Breast Cancer Central

Low-Fat Diets Don't Protect Postmenopausal Women - Womens Health and Medical Information on MedicineNet.com

Link: Low-Fat Diets Don't Protect Postmenopausal Women - Womens Health and Medical Information on MedicineNet.com.

TUESDAY, Feb. 7 (HealthDay News) -- A large U.S. government study has found that a diet low in fat but high in vegetables, grains and fruits does not reduce the risk of breast cancer, colorectal cancer or cardiovascular disease in postmenopausal women.

The results, the latest from the Women's Health Initiative (WHI), are not likely to be the last word on the subject, however.

"The issue isn't over," said Dr. Jacques E. Rossouw, WHI project officer at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. "We plan to follow these women for another five years because it's quite possible that a benefit for both breast cancer and colorectal cancer will emerge over time. This is not going to go away."

High Blood Sugar Linked with Cancer

Link: High Blood Sugar Linked with Cancer

"Although past research has shown that having diabetes or an elevated glucose level may increase cancer risk, the evidence has been mixed and many of the studies to date were relatively small," says study coauthor Jonathan Samet of Johns Hopkins.

This study was anything but small, involving 1,298,385 Korean men and women aged 30 to 95 who were members of the National Health Insurance Corp. Participants provided information on their lifestyle and medical histories, and fasting blood samples were taken at biennial medical examinations.

Those with the highest fasting glucose levels (greater than 140 mg/dL) had a higher death rate from all cancers combined. For men, pancreatic cancer had the strongest link while there were also significant associations with cancers of the esophagus, liver and colon/rectum. For women, the strongest links where to cancers of the liver and cervix.

How Olive Oil Fights Breast Cancer

Link: How Olive Oil Fights Breast Cancer

Tests on breast cancer cell lines by American researchers have shown that the compound, oleic acid, cuts the activity of the oncogene Her-2/neu (also known as erb B-2). Excess expression of this gene has been found in more than a fifth of breast cancer cases and been linked with highly aggressive tumors with a poor prognosis.

Oleic acid was also found to boost treatment with trastuzumab (Herceptin), a monoclonal antibody treatment that targets the Her-2/neu gene and has proven to prolong the lives of people with breast cancer.

Omega-3 in mother’s diet protects daughter from breast cancer

Mothers could reduce the chances of their female offspring developing breast cancer in later life by eating foods rich in omega-3 while pregnant and nursing, suggests research presented today at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research.

But those who consume more omega-6 fatty acids may be shortening the odds of their daughters developing the disease.

Read the entire story: Link

Disease-Fighting Chemicals in Apples Could Reduce the Risk of Breast Cancer

Newswise — An apple a day can help keep breast cancer away, according to a study in rats by food scientists at Cornell University.

"We found that tumor incidence was reduced by 17, 39 and 44 percent in rats fed the human equivalent of one, three or six apples a day, respectively, over 24 weeks," says Rui Hai Liu, Cornell associate professor of food science and lead author of the study.

The Cornell researchers treated a group of rats with a known mammary carcinogen and then fed them either whole apple extracts or control extracts. Liu, who says this is the first study of the effects of apples on cancer prevention in animals, also found that the number of tumors was reduced by 25, 25 and 61 percent in rats fed, respectively, the equivalent of one, three or six apples a day.

Link: Newswise | Disease-Fighting Chemicals in Apples Could Reduce the Risk of Breast Cancer.

Protein emerging as bone health factor

Researchers at the government-funded Agricultural Research Service are currently completing a third human clinical study investigating the impact of protein on bone health.

Their findings to date show that protein at both high and ‘normal’ levels have no impact on bone health markers. The new study shows that protein may actually increase calcium absorption when the mineral is at low levels.

“I think we’re going to see the dogma that high protein diets harm calcium absorption reversed,” said Fariba Roughead, lead author of one of the latest studies in this area.

Nutritionists believe that protein may leach calcium from the bones as a result of the body’s attempt to neutralize the acid ash or sulphate produced when protein is metabolized.

Link: Protein emerging as bone health factor.

Two Recent Studies Suggest Soy Isoflavone Supplementation May Benefit Breast and Prostate Cancer Patients

Breast cancer is the most common cancer diagnosed in women in the United States. Epidemiological, migration and experimental studies suggest that environmental factors, including nutritional practices, play a key role in the etiology of breast cancer, in addition to age, ethnicity, hormonal factors, growth factors, obesity and physical activity

The age-adjusted death rates from breast cancer are twofold to eightfold less in Asian countries than in the United States and Western Europe. The rate in AsianAmerican women born in China or Japan is about 50-75 percent lower than in U.S.-born white women. A number of researchers have suggested that frequent consumption of soy products is largely responsible for the significant reduction in breast cancer incidence among Asian women. However, controversy about the use of soy was sparked recently when some animal studies suggested that soy might stimulate breast cancer growth and interfere with anti-hormonal treatments. Conversely, other animal studies have suggested that soy induces apoptosis (programmed cell death) of breast cancer cells and is beneficial in the prevention of breast cancer, as well as preventing recurrence of this disease.

Link: RedNova News - Two Recent Studies Suggest Soy Isoflavone Supplementation May Benefit Breast and Prostate Cancer Patients.

Calcium, Vitamin D Intake Low among Breast Cancer Patients

The National Institutes of Health Consensus on the Prevention, Diagnosis, and Treatment of Osteoporosis notes that 50% to 60% of older adults consume the recommended daily intake for calcium and vitamin D (JAMA. 2001 Feb 14;285(6):785-95). Its recommendations call for postmenopausal women to consume at least 1500 mg of calcium and 400 IU of vitamin D daily.

Link: Calcium, Vitamin D Intake Low among Breast Cancer Patients.

Omega-3 & Omega-6 Diet Could Enhance Breast Cancer Treatment

EXCERPT: It was observed that the animals that received a diet rich in omega-6 fatty acids and tamoxifen had a 66-percent tumor growth inhibition when compared to those on placebo. Mice on the diet rich in omega-3 fatty acids and a placebo had about a 48-percent tumor growth inhibition. Those that received a diet rich in omega-3 fatty acids along with tamoxifen had a nearly 80-percent tumor growth inhibition.

Link: Omega-3 & Omega-6 Diet Could Enhance Breast Cancer Treatment.

The Oxygen-Free Radical: A Threat to Life and Health

By Dr. Jack Pfeifer
November 2004

"Through free radical reactions in our body, it's as though we're being irradiated at low levels all the time. They grind us down." ‹Lester Packer, Ph.D.

Normal oxygen molecules have paired electrons in orbit around a proton nucleus. During metabolism, 2 percent of the oxygen molecules lose an orbiting electron and are left with a single unpaired electron. This is an unstable state in nature. This resulting oxygen molecule is called an oxygen-free radical. To stabilize itself, the free radical will capture an electron from an adjacent molecule. However, this molecule will then become a new free radical, and it will repeat the process. We now have a chain reaction in the body.

The effect of these rapid electron transfers is called oxidation. It's the same process that makes nails rusty and apple slices turn brown. Bruce Ames, a noted antioxidant scientist, states that a single oxygen-free radical will create 3,000 new free radicals.

The mathematics of this free radical chain reaction is incredible. Do the math ‹one trillion molecules of oxygen go through each cell every day. We know that 2 percent of them will be converted to oxygen-free radicals, or 20 billion per cell each day. If each free radical creates 3,000 new free radicals (a process called biological magnification) the grand total loosed in the body can be as high as 60 trillion free radicals per cell per day. Ames also calculates that there are 100,000 free radical hits per day, directly on the cell nucleus, genes, and DNA (the programmer of life).

Passwater states that not only do free radicals rob normal molecules of electrons, they also destroy key enzymes, protein molecules, and even entire cells. Remember, the more of your cells that die each day, the sooner YOU die.

The body tries to neutralize these hits with antioxidant enzymes, which can repair 99 percent to 99.9 percent of the damage, leaving 1,000 points of damage per cell per day that are not repaired. This damage accumulates relentlessly. By the time you're 50, there are a few million oxygen-free radical lesions per cell. Thirty percent of your cellular protein has been damaged and has been turned into "rusty junk." It is this cumulative damage that makes us age prematurely and acquire disease. Eighty to 90 percent of the diseases of mankind are due to free racial damage. Carper has stated that as we age, our defense against oxidation (free radical attack) is less and less, and damage to cells accumulates even more rapidly.

Sounds depressing, doesn't it? Next month I'll show you that help is on the way. To learn more about this subject, read these useful articles and books:

1. Feinstein, A. Editor, Prevention: Dealing with Vitamins, Prevention Magazine.
2. Ames, BN, Oxidants, Antioxidants, and the Degenerative Diseases of Aging, Proceedings of the Nation Academy of Sciences, pp 7915-22, 90(17),1993.
3. Carper, J., Stop Aging Now, New York, Harper & Collins, 1995.
4. Passwater, RA, PH.D., Mindell, E., The New Super Antioxidants Plus, New Canann, Keats Publishing, 1992.
5. Pryor, W., Free Radicals, New York, McGraw-Hill Publishers, 1966.
6. Packer, L. Ph.D., Colman, C., The Antioxidant Miracle, New York, John Wiley & Sons Inc., 1999.