Processed Meat Once Again ‘Linked To Pancreatic Cancer’

January 20, 2012

BBC

By James Gallagher

“If you’re going to eat beef – it must be grass fed and organic. Otherwise, become a vegetarian.” –KTRN

A link between eating processed meat, such as bacon or sausages, and pancreatic cancer has been suggested by researchers in Sweden.

They said eating an extra 50g of processed meat, approximately one sausage, every day would increase a person’s risk by 19%.

But the chance of developing the rare cancer remains low.

The World Cancer Research Fund suggested the link may be down to obesity.

Eating red and processed meat has already been linked to bowel cancer. As a result the UK government recommended in 2011 that people eat no more than 70g a day.

Prof Susanna Larsson, who conducted the study at the Karolinska Institute, told the BBC that links to other cancers were “quite controversial”.

She added: “It is known that eating meat increases the risk of colorectal cancer, it’s not so much known about other cancers.”

The study, published in the British Journal of Cancer, analysed data from 11 trials and 6,643 patients with pancreatic cancer.

Click here for the full report.

Do You Know This Anti-Cancer Treatment?

September 12th, 2011

Natural News

By: Connie Strasheim

Numerous studies have established melatonin as one of the most effective anti-cancer treatments in existence. It inhibits cancer cell growth and proliferation; it destroys cancer cells, stops angiogenesis (new tumor blood vessel growth), and prevents harmful forms of estrogen from stimulating cancer cell growth. Despite its success in clinical trials and in doctors’ experiences with their patients, it has not been widely prescribed in conventional medicine, though its effects have proven to be superior to those of many chemotherapeutic drugs.

In one clinical trial, patients with glioblastoma, a type of brain cancer, were given either radiation and melatonin, or radiation alone. Twenty-three percent of the patients who took the melatonin were alive after a year, while none who had received only radiation were still alive. Similarly, in another study by oncologists in Italy, patients with non-small cell lung cancers who had failed chemotherapy were given melatonin. They were compared with other patients with non-small cell lung cancers who weren’t given melatonin. A year later, 26 percent of the patients who had taken melatonin were still alive; whereas, none in the non-melatonin group remained alive.

Studies have also revealed melatonin to be more effective for treating pancreatic and lung cancers than a drug commonly used to treat these types of cancers. What’s more, this drug may cost more than $4,000 per month, while twenty milligrams of melatonin cost approximately $11 per month.

Melatonin functions to destroy cancer in multiple ways. First, because it is toxic to cancer cells, it induces apoptosis, or cancer cell auto-destruction, as well as directly kills cancer cells. It also slows tumor growth through a variety of mechanisms, such as by inhibiting epidermal growth factor receptors on cancer cells. Epidermal growth factors play an important role in cancer cell growth and proliferation, so blocking their receptors on cancer cells prevents them from carrying out these roles.
Melatonin also stimulates the immune system and increases the cancer-killing activity of macrophages, monocytes, natural killer cells, T-helper cells and eosinophils, all of which are involved in cancer cell destruction.

Additionally, melatonin inhibits angiogenesis (new tumor blood vessel creation) from existing blood vessels. Tumors get their nutrition through blood vessels, and as they grow, they require an increasingly greater supply of blood vessels to feed themselves. Preventing new blood vessel growth limits their food intake and causes them to shrink or stop growing.

Melatonin has properties which enable it to block the effects of estrogen upon cancer cells; this is important because certain forms of estrogen stimulate the growth of hormonally-influenced cancers, such as breast, endometrial, ovarian and uterine cancers.

Finally, as an antioxidant, melatonin reduces inflammation, a condition that enables cancer’s survival, and it scavenges free radicals so that they don’t damage normal cells and make them vulnerable to further genetic mutations.

Despite these favorable statistics, melatonin is seldom recommended to patients in conventional medicine because the laws which govern the practice of medicine are drastically influenced by pharmaceutical interests, which prevent doctors from recommending it to their patients in lieu of expensive, damaging chemotherapy drugs. It is, however, an effective natural treatment that not only helps to prevent cancer, but which also plays an integral role in healing the body from it.

Click here for full report from Natural News

Apple Founder Steve Jobs Has 6 Weeks to Live?

April 20th, 2011

The National Enquirer

There’s been worldwide interest since we reported that Apple boss Steve Jobs – the mastermind behind the iPod, iPhone and iPad – could have only six weeks to live!

Shocking photos obtained exclusively by The ENQUIRER show the 56-year-old cancer-stricken computer genius has become rail-thin and heartbreakingly weak in recent days despite putting up a tremendously courageous battle.

Since the print edition of the new issue of The ENQUIRER containing this blockbuster story began hitting newsstands on Wednesday in New York, media outlets worldwide have reported our story – and some websites have even attempted to rip off our exclusive photos!

For nearly seven years, the Apple co-founder has battled a rare form of pancreatic cancer – called a neuroendocrine tumor. It is a slower moving cancer than the type that killed actor Patrick Swayze in 2009 and actor Michael Landon in 1991.

Only about 4 percent of patients with any form of pancreatic cancer can live longer than five years.

Jobs has taken three medical leaves of absence from Apple and had a 2009 liver transplant after the cancer spread.

But after studying the new photos of the world-renowned entrepreneur – taken on February 8th in California – medical experts consulted by The ENQUIRER say it appears he’s losing his battle.

Jobs was photographed outside the Stanford Cancer Center – the same place where Swayze was treated during his final days.

The heartrending photos show the terrible damage cancer has done to Jobs’ 6-foot-2 frame – dropping his weight from a precancer 175 pounds to about 130 now.

One of our experts – Boca Raton, Fla., critical care physician Dr. Samuel Jacobson, who has not treated Jobs – told The ENQUIRER: “The poor guy! Judging from these photos, he is close to terminal. I would say he has six weeks.

“He is emaciated and looks to have lost a lot of muscle mass, which spells a poor prognosis.”

Click here for the full report from the National Enquirer

Diet Makes All The Difference With Pancreatic Cancer Risk

November 18th, 2010

Natural News

By: Ethan A. Huff

What you eat plays a critical role in determining whether or not you develop cancer, indicates a new report published in the journal Nature. Pancreatic cancer takes nearly 20 years to develop in the body, but its onset, growth, and spread is largely determined by the types of food a person eats, and whether or not those foods feed or starve the cancer cells.

According to an analysis by Christine Iacobuzio-Donahue, MD, PhD, associate professor of pathology and oncology at Hopkins’ Sol Goldman Pancreatic Cancer Research Center, and her colleagues, it takes nearly 12 years for the first cancer cells to develop in the pancreas. It then takes another nearly seven years for them to grow, followed by at least another year for them to spread. It is only in the last two-to-three years that the disease actually starts to kill a person.

Conventional detection methods are typically unable to detect pancreatic cancer early enough to do much about it, and prevention methods are rarely spoken about by conventional medical experts. However, there are numerous studies that point to ways people can help prevent the disease from taking hold. After all, there is at least a 20-year window to start making the proper dietary changes now before it is too late.

A 2009 study published in Cancer Causes and Control suggests that eating meat, at least conventionally-raised meat, increases pancreatic cancer risk. Table sugar and potatoes are also implicated, each associated with roughly a 100 percent increased risk of developing the disease.

Highly cooked potatoes are known to contain cancer-causing carcinogens as well, and processed sugars produce insulin-like growth hormone, which studies have shown encourages the growth of cancer cells.

On the other hand, fruits and vegetables have been shown to reduce cancer risk, as have vitamin E, vitamin C, and potassium. There are many other foods, supplements, and herbs that help to prevent cancer as well.

Click here for the full report from Natural News

Cancer Cells Love High Fructose Corn Syrup

August 5, 2010

Natural News

By: Jonathan Benson

Researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) recently conducted a study revealing that cancer cells have a particular liking for refined fructose. In tests, pancreatic cancer cells quickly fed on refined fructose and used it to divide and proliferate rapidly within the body.

“These findings show that cancer cells can readily metabolize fructose to increase proliferation,” explained Dr. Anthony Heaney of UCLA’s Jonsson Cancer Center, one of the authors of the study.

Published in the journal Cancer Research, the findings also reveal that not all sugars are the same, a widely held belief in mainstream medicine. Tumor cells love both glucose sugar and fructose sugar, but fructose directly causes cancer cells to reproduce and spread in a way that glucose does not.

“Importantly, fructose and glucose metabolism are quite different,” wrote the team in the study paper.

So the study solidifies the fact that there is a major difference between high fructose corn syrup, a highly-refined sugar commonly used in processed American foods and beverages, and refined sugar cane. Both can lead to health problems, but high fructose corn syrup is worse in terms of cancer growth.

“I think this paper has a lot of public health implications. Hopefully, at the federal level there will be some effort to step back on the amount of high fructose corn syrup in our diets,” said Dr. Heaney in a statement.

It is already known that the pancreas has to work much harder to metabolize fructose than it does glucose and other sugars, so it makes sense that fructose consumption is implicated more seriously in contributing to pancreatic cancer growth.

click here to read full article

Soda Consumption Linked To Pancreatic Cancer

July 15, 2010

Natural News

By: David Gutierrez

Drinking more than one sweetened soft drink per week may significantly increase your risk of pancreatic cancer, according to a study conducted by researchers from the University of Minnesota and published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.

“The high levels of sugar in soft drinks may be increasing the level of insulin in the body, which we think contributes to pancreatic cancer cell growth,” lead researcher Mark Pereira said.

The researchers followed 60,524 adult male and female participants in the Singapore Chinese Health Study for 14 years, monitoring their soda intake and pancreatic cancer risk. They found that participants who drank two or more sweetened soft drinks per week were 87 percent more likely to develop cancer of the pancreas than those who drank sodas less frequently.

This risk was not seen among those who drank non-sweetened fruit juices instead.

“Singapore is a wealthy country with excellent healthcare,” Pereira said. “Favorite pastimes are eating and shopping, so the findings should apply to other western countries.”

Researchers believe that excessive sugar consumption may cause damage to the pancreas, which produces the sugar-regulating hormone insulin. Some research also suggests that sugar may accelerate the growth of some tumors, which rely more heavily on glucose than other bodily cells.

Sugar may not be solely responsible for the observed effect, however.

“Soft drink consumption in Singapore was associated with several other adverse health behaviors such as smoking and red meat intake, which we can’t accurately control for,” said Susan Mayne of the Yale Cancer Center.

Prior studies have linked consumption of red meat, especially burned or charred varieties, to a significantly increased risk of pancreatic cancer.

Pancreatic cancer is one the most lethal forms of the disease, with a 5-year survival rate of only 5 percent. An estimated 37,680 people are diagnosed with the disease in the United States each year, and 34,290 die from it.

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Allergic: ‘Less Prone To Cancer’

May 24, 2010

Telegraph.co.UK

Scientists found children with allergies to airborne substances were 40 per cent less likely to develop leukaemia than other youngsters while asthma sufferers were 30 per cent less likely to get ovarian cancer than others.

The research was reported in the Daily Mail, which said evidence was growing that putting up with allergies does provide a medical advantage.

Dr Zuber Mulla, an epidemiologist at Texas Tech University, who led the ovarian cancer study, told the newspaper: “More work is still needed, but the numbers show that allergy is a statistically significant protective factor.”

The report said doctors at Cornell University in New York State found children with airborne allergies also had reduced rates of throat, skin, lung and intestinal cancer.

Canadian studies showed that having an allergy or hay fever lowered the chances of getting pancreatic cancer by up to 58 per cent.

Dr Ronald Crystal, chief of pulmonary and critical-care medicine at Weill Cornell Medical Centre, told the newspaper: “Allergies are a general activation of our immune systems. It’s hard to prove, and I’ve heard some scepticism, but it’s a concept in this field and the studies add to that.

The research into leukaemia and cancer was carried out at Minnesota University.

Click here to read the full report

Sodas Linked to Pancreatic Cancer

February 9, 2010

Natural News

By Mike Adams

A 14-year study of 60,000 people in Singapore found that those who consume two or more sweetened soft drinks per week have an 87 percent higher risk of pancreatic cancer.

Published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, the study was led by Mark Pereira of the University of Minnesota who said, “The high levels of sugar in soft drinks may be increasing the level of insulin in the body, which we think contributes to pancreatic cancer cell growth.”

Nearly 38,000 people are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in the United States each year, and over 34,000 die from the disease each year. This research points to what may be the common culprit of all those preventable deaths: Sugary soft drink consumption.

Poison in a can

NaturalNews has warned readers for years about the dangers of consuming soft drinks. The sweetener used in most beverages — high-fructose corn syrup — is linked to both diabetes and obesity. The phosphoric acid found in soft drinks is highly acidic, stripping minerals from bones and promoting osteoporosis. At the same time, soft drinks can cause kidney stones, too.

For those who consume diet sodas, the health risks may be even worse: Aspartame causes neurological side effects that include blindness, headaches and impaired cognitive function.

The beverage industry, of course, denies any links between soda consumption and negative health effects. It wants consumers to naively believe that liquid sugar, phosphoric acid and pressurized carbon dioxide are all good for you!

But experience tells us otherwise: Look at the people you know who consume the most soft drinks and ask yourself this simple question: Are they the healthiest people I know? Probably not.

Most likely, if they’ve been drinking sodas for many years, they’re suffering from obesity, diabetes, kidney stones and perhaps even pancreatic cancer.

Click here for the full report.

Diabetes Drug Could Cause Pancreatic Cancer

September 28, 2009

Natural News

By David Gutierrez

The popular diabetes drug sitagliptin (marketed as Januvia) may increase the risk of pancreatic cancer, according to study conducted by researchers from the University of California-Los Angeles and published in the journal Diabetes.

“Type 2 diabetes is a lifelong disease — people often take the same drugs for many years, so any adverse effect that could over time increase the risk for pancreatic cancer would be a concern,” said lead researcher Peter Butler. “A concern here is that the unwanted effects of this drug on the pancreas would likely not be detected in humans unless the pancreas was removed and examined.”

Previous research has suggested that the diabetes drug Byetta might increase the risk of pancreatic inflammation (pancreatitis), a known risk factor for pancreatic cancer. Byetta and Januvia both act by enhancing the activity of a gut hormone known as glucagon-like-peptide-1 (GLP-1), thereby resulting in lower blood sugar.

Byetta manufacturer Amylin Corp. has insisted that the connection between Byetta and pancreatitis could be coincidence, since no mechanism to explain the correlation has yet been found. The new study suggests, however, that enhanced GLP-1 activity might itself be a risk factor for pancreatitis.

Researchers conducted the study on rats that had been genetically engineered to simulate the metabolism of humans with Type 2 diabetes, as well as their Islets of Langerhans. They treated 40 rats with either Januvia or a Januvia-metformin combination for 12 weeks.

The Islets of Langerhans are hormone-producing regions of the pancreas. Metformin is an older diabetes drug that is believed to have tumor-suppressing properties.

The researchers found that rats treated only with Januvia had significantly higher proliferation of beta cells in their Islets of Langerhans, while some developed pancreatic abnormalities or inflammation. Rats treated with both drugs did not exhibit this effect.

Beta cells produce the blood sugar-regulating hormone insulin.

Click here for the full report from Natural News