| 1 : What is Cancer | 6: The Doctors' Dilemma. | 11 :Breast cancer& hormones |
| 2 : The cause of cancer | 7 : IMMUNITY Explained | 12 :Good FOODS and Bad |
| 3 : Chemical & Virus | 8 : The Power of Immunity. | 13 :Echinacea herb |
| 4 : Radiation & Genes | 9 : Failures of Immunity | 14: Respect their privacy |
| 5:Into the Smoking Room | 10.Stress Weakens Immunity. | 15: Dictionary |
your "Home-key" or "End-key" should return you to this INDEX [duplicated on the final page].
12 printer-friendly pages HERE
Everyone gets confused about cancer, even the doctors, and the reasons for this are short and simple : Scientists still don't have all the answers, and they still argue over some of the fundamentals- such as the role of immunity.
It is a huge subject because cancer is not a single, specific disease: Many
cancers are distinctly different and unrelated to each other. They each have a
different cause, and doctors give each it's proper name. Alas, we simple people
just call it crab . The word CANCER was taken from the ancient Greeks, who had noticed that a few tumours were crab-shaped. That was long ago, and they were just being simple. Today though, we are being simply foolish, by continuing to use this one word to describe so many different diseases. It has happened, dear people, because our educators were themselves ignorant on the subject.
Our lump might have taken decades to grow to a size large enough to be noticeable. In the olde days this was when we went to our physician - "look Doc, I've got this lump". That meant we got a very late diagnosis and when accompanied by the poor treatments of the day, it led to many failures. Often, the only affect of that treatment was to give the patients of ALL different cancers the same frightening appearance.
The end result of all the confusion was to create a fictitious, giant monster called The Big "C".
My dictionary says that GENES are instructions , "written" not in words, but in chemical code. They exist inside every cell and in effect, they are it's brain, telling it what it's purpose is - [ to make a digestive chemical] or [ this cell transports oxygen ].
Our bodies are composed of millions of CELLS , the microscopic building-bricks of life. Every cell has a specific job to do and it gets it's instructions from the genes that are inside it .
If the structure of genes gets mixed up or damaged, then the cell would no longer work properly. If the damage was severe we would call it a mutation. It might then grow abnormally, until it becomes a lump so big that it disrupts the functioning of the organ surrounding it. This is what a cancer tumour is.
It may have been inside us for decades, an insignificant part of us, doing no harm. There would have been no symptoms and we would have felt normal and well. It wouldn't have qualified as an illness then, but now, if it has become large enough, it does. It just keeps on growing, as per it's instructions, for it knows nothing else.
It's not attacking you , nor intentionally harming you . It is very much a part of you ; your own accidental creation .
Although mutations may be inevitable, they don't automatically lead to cancer. Some might have been avoided if the many systems all worked in harmony : But when our Education-, Health-, and Immune -systems, have ALL failed us, our bodies may fail us too. For victims to blame themselves for this, as they often do, is both wrong and unhelpful.
This is the ultimate test of strength of our character. This is a spiritual thing, and those with faith will find strength in that.
3 : GENETIC ERRORS CAUSE CANCER
The Errors We INHERITSome unlucky people are born with faulty genes. They are passed on, from one generation to the next, in the same family. There are many such "cancer families" and they account for 1 in 10 breast-cancers. Sometimes two different cancers plague a family, such as ovarian and breast cancers. The few specific genes that cause this are perhaps all chained together [or linked on a single chromosome].
We can't always blame inheritance though : All the children of one family may "receive" other negative attributes which leave them vulnerable to cancers .
These might be:-
a] the vices they all learnt, like stressful LIFESTYLE and unhealthy dietary habits ;
b] their home location or ENVIRONMENT; they may have all been over-exposed to harmful pollution from traffic or industry, for example.
All cancers are linked to faulty genes. Their cause is explained below. First though, let's look at how errors might arise. I use a typing pool for the analogy .
Imagine twenty typists , typing a Printing Press manual. It's tedious and tiring and so, on his last page, one typist mispells a word, which changes the entire meaning of the instructions. The error isn't spotted and so gets sent to The Printshop for mass-publication. It churns out reams of pages that no one will want, once it is discovered that the instructions for Turning-Off the printing press are wrong. The corridors and floors become blocked by piles of useless paper, and the factory eventually chokes to a halt.
Random Errors
Errors that occur without any outside help are called random errors. The mistakes just happen by chance, by bad luck, if you like.
These errors can occur during the natural duplication of the genes. Genes make mirror-images of themselves in order that the cell, of which it is part, can divide in two. It does this every few weeks, as part of it's growth-cycle. It is supposed to be an exact copy [a clone], but there is always that million-to-one chance that it won't be.
Since there are a million duplications every night, do not be surprised to find that in our lifetime our body has to deal with many mutations. Two-thirds of the population seem to be able to deal with theirs, but one-third of us fail.
Evolution is worth a mention here.
A genetic mutation could turn out to be beneficial for it's owner and we call that "evolution". However, it results from exactly the same process of random-error described above. Tiny bugs such as insects that produce new generations rapidly, evolve rapidly. Eventually a mutation will crop-up in a new-born insect that gives it a new form of resistance to one of our pesticide chemicals. This survivor goes on to produce millions of offspring, and the species survives.
4 : TRIGGERS FOR GENE MUTATION .
[i ]A Simple View on VIRUSES
A VIRUS is Very small and consists of bits of gene. It doesn't have enough genes of it's own to actually live, so it has to get amongst ours, to try and become a part of one of our chromosomes. If it can "hijack" our cell in this way, it will mess-up the instructions; perhaps changing them to [ Grow cell,Grow, Never Stop!]. This simple instruction is all that is required to create a tumour. Fortunately, most viruses don't do this but those that do, account for some;- leukaemias, liver cancers, and cervical cancer.
Vaccines could protect us from such viruses, and since prevention is always the best "cure", this is what we should be demanding.
[ ii ] CHEMICALS and putting the risks into perspective
Chemicals are extremely small and have no trouble getting into us . Aerosol sprays especially , can be inhaled or absorbed through our bare skin. Most of those around our homes don't cause cancers , but I sometimes wear a glove, and always hold my breath, whilst fly-spraying a room .
There may be tiny amounts of cancer-causing chemical in :-
- Pesticides lurking in the garden shed ; or in the soil where our food grows .
- Chemicals used in the workplace. Old, dangerous dyes could change not only the colour, but also the chemistry, of a cell, including that of it's genes ; a chemical used in leather tanning was thought to cause leukaemia. Industry is forced to improve it's safety precautions in developed countries.
- New substances produced from safe ones by burning them at temperatures above 150 degrees Centigrade. They might be in;-
cigarettes, vehicle exhaust and motor-oils.
This high-temperature group is hard to avoid. Each represents a tiny risk; but when you add them ALL up, the accumulation over decades, takes it's toll on our body.
However, if we worry about them, we are more likely to drive ourselves to mental illness than to cancer. So don't worry, be happy, just remember those which you can do something about. King Alfred could still have enjoyed his cakes, provided he scraped the burnt bits off first - "And Alfie, t'was only a million-to-one chance anyway".
There is some logic in worrying yourself to-death about your chain-smoking, but not about your passive smoking. It's difficult to keep things in perspective when we are subject to newspaper headlines which exaggerate the risk, in order to grab our attention. Anti-smoking activists, [bless them] do it in order to enhance their case for a ban in public places. Supporting scientists, who hate the fags, should be wary of the emotions, which cloud their facts.
[ iii ]RADIATION
Radiation easily penetrates into cells, and globally, the most common source is that atomic reactor in the sky- our Sun. It's rays do most damage in summer at the beach and overseas, while we relax on vacation. If you have white skin, and are zapped often enough, you can get skin cancer, so apply your good-sense, as well as some good lotion.
Other radiation dangers, including background atomic-radiation, are downplayed by the authorities because there is little we can do about them now.
To take our mind off that, we could worry about the microwaves transmitted from a mobile phone : Do they damage the brain ? Our concern is for the young, who by middle age may have clocked-up thousands of hours of usage. Proving things scientifically takes many years though, ......"if the caller doesn't mind waiting ".
In the meantime, we could keep calls short, use hands-free sets and texting.
BRAIN tumour diagnoses are becoming more common, so we are justified in our worries about the newest technologies.
This reminds me of yet another minor warning : We could adjust screen text-size so that we can sit well away from our CRT computer monitors [ of the TV-type which shoot "x-rays" from their electron-gun]. We sit much further away from our televisions, so they are safe, as are Liquid Crystal Displays [LCD].
4 : WHEN RISKS COMBINE AND MULTIPLY A possible scenario was described thus:
Here,
most of the skin cancers are in the descendants of Scottish and Irish
immigrants.
Their INHERITED genes for a fair, white complexion resulted in their extra
vulnerability to the sun's RADIATION: This was compounded by their new,
outdoor-LIFESTYLE, in the fierce Australian sun : The result is that their risk
of getting skin cancer is now 5 times greater.
A cell in a child's mole mutated into a cancer cell
somewhen during one endless summer playing in the blazing sun. Like all cancers,
the mole grows imperceptibly for decades, and the child has grown to adulthood
before the cancer is recognised.
Skin Specialists in Australia can now identify these
cancers many years earlier, and treat them successfully. We, the patients, have
to make the first move of course, but sadly often don't. Even when they are
visible to us, we don't recognise our insidious cancers. Why would we ? After
all, they grow so slowly that it is easy to accept them as being a normal part
of the body and we feel perfectly healthy. In fact some tumours [ e.g. prostate
gland?] never grow large enough to cause serious illness.
In conclusion, Lifestyle can
have a big impact on health. Our activities, our diet, and even our thoughts and
mental attitude, can effect our long-term health. We can change our lifestyle to
reduce our risks : That is what they are now doing, Down-Under in the Land where
the Sun never Sits.
Let's get off the
anti-smoking bandwagon to see if we can learn from the smokers experience[ Yes,
some of you Scientists had better come in too ].
I first have to say
thanks to all those smokers who didn't get cancer, thereby demonstrating ;-
that exposure to a single
substance [tar] doesn't automatically result in us getting cancer ;
that we have bodily mechanisms that enable us to resist the disease.
Perhaps their cells were tougher and their genes more stable, and so were
less inclined to mutate.
Another explanation could be that the lungs were protected by a perfect
immune system. The lungs do enjoy superb circulation and service from it.
Also, the calming effect of
smoking might have had one positive effect on the health of nervous
people, by relaxing them.
More Speculative Theories
Perhaps we eventually succumb to disease because over half-a-lifetime we have simply
accumulated too many separate mutations. Most cancers first show up in middle
age when our natural defences may be starting to weaken. The cancer, in
contrast, would have been strengthening.
The Survival
Instinct.
Many animals are born with enough knowledge to
recognize danger and to run or hide. These innate instincts are thought to be
carried in the genes and even primitive life-forms seem to have a survival
instinct. So it's clearly not learnt; it doesn't require brains or intelligence.
It must be carried somewhere though, and a logical place would be in a
collective group of genes.
However, a cancer cell
could itself have retained the survival instinct: Possessing it would explain
why some cancers seem unstoppable. Scientists have described how some severely
damaged cells can repair themselves.
Phew ....
We
came into the Smoking Room to look at the problem from a different angle, to
discuss some new ideas; and to see if we could make more sense of the disease.
Before we stray any further from the established facts, we should now step
outside, into the clearer air of the hospital ward.
Knowledge about cancer constantly
improves, but questions still exist, even amongst the professionals. One
generously honest doctor explains a typical dilemma in his book* :-
He simply asks his
patient to choose between two alternative drug treatments : Neither drug was
fully effective; one worked slightly better but had worse side-effects.
The
patient though, was unprepared for it and replied "if you have no idea what is
best ..... then how can I be expected to know" .
The doctor was equally surprised by her
response. Although he thought of her as highly educated, he forgot that many
people were starved of science at school, due to teacher shortages. Their Former
Failures are now Your Poorer Patients, Dear Doctors. Forty years ago, Britain
was suffering a Brain Drain, when droves of under-paid and disillusioned
scientists left their country. It is paying the price for that now.
The knowledge and
language gap between us and our doctors is a problem : It is unfair to
repeatedly accuse THEM of being the poor communicators. The more we understand
about the human body, then the smaller becomes that divide. It would be better
if we had the knowledge to recognize, and vocabulary to describe, our symptoms;
rather than have them slowly extracted from us by busy, over-taxed, doctors.
* The Prostate Cancer Book . Professor Jonathan Waxman. Vermilion ,
Elbury Press , Random House, London . 2002.
Wisely used
cancer-knowledge could mean that a disease is nipped-in-the-bud. Or it might
mean that we are psychologically well prepared for the battle-of-our-lives and
that we don't give up just because the doctors have failed on their mission :
There are many accounts of people who have fought back to recover ;- after their
brave doctor had admitted that the ineffective drug would not save them from
death and so stopped administering it. In the end they were saved by their faith
and their recovering immunity. Their doctors would have required some faith too
.
Perhaps because of a poor education in the life sciences, we now rely too
much on the medical professions and not enough on ourselves. Our trust in
ourselves and our body's remarkable self-healing abilities may have been
weakened, but hopefully not destroyed. And it is never to late to learn .
Education
is an important tool for preventing disease . We should all work together on
this . If it leads to there being fewer patients , then doctors will have more
time and patience for the truly needy . This is yet another incentive for us to
take more responsibility for our own health . This ethos though , was not
encouraged by the Free-To-All health systems , such as the one set up in Britain
60 years ago. When combined with a deficient educational system, it encouraged
many of us to lay back, do nothing , and to trust in The Government to take care
of our health. Aah, what Bliss !
Doctors are
a grand bunch - some of my best friends are were
doctors. Let's not criticise them unfairly : They are highly trained within
their particular specialism, but it is unrealistic to expect this expertise to
stretch across the entire spectrum of medical science; there is a finite
capacity for every brain. We shouldn't expect our family-doctor to be a cancer
expert either. They know themselves that mistakes happen and that is why they
support everyone's right to a second doctor's opinion.
When you think you have something
wrong - and your GP doesn't- then get a second opinion. That's the only
way the system will work . I'm of course assuming that you're not a
hypochondriac, because the people running the show are very worried about the
cost of their inefficient system. That though, is a problem for them to solve,
not you.
There were many wrong diagnoses in the olde days, but our
collectively improved understanding should change all that.
Knowledge is a powerful thing, and if, due to
our new awareness, it's applied early - it could even mean the difference
between survival and death. It can give us self-confidence and more faith in
ourselves. This is power too.
One part of the blood that we don't often see is a
clear, yellow liquid called plasma . It doesn't travel back to the heart in
veins but in a parallel system of channels which make up the lymphatic system :
They are not visible even though some of them run just below the skin alongside
the blue veins . If we liken veins to pressurized water-mains, then a lymphatic
channel could be likened to a narrow river fed by hundreds of drainage ditches [
pictured below ]. Every so often it would widen , forming a quiet pool . This
would represent a LYMPH GLAND . We have hundreds of them , the most famous being under our chin . If we have an infection they burst into action and we feel them swell up, as they become more like factories , arming our immune system for it's battle against the disease . At all other times they act as sentry posts , quietly searching and cleaning the plasma of unhealthy matter before it returns to the blood stream.
Our IMMUNE SYSTEM is the product of a million years of evolution and it is the cornerstone of our survival on this planet. We wouldn't have made it past our first birthday without one .
At it's core are the white blood-cells, hereafter simply called white-cells. Disposing of old and abnormal cells is one part of their biological mission. They are obviously failing to do this in some people and the reason for this has attracted too little medical research. I complain about this in the next section
The white-cells can roam everywhere in the body, which is a privilege no other is allowed. Any wandering cell that ventures into it's domain should be destroyed and that should include free-roaming cancer cells. While they remain in their rightful place, the primary tumour, there is no reason why they should attract any attention; but once the cancer cells move out of their normal place they should arouse the suspicions of patrolling white cells.
In organ-transplants, the white-cells would dispose of any unusual, or 'foreign' cells very rapidly, were it not for the doctor's special immunity-suppressing drugs.
We see our shining white-knights on their crusades sometimes, as boils on our skin. Yes, that pus consists of millions of white-cells cleaning up some microbic mess for us. So they turn out to be our best [and smallest ] friend. If we aren't too beastly and pop them, they will eventually return to the blood via the lymphatic system. In the case of those on our face, they might go via the lymph glands below our jaw.
Their main job is to fight infections , working as if part of a large "army" , destroying bacteria and other microbes . Some of these white-cells are the equivalent of tanks, but armed with the most formidable biological and chemical weapons. It is lucky that they're on our side, steering us safely through a thousand infections during our lifetime, sometimes so effectively that we miss it completely, without even knowing. People who never get colds and 'flu must have magnificent inner-armies.
When you are treated for an infection , all that the antibiotics do is pause the bacterial growth This gives your own white-cells time to sort themselves out and build up their numbers before counter-attacking to kill, and dispose of, the bacteria. So you see, it really still is a case of Healing Thy Self !.
Some white-cells may even able to distinguish between a normal and a cancerous cell., although this must be much harder than identifying invading, alien, infectious, microbes.
Doctors don't know exactly how the mechanism works, and they often see it fail. Therefore many are prepared to sacrifice the white cells to some developing, but disappointing, drugs and radiation treatments. They can't be blamed for this,
but we should ask why restoring and boosting our immune-systems has been such a neglected area.
As I see it, one problem is that a doctor sees too many sick people, or rather, only sees them when they're sick. So He can easily lose sight of the hidden potential of the body to heal itself, and He gets a distorted measurement of His patient's immune potential. He never sees it when it's Powered-Up and keeping us healthy. There are many true-life accounts of it's power : After being told that they only had a few months to live, the patient then went on to mount a miraculous recovery. Under such pressures though, you can easily see why some faith is required. Fortunately it comes in three packages - blind, religious and scientific. Fortunately again, all are free.
Many fit people never saw a doctor in their lives, and never volunteered to be subjects for medical research . This will have left Medical Science deficient in some aspects of human health. The problem was further compounded by a university selection process for doctors which was biased against students of the natural-sciences, such as biology : This would account for their general under-rating of our natural, self-healing systems : They opt instead for treatments derived from Chemistry and Physics.
A reason why some drug-therapies had failed was recently reported. Patients had appeared to have been cured , but many years later their cancers had returned . Medical scientists observed that a few "mortally " damaged cancer cells had managed to repair and reassemble themselves.The scientists are now acknowledging that cells are a lot smarter than they look !
Many people have witnessed their injured cat curl up in a quiet corner for a week, and then emerge, fully restored back to health. Some men, instinctively, prefer that approach too, rather than going to the doctor. Putting it off, ignoring inner pains, or other minor signs, can have fatal consequences where cancer is concerned.
Lymph Node = Lymph gland
I have another shoddy word for you which I'm afraid has even tripped-up the professionals.
LYMPH NODE, which could mean "drain-pipe junction", is a demeaning name for what is really also a sentry post and Weapons Factory. We should call them LYMPH GLANDS, but the teachers will tell us that we're technically wrong. All the foreign words and misleading terms just make communications and understanding so difficult.
The lymph node hasn't been given the correct name, nor the status, that it deserves : Surely surgeons see it as more than just an expendable drain which they can rip out without consequence. We now know that drainage is not it's only important function. It is also part of the immune system ; but this vital system is first attacked with radio-therapy, then by chemo-therapy, and now the Surgeons want to join the fray. Well, .. no one can accuse them of being inconsistent! In their desperate effort to save lives, have they now gone too far?
I have another of those misleading scientific names for you now - antibody . They've made it sound like the bad guy when in fact it's a goody. Antibody is FOR your body, not against it.
ANTIBODY is found in the blood plasma and is the key component of immunity. It is manufactured by white blood-cells, and acts like your Army blood-hound. It can locate and then cleverly paint-spray, "invisible" viruses that have infected our cells.
Our white-cells can now see the virus, and so they can attack it.
Researchers are trying to use the blood-hound ability of antibodies, to carry cancer-drugs into tumours. They make special antibodies for this "guided missile" method, to deliver drugs to only the targeted cancer cells. The surrounding healthy cells are left unscathed. Patients then suffer fewer of the unpleasant side-effects of chemotherapy.
This is an enormously powerful weapon to use against cancer and is likely to produce spectacular results in the future.
The more traditional way of harnessing the mighty power of our immune system is through vaccination, which increases our bodily production of antibodies. Very limited progress has been made developing anti-cancer vaccines; it's a tough nut to crack. However, effective vaccines against viruses are available, which could put an end to a few specific cancers. It is at least, a start in the right direction.
In the Laboratory
I want to share a spectacular moment with you. Sit beside me please, at my laboratory bench ..
I am looking at a drop of cream coloured liquid. It is teeming with millions of bacteria.
I add a tiny drop of antibody and the creamy liquid instantly clears .
In a millisecond, that's faster than the eye can see, the antibody has woven all the bacteria tightly together, forming a miniature cord-rope.
Well, no one can blame me for falling off my stool, that was unbelievable. I stand up and repeat the test; again a beautifully plaited cord suddenly appears, as if by magic.
I doubt many doctors have witnessed the lightning-speed and aggression of antibodies quite like that. They do know that immunisation with vaccines is an enormously powerful technique. However, when you develop your immunity naturally, without vaccination, they describe this as acquiring it passively. This could lead to confusion in the following paragraph, so a wry clarification is called for :
It's not PASSIVE. Immunity is AGGRESSIVE.
The immune system purposefully seeks-out and attacks our microbic enemies. It was there, protecting our ancestors from disease, long before the advent of medical science, antibiotics and all that wiz.
Primary tumours are passive for much of the life but eventually become disruptive. The medical term "aggressive cancer", to describe a fast spreading cancer, is misleading. It isn't aggressive since it isn't actually attacking anything ; it is simply DISRUPTING it's surroundings, and that more by accident than intent. I'm sure that if it had any sense at all, it would halt it's suicidal process.
The immune system doesn't work well if it's CIRCULATION is restricted. A good blood supply is essential, which means we must exercise. This also helps the lymph get back to the heart, as would a body-massage, if the lymph lying under our skin is pushed in the correct direction. A healthy skin complexion is a reflection of the healthy immune system below it.
The intestines and lungs are also super-serviced by immunity, but other organs may not be.
Immunity also fails us when a part of the system is damaged. Two examples of this follow.
Cancer of the bone-marrow means that it is no longer able to manufacture normal white blood-cells. Restoring this crucial part of immune system, by bone-marrow transplant, is the only permanent cure for this disease [i.e. Leukaemia ].
An inherited GENETIC FLAW could mean that a vital part of the complicated immune system is missing, and so it cannot deal with difficult diseases like cancer.
We know that health and fitness varies greatly between individuals : Some people never seem to catch Colds and 'flu, whereas others suffer from them all the time.
An unrelated affliction is Allergy, which is a misfiring of our inflammation reaction, a normal part of our immune response. It thinks the pollen is going to do harm and so rushes blood to that area to repell it. It's possible to fix this fault, because the Immune System can actually be "trained" to IGNORE harmless pollen and other foreign particles. It has an innate ability to learn, more commonly it is trained to ATTACK, using the vaccination method.
Prolonged stress can seriously weaken our immune system.The sort of worry which we are talking about here might be something that gives you sleepless nights or 3am awakenings . Bullying from workplace or home, long term social, financial, or legal pressures, or worrying about your declining health, are the sorts of sustained stresses that do us damage . They cause us to maintain high levels of stress-hormone in our blood . Over a period of months our immune system gradually weakens, allowing illnesses to take the upper hand.
Over the long-term, constant negative thoughts seem to have the same effect. Cancer-victims have plenty of excuses for feeling negative, confused and even sometimes guilty. We could view these as malignant thoughts, off which a cancer can feed. Try not to be angry with the cancer, but instead, concentrate on sending positive thoughts and wishes to your white-cells - for their recovery and strength. An army without hope will prove to be a hopeless army.
Our health can be influenced by our mind. Try to let it rule your body, rather than the other way around. The mind rules O.K.
And don't let the medical people depress you, if they sound pessimistic - their tough job is enough to take the smile even off a saint. We should aim for some daily laughter and fun, and time to dwell on our achievements .
Here are some more suggestions for coping with stress :-
Relaxation techniques can help, even simple ones like taking a few deep breaths. I know people who hold their breath, or count to ten, when they are angry. That's exactly the opposite of what your body really needs. Go on, let us have a few right now, . . we're in no hurry .
Other calming techniques are meditation, yoga, and for some, prayer.
Sleep and rest are an important part of even the busiest person's health regime.
Physical activity which gets the juices flowing and clears one's mind of the problem for a few hours might help, especially if it later makes sleeping easier. Sensible people have already worked out that exhaustion is not really healthy. Even a walk in the woods might work if combined with the mental challenge of not getting lost. Such activities can be spiritually up-lifting as well.
The past few years have seen some dramatic improvements in the successful treatment of some cancers, including a 70% success rate for breast cancers. This was due to public education about self-examination resulting in early detection and better treatments.
The discovery that administering artificial oestrogen can starve, or slow, some breast tumours, will prolong the lives of millions. However, the over-prescription of cheap Temoxafin, as a preventive measure for women with a low risk of breast cancer, will accelerate the growth of some early, pre-cancerous uterine cells.
Likewise, administering REAL oestrogen [during Hormone Replacement Therapy] has increased the rate of breast cancer in those women. The over-use of drugs usually leads to unexpected complications, as most doctors now know.
The same science can be applied to prostate cancer. Testosterone is the growth-promoting hormone here, so the Doctor feeds a fake-testosterone to the cancer cells, which dramatically slows their growth. Testosterone and other steroid hormones are body-building substances, but unfortunately, they simultaneously damage our immune system. The danger is worsened because rapidly dividing cells are more likely to make mistakes and throw up evil mutations. This is statistical theory though, rather than scientifically proven fact. The Temoxafin Story
It has been said that We Are What We Eat and this seems to have been confirmed by the scienterrific research looking at foods that may protect us from specific types of cancer, including bowel cancer. The boffins have established links between high fat consumption and many diseases, including cancer. It has also been observed that vegetarians get only half the average number of cancers
Foods that seem to protect us from some common cancers include:-
Cooked tomatoes including paste and ketchup .
The normally Red , and Yellow Vegetables generally are more likely than most to contain the various ' bonus' elements.
Broccoli [ calibrese ], cauliflower, brussels-sprouts, cabbage, water-cress, rocket salad .
Selenium-rich foods e.g. sunflower and sesame seeds , meat , and fish .
Lentils, alfalfa, beans, and soya-bean products, are all high in plant-oestrogens , which may protect against some breast cancers.
The idea is that we should eat a large variety of vegetables throughout the week to increase our chances of hitting the 'bonus' jackpot.
Those high in animal fat. A recent U.K. report suggested that obesity is the cause of around 9000 cancers every year . So avoid big meals and fatty foods, especially late in the day, when you have no chance to burn the calories up.
Too much cows milk . This is not a natural food for adults . It was designed to make calves grow FAST and, in theory, it could do the same for a breast tumour , if one is already present .
Too much of any one thing , aim for some balance . Our food shelves are crammed with wheat products, for example, at the expense of other cereals , such as oats.
NB. OATS can absorb some of our dietary fat and so should be INCLUDED in everyone's diet.
Many older adults occasionally take short 2-week, high dose, courses of the popular herb, Echinacae, in an attempt to increase their white-cell numbers and hence, the number on patrol. Be careful not to over-do it though, for fear of creating a tank traffic jam. This is the reason why healthy, young people shouldn't take this herb at all. It is people who are in decline, due to age, who might benefit from it.
There is no proof that Echinacea produces the precise type of white cells that we require ; and over-production of general purpose "tanks" is likely to hinder, rather than help. So keep to short courses with long breaks. Like any army, the immune system needs regular periods of rest and restoration.
The danger of knowledge in the hands of a well-meaning , assertive ,
friend or relative, is that patients can loose ownership of their illness . We
are not helping by imposing our knowledge upon them, by telling them to
visualise what's inside them , to do this, and eat that. Some patients may just
need someone who can listen comfortably and silently. If we push too much then
we are bullying and that, most definitely, is a destructive force. Empowerment
is what people need .
Further, a
natural instinct, throughout the animal kingdom, is for the sick or injured to
withdraw to some quiet corner until they are feeling better. Humans though,
usually have to put up with the opposite, as the news spreads that so-and-so has
cancer ; as if they don't have enough problems already! As a
society our performance in this area is abysmal. Let us allow patients to retain
their self-respect, their privacy, ownership of their body, and of their
cancer.
And finally
I hope these pages
help you to understand this difficult subject and to accept that there are still
many grey areas, where the science is not clear-cut. We should never
under-estimate the Self-healing Power of the body. And we should demand more
research into it, because on this so much depends.
A LITTLE DICTIONARY .
WHITE-CELLS . This is my abbreviation for the white blood-cells . They
roam further and more freely than any other cells, spending much of their time
out of the blood, on their body-cleaning missions. In comparison, red-blood-cells have little to do with immunity and never leave the blood, so I would ignore them here.
ANTIBODY is a powerful disease-fighting substance ,
manufactured by some specialised white blood-cells . It represents the spearhead
of that our immune-system. It can pursue and attack viruses and some cancers .
Scientists are still experimenting with ways to fully harness it's enormous
power.
TUMOUR just means a growth or lump. Skin or nasal polyps are
tumours , but they are not cancers.
BENIGN tumours are lumps that aren't
doing much harm because they are not interfering with bodily
functions.
MALIGNANT tumours are dangerous because they are SPREADING. Cancer
cells have become detached from the original [primary ] tumour and they can
spread to other parts of our body via the blood or the lymphatic system. This is
called metastasis and it bad news because as they colonize new areas, the
out-of-place tumours, are more disruptive than the original one, and they can
bring the functioning of the body to a complete stop .
GENES are
instructions , "written" not in words, but in chemical code. They are found in
the center of every cell. In effect, they act like the brain of the cell,
defining it's purpose - [to make a digestive chemical] or [I am an
oxygen-carrying cell ].
A typical CHROMOSOME consists of approximately a
thousand genes strung together as a minute chain. I could liken it to the
pull-cord on talking dolls, but these are a million times longer than a
chromosome. Each of your cells contains 23 chromosomes from your mother and 23
from your father, which paired up at your creation, in the form of your very
first cell. Congratulations !
Chromosomes are made of DNA. Using chemistry
we can "translate" it into a bar-code [|1||I|!||], giving us our
DNA-fingerprint.
A VIRUS is Very small and consists of bits of gene. Technically, it is a
chemical, rather than a life-form because it doesn't have enough genes of it's
own to actually come to life. In order to live and proliferate it has to get in
amongst our genes, to try and become a part of one of our chromosomes. It then
hijacks our cell for it's own use.
Bacteria,
incidently, are hundreds of times Bigger than viruses and so can't get to our
genes. Therefore bacteria don't cause cancer.
MISSPELL, spelling
incorrectly. Mistakes happen easily and frequently. ["So sorry, Miss Pell"].