Stress And Cancer

The great physicians of the past believed that emotions and disease were interrelated. Galen, the Greek physician who lived from A.D. 129 to ca. 199, suggested that melancholy women suffered more from cancer than sanguine women.

Dr. Walter Walshe, writing in The Nature and Treatment of Cancer emphasized that mental disquietude was a basis for cancer and that those who had a family history of this disease should avoid the stressful professions of the bar, medicine, and diplomacy. He stated that the suggestion that health follows from but the claim between stress and cancer has been shown to be correct.

Psychologist Elida Evans collected information on one hundred cancer patients and found that many of them had lost an important emotional relationship shortly before the onset of their illness. They seemed to have become so involved with one person, vocation, or cause that they neglected the development of their own individuality. When that person or relationship was removed, they felt cut off and found few internal resources for coping with the attendant stress. The literature indicates that the presence of cancer could be a sign of despair, and that this is often accompanied by feelings that there is no solution to one’s problems.

Obesity Increases Cancer Risk, Study Shows

Cancer specialists say there’s a need to better understand how fat cells fuel cancer growth so they might fight back.

“The cancer picture is a little bit more subtle,” says American Cancer Society epidemiologist Eugenia Calle. The risks of heart disease and diabetes from being obese are much higher, and more immediate because cancer typically develops more slowly than those illnesses, she explains.

According to Calle, fat is known to increase the risk of developing cancers of the colon, breast, uterus, kidney, esophagus, pancreas, gallbladder, liver and top of the stomach.

Fat cells apparently play different roles that can spur different types of cancer growth. Fat is linked to breast cancer in postmenopausal women. While anti-estrogen therapies are common, the fatter a woman is, the harder it is to lower hormone levels, one reason the obese have at least a 50 percent greater chance of dying from breast cancer than lean patients , Calle says.

An overweight woman has twice the risk of developing uterine lining cancer. Study shows the obese have up to triple the risk of kidney cancer. Obese men are 50 percent to twice as likely as lean men to get colon cancer. Then there are organ-by-organ reactions. Calle cites this example, the obese are particularly prone to “gastroesophageal reflux,” frequent heartburn where a backup of stomach acid onto the delicate esophagus eventually can lead to esophageal cancer.

Cuba Developed Lung Cancer Vaccine

Cimavax EGF, a therapeutic lung cancer vaccine was unvciled last week during a press conference in Cuba. Cuban scientists say that Cimavax EGF is the first in the world and extends the lives of victims suffering lung cancer by up to five months.

Cimavax EGF is the first registered vaccine in the world designed to battle lung cancer, said Gisela Gonzales of the Havana Molecular Immunological Center. Research on this vaccine, Gonzalez said, began in 1992, with the first clinical test in 1995.

The vaccine is based on two proteins that triggers an immune response from the victims body and has no side effect, Gonzalez said. The vaccine is available in Cuba, and will be commercialized in Latin America, starting in Peru, Gonzalez added.

Breast Cancer Detection

The worst disease many women can imagine is breast cancer. Research shows one of approximately every nine women is at risk of breast cancer at some time in their lives. The good news is that early detection and treatment can reduce mortality, regardless of a woman’s age.

A mammogram is an x-ray procedure that visualize the internal structure of your breasts. It can detect lumps or calcifications ( tiny specks of calcium that often appear with cancer) that may be too small for you or your doctor to feel. Mammography usually consists of 2 x-rays of each breast, one taken from the top and one from the side. The procedure requires compression of your breasts against the x-ray film to produce a high quality image, and maybe a bit uncomfortable.

Another detection technique is doing your own breast self-exam (BSE). Mercedes Bremeisen , M.D, an oncologist from the Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles, recommends the following technique: Lie on your back with a pillow under your right shoulder , right hand behind your head. With your left hand, firmly press the finger pads of your three little fingers in a grid pattern over the entire breast and up toward the armpit. Make note of what you feel its normal, for example, to detect a hollowness underneath your nipple or a ridge of dense tissue at the bottom curse of your breast.

Laetrile (B17) In Cancer Treatment

Can laetrile marketed as B17 cure cancer?
The substance is derived from the apricot pit and is promoted as an unproven anticancer drug.

A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine on the effectiveness of laetrile in cancer treatment showed no benefits in the cure of cancer. What it did show was laetrile’s toxicity and patients who elect to use it run the risk of cyanide poisoning.

The Food and Drug Administration banned foods containing amygdalin, laetrile’s main substance and chemical found in peach, apricot, apple, plum, and bitter almond pits. If taken in large amounts, amygdalin can cause poisoning and death, the study said.

Are Hormone Pills Carcinogenics?

Based from the studies published over the last few years, the United Nations cancer agency, had reclassified hormonal menopause therapy from “ possibly carcinogenic to “ carcinogenic.”

The analysis for a panel of 21 scientist, concluded that estrogen and progestin menopause therapy also slightly increases the risk of endometrial cancer when progestin is taken less than 10 days a month. They also concluded that a common type of contraceptive pill, taken by about ten percent of women of reproductive age, increase the risk of more types of cancer.

Diabetes May Raise Risk Of Liver Cancer, Study

A study warns that diabetes may triple the risk of liver cancer. The study from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, examined 2,161 liver cancer patients over a five-year period. Findings showed 43 percent had diabetes for three years before their diagnosis. By contrast, only 19 percent of 6,183 random individuals in a control group had diabetes during a three year period. Researchers concluded, after factoring in other possible contributing diseases for the cancer patients, that diabetics were three times more likely to develop liver cancer than those without diabetes. Patients in the population based study were identified using US Medicare data.