Best of Breast: news for week ending 24 January 2014

Updated 26 Jan 2014 re. folic acid

A summary of Google Alerts for Breast Cancer and Cancer for the week ending 24 January 2014.

Each week, mice and rats have been the main source of cures for cancer (a good time to be a rat or a mouse!) and last week a naked mole rat kindly stepped up to the starting line.

This week, the sloth (or rather, its fur) has joined the queue as as the latest weapon in the fight against cancer.  I make no apologies for featuring it as the top article even if it may not be the most earth-shaking – sloths are cute, and in the fight against cancer, we need some cuteness and light to ameliorate the dark impersonal reality that is the disease.

Anyone fancy a bra woven from my fur?

Did you know: because sloths spend so much time with their legs above their bodies, their hairs grow away from the extremities to provide protection from the elements while the sloth hangs upside down. image credit: http://www.apogeephoto.com

Folic acid:  There’s news that too much folic acid can stimulate breast cancer cells to grow (in mice trials).  This, however, only applies to synthetic folic acid/folate.  Intake of natural folic acid is found to lower the risk of breast cancer.  Folic acid is found in spinach and other vegetables like broccoli as well as fortified foods (such as bread).  So carry on with the green juices!

Radiotherapy:  Scientists are also proposing that irradiating the non-cancerous breast can prevent breast cancer.  Hokaaay … but what about the other side-effects of radiotherapy like heart conditions (if left-sided irradiation) and immune-system depression and creating treatment-resistant breast cancer cells?  And as another article shows, standard radiation therapy for breast cancer can actually make it worse … .  A case of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing?

Update on juicers

Update – December 2012

My last post on juicers was in March 2012.

I have since seen the Samson juicer in action and also used it.  It is a single auger juicer and it works fine.  It is also easier to use and accepts soft fruit without creating a mushy mess.  It takes a lot less effort to push in the veg (even hard veg like beetroot) than with my Green Kempo.

I have come a long way since this initial post, and basically, it is:  let’s not get our knickers in a twist over juicers.  As long as it juices, that’s fine.  If it’s a centrifugal juicer, that’s fine.  The main thing is to juice and let’s not waste minutes and hours over trying to squeeze more enzymes out of veg.  Life is too precious to waste!

You’re buying a juicer, not buying a car!

Updated 9 December 2013:  It doesn’t matter what juicer you buy – as long as you will use it.  The main thing is to juice, not to make it some sort of burdensome task.

One of the recommendations for an anti-cancer diet is juicing.  The juice is prepared from vegetables, and not fruit, as fruit is high in sugar which feeds the cancer.  So the need for a good juicer to extract separate juice from the vegetable is crucial.

Fresh vegetable juice is full of vitamins, minerals and living enzymes which is easily absorbed.  The alternative is to eat the vegetables themselves, but that’s a lot of chewing.

The problem about selecting juicers is that it’s easy to get trapped in the maze of which juicer to get.

The IV C files #2 – Intravenous Vitamin C treatment – the first week

The clinic I was receiving the intravenous vitamin C treatment had a regime of 18 sessions delivered over three weeks.   This would be followed by twice-weekly follow-up sessions for three months.

When I asked why three weeks and then three months, I was told that this replicated the protocol used by the alternative cancer treatment hopsital, the Oasis of Hope in Mexico.

I would also be having daily sessions of hyperthermia and ozone therapy.

What I did next

I wish I could say that I was cool and calm when I got the diagnosis.  I probably looked cool and calm because when I’m really stressed I retreat into a no-feeling land and turn into a robot.

So it was a robot that faced the doctor, and all I could do was look down the notebook I had and ask him questions and write down his answers, cursing my shaky hand.  I have always taken copious notes, and this habit was to stand me in good stead in the months ahead.  If anything it gave me something to do, otherwise wound up like a tight spring, I would have burst into tears.