Prescription for Healthy Skin:  Hot Tea with a Twist

Another way of using food to prevent cancer is to take hot tea with a twist of lemon. A recent study showed that people who drink hot tea with a twist of citrus peel have far fewer cases of squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) than those who do not. Scientists at the University of Arizona found that those who regularly drink hot tea have a 40 percent reduction in the incidence of this most common type of skin cancer. But those who added a twist of citrus peel to their hot tea had a remarkable 70 percent reduction! They also had an equivalent reduction in severe sunburn, a predisposing cause of skin cancer {Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2001;10:667-78}.

The Tucson scientists found no particular benefit (in this regard) to citrus juice or citrus fruit...just the peel. Citrus peels are the major source of d-limonene, which seems to have a protective effect against skin cancer. Why hot (and not iced) tea? The reason seems to be that iced tea usually becomes too diluted with water to be of much benefit {Nutr Cancer 2000;37(2):161-8}.

These scientists hope to market food supplements for the prevention of skin cancer. But why purchase an expensive tea-and-lemon peel pill when you can brew up a delicious pot of the real thing for a couple of pennies? I myself prefer organic decaffeinated tea. I now keep a lemon and a vegetable peeler handy. As to the iced tea...brew a large teapot in the morning and let the teabags soak until the tea gets stronger than usual. Then take that strong tea and let it dilute over ice cubes.

Keeping Active Helps Prevent Breast and Pancreatic Cancer

Another life style habit that helps prevents cancer is exercise. Scientists at the Alberta Cancer Board in Canada recently found that postmenopausal women who remain active have a lower risk of breast cancer. Women with the highest levels of activity were 30 percent less likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer than were couch potatoes (women who had the lowest activity levels).

The Canadians compared data from 1,200 breast cancer patients with women who did not have breast cancer. Researchers found no association between physical activity and risk of breast cancer among younger, premenopausal women.

They are not sure why activity prevents breast cancer. Reduced body fat or enhanced immunity may explain the connection. The lesson is that we need to remain active throughout life. It doesn't mean you have to race in the Tour de France, like Lance Armstrong. However, finding excuses to walk instead of ride, to do gardening instead of watching TV, are going to benefit you. Although this study did not show any particular benefit in younger women, good health habits are best established early (Am J Epidemiol 2001;154:336-347).

There is also evidence that obesity significantly increases the risk of pancreatic cancer as well. The good news is that even moderate physical activity can reduce the risk (even among seriously overweight individuals). So says a report in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA 2001;286:921-9}.

"Modifying behaviors may be a way to reduce the risk of developing pancreatic cancer," says lead author Dr. Dominique S. Michaud of the NCI. Obese men and women had a 72 percent increase in risk of pancreatic cancer compared with men and women who were lean. But men and women in the top 20 percent for moderate physical activity had less than half the risk of pancreatic cancer compared with those in the bottom fifth.

"It is increasingly clear," says a JAMA editorial, "that pancreatic cancer...could be prevented through behavioral and lifestyle changes." That's quite an admission from a journal that once categorically denied any connection between dietary changes and cancer.

Irritation of Immune System Blamed for Cancer

Mainstream medicine believes that most cancer originates because of mysterious processes taking place in our genes. Environmental theories have fallen on hard times. But now some British scientists have concluded that the long-term over-activation of the immune system (such as through irritation or infection) may be the single most important cause of cancer. This over-activation leads to inflammation which eventually leads to cancer.

They call any inflamed tissue "a melting pot of cancer-causing molecules." The long-standing over-activation of the immune system is the key event in the genesis of many forms of the disease," says Prof. Angus Dalgleish of the Department of Oncology, University of Leicester.

These particular academic scientists think in terms of pharmacological solutions: "If we could calm the immune system down with certain anti-inflammatory drugs," they wrote, "we might be able to reduce the rates of many common cancers" {Br J Cancer.

This is the latest form of a very old theory: that inflammation is a key promoter of cancer. At the birth of the modern era, Julius Vogel (1814-1880) put forward a theory that the growth of cancer was due to an irritation. The famous German anatomist, Rudolph Virchow (1821-1902), also identified irritation as the basic cause of cellular growth. This theory persisted into the 20th century, although it fell victim to more sophisticated genetic explanations.

This is the latest form of a very old theory: that inflammation is a key promoter of cancer. At the birth of the modern era, Julius Vogel (1814-1880) put forward a theory that the growth of cancer was due to an irritation. The famous German anatomist, Rudolph Virchow (1821-1902), also identified irritation as the basic cause of cellular growth. This theory persisted into the 20th century, although it fell victim to more sophisticated genetic explanations.

Traumeel S and Stomatitis

For the first time in memory, a mainstream cancer journal has published an article favorable to homeopathy. This randomized controlled trial concerned the homeopathic medication Traumeel S. The patients all were children receiving high-dose chemotherapy with bone marrow transplantation. Of 30 patients, 15 were given placebo (sugar pill), while 15 were treated with Traumeel S. Five patients (33%) in the Traumeel S treatment group did not develop stomatitis (inflammation of the soft tissues of the mouth, resulting in mouth sores) at all compared with only one such patient (7 percent) in the placebo group.

Furthermore, stomatitis worsened in 93 percent of the control patients but in only 47 percent of the treatment group...a statistically significant difference. The Israeli authors concluded that Traumeel S "may reduce significantly the severity and duration of chemotherapy-induced stomatitis in children undergoing bone marrow transplantation."

I don't know which is more significant: the fact that an effective medication has finally been found for stomatitis...or that such a study should appear in Cancer, a journal of the American Cancer Society {2001;92:684-90}. It will be interesting to see how the inveterate opponents of homeopathy respond to this development.

Chemotherapy: "How Low Should We Go?"

There was an odd study this summer of women with breast cancer who were receiving chemotherapy. They were asked whether they would still take chemotherapy even if their doctors told them it was unlikely to benefit them. Forty percent said yes. The research team believes that the need of cancer patients to "take control" of their disease prompts this apparently irrational demand {Br J Cancer. 2001;84:1577-85}.

"We wanted to know the minimum benefit that a patient would need before she would opt for chemotherapy - just how low should we go?" Doctors at the Leiden University Medical Center, where the survey was conducted, said. I find it pathetic that patients would be willing to take treatments so damaging to their immune system even when they do not think it will benefit them. This study illuminates why chemotherapy continues to sell so well despite a mass of evidence that it does not really extend life in the solid cancers of adults.

BRCA Picture Becomes Cloudier

The BRCA-1 and BRCA-2 genes were widely heralded a few years ago as the definitive "breast cancer genes." Their discovery was supposed to bring about a revolution in diagnosing and treating the most common form of cancer in women. I remember an oncologist at the time assuring his audience that soon we would be able to drop some tumor into one end of a machine and extract a treatment formula at the other end!

Now we know that the hereditary forms of breast cancer together afflict only about 10 to 20 percent of patients. What is more, there are hundreds of BRCA mutations, each of which confers a different degree of risk. In addition, BRCA genes play a role in other illnesses as well, and affect men as well as women.

Finnish scientists have now shown that having mutated BRCA genes does not statistically affect the survival rate of most patients with breast cancer. Dr. Hannaleena Eerola, of Helsinki University Central Hospital, said that "several survival studies have been made among familial or hereditary breast cancer cases. However, the group is heterogenous and results inconsistent." After adjusting for age, stage of disease and year of diagnosis, there were no significant differences in survival between the groups with familial breast cancer and the general breast cancer population {Int J Cancer 2001;93:368-372}.

BRCA 1 has already been the subject of more than 2,000 scientific articles. Shouldn't more time and effort be expended in discovering and eliminating the environmental and life style factors that are fueling the breast cancer epidemic?

CAM Use on the Rise

Finally, a study from Harvard Medical School has shown that complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) has become a permanent feature of medicine. CAM is prevalent among the younger generation. By age 33, 7 out of 10 people who were born between 1965 and 1979 had used some form of CAM. That is compared to just 3 out of 10 CAM users who were born before 1945. Of the people who had tried an alternative therapy, nearly 50 percent were still using it 11 to 20 years later. Prof. Ronald Kessler commented: "The findings really dispel two ideas, namely that complementary and alternative medicine is just a passing fad, and that it is used by one particular segment of society." Researchers conclude that CAM therapy is likely to grow in popularity {Annals of Internal Medicine 2001;135:262-268}. The reason for this popularity is that the public feels well served by gentler CAM options. Our job, collectively, is to provide the proof that such treatments are really as effective as the toxic conventional treatments.