vitamin A in the body” and is what gives orange and yellow veggies their vibrant color. Go for winter squash, carrots and sweet potatoes.

Lycopene belongs to the same carotenoid family as beta-carotene, so again fruits and veggies with lively pink, orange and yellow hues like watermelon, pink grapefruit and fresh tomatoes.

Folate is a B vitamin that promotes reproductive health and is plentiful in lentils, oranges and romaine lettuce.

Flavonoids “have been shown to exhibit anti-inflammatory, antithrombogenic, antidiabetic, anticancer and neuroprotective activities. Foods such as apples, asparagus, Brussel sprouts, cabbage, onions and garlic are abundant in flavonoids.

3. Exercise

Physical activity promotes a better quality of life by keeping the body moving, thus strengthening muscles, joints and bones; increasing oxygen and blood flow; and improving mental health. In terms of cancer prevention, the recommended general physical activity guidelines are at least 150 minutes of moderate exercise or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise a week.

References
  1. American Cancer Society: https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cervical-cancer/about/key-statistics.
  2. Everyday Health: https://www.everydayhealth.com/cervical-cancer/prevention.aspx
  3. Oregon State University, Linus Pauling Institute: Here’s Why Exercise Is Crucial in Preventing, Treating Cancer
  4. The Gerson Institute https://gerson.org/gerpress/

A New Way to Detect Breast Cancer

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Not long before Mihir Shah was to be married in 2007, his soon-to-be mother-in-law got a diagnosis of breast cancer. She underwent chemotherapy and survived, wearing a wig to the wedding. But while the women in Mr. Shah’s family — in both India and the United States — were able to get breast cancer screening, it made him think of the millions who weren’t as fortunate.

More than 90 percent of women in the developing world don’t have access to early detection of breast cancer. One reason is that mammograms, the gold-standard screening technique, are rarely used because of their high cost and a lack of trained radiologists. India has one radiologist for every 100,000 people; the United States has 12.

Then there are logistical challenges like a lack of electricity and poor roads. Many people are not aware of cancer, and the disease still carries a stigma.

Read on – nyti.ms/2BT0ap3

Coffee: Who and What To Believe?

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Check these studies out. The first says 3-4 cups of coffee a day reduces the risk of endometrial cancer, which is the most common cancer of the female reproductive organs in the US, affecting around 1 in 37 women in their lifetime. Then the second one says, 4 cups a day is linked to early death. The third claims that the risk of suicide for adults who drank between 2-4 cups of coffee each day was 50% lower when compared with adults who drank decaffeinated coffee, very little or no coffee.

Study links coffee intake with reduced risk of endometrial cancer
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/288988.php

Four cups of coffee a day linked to risk of early death
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/264778.php?sr

Drinking coffee linked to lower suicide risk in adults
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/263962.php

I’m not a huge coffee drinker, but when I do indulge in a cup it’s when I’m totally exhausted and need a quick pick me up. On average, I drink about 2-3 cups a month, and I even go without it for months on end. What will my faith be? Should I start drinking coffee to prevent early death or even suicide?

There are many research studies about coffee consumption, and they can be extremely confusing. One have to wonder what and who to believe? Especially, who’s funding them. I believe in moderation. Too much of one thing is never good for anyone.

More reading:
Coffee and Cancer
Coffee and Health
9 Facts About Coffee That Will Impress Your Friends
Photo credit: Shutterstock

Cruciferous Vegetables

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Cruciferous vegetables—cabbages, cauliflower, broccoli rabe—contain a powerful range of disease fighters. One particular hero, sulforaphane, may increase enzymes that lower the incidence of colon and lung cancers.

A study published in the August 2003 issue of the International Journal of Cancer suggests that eating lots of cruciferous vegetables may provide a significant survival advantage for women diagnosed with ovarian cancer. One of the most aggressive cancers, ovarian cancer claims the lives of 14,000 American women each year.

Try this recipe: Red cabbage, carrots, vegan mayo and almond slices.

Heartburn Poses Cancer Risk

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Researchers studied heartburn incidence and medication use in 631 patients with squamous cell cancers of the throat and vocal cords who were not heavy smokers or drinkers, matching them with 1,234 healthy controls. The study was published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.

After controlling for age, sex, race, smoking, alcohol consumption, HOV 16 infection, education and body mass index, they found that people who had reported a history of frequent heartburn were 78 percent more likely to have cancer than those who did not.

Those with frequent heartburn who took antacids reduced their risk for cancer by 41 percent, compared with those whose heartburn was untreated.

“We have confirmed that heartburn is an independent risk factor, and standard antacid treatment of heartburn may reduce the risk of throat cancer,” said the lead author, Scott M. Langevin, an assistant professor of the University of Cincinnati.


There was no reduced risk among those taking classes of drugs known as proton pump inhibitors (Prilosec and others) or histamine H2 receptor antagonists (Zantac, for example) – but this may be because people taking such drugs are likely to have the most severe cases of acid reflux, and not because those drugs are ineffective, the researchers said.

Source:
New York Times, Tuesday, May 28, 2013 Science Times Well Section
Image: GETTY
Article by: Nicholas Bakalar

Top 12 Tips to Prevent Cancer

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According to Dr. Mercola these are the top 12 tips to reduce your chances of getting CANCER.

1). Reduce or eliminate your processed food, sugar/fructose and grain carbohydrate intake. This applies to whole unprocessed organic grains as well, as they tend to rapidly break down and drive your insulin and leptin levels up, which is the last thing you need to have happening if you are seeking to resolve or prevent cancer.

2). Consider reducing your protein levels to one gram per kilogram of lean body weight. It would be unusual for most adults to need more than 100 grams of protein and most likely close to half that.

3). Control your fasting insulin and leptin levels. This is the end result you’ll get when you remove sugars and grains from your diet and start to exercise regularly. Your levels can be easily monitored with the use of simple and relatively inexpensive blood tests.
Normalize your ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fats by taking a high-quality krill oil and reducing your intake of most processed vegetable oils.

4). Get regular exercise. One of the primary reasons exercise works is that it drives your insulin levels down. Controlling insulin levels is one of the most powerful ways to reduce your cancer risks.

5). The trick about exercise, though, is understanding how to use it as a precise tool. This ensures you are getting enough to achieve the benefit, not too much to cause injury, and the right variety to balance your entire physical structure and maintain strength and flexibility, and aerobic and anaerobic fitness levels. If you have limited time Peak Fitness exercises are your best bet but ideally you should have a good strength training program as well.

6). Normalize your vitamin D levels by getting appropriate sun exposure, and consider careful supplementation when this is not possible. However, if you’re taking oral vitamin D, you also need to make sure you’re taking vitamin K2 as well, as K2 deficiency is actually what produces the symptoms of vitamin D toxicity, which includes inappropriate calcification that can lead to hardening of your arteries. To learn more, please see my previous article: What You Need to Know About Vitamin K2, D and Calcium. If you take oral vitamin D and have cancer, it would be very prudent to monitor your vitamin D blood levels regularly.

7). Get regular, good sleep.

8). Reduce your exposure to environmental toxins like pesticides, household chemical cleaners, synthetic air fresheners and air pollution.

9). Limit your exposure and provide protection for yourself from radiation produced by cell phones, towers, base stations, and WiFi stations.

10). Avoid frying or charbroiling your food. Boil, poach or steam your foods instead.

11). Have a tool to permanently reprogram the neurological short-circuiting that can activate cancer genes. Even the CDC states that 85 percent of disease is caused by emotions. It is likely that this factor may be more important than all the other physical ones listed here, so make sure this is addressed. My particular favorite tool for resolving emotional challenges, as you may know, is the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT).

12). Eat at least one-third of your food raw. Juicing your vegetables is the best way to consume veggies.

Consider adding cancer-fighting whole foods, herbs, spices and supplements to your diet, such as broccoli, curcumin and resveratrol. To learn more about how these anti-angiogenetic foods, and many others, work to fight cancer, please see my previous article: Dramatically Effective New Natural Way to Starve Cancer and Obesity.

Sources:
Vitamin D Levels Lower in African American’s
Prevent Cancer

Vitamin D Levels Lower in African-Americans, Research Finds

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ScienceDaily (Jan. 19, 2011) — African-American women had lower vitamin D levels than white women, and vitamin D deficiency was associated with a greater likelihood for aggressive breast cancer, according to data presented at the Third AACR Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities.

“We know that darker skin pigmentation acts somewhat as a block to producing vitamin D when exposed to sunlight, which is the primary source of vitamin D in most people,” said Susan Steck, Ph.D., M.P.H., associate professor of epidemiology at the University of South Carolina.

Steck and colleagues observed 107 women who were all diagnosed with breast cancer in the previous five years. Sixty of these women were African-American, while the remaining 47 were white.

All women donated a blood sample, and vitamin D status was determined using circulating 25 hydroxyvitamin D levels as a marker. The mean serum concentration of vitamin D was 29.8 ng/ml in white women and 19.3 ng/ml in African-American women.

Researchers defined vitamin D deficiency as a serum concentration less than 20 ng/ml, and found this to be the case in 60 percent of African-American women compared with 15 percent of white women. Serum levels were lowest among patients with triple-negative breast cancer, and aggressive disease was eight times more likely among patients with vitamin D deficiency.

Steck said the findings of this study provide a foundation for a possible prevention strategy, but further research would be required.

Recourses:
American Association for Cancer Research (2011, January 19). Vitamin D levels lower in African-Americans, research finds. ScienceDaily. Retrieved December 3, 2012, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2010/10/101003081631.htm

Research: Curcumin Is A Triple Negative Breast Cancer Killer

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A former model named Jessica Richards’ battled with cancer. In her book The Topic of Cancer, Richards explains how following a strict metabolic diet and receiving high-dose intravenous (IV) injections of vitamin C has helped successfully reverse the progression of her breast cancer, to the shock of many conventional doctors. Vitamin C is natural and there’s a lot of controversy surrounding it with the FDA because they’re not able to patent it. Why? It’s natural! They cannot make billions off of it. Now, I’m a believer in healing the body with food and this is a remarkable story.

I came across a study on Curcumin conducted by Xiao-Dong Sun, Xing-E Liu and Dong-Sheng Huang in China that I had to share it with you all. I’m amazed whenever I see studies like these that utilizes natural spices, fruits, and vegetables to heal our body of aliments. Well if you didn’t know both the ancient Chinese and Indians system of medicine have recognized curcumin’s beneficial properties for thousands of years, and now modern research is showing it may be one of nature’s most powerful potential healers.

In this study the compound found in turmeric known as curcumin, which gives the spice its characteristic saffron-like color, is capable of inducing programmed cell death (apoptosis) within triple negative breast cancer cells. For those suffering through or recovering from treatment right now, or trying to decide what to do with a new diagnosis, this latest Chinese study is promising. This spice can be used in many recipes and it’s very delicious.


This is what it looks like when it’s uprooted, dried, and then pounded into a powder form.

In India where turmeric is widely used, the prevalence of four common U.S. cancers — colon, breast, prostate and lung — is 10 times lower. In fact, prostate cancer, which is the most frequently diagnosed cancer in U.S. men, is rare in India and this is attributed, in part, to the curcumin in turmeric.

Numerous studies have looked into this potential cancer-fighting link, with promising results. For instance, curcumin has been found to:

Inhibit the proliferation of tumor cells
Inhibit the transformation of cells from normal to tumor
Help your body destroy mutated cancer cells so they cannot spread throughout your body
Decrease inflammation
Enhance liver function
Inhibit the synthesis of a protein thought to be instrumental in tumor formation
Prevent the development of additional blood supply necessary for cancer cell growth
And according to researchers from the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, curcumin blocks a key biological pathway needed for development of melanoma and other cancers.

The spice actually stops laboratory strains of melanoma from proliferating and pushes the cancer cells to commit suicide by shutting down nuclear factor-kappa B (NF-kB), a powerful protein known to induce abnormal inflammatory response that leads to an assortment of disorders such as arthritis and cancer.

To get the full benefits that curcumin has to offer, you will want to look for a turmeric extract with at least 95% curcuminoids that contains only 100% certified organic ingredients.

For many this is a more convenient method to obtain the potential health benefits, especially if it is from a high-quality organic source, and also if you don’t particularly enjoy the taste of curry. As an aside, curcumin is not only beneficial for osteoarthritis … research is also emerging showing it may play a beneficial role in the following diseases:

Cystic fibrosis
Type 2 diabetes
Crohn’s disease
Psoriasis
Rheumatoid arthritis
Cataracts
Gallstones
Muscle regeneration
Inflammatory bowel disease

I use curry and turmeric to cook with all the time for my family. We love the taste and it’s very healthy for you as you can see here.

If you are able to find turmeric rhizomes in the grocery store, you can make your own fresh turmeric powder by drying and then grinding it into a fine consistency.

Resources

More on tumeric – http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginfo/natural/662.html
Osteoporosis – http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21194249
http://www.ift.org/food-technology/daily-news/2011/january/11/curcumin-may-relieve-pain-inflammation-for-osteoarthritis-patients.aspx
Alzheimer disease – http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18204357?dopt=Abstract
Anti -inflmmatory – http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12067569?dopt=Abstract
Chinese Study –http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23023821

When’s the Last Time You Spent Time in the Sun?

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This is an important question to answer, because vitamin D from sun exposure is the best way to optimize your vitamin D levels and thereby reduce your risk of a wide range of diseases. 

Unfortunately, it’s been suggested that only about 30 percent of Americans’ circulating vitamin D is the product of sunlight exposure, which is an unfortunate byproduct of public health agencies’ misguided advice to stay out of the sun to avoid cancer (when in fact vitamin D from sun exposure will prevent cancer). Another obvious reason is the majority of us work indoors, and when not working, do not spend enough time enjoying outdoor recreation.

Occasional sunlight exposure to your face and hands is insufficient for vitamin D nutrition for most people. To optimize your levels, you need to expose large portions of your skin to the sun, and you may need to do it for more than a few minutes. And, contrary to popular belief, the best time to be in the sun for vitamin D production is actually as near to solar noon as possible. Ultraviolet light from the sun comes in two main wavelengths — UVA and UVB. It’s important for you to understand the difference between them, and your risk factors from each.

First there is UVB, the healthy wavelengths that help your skin produce vitamin D. Then there is UVA, which is generally considered the unhealthy wavelengths because they penetrate your skin more deeply and cause more free radical damage. Not only that, but UVA rays are quite constant during ALL hours of daylight, throughout the entire year — unlike UVB, which are low in morning and evening, and high at midday.

So to use the sun to maximize your vitamin D production and minimize your risk of skin damage, the middle of the day (roughly between 10:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m.) is the best and safest time. During this UVB-intense period you will need the shortest sun exposure time to produce the most vitamin D.

As far as the optimal length of exposure, you only need enough to have your skin turn the lightest shade of pink. This may only be a few minutes for those who have very pale skin.

Once you have reached this point your body will not make any additional vitamin D and any further exposure will only result in damage to your skin. Most people with fair skin will max out their vitamin D production in just 10-20 minutes, or, again, when their skin starts turning the lightest shade of pink. Some will need less, others more. The darker your skin, the longer exposure you will need to optimize your vitamin D production.  If sun exposure is not an option a vitamin D3 supplement can be taken orally.

Research published by Grassroots Health from the D*Action study shows the average adult needs to take 8,000 IU’s of vitamin D per day in order to elevate their levels above 40 ng/ml, which they believe is the absolute minimum for disease prevention.

Important: Your Serum Level is what Really Matters

While 8,000 IU’s of vitamin D3 per day is a general recommendation that appears to be beneficial for most people, vitamin D experts from around the world are in agreement that the most important factor is your vitamin D serum level. There’s no specific dosage level at which “magic” happens. So the take-home message is that you need to take whatever dosage required to obtain a therapeutic level of vitamin D in your blood.

At the time (in 2007) the recommended level was 40-60 nanograms per milliliter (ng/ml). Since then, the optimal vitamin D level has been raised to 50-70 ng/ml, and when treating cancer or heart disease, as high as 70-100 ng/ml.

 

 

References: