Mercury was found in nearly 50 percent of tested samples of commercial high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), according to a new article published today in the scientific journal, Environmental Health.

A separate study by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) detected mercury in nearly one-third of 55 popular brand name food and beverage products where HFCS is the first or second highest labeled ingredient—including products by Quaker, Hershey’s, Kraft and Smucker’s. HFCS use has skyrocketed in recent decades as the sweetener has replaced sugar in many processed foods. HFCS is found in sweetened beverages, breads, cereals, breakfast bars, lunch meats, yogurts, soups and condiments.

On average, Americans consume about 12 teaspoons per day of HFCS. Consumption by teenagers and other high consumers can be up to 80 percent above average levels. “Mercury is toxic in all its forms,” said IATP’s David Wallinga, M.D., and a co-author in both studies. “Given how much high fructose corn syrup is consumed by children, it could be a significant additional source of mercury never before considered. We are calling for immediate changes by industry and the FDA to help stop this avoidable mercury contamination of the food supply.” In the Environmental Health article, Dufault et al. found detectable levels of mercury in nine of 20 samples of commercial HFCS.

Dufault was working at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration when the tests were done in 2005. She and co-authors conclude that possible mercury contamination of food chemicals like HFCS was not common knowledge within the food industry that frequently uses the sweetener. While the FDA had evidence that commercial HFCS was contaminated with mercury four years ago, the agency did not inform consumers, help change industry practice or conduct additional testing. For its report “Not So Sweet: Missing Mercury and High Fructose Corn Syrup,” IATP sent 55 brand-name foods and beverages containing HFCS as the first or second ingredient to a commercial laboratory to be tested for total mercury. Nearly one in three products tested contained detectable mercury.

Mercury was most prevalent in HFCS- containing dairy products, followed by dressings and condiments. In making HFCS, caustic soda is used, among other things, to separate corn starch from the corn kernel. For decades, HFCS has been made using mercury-grade caustic soda produced in industrial chlorine (chlor-alkali) plants. The use of mercury cells to produce caustic soda can contaminate caustic soda, and ultimately HFCS, with mercury. “The bad news is that nobody knows whether or not their soda or snack food contains HFCS made from ingredients like caustic soda contaminated with mercury,” said Dr. Wallinga. “The good news is that mercury-free HFCS ingredients exist. Food companies just need a good push to only use those ingredients.”

While most chlorine plants around the world have switched to newer, cleaner technologies, many still rely on the use of mercury cells. In 2005, 90 percent of chlorine production was mercury-free, but just 40
percent of European production was mercury-free. Four U.S. chlor-alkali plants still rely on mercury cell technology. In 2007, then-Senator Barack Obama introduced legislation to force the remaining chlor-alkali
plants to phase out mercury cell technology by 2012.

• The Environmental Health article by Dufault et al. can be found at: www.ehjournal.net.
• “Not So Sweet: Missing Mercury and High Fructose Corn Syrup,” by David Wallinga, M.D., janelle Sorensen, Pooja Mottl and Brian Yablon, M.D., can be found at: www.iatp.org.

This is an article published in the January-February issue of Nexus Magazine that I found very interesting. It includes which considerations you should cover when implementing an alternative cancer therapy.

The Holistic Cancer Solution

The Holistic Cancer Solution

By Walter Last

The cause and cure of cancer is basically unknown, not only in conventional medicine but also in natural medicine. For decades, while working as a natural therapist and health writer, I continually tried to improve my understanding of what was really going on, and I am confident that the relevant pieces of the puzzle have now fallen into place.

Blocked Energy Production

The conventional view is that cancer originates in the cell nucleus due to random mutations or damage to the genetic material from radiation or toxic chemicals. This orthodox model sees the development of a tumor as a purely local event in an otherwise healthy body. Therefore the aim is to catch it as early as possible, remove or destroy the tumor, and all should be well.

But reality is different. Unbiased investigations show that there is no real difference in conventionally treated and untreated cases (1). I suspect that honest statistics would even show chemotherapy to shorten lives. Why then do some patients survive conventional treatment?

The answer is that some tumors just have a tendency to spread and others remain harmless whether treated or untreated. Presently the focus is on detecting very small tumors many of which would never develop into cancer and form metastases but in statistics they are counted as cured cancers.  When cancer does spread then there is generally no conventional treatment that really works. Recognizing this, statistics are commonly expressed as five-year survival rates. All this shows that the medical model of cancer is either incomplete or wrong.

The German cancer researcher Dr Paul Gerhard Seeger (2) demonstrated already in 1938 that in most cases cancer starts in the cytoplasm, the jelly-like outer part of the cell, and especially in the energy-producing mitochondria. Here food fragments are normally oxidized in a series of enzymatic steps called the ‘respiratory chain’. Seeger showed that in cancer cells this respiratory chain was more or less blocked, especially at the site of the important enzymes cytochrome oxidase. Without it the cell can produce energy only anaerobically like a fungal cell. This is very inefficient and the resulting overproduction of lactic acid makes the cell and the whole body overacid.

Seeger and others found that cancer cells utilize only between 5 and 50% of the oxygen of normal cells. Furthermore, the virulence of cancer cells is directly proportional to their loss of oxygen utilization, and with this to the degree of blockage of the respiratory chain. In 1957 Seeger successfully transformed normal cells into cancer cells within a few days by introducing chemicals that blocked the respiratory chain.

Further experiments showed that cancer cells of low virulence could easily be overcome by the immune system but those with high virulence prevailed and continued to spread. Following this, Seeger made his most important discovery: thousands of experiments revealed that certain nutrients, mainly from the vegetable kingdom, could restore cellular respiration in low-virulence cancer cells and, with this, transform them back into normal cells.

Seeger’s finding that cancer originates in the cytoplasm and not in the nucleus was confirmed by other researchers.  Between 1975 and 1977 they repeated an experiment 93 times in which they replaced the nucleus of a fertilized mouse egg with the nucleus of a cancer cell. In each case the egg developed into a healthy, cancer-free mouse and even the offspring remained cancer-free. Similar results were achieved with frog eggs (2).

The Budwig Therapy

Dr Johanna Budwig (3), a German biochemist and fat researcher, confirmed the work of Seeger on a practical level. In the 1950’s she developed a simple paper chromatography test that shows the blocked respiratory chain of cancer patients as a slow yellow-green spot.

By using liberal amounts of high-quality linseed or flaxseed oil and the sulfur-amino acids cysteine and methionine, the yellow-green spot disappeared, the respiratory chain was reactivated, tumors commonly disappeared and cancer patients recovered. The main food providing sulfur amino acids was low-fat quark, a traditional form of cottage cheese made from fermented raw milk, and she specified that all foods must be “as natural as possible”.

In the final stages of oxidative energy production electrons derived from food are being made to flow along a bridge consisting of an essential fatty acid (EFA) and a cysteine-containing molecule to form carbon dioxide and water. This bridge becomes blocked at the cytochrome oxidase stage by metabolic and microbial wastes and toxins. With this the cell reverts to a fungal type of energy production which is the precondition for the growth of a tumor. Repairing this blocked bridge with a clean cysteine-EFA replacement allows the electrons to flow again and the cell to revert to normality.

The type of metabolic waste that Budwig found to block the respiratory chain were mainly unbiological fats containing trans-fatty acids as from commercial polyunsaturated oils, chemically hardened fats such as margarine and mayonnaise, and saturated fats from grain-fed animals, and in addition synthetic anti-oxidant preservatives added to processed food to prevent rancidity.

To replace these faulty parts efficiently it is important to provide both ingredients sulfur amino acids and EFA’s, in relatively high amounts at the same meal without much interference from other fatty acids, but additional lecithin is beneficial. Methionine, another sulfur amino acid, is also useful in food as it can be converted to cysteine inside the body but it is not suitable as a high-dose supplement.

Budwig wrote that beneficial results, such as increased energy, can often be observed within days or weeks, while tumors may start shrinking after several months. Furthermore, also worm-like microbes (Canceroben) that she observed in red blood cells and blood serum gradually disappeared.

But there are also problems with the Budwig therapy that caused me to hold back in the past. The Budwig diet is very high in milk products, which cause digestive problems or allergic reactions with many individuals. Also we know now that milk contains the growth factor IGF-1 which appears to promote tumor growth, especially in hormone-sensitive cancers.

Furthermore, like Budwig I only regard raw or unheated milk products as healthy, and the sale of healthy milk products is illegal in many highly medicalized countries such as Australia and most of the US.

Budwig supposedly had a 90% success rate with her therapy but that was with a high amount of fermented and raw organic products, and generally with patients who traditionally used a diet high in milk products. I am not aware of the success rate when using commercial non-organic and pasteurized cottage cheese but I believe that it will be much lower than Budwig’s results.

The presence of IGF-1 apparently did not affect Budwig’s results. This means when the conditions for tumor growth are removed, then IGF-1 is no longer a problem. It also helps that IGF-1 and lactose remain mainly in the whey, and may be discarded.

Budwig did not seem to pay much attention to the fact that not only quark but also other recommended food items in her diet such as buttermilk, fresh raw milk, fermented sauerkraut, and soaked grains provide plenty of beneficial bacteria to sanitize the intestines. I regard this as an essential part of her therapy.

While there are many glowing testimonials, one story in particular highlights a serious problem with the Budwig protocol. A US prostate cancer patient had a personal consultation with Dr Budwig in 2000 (she died in 2003 aged 95). All was well until he had a heart attack six years later. This was not supposed to happen on the Budwig program which this patient still tried to follow, although with American cottage cheese rather than German quark (4).

I believe some flaws in the Budwig approach contributed to this. While it is a plus in cancer therapy that the Budwig diet is low in pro-inflammatory phosphorus, it is rather high in calcium but low in magnesium. This is problematic with many conditions and especially with arteriosclerosis. Also contributing to this may have been calcifying nanobacteria because Budwig did not have an antimicrobial therapy available (5).

Furthermore, Budwig discouraged the use of vitamin E as protection of EFA’s from oxidation. Therefore individuals generally had a high level of unprotected EFA’s in the blood. If they then were exposed to oxidizing influences, such as car exhaust, active or passive smoking, and especially chlorinated tap water, then that could cause much internal auto-oxidation. Chlorinated drinking water has been shown to strongly promote atherosclerosis and heart attacks (6).

To counter these effects I would avoid using milk, buttermilk and whey as additions to quark as all of these are high in calcium; instead I recommend a high level of additional magnesium. Furthermore, I would also squeeze natural vitamin E oil into newly opened bottles of flaxseed oil. Contrary to some expressed fears natural vitamin E does not interfere with the respiratory chain.

Budwig also reported a rather unsettling feature of her therapy. She warned that even after tumors and metastases have disappeared, if someone starts again habitually eating processed meat, restaurant food, or other food with preservatives and synthetic antioxidants, there tends to be a sudden proliferation of the Canceroben (cancer microbes). These patients may then die within weeks and no amount of cysteine and flaxseed oil will help anymore. After about 5 years it is less dangerous to gradually introduce less healthy foods.

This brings us to the role of cancer microbes which I believe is one of the missing parts in the Budwig therapy. Budwig did not regard the Canceroben as important in the cause and cure of cancer but I do.

The Cancer Microbe

From time to time I found references stating that cancerous tumors can be dissolved by infusion of blood from young and healthy individuals, but not with blood from older individuals or from anyone with cancer (7). This shows that cancer has much to do with vitality and the immune system.

Many independent researchers have reported the proliferation of certain pleomorphic (shape-changing) microbes in the blood and tumors of all cancer patients (8). One of the first was the German professor of microbiology Guenther Enderlein who described in 1925 the different stages of a microbe that is normally present as tiny colloidal protein units. In various degenerative diseases, especially cancer, these protein units grow into cocci and higher bacterial forms and finally into fungi.

Before him, in the nineteenth century, the French professor Antoine Bechamp had already described similar microbes and called them microzymas. In 1890 the Scottish pathologist William Russell also discovered the cancer microbe, and a form of it is still presently known as Russell bodies in tumors.

Independently, mostly without knowing of each other’s work, several other researchers – Royal Rife, Wilhelm Reich, Virginia Livingston-Wheeler, Alan Cantwell and Gaston Naessens – have described the same phenomenon. Orthodoxy, however, has a dogma that says microbes always have the same form and cannot change from viruses into bacteria and fungi. This is because orthodox microbiologists commonly observe dead stained microbes in dead tissue, or live ones for short periods, instead of live microbes in live tissue at high magnification over long periods.

Anyway, this microbe, generally called the cancer microbe, appears to do much of the damage attributed to malignant tumors. It badly weakens the immune system and makes it incapable of fighting cancer cells. Toxins released by advanced forms of this microbe cause the characteristic sickening odor as in terminal cancer and cause wasting in experimental animals, just as in terminal cancer. If injected into animals, this microbe and its toxins cause cancer.

Several of these researchers found ways to destroy or control the cancer microbe, which often led to a cure or remission of the disease.  The cancer microbe generally begins to proliferate with a decline in health and vitality. It appears to originate from breakdown products of diseased body cells. The unhealthier the body becomes, the more it develops from the mycoplasma stage into bacterial and fungal forms.

By weakening the immune system and the metabolism it prepares the way for the development of cancer. Toxins released by the cancer microbe may also interfere directly with the respiratory chain.

Two factors that greatly contribute to the rise of the cancer microbe are dead teeth and overgrowth of the intestines with harmful microbes. Dead teeth have become a major problem because of root-canal treatments. The dead roots and the surrounding jawbone commonly become concentrated breeding grounds of harmful anaerobic microbes, releasing a steady stream of toxins into the circulation (9).

Overgrowth of the gastro-intestinal tract with harmful microbes has the same effect on an even larger scale, and is a main cause of devastating the immune system, frequently resulting in autoimmune diseases and Candida-related problems (10).

Therefore, in addition to regenerating the respiratory chain we need to eliminate most of the microbes that poison the body and incapacitate the immune system. We start doing this by removing the main sources of microbial infestations, their home base, by sanitizing the gastro-intestinal tract and, after sufficient cleansing and while using strong antimicrobials, removing any dead teeth.

Sanitizing the gastro-intestinal tract involves killing harmful bacteria and fungi with a dose of a suitable microbicide, and before ingesting any carbohydrates using a high dose of probiotics, preferably as a self-made ferment of lactobacteria.

Antimicrobial treatment requires strong remedies and needs to be done at least for several weeks. My favorites are sodium bicarbonate, high-dose iodine as Lugol’s solution or Iodoral for about 3 weeks followed by a further period on acidified sodium chlorite known as MMS (11). Also suitable are very high doses of wormwood and extract of pau d’arco or olive leaf, all strong fungicides. In addition a so-called electronic zapper and magnetic pulser may be used, and a variety of other antimicrobial remedies.

In addition the immune system may need to be improved with specific nutrients, especially selenium, zinc, magnesium, iodine and vitamin D (sunshine). Many others will be helpful, especially berries yielding a purple juice.

While some cancer patients claim to have been cured with antimicrobials as the main therapy, others were not so lucky. This is what creates the confusion when looking for the cause and cure of cancer, almost every method can claim some successes and has some failures. Nevertheless combining antimicrobial therapy with regeneration of the oxidative energy metabolism must rate very high in overcoming the biochemical causes of cancer.

Cleansing

In addition to the problems caused by microbial toxins, there is also the damage from exposure to toxic and unbiological chemicals in our food and environment. This greatly weakens the immune system, and Budwig as well as Seeger have shown that it is also a major cause for the blockage of the respiratory chain. Natural therapists are well aware of this aspect, and basically all natural cancer therapies stress cleansing and avoiding or minimizing contaminated and processed food.

Most of the successful older methods, such as the Gerson Therapy (12), the Grape Cure (13) or the Breuss Cure (14) rely almost exclusively on cleansing and clean living, while also using raw foods and nutrients with a good track record of overcoming cancer. The Grape Cure and Breuss Cure are semi-fasting methods and most suitable in the early stages of cancer when individuals still have a fair amount of weight and vitality. In contrast, the broader-based but also much more difficult Gerson Therapy has a good track record with advanced cancers.

Such methods of clean and natural living place a high value on organic, unprocessed, and raw food and juices high in vitality. While so far ridiculed by conventional medicine, a recent research paper revealed that three small servings of raw cruciferous vegetables per month, such as broccoli and cabbage, decreased the risk of developing bladder cancer by 40 percent. But if these vegetables were cooked than the anti-cancer effect was lost (15).

Also another cornerstone of cleansing was recently verified by medical research: it has been demonstrated that removing protein debris or damaged proteins from cells keeps aging organs young and healthy (16). Of course, the search is now on for a patentable drug to do this.

The basic importance of cleansing may be properly understood if we assume that the cancer microbe starts its rise as tiny protein plasmas out of the diseased protein sludge gradually accumulating inside cells. The more this sludge leads to higher bacterial and fungal forms the more the oxidative metabolism becomes blocked, and the more inflammation and general comfort arises in the body.

A raw cleansing diet high in chlorophyll is strongly alkalizing and this counteracts inflammation and pain. Commonly pain and inflammation disappear within about 3 days on a raw-food cleanse. In the short-term a strong alkalizing and pain-relieving effect can be achieved simply by taking bicarbonate. Temporarily half a teaspoon of bicarbonate may be taken up to seven times daily in water on an empty stomach or 2 to 3 hours after meals. As a general rule if there is pain alkalize the body.

Using antimicrobial therapy is necessary as a first step to keep the cancer microbe and other microbes and especially fungi under control. However, for a long-term solution microbial bases in intestines and teeth need to be cleared up, and in addition the protein sludge must be removed from cells. This is a slow process, and after a more intense initial cleanse there needs to be a long period of clean living.

What Causes Tumors?

There is still the unsolved question of what actually causes tumor development, and what is the underlying difference between benign and malignant tumors? All of the factors mentioned so far may be essential ingredients of cancer, but they apply also to autoimmune diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis, and to chronic fatigue syndrome. The cancer microbe is present in all of these, and Budwig expressly mentions diabetics and others as having the same blockage of the oxidative cellular energy production as cancer patients, and also recover when this is rectified.

There must be an additional factor at work in cancer as compared to autoimmune diseases, a factor that focuses a destructive influence on a specific small part of the body.  Basically all chronic degenerative diseases are associated with widespread chronic inflammation. This is an unsuccessful attempt of the immune system to eliminate the infective disease agent, the cancer microbe or diseased body cells.

If a disease-causing agent manifests in a very limited part of the body then there will be an inflammatory immune response only in this small area. This may happen if a group of cells becomes abnormal due to an accumulation of toxic chemicals, causing a local blockage of the respiratory chain, and possible infiltration by mycoplasma. If the immune system does not succeed in eliminating this threat then chronic inflammation with destruction of body cells result. This gradually leads to fibrosis with a tough fibroid wall surrounding the battlefield, and we have a tumor.

If the immune system is strong, the damage to the respiratory chain locally contained, no systemic problem with the cancer microbe, and any toxins safely stored away, then the inflammation around the tumor subsides and we have a benign or dormant tumor. However, if these factors are more severe then tumor cells have greatly reduced vitality, they divide abnormally, and if there is also a good blood supply then the tumor keeps growing. The cancer microbes inside the tumor become aggressive and, aided by high acidity and chronic inflammation, help the cancer cells to invade surrounding tissue.

If in addition the cancer microbe and other microbes are active throughout the body, and there is widespread damage to cellular respiration, then cancer cells being released from the tumor find fertile ground to become attached and grow in other parts of the body, we now have metastases. In a way we may compare cancerous tumors with mushrooms as both grow out of a widespread fungal root and support system. The tumor-mushrooms are relatively harmless; instead the root system and fungal overgrowth cause most of the damage. Finally the fungal forms of the cancer microbe poison the whole body. This is cachexia as the final stage of cancer.

Tumor Location

What causes a tumor to grow in a specific location, for instance in the left breast rather than in the right? This is a confusing subject because there can be different factors leading to the same result. The basic cause of a tumor is local toxicity and damage to the energy production, leading to a loss of vitality and abnormal fungus-like cell division.

Experimentally tumors can be caused in a specific location by injecting a suitable toxin into tissue such as a concentrated form of the cancer microbe or chemicals that block the respiratory chain. Another possibility is radiation frequently being beamed into the same location as from a mobile (cell) phone, or always sleeping in the same position over a beam of earth radiation from an underground stream, or from radiation treatment of an existing tumor.

Natural therapists working with electro-acupuncture diagnosis have developed a chart that shows energetic connections between specific tooth locations and specific organs or body parts on the same side of the body (17). If a tooth is dead as from root canal treatment, then this energy connection becomes disharmonious and the organ is stressed. In combination with a general presence of the cancer microbe and damaged energy production, this organ may now develop a tumor.

Another cause may be deficiency of a nutrient that is needed in high amounts at a certain location, such as zinc for the prostate gland, iodine for the thyroid, and manganese for the thymus. In combination with other aggravating factors such deficiencies may lead to tumors in these glands.

With breast cancer it has been shown that habitually wearing a tight bra greatly increases the risk (18). This is understandable from the principle of debris accumulating where the river flow slows down. In a similar way toxic chemicals will deposit in fatty breast tissue when the lymph circulation in this area is suppressed. Another question is why is one breast affected and not the other? The answer may be found at the emotional level.

Emotions and Cancer

Dr Budwig also addressed emotional issues with her patients. She wrote that she cannot help anyone with persisting emotional problems. I am convinced that her success was also greatly enhanced by the positive expectations of patients when consulting a famous therapist.

Another German, Dr Ryke Geerd Hamer linked different forms of cancer and tumor locations to specific kinds of emotional shock. Accordingly, a conflict shock concerning child, home or mother will affect the left breast, while conflict shock relating to a partner or others will affect the right breast (19).

Dr Hamer believes that most metastases or secondary tumors are caused by the cancer-fear or death-fear resulting from the patient being given the cancer diagnosis or a negative prognosis. The solution is to search for any emotional shock that may have triggered the cancer, and neutralize it with positive emotional changes.

The strong influence of fear can also be seen from an observation by the late medical clairvoyant and Theosophist Geoffrey Hodson. He described a woman who previously had a cancer operation on one breast now becoming fearful of cancer developing in the other breast.

The fear created a dense grey area in the aura over this breast with increasing pain and tumor growth, so that surgery was recommended. By cleansing the aura and replacing fear with a positive emotion the grey area gradually dissolved which then allowed the tumor and the pain to disappear as well. Hodson remarked that if surgery would have been performed, the cancer would most likely have returned (20).

Ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) is a generally harmless calcification in a breast that can occasionally develop into an invasive tumor. The preferred medical treatment is mastectomy. Despite this 1% of women get local recurrence of a malignancy and another 1% get distant metastases after mastectomy.

A research report found that women with DCIS are much more fearful of a malignant recurrence than is warranted (21. It requires a high amount of fear to have a harmless calcification recur as cancer after mastectomy, but these women must have had a lot of fear put into them to agree having a breast cut off in the first place.

With this we have a further important aspect of a comprehensive cancer therapy: reversing the lack of vitality in the affected organ due to fear. This can be done by refreshing a memory of joy or love, or imagining a situation that will cause such feelings, and then transfer this feeling to the affected organ. Practice this focus daily as a guided imagery in a state of relaxation or meditation.

A Rational Cancer Program

A rational cancer program will include the following aspects:

·   Immunotherapy – vigorous antimicrobial therapy and immune system support

·   Restoring the oxidative energy metabolism according to the Budwig principle

·   Cleansing and alkalizing, using natural food and unpolluted water

·   Daily guided imagery to bathe the affected organ in positive feelings

·   Trying to find and neutralize any emotional shock

·   Correcting any other conditions that may have contributed to cancer development

·   Supportive remedies and therapies

Direct tumor destruction as with Cansema/cancer salves (22) or sodium bicarbonate (23) is sometimes possible but should not be done in isolation but rather as part of a holistic program that includes immunotherapy, metabolic and emotional improvement as well as cleansing. For a program to implement these steps see my website (24). However, there are different ways of doing this, and in time we may come to a consensus on the best combination of remedies and treatments for different conditions.

Endnotes

(1) Last, W: How Scientific are Orthodox Cancer Treatments? NEXUS 2004, 11(4); also at http://www.health-science-spirit.com/cancerscience.html

(2) The only book available in English is Seeger, P.G. and S. Wolz: Successful biological control of cancer by combat against the causes. Neuwieder Verlagsgesellschaft, Neuwied, Germany 1990. The most important book is Seeger, P.G: Krebs – Problem ohne Ausweg? (“Cancer  – Problem without Solution?”) Verl. f. Medizin Fischer, Heidelberg, Germany 1974, 2nd ed 1988

(3)  Budwig, J: The most detailed information is at www.healingcancernaturally.com/budwig_protocol.html. Here you also find details of the 3 Budwig books that have been translated into English

(4) http://www.healingcancernaturally.com/dr-budwig-patient-consultation.html

(5) Mulhall, D: The Nanobacteria link to Heart Disease and Cancer. NEXUS 2005, 12(5)

(6) Price, J.M: Coronaries/Cholesterol/Chlorine. Alta Enterprises, US, 1969

(7) Scienceblog.com 30-06-2008: Cancer ‘cure’ in mice to be tested in humans http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/cancer-cure-mice-be-tested-humans-16786.html

(8) Cantwell, A: The Cancer Microbe. Aries Rising, Los Angeles 1990. Also see Cantwell, A: Do Tuberculosis-Type Bacteria Cause AIDS? NEXUS 2008; 15(5); and http://ariesrisingpress.com/ for more articles by Alan Cantwell

(9) Meinig, G.E: Root Canal Cover-Up. Bion Publ. 1993 www.ppnf.org/catalog/ppnf/Articles/Rootcanal.htm

(10) Truss, C.O: The Missing Diagnosis. Truss, Birmingham, AL, 1983, and Last, W: Candida and the Antibiotic Syndrome. http://www.health-science-spirit.com/candida.html, and Overcoming Candida at http://www.the-heal-yourself-series.com

(11) Last, W: The Ultimate Cleanse at http://www.health-science-spirit.com/ultimatecleanse.html

(12) Gerson, M: A Cancer Therapy: Results of 50 cases. First published Totality Books, CA 1958; also see www.gerson.org/

(13) Brandt, J: The Grape Cure. Ehret Literature Publ. Beaumont CA, first published 1928

(14) Breuss, R: The Breuss Cancer Cure. Alive Books, Burnaby, BC, 1995

(15) Adams, M: Raw Broccoli, Cabbage Slash Bladder Cancer Risk by 40 Percent; Cooking Destroys Benefits. http://www.naturalnews.com/023655.html

(16) Scienceblog.com 11-08-2008: Researchers correct decline in organ function associated with old age.http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/researchers-correct-decline-organ-function-associated-old-age-17120.html

(17) http://www.health-science-spirit.com/dental.html

(18) Singer, S.R. and S. Grismaijer: Dressed to Kill. Avery Press 1995; also see www.all-natural.com/bras.html

(19) The official English-language website of Dr Hamer is at http://www.newmedicine.ca; see also Last, W: The New Medicine of Dr Hamer. NEXUS 2003, 10 (5), and http://www.health-science-spirit.com/hamer.html

(20) Hodson, G: An Occult View of Health & Disease. Health Research, Mokelumne Hill, CA 1972

(21) Phend, C: Fears of Recurrence Linked to Anxiety After DCIS Diagnosis. http://www.medpagetoday.com/HematologyOncology/BreastCancer/tb/8334

(22) See www.health-science-spirit.com/cansema.html with suppliers listed at the end of this article

(23) Simoncini, T: Is the Cause of Cancer a Common Fungus? Nexus Magazine Vo. 14/5, 2007, also www.cancerfungus.com

(24) See the 8-part series Overcoming Cancer at http://www.health-science-spirit.com/diseases.html and the book Overcoming Cancer at http://www.the-heal-yourself-series.com

Recommended Reading:

• The Holistic Cancer Solution (Original Site)

Don’t forget to always read BioHermit’s Disclaimer Page whenever you visit this site

For the first time, the FDA has issued a warning that the mercury contained in silver dental fillings may pose neurological risks to children and pregnant women.

“Dental amalgams contain mercury, which may have neurotoxic effects on the nervous systems of developing children and fetuses,” reads a statement that has been added to the agency’s Web site. “Pregnant women and persons who may have a health condition that makes them more sensitive to mercury exposure, including individuals with existing high levels of mercury bioburden, should not avoid seeking dental care, but should discuss options with their health practitioner.”

The warning was one of the conditions that the FDA agreed to in settling a lawsuit filed by several consumer health groups.

“Gone, gone, gone are all of FDA’s claims that no science exists that amalgam is unsafe,” said Charles Brown, a lawyer for Consumers for Dental Choice, one of the plaintiffs.

“It’s a watershed moment,” said Michael Bender of the Mercury Policy Project, another plaintiff.

Mercury is a well-known neurotoxin that can cause cognitive and developmental problems, especially in fetuses and children. It can also cause brain and kidney damage in adults.

So-called dental amalgams, or fillings made with a mix of mercury and other metals, have been used since the 1800s. Although it is known that small amounts of mercury are vaporized (and can be inhaled) when the fillings are used to chew food, and though Canada, France and Sweden have all placed restrictions on the use of mercury fillings, the FDA has always insisted that amalgams are safe.

Dental amalgams are considered medical devices, regulated by the FDA.

Even the FDA’s new warning stops short of admitting that dental amalgams are dangerous for the general population. Instead, it focuses on the same population that has already been warned to limit mercury exposure by consuming less seafood: children and pregnant women. The FDA says it does not recommend that those who already have mercury fillings get them removed.

Millions of people have received amalgam fillings, although their popularity has dropped off in recent years. Currently, only 30 percent of dental fillings contain mercury – the rest are tooth-colored resin composites made from glass, cement and porcelain. These alternative fillings are more expensive and less durable than amalgam, however.

In 2002, the FDA began a regulatory review of amalgam that was expected to be complete within a few years. In 2006, with the review still incomplete, an independent FDA advisory panel of doctors and dentists rejected the agency’s position that there is no reason for concern about the use of amalgam. While the panel agreed that the majority of people receiving such fillings would not be harmed, panel members expressed concern for the health of certain sensitive populations, including children under the age of six.

The panel recommended that the FDA conduct further studies on the risks to children from dental amalgam, and that it consider a policy of informed consent for children and pregnant: that is, warning those groups of the risks associated with the fillings before installing them.

Part of the lawsuit centered on the FDA’s failure to respond to these recommendations in a timely fashion.

“This is your classic failure to act,” federal judge Ellen Segal Huvelle told the agency.

As part of the lawsuit settlement, the FDA must reach a final decision on the regulation of amalgam by July 28, 2009.

“This court settlement signals the death knell for mercury fillings,” Brown predicted.
But J.P. Morgan Securities analyst Ipsita Smolinski disagreed, saying that the FDA is unlikely to ban amalgam entirely

“We do believe that the agency will ask for the label to indicate that mercury is an ingredient in the filling, and that special populations should be exempt from such fillings, such as: nursing women, pregnant women, young children, and immunocompromised individuals,” Smolinski said.

David Gutierrez
Natural News
Wednesday, Dec 03, 2008

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Chemotherapy used to treat a patient’s cancer increases that patient’s chances of developing cancer later in life in tissue adjacent to the original cancer, new research by the Buck Institute for Age Research indicates which appears in Tuesday’s online version of PLoS Biology.

In response to DNA damage (as it occurs during chemotherapy) cells either age or self-destruct (apoptosis, programmed cell death) if the damage cannot be repaired. It is a self protective response against unrepairable DNA damage in which cells shut down and stop dividing. The phenomenon where normal differentiated cells lose the ability to divide is called Cellular senescence. But this new study found out that when the cells shut down when DNA damage cannot be repaired, they start spewing proteins into their surrounding environment that cause inflammation and sets up conditions that support the development of age-related diseases including, ironically, cancer.

The study has major implications for age and cancer research because it suggests that the cellular response that protects us from DNA damage (as it occurs during chemotherapy) can promote disease at the same time in the long run.

Cells with damaged DNA are at risk of becoming cancerous tumors. These DNA-damaged cells become senescent to prevent any divisions. Although cellular senescence can suppress tumor formation from damaged cells by blocking the cell division that underlies cancer growth, it has also been implicated in promoting cancer and other age-related diseases. To understand how this might happen, the study measured proteins that senescent human cells secrete into their local environment and found many factors associated with inflammation and cancer development.

Different types of cells secrete a common set of proteins when they senesce. This senescence-associated secretory phenotype occurs not only in cultured cells, but also in vivo in response to DNA-damaging chemotherapy. Normal cells that acquire a highly active mutant version of the RAS protein, which is known to contribute to tumor growth, undergo cellular senescence, and develop a very intense senescence-associated secretory phenotype, with higher levels of proteins secreted. Senescent cells promote the growth and aggressiveness of nearby precancerous or cancer cells, and cells with a more intense senescence-associated secretory phenotype do so more efficiently.

The study, which compared tissue samples from prostate cancer patients before and after chemotherapy, provides a cautionary note for younger patients who receive treatments that could promote the development of further cancers later in life.

“Chemotherapy is brutal – both normal and cancerous cells are forced into senescence, with resulting secretion of inflammatory factors that can produce flu-like symptoms during treatment,” Judith Campisi, a member of the study, said. She also said that the findings in the study help explain why cancer patients feel so sick when they get chemotherapy.

Current DNA-damaging chemotherapy focuses on cells that divide rapidly – affecting cancer cells as well as all dividing cells including cells in the alimentary canal and hair follicles. Chemotherapy is not only pro-aging, but also pro-cancer, due to the fact that it produces more senescent cells that the body can eliminate which create proteins that cause inflammation and cancer.

Recommended Reading:

• Buck study: Chemotherapy may promote development of cancer later in life
• Senescence-Associated Secretory Phenotypes Reveal Cell-Nonautonomous Functions of Oncogenic RAS and the p53 Tumor Suppressor
• One in Five Cancer Clinical Trials Is Published
• Cancer data: Burying bad news
• Another Reason to Stand Up to Chemotherapy: Censured Data
• Chemotherapy: Why You Should Resist It

Well, I’ll go straight to the point: if you have cancer you should absolutely avoid any kind of animal protein. For starters, meat and dairy products are high in fat and have no fiber. Study after study continue to show that animal-based diets stimulate and nurture certain types of cancers whereas plant-based diets provide cancer protection.

You should know by now that it is not necessary to depend on animal sources for your protein needs. Plant sources are equivalent in quality to animal sources, minus the contaminated elements of saturated fat, hormones, excess cholesterol, bacteria, viruses, pesticides, and numerous other harmful substances.

While fats and carbohydrates often suffer from bad press, protein has no such problems. In the public mind, protein is still the most important macro nutrient. In reality, protein must share the spotlight with fats and carbohydrates. Neither macro nutrient is more important than any other.

Like carbohydrates and lipids, proteins are made up of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen atoms, but they differ with them in that they also contain nitrogen atoms. Proteins are made up of chains of amino acids. When a protein enters the digestive tract, it cannot be absorbed until it has been broken down into its amino acid components. So when you ingest animal protein, your body has to break it down first, and then recompose the amino acids into proteins your body can use. You are, in fact, overwhelming your digestive system.

On top of it, some of the proteins we eat slip into our bloodstream from the intestine without being fully broken down into their amino acid parts. The remnants of these undigested proteins are treated as foreign invaders by our immune system, which sets into motion an autoimmune process that becomes self-destructive. Animal protein impairs your body’s immune system. You are, in fact, overwhelming your immune system.

The saturated fat in animal-based diets will alter the types of fatty acids available to tumor cells in a direction that increases their growth.

Animal protein causes the body to produce more IGF-1, a growth hormone, which in turn throws cell growth and removal systems out of whack, stimulating cancer development. Animal protein suppresses the production of essential vitamin D, an extremely powerful anticancer vitamin. Excessive calcium, as found in dairy products, also suppresses the production of vitamin D. Vitamin D is responsible for creating a wide variety of health benefits in the body. Low levels of vitamin D create an inviting environment for different cancers and other autoimmune diseases.

The ingestion of animal protein results in an increase in activity of liver microsomal mixed function oxidase enzymes, which increase tumor cell growth. It also increases estrogen levels, which affect the growth of hormone-related cancers.

Animal protein also affects the lack of digestive enzymes. Cancer cells are covered with a protein layer that makes them invisible to the immune system. The enzymes trypsin and chymotripsin are produced by the pancreas in order to digest animal protein. In addition to digesting animal protein, only these enzymes can dissolve the protein coating around cancer cells, which makes them visible to the immune system so they can be destroyed. Eating animal protein requires a large amount of pancreatic enzymes for digestion, which in turn creates a shortage that directly affects the capability of our bodies to fight cancer. Without enough pancreatic enzymes, cancer cells end up keeping their protein coat, remaining invisible, and starting to multiply. In contrast, pancreatic enzymes are not necessary to digest vegetable protein, making available to control cancer growth more effectively.

But maybe the strongest case has to do with the metabolic byproducts of digesting animal protein. The digestion of animal protein produces deoxycholic acid, a strong carcinogenic substance. Deoxycholic acid is converted by clostridia bacteria in our intestines into powerful carcinogens. Also, cooked meats carry polynuclear compounds such as benzopyrene, which is a known carcinogen. On top of it, many meats carry viruses that might be a cause for the development of certain cancers.

There is no other kind of protein source that has a more direct effect on cancer development than animal protein. And that includes all kinds of animal protein sources. There is little help to find a best animal protein among all, because they all contain fat, they are all void from fiber, ans they all contribute to cancer development. There is no distinction. Animal protein is the most carcinogenic substance we consume.

According to T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D., a Professor Emeritus of Nutritional Biochemistry at Cornell University and author of the book The China Study, in addition to animal protein causing cancer, it also fuels cancer that exists. So you can have a carcinogen in your body, but it doesn’t get “turned on” until you ingest animal flesh. Animal protein causes the carcinogen to grow and spread.

You are welcome to share this article with family and friends,
but don’t forget to include the web address.

Recommended Reading:

• How to Manage Carbohydrates to Defeat Cancer
• How to Manage Fats to Defeat Cancer
• Excess Body Fat Causes Cancer
• Eat to Live
• What to Eat if You Have Cancer
• Nature’s Cancer Fighting Foods

In my previous post about carbohydrates, I tried to give a general view on how to approach nutrition to fight cancer focusing on one of the three macro nutrients that makes up our diet. In this post I will try to give a general view on the intake of fats, what you should know about them, and what you can do to plan an effective cancer-fighting strategy.

Meet Your Fat

Fats are always complicated to explain and to comprehend mainly because they are not a single homogeneous group. Some fats are good, and some are bad. But things are not that simple. Some good fats can cause problems if taken in certain amounts and with a certain combination. When talking a bout fats, there are so many terms involved that making sense of the whole picture is despairing.

It’s almost impossible to skip the biochemistry of lipids to understand how they work. I will try to simplify this aspect as much as possible. Our bodies can manufacture all the fatty acids they need except for essential fatty acids (EFAs). There are two EFAs: linoleic acid (Omega-6) and linolenic acid (Omega-3). The body needs to get these acids from the diet.

Both EFAs are precursors to prostaglandins. Prostaglandins are hormones found in virtually all tissues and organs. They are synthesized in the cell from the essential fatty acids (EFAs) and, among many functions, they have the capability to regulate tumor growth. By varying the ration of EFAs, it is possible to manipulate prostaglandin synthesis and therefore affect tumor growth.

Amount of Fat

First of all, the total amount of fat in the diet is very important. Too much fat in the diet is linked with increased tumor growth. All fats are potentially harmful if eaten excessively, they stimulate the spread of cancer cells, and inhibit the immune system. When fat intake is decreased, the immune system activity increases. In hormone related cancers such as prostate or breast cancer a very low fat diet slows the spread of cancer cells.

During the 1950s, when Japan’s cancer rates were very low, fat intake represented less than 7% of the calories in the Japanese diet. In rural China, the average fat intake today is approximately 19% of daily calories. The China Study examined provinces with fat intakes ranging from 6 to 24% of calories and found that breast cancer was more common on those provinces at the higher part of the range. Today’s American Cancer Society recommendation of a 30% fat intake is simply too dangerous to follow.

When a high fat diet is followed, one of the most powerful natural forms of estrogen (Estradiol) is increased in the body by up to 30%. Many hormone related cancers like breast and prostate are fueled by estrogen. The higher the production of estrogen, the higher the stimulation of cancer proliferation. Simply put, on high-fat diets, estrogen levels increase; on low-fat diets, they decrease. In dozens of animal studies, a high-fat diet has been shown to stimulate the growth of cancers. Another study from the British Journal of Cancer showed that with a 15% low-fat diet, strictly followed for two years, estradiol levels lowered by 20%.

The Kind of Fat

The type of fat in the diet is also important. Diets that contain more linolenic acid (Omega-3) than linoleic acid (Omega-6) will slow tumor growth and increase immune system activity. Omega-6 promotes a type of hormone (prostaglandin E2) that stimulates cancer growth and reduces the ability of macrophages and natural killer cells to kill cancer cells and tumors. Linolenic acid (Omega-3) competes with Omega-6 fatty acid molecules for the same enzymes.

Udo Erasmus explains how literally all the processed fats we ingest not only decrease the healthy Omega-3s, but also alter their molecular structure becoming highly toxic for our health. Heat, hydrogenation, light, and oxygen produce chemically altered fat products that are toxic to our cells. Products altered by processing include margarine, shortenings, partially hydrogenated oils, deep-fried oils, refined and deodorized oils, cooking oils, oils exposed to light or oxygen during storage, oils fried in food preparation, and oils that have become rancid from exposure to air after opening. These fats kill people.

Terrorist Fats

You should absolutely avoid trans fats, meaning trans fatty acids or partially hydrogenated oils. Trans fatty acids may be one of the major causes of cancer. They become part of the cell’s wall (replacing cholesterol) making it rigid and sticky and forcing the cell to turn anaerobic (i.e. the first step to becoming cancerous) because of their inability to take in oxygen. Like refined salt, these fats also destroy the electrical charge of red blood cells, causing them to “stick” together.

Fat, by various mechanisms, makes the blood sticky.  The body converts fat into body fat quickly and easyly: 100 calories of ingested fat can be converted to 97 calories of body fat by burning a measly 3 calories. In digestion, fats are broken down and emulsified into small drops called chylomicrons. Different from other nutrients, such as glucose and amino acids, which are carried directly to the liver by the bloodstream, fats are absorbed into the lymphatic system, a slow-moving auxiliary circulation to the blood system. The lymphatic system bypasses the liver and empties the fat  into the blood at the heart level. Now, the heart pumps the fat throughout the body within the bloodstream. The bottom line: consuming an excessive amount of fat means a clogged lymphatic system and a bloodstream full of fat.

Once in your blood, fat coats the cells in the bloodstream and makes them bond together. The action of red blood cells clumping together and slowing the general circulation is called Rouleaux Formation, or red blood cell aggregation. Most frequently it’s described as “sticky blood cell syndrome”. This gumming of red blood cells prevents oxygen molecules from entering the cells. The result is a deprivation of oxygen, which is the main factor that turns a healthy cell into a cancerous one. Cancer cells thrive in a oxygen-deprived environment. Any substance that diminishes cellular oxygen will foster the growth of cancer cells. Estimates of such oxygen loss after a single high-fat meal have been calculated at 30%.

Plus, fat is an appetite stimulant: the more you eat, the more you want. Consequently, the more fot in the diet, the more changes you’ll crave for empty-glucose-laden calories that eventually might fuel your cancer.

Good Fats

The healing fats in cancer include EFAs and the fresh, unrefined oils that contain them. EFAS, particularly Omega-3s, enhance oxygen use in cells, decrease tumor formation, slow tumor growth, decrease the spread of cancer cells (metastasis), and extend the patient’s survival time. In clinical practice, they are used to help dissolve tumors. So your target is to reduce the amount of fat to a minimum, and only ingest unrefined, raw, and rich sources of Omega-3s. And unrefined means as much directly from the natural source as possible. You should know that even vegetable oils are controversial because they have gone through a certain level of processing and denaturalization, plus they have been separated from their natural fibers which, among many things, bind with dangerous estrogen-cancer-causing molecules. Rely on natural sources of fat, rather than their oils, no matter how “cold-pressed” they had been.

The Case Against Vegetable Oil

Dr Joel Furhman is very clear in his approach to vegetable oils. We are hearing today from all kind of sources that we don’t need to go on a low-fat diet, we merely need to replace the bad fats with the good ones. We are still cofused and receive conflicting messages. He considers that vegetable oils are not health foods. We consume 60 grams of added fat in the form of vegetable oils, which is over 500 calories a day from this form of no-fiber, empty calories. Refined, unrefined, even cold pressed; these oils are too rich in calories and too low in nutrients. Vegetable oils are 100% fat. There are studies that suggest that even vegetable oils increase the levels of estrogen in our bodies and rise the levels on free radicals. Vegetable oils are too fat-concentrated, they pack too many calories. Unprocessed  foods such as nuts, seeds, and vegetables, utilized as a source of fat instead of vegetable oil, contain cancer fighting phytosterols and precious fiber that are completely absent from vegetable oils.

Dr Joel Furhman states that if you are thin, exercise a lot, and are obviously disease-free, 1 tablespoon of a EFA rich unrefined, cold-pressed, organic vegetable oil is no big deal. Otherwise, the best choice is no vegetable oil at all. I agree with this approach, unless you follow the Budwig Protocol, a proven anticancer treatment).

Omega-3 Source

In Udos book, he refers to hemp seed oil as the best-balanced plant source of both EFAs. However, if you have cancer you might actually be better off finding a source of higher Omega-3 vs Omega-6 ratio. Cancer also alters our own lipid metabolism and makes Omega-6 EFAs more available. So hemp seed oil is good if you are healthy, but not the best if you are fighting a disease.

For quite some time I keep reading that flax seeds are the richest source of Omega 3 EFAs. If you are a cancer patient this is the most recommended source of Omega-3s. Unless you follow the Budwig Protocol, you should keep this oil to a minimum; no more than a tablespoon a day, considering that you are active and that you have already removed any anti-nutrients from your diet. Better yet, grind the flaxseeds and eat them right away. The fact is that all vegetable oil loses part of the Omega-3 EFAs when they are “juiced” from the seed. That’s why I recommend to eat the flax seeds instead of their oil.

Chia Seeds

But, is there a better choice than flax seeds? I actually learned about a seed which oil naturally contains more than 60% Omega-3 fatty acids, the highest percentage of Omega-3 of any commercially available source: chia seeds.

These are the percentages of Omega-3 EFAs on different seeds:

1. Chia seeds: 62.3%
2. Flax seeds: 54.6 %
3. Hemp seeds: 19.9%
4. Borage seeds: 0.5%
5. Evening Primrose oils: 0.4%

Chia has no odor, doesn’t go rancid, it’s easy to store, easy to use, doesn’t have to be grind, it is easily digestible, has very little flavor/taste. Chia seed is a complete source of dietary protein, providing all the essential amino acids. Compared to other seeds and grains, chia seed provides the highest source of protein, between 19 to 23 percent protein by weight. Chia seed produces a thick mucilage in water, absorbing up to 30 times its weight in water. This soluble fiber cleans the intestines by binging and transporting debris, toxins, and dangerous hormones withing your body so that they can be eliminated efficiently and regularly. Since they contain a generous amount of soluble fiber, chia seeds slow the absorption of sugars and starches into the system, keeping blood glucose levels more stable. They are, in fact, the best choice of healthy EFAs.

A Word About Body Fat

Body fat has dangerous consequences when it comes to cancer. Body fat triggers insulin surges, and insulin stimulates cancer growth. Unfortunately, insulin also promotes the storage of more body fat and encourages your fat cells to grow. As more fat is packed away on the body, it interferes with insulin uptake into your muscle tissues, leaving more glucose available for your sugar-hungry cancer cells. The pancreas senses that the glucose levels in the bloodstream are high and pumps out even more insulin, promoting more cancerous growth and fat storage, perpetuating a diabolical dangerous cycle. A little extra fat stored in your body results in interference with insulin effectiveness, something you can’t afford when you are trying to starve cancer cells from getting glucose. Two to five times as much insulin may be secreted in an overweight person and in a thin person.

The best advice for cancer prevention and cancer treatment is to lose body fat. It’s an advice you might never hear from conventional oncologist, despite the fact that the World Cancer Research Fund and the American Institute for Cancer Research recommend people to be as lean as possible within the healthy range, and avoid body fat gain throughout adulthood in order to prevent cancer. Even if you are still within the healthy range, putting on body fat increases your cancer risk.

Conclusions

• Avoid any kind of oil in your diet (Unless you follow the Budwig Protocol)
• Avoid fat intake as much as possible.
• Rely exclusively on EFA-rich, organic, raw, and unprocessed sources of fat (seeds, nuts, and vegetables) to cover your daily energy needs.
• Avocados, almonds, and flax seeds are a great source of rich Omega-3 EFAs.
• The less activity, the less dietary fat.
• Chia seeds have the highest percentage of Omega-3 of any commercially available source. Eat at least 2 tablespoons a day, particularly whenever you eat something that might raise your blood glucose levels (like fruit).
• Avoid body fat and increase muscle tissue. Your goal should not be to loose weight per se, but to loose body fat and gain muscle. Loosing too much muscle will make you less insulin effective.

You are welcome to share this article with family and friends,
but don’t forget to include the web address.

Recommended Reading:

• How to Manage Carbohydrates to Defeat Cancer
• How to Manage Proteins to Defeat Cancer
• Excess Body Fat Causes Cancer
• Eat to Live
• What to Eat if You Have Cancer
• Nature’s Cancer Fighting Foods

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So many diets, so little time. Nutritional correction might possibly be the best single and most effective treatment to slow, halt, and even regress your cancer. But, where do you start? No matter what the medical establishment has managed to make you believe, the cancer epidemic is directly linked to a serious nutritional imbalance due to food-chain contamination, food-processing techniques, nutritional abuse, sedentary life, and nutritional misinformation.

The link between nutrition and cancer is indisputable and many scientific studies have proved it. A cancer nutritional approach is as crucial as a cancer treatment. In that approach, what you are supposed to eat is as important as what you are supposed to exclude. Reversing your diet will reverse the conditions that were necessary for the cancer to develop. A cancer diet severely changes the perspective on what you can introduce in it and what you have to restrict, and unfortunately, the majority of people might not be prepared for such change. This will be in fact the biggest fight you will face against cancer. It’s not chemotherapy, it’s not radiation, it’s not surgery: it’s your disposition to change your diet and, trust me, for some people this is the most difficult thing to change.

Nutrition should be the basics of your cancer treatment. Whatever you decide to do apart from your nutritional plan will be secondary. In other words, no matter what kind of supplements, vitamins, or pills you take, if your diet is not based in solid anticancer principles, you will be diminishing your chances of success and increase your chances of failure. Is that simple. You cannot expect that such or such supplement will cure your cancer if you haven’t addressed your nutritional offenses and deficiencies first.

The problem that we face when we understand that we need to change our nutritional course is that there are many approaches on how to do proceed. It is difficult to recommend a specific diet for cancer. There are many options and they all have good principles, but some of the diets often have opposite views and that makes it difficult to decide. Over the course of your re-education on your disease, you will find nutritional approaches that will build up to what you already know, so it’s best to incorporate nutritional knowledge as you encounter it.

Carbohydrates and Cancer

Cancer feeds on glucose. You’ve heard it many times and it’s easy to act on it. On my post about sugar and cancer I try to explain how glucose feeds cancer and debilitates your immune system. Cancer cells will actively change the metabolism of your body to make glucose more available to them, and more inaccessible to healthy cells. It is a diabolic mechanism. On one way, cancer cells will increase the liver process of making more sugar from amino acids, the building blocks of your proteins, which leads to a loss of muscle tissue from the skeleton and internal organs. On the other way, insulin resistance on healthy cells is increased so that glucose will not be as able to enter them, leaving increased blood sugar levels readily available to super insulin sensitive cancer cells.

It is the fact that cancer alters your own metabolism to get more fuel that makes it vital to adopt a strict and rigorous diet. It is not just the fact that you eat healthier during cancer, it’s the fact that compelling your body to rely on certain foods for nutrition will actually break the cancer metabolism. Diet is a treatment. It might be a very easy concept to visualize, but the reality is that it is difficult to actually inculcate this message in the majority of cancer patients, mainly because one of the reasons of the cancer diagnosis is precisely the consequence of an out of control diet. Reverse that tendency becomes hopeless most of the time.

Ban Sugar, Any Kind of Sugar

In whichever diet approach you decide to embark on, the main purpose should always be to deny cancer cells of glucose while enabling healthy cells to be more sensitive to it. It is one of the fastest and easiest ways to kill cancer cells and break the cancer metabolism. How can you achieve that? Simply by keeping sugar levels as low as possible and as stable as possible.

That’s why sugar is strictly prohibited in all nutritional therapies for cancer. You should absolutely avoid anything that tastes sweet, specially on an empty stomach: fructose, glucose, high-fructose corn syrup, sucrose, corn syrup, lactose, milk sugar, dextrose, maltose, barley malt, brown rice syrup, honey, molasses, fruit juice, maple syrup, sugar cane juice, daikon syrup, and agave nectar. No matter how high in amino acids or minerals or how low on the glycemic index, sweets will feed cancer cells, weaken your immune system, cause more acidity, more lack of oxygen, and more insulin growth factors. As long as you eat sweets, your cancer will continue to progress.

How About Fruit?

As hard as it might be to learn this, you should know that fruit will increase your blood sugar as well, just like sweets, and that might compromise your goal of starving cancer. I find a very good idea to reduce the amount of fruit to a minimum or to nothing at least the first 8 weeks of nutritional treatment, as Dr. Robert O. Young recommends. Fruits have many advantages and are full of antioxidants but having a specific plan on how to manage their consumption is essential. Restrict all kinds of fruits the first two months. Dr. Young excludes avocados and lemons from the restricted fruit group. Lemons are actually a required part of any cancer treatment because of their beneficial effect on the liver and because they get oxygen into the body. Avocados are very low in sugar and have very beneficial fats.

One exception to this general no-fruit rule is special fruit “fasts,” such as the Johanna Brandt Grape Cure, which is a potent cancer cure, or carrot juice regimens, like Gerson’s.

After two months, or once you have achieved progress in your blood work and your tumor markers, I’d recommend to approach fruit cautiously. Always consider fruits that are native or local and also seasonal, and always eat them raw. Avoid tropical fruits, unless there is a specific reason why you should include them (like noni juice or goji berries). Avoid cooked, canned, or dried fruit. Every time you take in fruit by itself, your sugar levels will rise. It is best to eat whole fruit along with fiber, no matter what you have heard about food combining. By doing so you will release the glucose from the fruit more slowly, so eat it along with some greens.

I am combining three approaches from 3 perspectives on this personal fruit advice. On one hand, Macrobiotics always recommends to stick with what’s local and what’s seasonal because it is precisely what is naturally meant for your always changing inner biology throughout the year. I also like the approach of Maureen Keane and Daniella Chace in their book What to Eat if You Have Cancer. They name fruit as a potential insulin unstabler and recommend to eat it along with fiber. In her book Green for Life, Victoria Boutenko also recommends to always mix fruits and non-starchy leafy vegetables to make sure your glucose levels don’t go to the roof with fruit alone. And Dr. Robert O. Young, on his amazing book Sick and Tired recommends to abstain from fruit the first weeks of a nutritional therapy, which I think is a very effective strategy.

Again, only if, and when, your blood work and tumor markers show improvement you can move to another stage. Dr Joel Furhman in his book Eat to Live states that cancer is a fruit and vegetable deficiency disease. His fantastic calorie restriction diet allows any kind of fruit, as much as you want, anytime you want. He excludes fruit juices, canned fruit, and dried fruit because of their high sugar levels. I think it’s a good idea to always eat fruit raw. Ultimately, I think that’s the kind of approach you can take after, specially when you fully regain your health back or if you want to prevent a health crisis from striking.

Sweeteners, the Bad and the Good

ALL man-made sweeteners (e.g. aspartame – NutraSweet, Equal) should be avoided. These items are most often associated with brain cancer, but everyone with or without cancer should avoid them. There is only one acceptable sweetener in a cancer diet: unrefined Stevia, which is an herb that will actually help you manage your blood glucose levels, among other things.

Alcohol

It is a common misconception that alcohol “turns to sugar” and will raise your blood glucose. In fact, the opposite is true, alcohol will decrease your insulin levels. Is that a good thing? Alcohol is not food and it does not provide any essential nutrients. It is in fact an anti-nutrient. Even though your body can use the calories for energy, it cannot use the alcohol itself to make glucose. When calories from alcohol aren’t used for immediate energy, they are changed to fat and stored as triglycerides. In other words, it is easier to think of alcohol as being like a fat, rather than a carbohydrate.

When yeast ferments glucose in sugar, fruits, or cereal grains, ethanol (a type of alcohol) is produced. Ethanol within the human body is converted into acetaldehyde and then into acetic acid. Acetaldehyde is highly toxic, mutagenic, and carcinogenic. It has been shown to increase the risk of multiple forms of cancer apart from developing cirrhosis of the liver and cause addiction. There is no safe dose of alcohol, no matter what you read about it. Any kind of alcohol intake is dangerous and extremely carcinogenic. It also generates free-radicals, depresses DNA-repair, reduces nutrients due to reduced absorption, and reduces consumption of food nutrients associated with obtaining calories from alcohol.

There is no small amount of alcohol that does not cause dependency. In other words, you don’t have to become an alcoholic to become addicted to alcohol. Any amount of alcohol develops addiction. It is often more difficult to stop drinking when you have a drink once in a while than if you are an alcoholic. I mention this because if you think it will be easy to give up your once a month wine glass when you go dining, think again. For some people even a small amount of alcohol becomes impossible to quit.

Ethanol consumption increases serum estrogen and decreases serum androgen in both men and women, which explains its direct incidence in hormone related cancers: breast cancer and prostate cancer. Ethanol is known to also reduce T-cells (Thymus-derived lymphocytes), a suppression of the immune system that can increase cancer incidence and decrease resistance to infectious diseases. Ethanol may also suppress DNA methylation of oncogenes (cancer-inducing genes) leading to dedifferentiation and proliferation.

Polyphenols and resveratrol (a phytochemical synthesized by grapes in response to fungal infections) are anti-cancer compounds found in high quantities in red wine but there is no need to drink red wine to get polyphenols and resveratrol. The polyphenols in green tea may well be more potent and you can get concentrated resveratrol in supplement form without the dangers of alcohol.

No matter what you hear or read, NO amount of alcohol is safe for you, yet alone beneficial. The only safe amount of alcohol is ZERO. If your conventional oncologist does not promote complete alcohol abstinence upfront, you should find another doctor you can really trust. I can only tell you this: of all the most well grounded alternative research and publications I’ve come across, there is not a single view that recommends alcohol in any form, in any dosage, particularly if cancer is involved. As a matter of fact, even alcohol-based colognes and perfumes are considered highly xenoestrogenic because of their alcohol content going to your bloodstream through your skin and affecting your hormones. Even alcohol-based mouthwash is carcinogenic.

Grains, Beans, and Starchy Vegetables

My first approach to a cancer diet was Macrobiotics. There are many people that fully recovered from their cancers thanks to this fabulous nutritional approach. It is generally described as a grain based diet. My dad still follows it and he’s in great health. But as I was reading along about other approaches and principles, my opinion on it has evolved and changed, mostly because of it’s approach to carbohydrates. Despite its greatness and effectiveness, I find it too focused on cooked starches. I think it is a great diet to consider when you regain total control of your health but maybe the first months of diet correction should be more rigorous.

As strict as it may sound, I personally believe the first 8 weeks of nutritional therapy you should consider to avoid any grains, legumes, and starchy vegetables whatsoever. Again, Dr Robert O. Young makes the case why the first weeks you should abstain from anything that increases your blood glucose, and that includes ANY grains. Only when you find your blood and tumor markers coming out of any danger zone you might want to reintroduce grains, legumes and starchy vegetables, but be cautious. Here are some ideas on how to introduce grains:

• Avoid any glutinous grain (wheat, rye, barley, kamut, spelt). Gluten is a dangerous and addictive protein that might causes havoc in our bodies. Introduce non-glutinous grains like buckwheat, millet, and quinoa.
• Avoid any kind of flour, glutinous or non-glutinous. Flour is digested faster and has a greater impact on your glucose levels. It can also lose nutritional properties. Avoid any kind of baked products whatsoever.
• Soak grains at least 24 hours before cooking. Soaking causes pre-sprouting, which reduces the carbohydrate content and increases the protein content of the grains, plus it removes any enzyme inhibitors that might interfere with your digestions and nutrient absorption.
• Restrict whole, organic, and non-glutinous grain consumption to one cup a day, preferably in the evening, when it’s easier to digest and might keep your fasting glucose levels low during the night.

As for legumes and starchy vegetables, introduce them carefully based on your overall progress. Dr. Furhman recommends legumes at lunch, when your digestion is stronger. Soak them as well. Inducing early stage germination increases their nutritional value, shortens cooking time, deactivates enzyme inhibitors, and reduces blood sugar impact. He doesn’t seem to put any restrictions on legumes. Just adjust its consumption to your activity levels. He does restrict the amount of starchy vegetables to one cup a day. Consider anything that is not green to be a high starch vegetable.

Finally Hulda Clark recommends to wash grains and legumes with ascorbic acid, to kill any mold. You can do that after the soaking. You can even soak them with a little bit of ascorbic acid, and even cook them with it. I will add that it is a great idea to store your grains and legumes in the freezer to prevent molding and rancidity.

A cancer diet is a fasting diet. You purposely include certain nutrients and exclude others. Fasting has no exceptions or intermissions: you start one day and you break it another. It’s better to approach your cancer diet plan this way. Unfortunately, cancer has no days off so you might as well understand that discipline and consistency play in your favor.

You are welcome to share this article with family and friends,
but don’t forget to include the web address.

Recommended Reading:

• How to Manage Proteins to Defeat Cancer
• How to Manage Fats to Defeat Cancer

I just finished reading the editorial published a few days ago in The Oncologist about how cancer statistics get censured. It’s disheartening but also very hopeful for those of you who are not convinced that conventional oncology treatments are the way to go and stand alone in your view. You may have now another powerful reason to support your position.

Conventional oncology uses statistics to convince you that Chemotherapy and Radiation are your only path to treat cancer. I’ve written of the reasons of why you should resist such treatments here. Data manipulation becomes another reason why you should stand up to those treatments. It turns out that all information published in major medical journals has been altered to showcase success and cover up failure.

This new investigative work exposes the fact that less than one out of five medical human trials gets published (exactly only 17.6 percent). The rest of the human trials gets lost somewhere and never sees the light. Why? You could argue that something went wrong about the trials, but then up to 90% of the trials that end up being published are always positive towards the application of conventional cancer therapies. Sounds fishy? That’s because it is fishy! What’s wrong about the 82.4 percent of the trials about conventional cancer therapies that never see the light? Why don’t you and your oncologist know about those?

It turns out that they are kept out of circulation because they show too many negative side effects and also because of the pressure from publishing entities to show data that has positive impact. Who wants to read bad news all the time?

To make matters worst, it seems that whoever conducting a trial is influencing the likelihood such data would see the light of day… or not. Studies sponsored by industry (such as drug companies) had the lowest publication rate: just 5.9 percent, leaving 94.1 percent of data in the dark! So for example, when pharmaceutical industries begin developing novel chemotherapy cocktails — mixtures of drugs initially tested on their own — and toxic reactions may emerge, as low as just 5.9% of such toxic reactions get published and read by the conventional oncology community. The rest, who cares?

What happened to those never seen results? Did they involve treatments that didn’t work? Did they have disastrous side effects? Did they cause dangerous irreversible damage? Neither you nor your oncologist will ever know… But in the meantime you might be laying in the hospital getting the dose of chemo your uninformed doctor prescribed…

James H. Doroshow, director of the National Cancer Institute’s division of treatment and diagnosis, notes that last year alone some 50,000 patients took part in trials that his institute funded. The “apparent lack of access to the final efficacy and toxicity data for cancer clinical trials from all sponsors, but especially for industry-sponsored studies, poses multiple scientific and ethical questions.” No kidding!!!

It doesn’t matter what reasons drug company’s have in hiding bad data. What’s important is that Chemotherapy and Radiation are not backed by statistics, the main reason why conventional oncologists encourage them. And guess who pays the price for such cover up?

You are welcome to share this article with family and friends,
but don’t forget to include the web address.

Please read these:

• One in Five Cancer Clinical Trials Is Published
• Cancer data: Burying bad news

]]> http://biohermit.wordpress.com/2008/09/29/another-reason-to-stand-up-to-chemotherapy-censured-data/feed/ 1 biohermit Hand holding syringe http://biohermit.wordpress.com/2008/09/23/a-new-chocolate-scam-pfizer-and-hershey-urge-choco-therapy/ http://biohermit.wordpress.com/2008/09/23/a-new-chocolate-scam-pfizer-and-hershey-urge-choco-therapy/#comments Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:22:31 +0000 biohermit http://biohermit.wordpress.com/?p=477 ]]>

Here we go again. Another day, another phony study about the fabulous beneficial effects of eating chocolate. The study is so ridiculous I don’t even know where to begin. If you haven’t read my post on the dangers of chocolate I recommend you do it first to get a bit of background.

Today’s pseudo study claims that a small square of dark chocolate daily protects the heart from inflammation and subsequent heart disease. Specifically, they brainwash us to eat 6.7 grams of chocolate per day (or 0.23 ounces), or a Hershey’s dark chocolate bar a week…

Suitable Control Group

They did the study on almost 5,000 people with NO CARDIOVASCULAR RISK FACTORS WHATSOEVER! That means these individuals had low cholesterol, low blood pressure, no diabetes, were young, consumed low alcohol levels, were not obese, were physically active, they had no family history of premature coronary heart disease, did not belong to a higher risk ethnicity… Just the opposite to the “control group” most affected by reading the publication of the study: the chocoholic heart-diseased. Is it conniving enough for you?

By the way, they took the milk out of the study because it interferes with chocolate’s polyphenols, never mind that at the end they recommend a low-flavonoid, high-sugar, dairy-laden Hershey’s bar a week…

Based on the fact that high amounts of antioxidant flavonoids and polyphenols have beneficial effects on inflammatory conditions, the study went to measure a protein in the blood called C-reactive, which is an inflammation marker, to see if it was high or low. A couple of questions and a couple of data, and “voilà!”, you got yourself a study.

Apparently, these fabulous researches also took into account that the healthy individuals in the study might consume healthy food too, like fruits and vegetables. Or they might exercise more than other people do. So they acknowledged that the lower inflammation might be attributed to other factors aside from dark chocolate [sic]… Rest assured though, these researches made the necessary “adjustments” to make sure the chocolate did what it was supposed to do: lower the C-reactive protein. How they did the adjustments? Who knows? The study surely doesn’t say. The researches can only tell us that they believe that the beneficial effects of chocolate are real. How about that? Is it scientific enough for you?

Human Laboratory

This Machiavellian study was supervised by Licia Iacoviello, head of the Laboratory of Genetic and Environmental Epidemiology at the Catholic University of Campobasso and responsible for the Moli-sani Project, in collaboration with the National Cancer Institute of Milan! The Moli-sani Project is funded by Pfizer, the biggest selling pharmaceutical corporation in the world. Pfizer has been involved in many pharmaceutical scandals, like the illegal use of the experimental antibiotic drug called trovafloxacinto to treat a 1996 meningitis outbreak in Nigeria’s Kano district. The Nigerian government claims that 196 children died as a result of taking the drug and 37 surviving children suffered various health problems including deafness and muteness, paralysis, brain damage, loss of sight and slurred speech. The Nigerian government sued Pfizer for US$7 billion in compensation for the damages.

Now the Pfizer-funded Moli-sani study (which means Moli-healthy), with the help of local MDs, is turning the whole Italian region of Molise into a large scientific laboratory, making crafty studies like the one of the chocolate. Whether they like it or not, people living in that beautiful area are part of the study. The local media says that the simple fact of participating in the Moli-sani project would allow local citizens, even the ones that are super healthy, to know their own state of health in order to plan, along with their doctors, the appropiate prevention…

… Personally, if I was living there, I would not be able to sleep at night.

Corporate Cash

Who can blame Pfizer, anyways? If I was one of their CEOs I’d make sure people getting my products would not feel guilty at all. For many years Phillip Morris took the guilt out of smoking cigarettes, and Exxon-Mobil encourages us to keep burning oil without guilt.

You should know that M & M Mars Inc. has spent the last 18 years funding research on the nutritional and medical potential of cocoa’s naturally occurring flavonoids. Just in the University of California Davis, M & M Mars Inc has funded 20 investigators with $10 million on research since 1997 and created a chair in the nutrition department.

Only one of the scientists among the international panel presenting at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in the 2007 session titled “The Neurobiology of Chocolate: A Mind-Altering Experience?”, was not sponsored by Mars Incorporated. One of the panel’s organizers was Harold Schmitz, a professor at UC Davis and the Chief Science Officer of M & M Mars, Inc.

During the presentation, these “unbiased” scientists described how Kuna Indians in Panama have almost no diabetes yet consume chocolate every day. They forgot to mention that when these Kuna Indians move from the fabulous San Blas Islands north of Panama, settle in the cities, and drink the same amount of cocoa as we drink, their levels of good health go down the drain… just like the rest of us.

Strange Bedfellows

Merrill Goozner, director of the Integrity in Science Project at the Center for Science in the Public Interest co-authored a paper called Relationship between Funding Source and Conclusion among Nutrition-Related Scientific Articles which concludes that studies funded by industry were four to eight times as likely to reach conclusions in the financial interests of sponsors.

Do you think it’s a bit of a stretch to say that Pfizer and Hershey’s are in bed together making this new dazzling chocolate allegation? Then you’d like to know that effective August 29, 2008, David L. Shedlarz, former Vice Chairman of Pfizer Inc. was elected to The Hershey Company’s Board of Directors. How about that?

A Case Supporting Chocolate Guilt

Before you absolve yourself every time you sink your teeth on chocolate thinking that it’s good four you because you read it on a million magazines and a million posts, you should know a couple of other studies that I can assure you have not been funded by Pfizer or Hershey’s:

• A study conducted in Utah between 1983 and 1986, and published in 1993, showed an association between theobromine (the bitter alkaloid of the cocoa bean) and an increased risk of prostate cancer in older men.
• Switzerland, the country that consumes more chocolate in the world, has the highest prostate cancer mortality rate in the world (20.3 per 100,000, world standard), about 30% higher than in the United States.

Nobody has connected the dots so far, at least in public. Maybe that’s why this study recommends just a meager 6.7 grams of chocolate “flavored” candy per day, or about a Hershey’s Kiss and a half a day (mind the dairy), which probably contains an even smaller quantity of pure cocoa bean powder.

As a matter of fact,  in fall 2007, Hershey changed their milk chocolate recipe by adding lactose, milk fat, and the food additive PGPR, a substitute of cocoa butter. The Chocolate Manufacturers Association, whose members include Hershey, Nestlé, and Archer Daniels Midland, began to lobby the FDA to change the legal definition of chocolate to let them substitute partially hydrogenated vegetable oils for cocoa butter as well as artificial sweeteners and milk substitutes. Currently, the FDA does not allow a product to be referred to as “chocolate” if the product contains any of these ingredients. How healthy does this sound to you?

Do you Want Some Child Slavery with that Chocolate?

Not enough guilt? So then take this: Hershey and a number of other chocolate manufacturers, such as Mars and Nestle, source cocoa beans from African nations that are known to use child labor. The State Department’s year 2000 human rights report concluded that some 15,000 children between the ages of 9 and 12 from the poor undeveloped countries of Mali, Burkina Faso, Benin and Togo have been sold into forced labor on the northern Ivory Coast cocoa plantations in recent years.

Furthermore, these chocolate companies lobby against United States legislation requiring “’slave free’ labels on their products.” So unless you see a fair trade label, the chocolate you eat most likely has been picked up by a boy taken away from his house against his will and sold for US$30 as forced labor to a cocoa plantation. He was held forcibly on a cocoa farm, where those who attempt to escape are beaten. He was overworked till becoming sick, or dying.

•••

Active healthy people eating healthy diets with no cardiovascular risk factors gobbling the equivalent to a Hershey’s Kiss and half a day… Kudos to Psizer, Hershey’s, and the Research Laboratories of the Center for High Technology Research and Education in Biomedical Sciences “John Paul II” at the Catholic University in Campobasso, Milan: that’s what I call a scientific independent study!

You are welcome to share this article with family and friends,
but don’t forget to include the web address.

Suggested Reading:

• Sorry Snickers – Half A Bar Of Hershey’s Chocolate Per Week Lowers Risk Of Heart Disease
• Who Funds The Chocolate Consensus?
• Chocolate Helps Heart Stay Healthy
• Dark chocolate: Half a bar per week to keep at bay the risk of heart attack
• Former Vice Chairman of Pfizer Inc. David L. Shedlarz Elected to The Hershey Company’s Board of Directors
• Some Types Of Cocoa Could Improve Brain Function
• The Kuna Indians of Panama with Magical Elixir: Cocoa
• Chocolate and slavery

]]> http://biohermit.wordpress.com/2008/09/23/a-new-chocolate-scam-pfizer-and-hershey-urge-choco-therapy/feed/ 0 biohermit chocolate-pod http://biohermit.wordpress.com/2008/09/22/the-mammography-deception/ http://biohermit.wordpress.com/2008/09/22/the-mammography-deception/#comments Mon, 22 Sep 2008 19:43:27 +0000 biohermit http://biohermit.wordpress.com/?p=452 ]]>

While the number of deaths caused by breast cancer has decreased, the incidence of breast cancer is still rising. According to most health experts, catching a breast tumor in its early stages increases a woman’s chances of survival by at least 17 percent. But is mammography the best way to do it?

Women that go through a mammogram are not given some very compelling information about the procedure that might actually affect their ability to give an informed consent. There are a lot of things you should know about mammograms before you decide to go through one.

General Facts

• Mammograms do not prevent breast cancer. They detect cancer that already exists. Most breast cancers have been present for six to eight years by the time they appear on mammograms.
• Mammography is a form of ionizing radiation. Radiation is a known cause of cancer, and the effects of small amounts may accumulate in the body. The risk of harm from radiation is highest in tissue where cells are rapidly changing, such as the growing breast tissue of adolescent females.
• Mammography is an imperfect test. It misses 10% of all tumors, and 25% of tumors in women younger than 50. Premenopausal women are more likely to have dense breast tissue, which appears white on an x-ray, as does cancer. So the false positive rate—the frequency of unnecessary biopsies—is twelve times higher among women under 50 than women over 50.
• The risk of radiation on women younger than 50, combined with the high incidence of both false negatives and false positives, means that routine mammography for this group may do more harm than good. For women under 50, the most powerful detection method may very well be their own two hands.

Risks and Dangers

The American Cancer Society (ACS) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) began promoting mammograms in the early 1970s as a tool in the war against breast cancer. Mammography is the process of using low-dose X-rays to examine the human breast. The goal of mammography is the early detection of breast cancer, typically through detection of characteristic masses and/or microcalcifications. The X-ray picture of your breast can supposedly reveal tumor growths otherwise undetectable in a physical exam. Mammography is the most common method for early detection of breast cancer, the leading cause of death among American women between the ages of 44 and 55, but it has garnered a sizable opposition in the medical community because of an error rate that is still high and the amount of harmful radiation used in the procedure.

• Radiologists at the University of Guttingen say that women with an inherited, increased breast cancer risk should avoid frequent and early mammogram screening. The German researchers suggest that the low-dose X-rays used in mammograms are nearly three times as effective at mutating genes in human cells as conventional X-rays. They advise high-risk women to insist on other screening tests.
• A meta-analysis of randomized trials published in 1997 showed that screening women aged 40 to 49 resulted in an increase in deaths from breast cancer for the first ten years after beginning screening. A significant two-fold increase in breast cancer deaths after three years of screening was found.
• Another study, by Dr. Anthony Miller including approximately 40,000 women in Canada aged 50 to 59 with a 13-year follow-up, showed breast cancer mortality to be equal between one group receiving annual mammograms and another group doing physical examinations only.
• A new report by the National Academy of Sciences reiterates what even low doses of ionizing radiation pose an increased cancer risk.
• In 1976 mammographic technology delivered five to ten rads (radiation-absorbed doses) per screening, as compared to 1 rad in current screening methods. In women between the ages of 35 and 50, each rad of exposure increased the risk of breast cancer by one percent, according to Dr. Frank Rauscher, then director of the NCI.
• Annual radiological breast exams today increase the risk of breast cancer by an average of two percent a year. So over 10 years the risk of developing breast cancer will have increased 20 percent.
• Dr. John W. Gofman estimates that 75 percent of breast cancer could be prevented by avoiding or minimizing exposure to the ionizing radiation. This includes mammography, x-rays, and other medical and dental sources.
• A significant percentage of women in the United States have a gene called oncogene AC that is extremely sensitive to even small doses of radiation, which could increase their risk of mammography-induced cancer. An average of 10,000 oncogene AC carriers will die of breast cancer this year due to mammography.
• Dr. Michael P. Sherman, M.D., Ph.D. wants women to understand that, “Mammograms do not prevent cancer, they can only find an existing cancer.” The cumulative radiation damage to DNA from yearly mammograms over a woman’s lifetime increases the risk of developing breast cancer in later years.
• Mammograms have a 50% to 75% accuracy rate with many false positives leading to anxiety, stress, unnecessary medical costs, and over-treatment. More frustrating is that many tumors are missed. Not all equipment produce high quality results, and interpretation is subjective.
• The painful compression of breast tissue during the procedure itself can increase the possibility of metastasis by as much as 80%.
• Between 10 and 17% of a non-life-threatening form of cancer called ductal carcinoma in situ can be made active by the compressive force of routine mammography.
• Since mammographic screening was introduced, the incidence of ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) has in fact increased by 328 percent.
• Researchers Drs. Wright and Mueller of the University of British Columbia recommended the withdrawal of public funding for mammography screening, because the “benefit achieved is marginal, and the harm caused is substantial.” (Lancet, 1 Jul 1995).
• 70 to 80 percent of all positive mammograms do not, upon biopsy, show any presence of cancer.
• In a Swedish study of 60,000 women, 70 percent of the mammographically detected tumors weren’t tumors at all, they were false positives.
• Mammograms also have a high rate of missed tumors, or “false negatives.” Dr. Samuel S. Epstein, in his book, The Politics Of Cancer, claims that in women ages 40 to 49, one in four instances of cancer is missed at each mammography. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) puts the false negative rate even higher at 40 percent among women ages 40-49. National Institutes of Health spokespeople also admit that mammograms miss 10 percent of malignant tumors in women over 50.
• NCI released evidence that, among women under 35, mammography could cause 75 cases of breast cancer for every 15 it identifies.
• A Canadian study found a 52 percent increase in breast cancer mortality in young women given annual mammograms.
• Dr. Samuel Epstein also claims that pregnant women exposed to radiation could endanger their fetus. He advises against mammography during pregnancy because “the future risks of leukemia to your unborn child, not to mention birth defects, are just not worth it.” Similarly, studies reveal that children exposed to radiation are more likely to develop breast cancer as adults.

As early as 1976, John C. Bailar III, then editor of the NCI Journal, questioned the procedure by writing, “mammography may eventually cause more deaths from breast cancer than it prevents.” Since then, it is no surprise that little, if any, research has followed up this concern expressed by other medical experts including John Gofman, MD, PhD, author of Preventing Breast Cancer: The Story of a Major, Proven, Preventable Cause of This Disease, and founder of the Committee for Nuclear Responsibility (CNR); Janette D. Sherman, MD, author of Life’s Delicate Balance, Causes and Prevention of Breast Cancer, and Samuel S. Epstein, MD, author of The Politics of Cancer.

As early as September 2008, Dr. Eric P. Winer of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston said “We all know that mammography is, in and of itself, an imperfect tool, and we clearly need to do better in the future. It is fair to say that M.R.I. will not solve all problems either.”

Screening Alternatives

Screening is an important step in fighting breast cancer, there is no doubt about it. The good news is that today there are better alternatives to mammography.

Breast Thermography is based on the principle that metabolic activity and vascular circulation in both pre-cancerous tissue and the area surrounding a developing breast cancer is almost always higher than in normal breast tissue. Cancerous tumors require and ever-increasing supply of nutrients and therefore increase circulation to their cells by holding open existing blood vessels, opening dormant vessels, and creating new ones (neoangiogenesis). This process frequently results in an increase in regional surface temperatures of the breast. Digital Infrared Imaging uses extremely sensitive medical infrared cameras and sophisticated computers to detect, analyze, and produce high-resolution diagnostic images of these temperature variations. These temperature variations may be among the earliest signs of breast cancer and/or a pre-cancerous state of the breast. Breast Thermography is able to detect cancers at a minute physical stage of development, thermography does not use x-rays, nor is there any compression of the breast. Also important, new thermography technologies do not lose effectiveness with dense breast tissue, decreasing the chances of false-negative results. It is the safest screening available today.

Some doctors are now offering digital mammograms. Digital mammography is a mammography system in which x-ray film is replaced by solid-state detectors that convert x-rays into electric signals. Though radiation is still used, digital mammography requires a much smaller dose. The electrical signals are used to produce images that can be electronically manipulated; a physician can zoom in, magnify and optimize different parts of breast tissue without having to take an additional image. Some earlier studies had suggested that digital mammography would result in fewer false positives than film mammography, but the rates of false positives for digital mammography and traditional mammography were the same. Although digital mammograms are better than traditional ones, take them with a grain of salt.

How About Molecular Breast Imaging?

M.B.I. is an experimental new technology in which small breast cancers absorb a type of radioactive molecule that can then be detected by a special camera. In other words, a radioactive mole will “light up” cancer cells inside women’s breasts and a special camera will take the money shot. How “safe” is this radioactive bug? M.B.I uses about 8 to 10 times the radiation of mammograms! You go figure. So far, whatever happens next with the radioactive tracer is non of women’s business, apparently. Doctors working with molecular breast imaging also have reported that the technique occasionally may miss a tumor that would have been picked up on routine mammography.

To make matters worse, M.B.I. would not replace mammograms for women at average risk for cancer, but it might become an additional tool for higher-risk women with a lot of dense tissue that makes tumors hard to spot on mammograms, which includes women under 50. What a great idea! The group that is more sensitive to radiation-induced cancer is being experimentally exposed to an incredible and dangerous amount of radioactive load. Once again, women’s health is being sacrificed for yet again another dangerous and aggressive screening method, all in the name of modern oncology tumor-obssesed pursuit of finding cancer rather than curing it.

So don’t believe the hype. M.B.I might be even worst than the outdated, innefective, and dangerous mammography.

You are welcome to share this article with family and friends,
but don’t forget to include the web address.

Suggested Reading:

• Mammograms!
• Mammograms cause breast cancer
• Alert – Mammograms Cause Cancer
• Should you get mammograms?
• Think before you pink
• What You Should Know About Mammograms
• Digital vs. Film Mammography
• Two Advances for Breast Cancer Patients
• Researchers See Promise in New Test for Tumors