HRT & Cancer confirmation

HRT is a thorny subject, with its advocates and detractors in equal numbers. I have been on HRT for 6 months many years ago, and know what it can do, but I also have seen much research on the damage it can wreak. New studies in recent months had pointedout the dangers of side effects such as strokes, blood clots, brain shrinkage, dementia, and even gallbladder disease, but the greatest danger comes from its role in promoting cancer.

The New England Journal of Medicine recently reported that when women are taken off HRT their cancer risk is dramatically reduced. A new study was conducted by UCLA oncologist Dr. Roman Chelbowski, and he found that the rate of breast cancer in postmenopausal women dramatically dropped in the first two years after they stopped using HRT, and then continued to reduce each year afterwards. Women in the study who also took hormone supplements of oestrogen and progestin had double the chance of developing cancer over five years, compared to women who weren’t on any form of HRT.

My view is that if you take HRT knowing the risks that is your business, but I do urge you not to fall into the trap of taking HRT long-term, which is what many doctors advocate. The risks increase, and the benefits decrease, the longer you are on it so make sure you have a definite schedule. Menopausal symptoms may be alleviated, but the menopause itself can’t be avoided, HRT or not.

Fight mood swings with fish oil

A recent report in the American Journal of Nutrition offers some hope for women – and those who have to live with them – who sufferfrom the hormonal havoc that can occur with PMS and in the time running up to the menopause. It’s not just the hormones of course, other stresses such as work and family life also add their load, plus the emotional challenge for many women of approaching the end of their childbearing years.

Other than hiding in a cupboard during the time when you want to lash out at everyone and everything and no sensible partner is insane enough to ask if you are alright without running the risk of a clip round the ear or a torrent of weeping. Now hope is at hand in the form of supplementing the diet with omega 3 oil.

Two groups of women took part in the eight week study; one being given 1.2 grams of omega-3 from fish oil and the others a placebo of sunflower oil. The group who had the placebo showed no improvement, but those taking omega-3 had definite improvements in their emotional state.

To supplement to the level of the trial you would need 1200mg a day of omega 3 and 1,050 mg of EPA. If you are not keen on taking supplements then you could increase the amount of oily fish in your diet such as salmon, sardines, mackerel, herring and anchovies. Or turn to that childhood staple of cod liver oil if you can stand the taste. It contains large amounts of EPA and DHA.

A word of caution, most people can take fish oil supplements safely, but if you are any form of anti-coagulant, such as Warfarin please speak to your doctor. Fish oil supplements can thin the blood so you must check whether they are suitable for you before embarking on adding them to your diet.

Beat gum disease with a cuppa

Now you know how fond I am of green tea, and actually I have found a new one in my supermarket made by Dr Stuart which combines green tea and rice. Sounds disgusting but actually it sweetens the green tea, and makes it more palatable and as I have just found another good reason for drinking it, I encourage you to try it. A cup of green tea per day may help keep gum disease at bay, a new study suggests.

A report in the Journal of Periodontology says that researchers at Kyushu University in Fukuoka, Japan found that among middle-aged Japanese men, the odds of having gum disease declined as their intake of green tea went up. For each daily cup they drank, the risk of having signs of gum disease – including receding, easily bleeding gums – went down and this may be because green tea has a high concentration of antioxidant compounds called polyphenols. Much gum disease arises from bacterial infection, and lab research suggests that green tea polyphenols can inhibit those germs and the damage they cause. It is of course no substitute for good oral hygiene and the dentist, but prevention is always better than cure – particularly when green tea has so many other health benefits as well.

New evidence of infection link to childhood Leukaemia

Every 20 minutes someone in the UK is diagnosed with cancers of the blood such as leukaemia, lymphoma and myeloma. UK researchers have for the first time identified the molecule that stimulates leukaemia to develop in children, according to a study published in the April edition of the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Scientists at The Institute of Cancer Research have observed that pre-leukaemic stem cells multiplied substantially at the expense of normal cells when exposed to a molecule produced in the body called TGF.

TGF is triggered as a normal response by the body to infection and so the new finding provides the first experimental evidence as to how common infections might trigger childhood leukaemia.

“We had already identified that a genetic mutation occurring in the womb created these pre-leukaemic cells,” Dr Anthony Ford from The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) says. “But we have been looking for a trigger that could send these cells down the pathway to leukaemia. We believe TGF is part of that missing link.”

In a study of identical twin girls last year, ICR scientists discovered a genetic mutation – the fusion of the TEL (ETV6) and AML1 (RUNX1) genes – was responsible for initiating childhood acute lymphoblastic leukaemia in the womb.

This mutation means pre-leukaemic cells grow in the bone marrow as a silent time bomb that can stay in the body for up to 15 years, but requires other factors to convert into leukaemia. Evidence suggests the mutation may be present in as many as one in 100 babies,but only about one in 100 of those children with the mutation then go on to develop leukaemia.

The latest ICR study, funded by Leukaemia Research, found TGF creates conditions that allow the pre-leukaemic cells to multiply. This increases the chance that some will become even further damaged in a way that results in the child developing leukaemia. Before this study, there had been only circumstantial evidence to implicate infections in the progression from a child carrying pre-leukaemic cells to actually having leukaemia. There was no evidence of the mechanism by which this might happen. While infection is clearly only one factor in triggering progression, this study greatly increases the strength of evidence for its role in the commonest form of childhood leukaemia.

It also gives hope for the development of more effective early diagnosis and treatment for childhood leukaemia.

How your body clock affects how you age

We all have an internal body clock, or circadian rhythm that dictates whether we are an owl or a lark and governs many of our normal functions such as body temperature, brain activity, hormone production and metabolism. These things are well known and we can study our own rhythms to help us balance our lives better so we don’t study at a time when our body is not at its mental best, or try to sleep when it is naturally ready to go out and party.

Now it also appears to affect how we age, at least according to new research from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis who have discovered that our inner biological clock actually communicates directly with the processes that govern aging and metabolism.

As we age, our circadian rhythm declines and the researchers believe that this could be a contributing factor to age-related disorders such as type 2 diabetes and is linked to a gene called SIRT1 which at the center of a network that regulates aging, coordinates metabolic reactions throughout the body and manages the body’s response to nutrition. This biochemical mechanism can directly drive the oscillation of the body’s daily clock and is potentially a way to correct metabolic disorders and improve health as people age.

Natural help to heal scars

As someone who has been naturally careless since childhood, I have obtained a number of small scars, not least from my propensity to iron over my hands instead of the garment and despite the longest oven gloves on the planet I can still manage to burn myself getting things out of the oven, so I have investigated natural remedies for some time. Recently I was talking to a client and the subject came up, and as I passed on what had worked for me I realized it might also be helpful for you too – so here goes.

Obviously scars will heal and diminish over time, but you can take action by using the following natural remedies to minimize them:

ACE is the combination nutrition supplement you need first, as vitamin A is essential to maintain healthy skin, collagen is vital for your skin and comes from an adequate supply of vitamin C, and to reduce inflammation and reduce your risk of scarring you can’t do better than vitamin E. Some people take this as a separate supplement and squeeze the oil out directly onto the skin.

Raw, organic honey – such as Manuka – applied directly to the skin will moisturise and its antibacterial qualities help heal scarring.

If you have an aloe vera plant you can cut the tip of a leaf and smooth the liquid gel directly onto cuts and burns to soothe and minimise scarring.

Herbal help comes from lavender oil and comfrey to promote healing and comfrey to help stop scar tissue forming.

Fried eggs can benefit cholesterol!

You can’t entirely blame Edwina Currie, though anyone who writes as badly as she does ought to be blamed for something, but we have steadily been eating fewer and fewer eggs. The dreaded phrase ‘high in cholesterol’ have sealed their fate, but ironically it now seems that new research shows they could actually reduce a risk factor for heart disease.

We have been warned over and over again about the dangers of eggs producing cholesterol that will clog up your arteries – though as cholesterol is essential to our health and wellbeing it has always been a mixed message.

The main target has been those people who have high blood pressure, and instead of a natural regime of exercise and diet many doctors have been prescribing an Angiotensin- Converting Enzyme (ACE) inhibitor drug. How about a couple of fried eggs instead? Two splendid Canadian researchers at the University of Alberta recently ran lab tests to see whether eating fried eggs or boiled eggs would produce greater amounts of ACE inhibitory peptides and the fried eggs were the winners!

They found that cooked eggs could generate a number of potent ACE inhibitory peptides and although I am not advocating you have them every day, do not remove them from your diet because of the cholesterol scare but eat in moderation – as you should do with all things in your diet.

Incidentally, the research that led to the egg/cholesterol scare was done on powdered eggs and the problem has always been cholesterol that has been heated and exposed to air for an extended period. This does not occur with ‘real’ eggs as the yolk sac insulates the cholesterol from oxidation. Many doctors believe that there is no link between eggs and having high cholesterol levels and in fact if you don’t have enough cholesterol from food sources then your body is forced to manufacture it as it is essential for your health. This form of cholesterol that the body produces is more likely to be deposited in blood vessel walls than any form of cholesterol found in eggs.

Egg and chips anyone?

New hope for infertility treatment

It has just been reported in the Society for Endocrinology journal that the hormone kisspeptin shows promise as a potential new treatment for infertility. Research carried out at Imperial College London, have shown that giving kisspeptin to women with infertility can activate the release of sex hormones which control the menstrual cycle. For women with low sex hormone levels this could be a breakthrough for a new fertility therapy. Kisspeptin sounds like a loving form of antacid, but is actually a product of the KISS-1 gene and a key regulator of reproductive function. If we do not have this then gene, then puberty does not occur and we do not achieve sexual maturity.

The research was primarily concerned with a small group of ten women whose periods had stopped due to a hormone imbalance and who were injected with either kisspeptin or saline as a control measure. All the women gave blood samples to measure their levels of the two sex hormones essential for ovulation and fertility: luteinising hormone (LH) and follicle stimulating hormone (FSH).

The group who were given the kisspeptin showed to a 48-fold increase in LH and a 16-fold increase in FSH, when compared to the control group who were given only saline. The lead researcher, Dr Waljit Dhillo, said that this discovery offers huge promise as a treatment for infertility as it suggests that kisspeptin treatment could restore reproductive function in women with low sex hormone levels.

Yet another difference between men and women

Well apart from the obvious ones we all know about; that men need more of the duvet and don’t eat as much as chocolate, it seems our aspirin response is different too. A daily aspirin for those men over 45 and women over 55 is often recommended as a preventive for heart attacks, but it seems that the benefit differs by gender.

Men do get fewer heart attacks with a daily dose, but it doesn’t affect women in the same way. Their benefit lies in the fact it reduces the risk of stroke, not of heart attacks.

New research published this month in the Annals of Internal Medicine has also focused on the possible dangers of regular aspirin use in causing gastrointestinal bleeding. This risk gets higher as the dose increases and the new recommendation is that no more than 75mg a day is just as effective as higher amounts. If you already have heart disease then taking 100mg or more of aspirin a day will not be of any benefit for the existing condition.

Lies – Drug companies and ‘official’ research

The health community in the US is reeling from the fact that it has just been revealed that the data used in over twenty pharmaceutical studies published in peer-reviewed medical journals was partially or completely altered-in other words it was faked.

Dr. Scott Reuben was known as a highly-respected and influential clinical researcher, whose findings were accepted in many major medical journals. What has just come to light is that his favourable reviews of many new drugs as being both safe and beneficial are seriously flawed as he has been on the payroll of two major pharmaceutical companies – Pfizer and Merck. He was actually a member of Pfizer’s speaker’s bureau (which I would have thought was not too difficult to find out) and received five ‘independent research grants’ from the company as well.

What we tend to look for when evaluating a new piece of research is whether it has been peer reviewed – in other words that scientists of equal substance and standing have read and agreed with the findings. What is now clear is that they are nothing of the sort but have taken their colleagues findings as gospel.

Dr. Scott Reuben didn’t just puff off the drugs from the companies he worked for, he actually falsified the data and by having it accepted by leading medical journals got it accepted as genuine. As a faculty member at the respected Tufts Medical School, Reuben had impeccable credentials to bolster his research.

Beginning in 2000, Reuben used his own research to target orthopaedic surgeons and convince them to stop prescribing NSAIDs and switch to the newer, branded COX2 inhibitors produced by Pfizer and Merck. He claimed in his research that using these drugs and others both pre and post operatively would reduce pain and lessen the need for addictive drugs such as morphine. For the last 12 years, he wrote papers promoting pain relieving drugs for orthopaedic surgery that were universally adopted. Now that ‘research’ he so assiduously promoted has been shown not only to be completely fabricated but that the drugs he advocated actually may have actually slowed postoperative healing in those patients. This research was taken up world wide and was certainly profitable for both Pfizer and Merck as their profits from these drugs are alleged to run into billions.

He further attempted to boost his credibility by co-authoring papers with respected, established orthopaedic surgeons, one of whom was Evan Ekman, who worked at the Southern Orthopaedic Sports Medicine in Columbia, South Carolina. He asked Ekman to review his manuscript on surgery on the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in the knee but no orthopaedic surgeon was listed in the study. When Ekman asked for his details Reuben never replied and yet a year later he saw a copy of the manuscript Reuben had originally given him. This had been published in a per reviewed journal and Ekman was listed as the co-author. He discovered that his signature had been forged by Reuben on the submission form.

More of Reuben’s falsity came to light during a routine audit at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Massachusetts which is the western campus for Tufts University School of Medicine. It was discovered that he had not received approval from the hospital’s review board to conduct two of his studies and has now been stripped of his research and educational duties and is on ‘medical leave’.

You might have thought that a medical researcher who always came out in favour of the pharmaceutical companies might have been a little suspicious – but sadly I am not at all convinced that this sad and sordid story is at all unique.

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