Cancer Cause

The take home is that it is never a good idea to breath toxins on a regular basis, and until pretty recently we were pretty relaxed about all that.

This piece of work tells us that in which breathing wood smoke was pretty well unavoidable (pre 17^th century), that cancer was rare.  Alternative explanations are pretty well eliminated.

We are now entering a global system in which such casual toxin exposure will disappear.  The big one caused by the use of cigarettes has already been hugely reduced.  The next one will be the transition away from fuel based automobiles.  After that a few simple tweaks and it will be almost impossible to be exposed.

Of course, food additives are drummed as a concern as well they should be.  Yet little compelling evidence for risk actually exists.

As Dr Al Sears points out, our bodies are quite able to handle minor insults and we help it along by properly topping up with ten grams or so of vitamin C, two grams or so of vitamin D and bit of CoQ10 (or a steak).

Plenty of literature has already made this protocol stand out.  Now we know clearly what causes cancer and know that a strong cellular system protects oneself.

Cancer. Just the word evokes fear.

February 21, 2011

The medical journals and newsletters I get are often filled with articles about cancer. It’s the 800-pound gorilla in the room. Once someone mentions it, it’s all you can think about.

And if you’re a regular reader, you probably won’t be surprised that most of the cancer-related articles in medical publications are only about drug treatments.

I’ve even read research on whether or not aspirin prevents cancer. I wonder who’s sponsoring those studies … Are they really trying to tell us that people are getting cancer because of a deficiency of aspirin?

The truth is, cancer rates are not rising because we’re deficient in man-made painkillers. Cancer is increasing because of our man-made toxic environment.

Here’s something positive about cancer that most people don’t know…

Cancer was almost unknown in ancient times.

Why is this good news? Because it means you don’t need any scary science to prevent it.

In a study completed just recently and published in the journal Nature, researchers looked at tissue samples from hundreds of Egyptian mummies. There should have been evidence of cancer in all of them, according to modern cancer statistics. And mummification would have preserved any sign of tumors.

But instead of finding cancer in nearly every mummy … they found only a single case. The hundreds of other mummies showed no sign of cancer at all.

These results would be impossible if cancer were not an entirely modern plague. Statistically, it could not happen.

And it wasn’t because Egyptians didn’t live long enough to get cancer. The mummies had evidence of age-related problems like brittle bones and hardened arteries.

What we should be doing today is trying to mimic the environment we had back then. That’s what we should be paying attention to.

Researchers from some of the largest institutions in Texas are trying to help. They recently revealed how cancer begins. It starts with weakened cells.

Strands of DNA sometimes get broken through your body’s natural processes. Your cells then send signals to your body to repair your DNA. If the response is deficient, or no help comes at all, those cells become vulnerable to cancer.2

What happens today that did not happen in out native environment is that those breaks occur a lot more often. They’re caused by things like environmental pollutants and chemical ingredients in food. Our bodies haven’t adapted to the huge increase in these man-made toxins over a very short period.

So let me be as clear as I can: Cancer isn’t a “normal” part of life. Toxins and chemicals are interfering with your natural ability to defend yourself.

The most important thing you can do is to strengthen your cells, so they’re more disease-resistant. And that means making sure your body has the energy and the nutrients to repair and maintain those cells.

The three most important nutrients you need to keep your cells strong are also the ones chronically deficient in today’s world. They are vitamin C, vitamin D and CoQ10. 

1. Vitamin C is an antioxidant that disarms damaging free radicals before they can attack healthy cells and stimulate tumor growth.

We also now know that the protective caps on the ends of your DNA, called telomeres, are very sensitive to this kind of damage. The shorter your telomeres, the older your cells act and the more susceptible they are to becoming cancerous. The new, exciting discovery about vitamin C is that it’s very effective at defending you against this process and protecting your DNA. 

We get some vitamin C from our food, but not nearly enough. The foods with the most vitamin C include dark green, leafy vegetables, and “superfruits” like the acerola cherry. Also, you probably don’t think of them this way, but peppers are the kings of vegetable vitamin C. Watercress is also a little-known but rich source of vitamin C. If you choose to supplement, try to get 1,500 mg twice a day if you’re healthy. If you’re under a lot of stress, or if you are sick, you can take as much as 20,000 mg per day. 

2. Low Vitamin D levels are strongly linked to cancer. A report out of a university in Nebraska showed that vitamin D has the potential to lower the risk of all cancers in women by 77 percent.3

Researchers at the University of California San Diego found you can lower your risk of breast cancer by 50 percent, and colon cancer by more than 65 percent, simply by boosting your vitamin D levels through sunlight, diet or supplements.4,5

A Harvard-sponsored report published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute revealed that when men raise their vitamin D intake, they can lower their overall risk of cancer death by 29 percent, drop rates of “digestive tract” cancers by 43 percent (throat, stomach and colon), and reduce death rates from these cancers by 45 percent.6

The best source of vitamin D is sunshine. Your skin produces vitamin D when the sun’s rays shine on you. Ten to 20 minutes of sun get’s you a full day’s supply of it. To supplement with vitamin D, make sure you take the natural form, D3. I recommend at least 2,000 IU per day.

3. CoQ10 is one of the most overlooked nutrients. The government doesn’t even have a recommended daily intake for it. But it’s the fuel your cells use to make energy. That means it’s the primary source of energy for the immune cells that get suppressed by cancer. CoQ10 restores their ability to fight back and attack cancer cells. Like vitamin C, it’s also a powerful antioxidant that blocks free radicals from damaging your DNA.

Besides helping to prevent cancer, there are many clinical trials in which CoQ10 helps heal people who already have cancer. In one, researchers in Denmark studied a group of breast cancer patients. They gave them CoQ10, plus a combination of other antioxidants and essential fatty acids. 

The entire group had a partial remission of the cancer. Two of the patients received larger doses of CoQ10 (390 mg) and their tumors disappeared.7 In no way am I saying stop your cancer treatment and only take CoQ10. What I am showing you is the power of this important nutrient against cancer.

The best way to get CoQ10 is by eating red meat from grass-fed animals. Grain-fed meat is not a good source of CoQ10. If you want to supplement, the form you get is very important. I recommend 50 mg of the ubiquinone form, which is 8 times stronger and is better absorbed than the old form.

To Your Good Health,

Al Sears, MD

1 David, A. Rosalie, Zimmerman, Michael R., "Cancer: an old disease, a new disease or something in between?" Nature Reviews Cancer Oct. 2010;728-733
2 Nicolette, Matthew L., et al, "Mre11–Rad50–Xrs2 and Sae2 promote 5′ strand resection of DNA double-strand breaks," Nature Structural & Molecular Biology Oct. 2010; 17: 1478–1485
3 Lappe, et al, “Vitamin D Status in a Rural Postmenopausal Female Population,” Journal of the American College of Nutrition 2006; 25(5):395-402
4 Garland, et al, “Vitamin D and prevention of breast cancer: Pooled analysis,” Journal of Steroid Biochemistry and Molecular Biology 2005; 97(1-2):179-94
5 Gorham, et al, “Optimal Vitamin D Status for Colorectal Cancer Prevention: A Quantitative Meta-Analysis,” American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 32(3):210-216
6 Giovanucci, et al, “Prospective Study of Predictors of Vitamin D Status and Cancer Incidence and Mortality in Men,” Journal of the National Cancer Institute 2006; 98(7):451-459
7 Lockwood, K., Moesgaard, S., Folkers, K., “Partial and complete regression of breast cancer in patients in relation to dosage of coenzyme Q10,” Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun. March 30, 1994;199 (3):1504-8

Cancer Is Probably Man Made Caused By Pollution And Diet

Terry on Oct 15th 2010

Medical News Today

http://clusteralliance.org/2010/10/15/cancer-is-probably-man-made-caused-by-pollution-and-diet/

Why was cancer detected in only one in a few hundred Egyptian mummies? Why is there such scarce reference to cancer in ancient Greek or Egyptian texts? A study carried out by researchers from the University of Manchester, England and published in Nature suggests that cancer, especially cancer among children and young adults is not simply due to our living longer these days – it must be a man-made disease. The scientists say theirs is “the first histological diagnosis of cancer in an Egyptian mummy”.

Investigators at Manchester University’s KNH Centre for Biomedical Egyptology say their study proves that during the Egyptian mummies’ time, cancer was extremely rare. After investigating hundreds of mummies, they came across just one case of cancer – worldwide only two cases have ever been detected. Incidence of cancer, especially childhood cancer exploded after the Industrial Revolution.

Professor Rosalie David, at Manchester University’s Faculty of Life Sciences, said:

In industrialized societies, cancer is second only to cardiovascular disease as a cause of death. But in ancient times, it was extremely rare. There is nothing in the natural environment that can cause cancer. So it has to be a man-made disease, down to pollution and changes to our diet and lifestyle.

The important thing about our study is that it gives a historical perspective to this disease. We can make very clear statements on the cancer rates in societies because we have a full overview. We have looked at millennia, not one hundred years, and have masses of data.

Professor Michael Zimmerman, a visiting professor at the KNH Centre, made the first ever histological diagnosis of cancer in an Egyptian mummy. The mummy was said to be an ordinary person, from the Ptolemaic period.

Zimmerman said:

In an ancient society lacking surgical intervention, evidence of cancer should remain in all cases. The virtual absence of malignancies in mummies must be interpreted as indicating their rarity in antiquity, indicating that cancer causing factors are limited to societies affected by modern industrialization.

The investigators examined literary evidence from ancient Greece and Egypt, as well as mummified remains from ancient Egypt. They also carried out medical examinations of animal and human remains further back in history, as far back as the period of the dinosaurs.

They found that:

* According to animal, non-human primates, and early human remains and fossil evidence, cancer was extremely uncommon. One Edmontosaurus fossil of unknown primary origin had evidence of metastatic cancer.

* Virtually all evidence of tumors, which were extremely uncommon anyway, were benign.

* The few malignancies were found were in non-human primates, but none of them are cancers found in modern adult humans.

Atherosclerosis, Paget’s disease of bone, and osteoporosis did exist in ancient Greece and Egypt – diseases that affect humans when they are older; old enough to develop common modern cancers. If humans at that time lived long enough to develop those diseases, the extreme rarity of cancer cannot be put down to very short life spans. People in those days lived long enough to develop the cancer adults develop today. Also, there is no evidence of any childhood cancers in ancient Greece or Egypt. Cancer among children is definitely much more common today than it was in ancient Greece/Egypt.

Some people have suggested that tumors do not preserve well, so evidence of them disappears over time. However, Zimmerman says mummification preservers malignancy features; in fact, it preserves tumors much better than normal tissue.

Of all the hundreds of mummies examined all over the world, just two have microscopic evidence of cancer. Radiologists have examined all the mummies at museums in Cairo and Europe and found no evidence of cancer at all.

Evidence of cancer and medical procedures, such as operations for cancers does not appear until the 17th century, the researchers reveal. Scientific literature depicting distinctive tumors have only been about for the last 200 years, when data started to be documented about chimney sweeps with scrotal cancer in 1775, nasal cancer in snuff users in 1761, and Hodgkin’s disease in 1832.

Professor David said:

Where there are cases of cancer in ancient Egyptian remains, we are not sure what caused them. They did heat their homes with fires, which gave off smoke, and temples burned incense, but sometimes illnesses are just thrown up.

The ancient Egyptian data offers both physical and literary evidence, giving a unique opportunity to look at the diseases they had and the treatments they tried. They were the fathers of pharmacology so some treatments did work.

They were very inventive and some treatments thought of as magical were genuine therapeutic remedies. For example, celery was used to treat rheumatism back then and is being investigated today. Their surgery and the binding of fractures were excellent because they knew their anatomy: there was no taboo on working with human bodies because of mummification. They were very hands on and it gave them a different mindset to working with bodies than the Greeks, who had to come to Alexandria to study medicine.

(Conclusion) Yet again extensive ancient Egyptian data, along with other data from across the millennia, has given modern society a clear message – cancer is man-made and something that we can and should address.

“Cancer: an old disease, a new disease or something in between?”
A. Rosalie David & Michael R. Zimmerman

Nature Reviews Cancer 10, 728-733 (October 2010) | doi:10.1038/nrc2914