Progestin Found to Enhance Metastasis

COLUMBIA, Mo., May 13 (UPI) -- U.S. researchers say animal models indicate hormone therapies may increase the chance of breast cancer metastasis.

Researchers at the University of Missouri in Columbia said metastasis -- the spreading of cancer beyond the lymph nodes -- was more likely when taking the hormone progestin. Progestin is a hormone used to counteract the potentially negative effects of estrogen therapy.

"In our study, we found that progestins increase the number of blood vessels that are responsible for transporting existing cancer cells," Salman Hyder says in a statement. "The more the blood vessels increase, the higher the chance of cancer cell metastasizing."

Hyder says the negative effect of progestins was worse in the absence of a protein that suppresses tumors called P53.

The researchers tested several different progestins on breast cancer tumors in an animal model. They found all types acted similarly to increase the likelihood of cancer spread.

Hyder's study has been accepted for publication in Menopause: The Journal of The North American Menopause Society. SOURCE

Note that Progestin is mentioned in a TV commercial for NuvaRing indicating its presence in this drug aimed at younger women for birth control and cycle irregularities.

More Toxins More Problems: Cancer Treatment

Years ago I learned that the impact of chemo and radiation created a very toxic state in the body, often an unspoken cause of death from cancer therapy in western medicine.  Detoxification and timing of treatment can go a very long way in improving outcomes.  SSRIs are not included.

from the UK - Daily Telegraph

"BREAST CANCER PATIENTS SUFFER FROM SOLDIERS' STRESS DISORDER"

45% of breast cancer patients suffer Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, even years after diagnosis, a study has found. They suffer anxiety, depression, nightmares & mood swings etc. This can be caused by the frightening diagnosis of breast cancer, the stress of surgery or chemotherapy.

Research at Panteion University, Athens. who say that doctors need a plan to assist cancer patients with this aspect of their experience.

Half of breast cancer patients 'suffer symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder'

Almost half of breast cancer patients suffer symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder even years after diagnosis, according to a new study.

By Kate Devlin, Medical Correspondent, 08 May 2010

The debilitating disorder is often characterised by agitation, anxiety, depression, nightmares, flashbacks, and mood swings.
It is more often associated with soldiers returning from battlefields who have been shell-shocked by their experiences.

But now doctors have found that a similar effect can be found in women told that they have breast cancer.
The researchers behind the study believe that a combination of factors could trigger the condition.
These include the effects of a frightening diagnosis like breast cancer combined with the stress of treatment, such as surgery or chemotherapy, as well as other unexpected consequences, such as patients having to give up work.
Revealingly, the doctors found that even those women whose therapy has been successful and whose cancer has gone into remission can exhibit symptoms of the disorder.
Their study looked at the effects of the disease on 331 women treated in a Greek hospital.
They found that, overall, 45 per cent of the patients showed symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
What is more the women reported that they were suffering from the symptoms, and also had a poorer quality of life, three years after their diagnosis and treatment.
The researchers, from the Panteion University of Athens, warn that doctors should watch out for the signs of the condition when they are treating patients with breast cancer.
They warn: “Knowing that breast cancer patients are susceptible to PTSD, it might be necessary for the field of medicine to create a plan in assisting cancer patients that takes into account the entire spectrum of a patient’s experience with the illness.”
More than 45,000 women in Britain develop breast cancer every year, and one in three of them will go on to die from the disease.
Overall, experts estimate that a woman has a one in nine chance of developing breast cancer over the course of her lifetime.
The findings were presented at the Impakt Breast Cancer Conference in Brussels.
Emma Pennery, from the charity Breast Cancer Care, said: “The principle that women, and men, will have an ongoing risk of anxiety and depression following a diagnosis of breast cancer is well known, and there is a range of national guidance in the UK which covers the role of health care professionals in providing ongoing emotional support to patients. “
Last year doctors reported that having a heart attack could also trigger symptoms of PTSD.
Almost one in six patients, 16 per cent, met the criteria for the condition, while another 18 per cent suffered some symptoms of the disorder.

What it is really about: Issues in Health Care

Yesterday I noticed an article tying asthma inhalers to prostate cancer.  It made me think of a fellow I know who is dealing with both. Yes, he was a stress smoker.  What's worse is that he's fought repeated bouts of pneumonia over the past year or so, and been in the hospital several times.  I just wonder if the allopaths treating him have ever taken a look at the increased risk of pneumonia associated with the SNRI drug they gave him several years ago fore stress.  Surely this is a good example, while not his complete story, of the politics of health and how it increases cost, while seemingly lacking benefit.

Now comes this article - Cancer is the world's costliest disease

No wonder! Cancer is an industry. And just like any corporation it has to do what ever it can to protect the bottom line; survivors are coincidental.

Then this morning I was perusing my twitter account during the small allotment of minutes I allow.  I found this gem and a new follower, with ease via a retweet from another health watcher. 

 Breast Cancer: How Politics is Driving up Costs

Truth is that the politics of health care has been driving up costs for multiple decades, not just because of breast cancer, but it is a major driving cost center.  One with little done in the way of prevention and education, but then this kind of approach, from the heart of public health, fails the corporate bottom line in PhRMA and Big Insurance.

Change is up to you.  Engaging in prevention is up to you.  Demanding answers to your questions is up to you as is advocating for your own best health.  And access to natural care approaches for cancer care should not be withheld!

Certainly if you are a follower of Natural Health News you know we take a different view of Pink Cause marketing, Races for the "Cure", and the continual promotion of breast-cancer-causing mammography.  Just use our search function to learn why.  

More resources: http://www.leaflady.org/women.htm; http://www.leaflady.org/cancer.htm

Does Breast Screening Really Reduce Deaths?

Study questions whether screening really cuts breast cancer deaths

ScienceDaily (2010-04-12) -- A study from Denmark finds no effect of the Danish screening program on breast cancer deaths. ... > read full article

News BUZZ not worth the words: Vitamins & Breast Cancer

I just heard Wolf Blitzer report on this story, and I heard it on the noon news today, as well as in an email sent to me yesterday.

Knowing this infinitesimal bit of BUZZ, I am sure this will be all over the evening network news, and regular news for days. Sanjay Gupta is just about to reply on this "headliner". Gupta says it is an association that something in a multi-vitamin may lead to this 19% reported increased risk.  He also gives that tired and  biased caveat about being able to get all you nutrition from your diet. Not a chance if you eat like those people Jaime Oliver is trying to educate.

If you are a thinking person, please to not fall prey to this BUZZ glut.

And please take the time to review the following commentary I developed at the request of a major news director who is interested in reporting fact, not BUZZ. It is a well known fact that the more times you hear sound bites, the faster you tend to believe them.

Don't become a sheeple...and please read this excerpt from my comments - it is your best insurance against propaganda spread via mainstream media, talking heads, and Big PhRMA. (for the complete article, request it by contacting me)
  
A Word to the Wise By Gayle Eversole, DHom, PhD, MH, NP, ND

In an article recently published on the web site eFitnessNow. a group of people provide you with what they believe to be useful health oriented information.I looked over this entire website and no where could I find any information about the staff and their qualifications as editors, or any information about their backgrounds in health or related health professions.

This may appear cynical on the surface, but it is important to understand today’s way of providing “news” and the way in which it can affect your beliefs.

Recently I listened to an interview on NPR addressing MRSA.I have an interest in this topic as it is something I have been working on with natural and creative approaches since 1993.

I realized that all the journalist-author really did in her book was to compile an amount of data that had already been reported in the news. She also spoke with “researchers” about whom these news articles had been written. There are a lot of reports of findings, yet no constructive outcome or effective treatment has been discovered.

The author and interviewer also avoided looking at other options that the accepted standard mainstream models.

This brings me to an article I posted on my blog, Natural Health News, in February 2009, titled ‘How Mainstream Media Distorts Health Information”. 

We know that there is, and has been, a directed effort to limit you access to vitamins and supplements, and an effort also to try to sway your opinion to the ideas that you can get all the needed nutrients from food and supplements do not help prevent or heal disease.

These concepts have been proven, over and over again, to be false.

But, you must consider that this article reports only a ‘meta-anlysis’.

A meta-analysis is a statistical method attributed to Gene Glass, as defined in the following synopsis -
http://www.bii.a-star.edu.sg/docs/mig/MetaAnalysis.pdf
•In 1976, Glass coined the term meta-analysis
http://glass.ed.asu.edu/gene/papers/meta25.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_V._Glass
statistical analysis of a large collection of analysis results from individual studies for the purpose of integrating the findings.(Glass, 1976, p3)
•Meta-analysis techniques are needed because only summary statistics are typically available in the literature.
•Often used in medical and psychological studies.

Now that you have the background information, let’s move on to the article in question, as reported by eFitnessNow.

A startling connection between multi-vitamins and breast cancer occurrence has prompted doctors to caution older women against a daily multi-vitamin, unless absolutely needed. According to the results of a Swedish study, the vitamins may be linked to breast cancer.
The authors of the study cannot outright confirm the correlation between the two but suggest the matter needs further research. The study was led by Dr. Susanna C. Larsson of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. The study followed 35,000 Swedish women between the ages of 49 and 83 over a ten year period. All the women were cancer free at the onset, with 974 developing breast cancer throughout the course of the study.
Women who took daily vitamins were 19 percent more likely to develop breast cancer. 9,000 women in the study were vitamin users with 293 developing the often fatal disease. Only 681 of the remaining 26,000 women developed breast cancer. A relatively small number of women who took the daily vitamins were diagnosed with breast cancer, which lends to the suggestion that if there is a risk, it is very modest.
Larsson advises that women who are eating a well-balanced diet do not need a multi-vitamin.
The study has been published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

When you analyze this statement, “The study followed 35,000 Swedish women between the ages of 49 and 83 over a ten year period. All the women were cancer free at the onset, with 974 developing breast cancer throughout the course of the study.”, you find that the statistical impact is 0.02%.
 
If you analyze this statement, “Women who took daily vitamins were 19 percent more likely to develop breast cancer. 9,000 women in the study were vitamin users with 293 developing the often fatal disease.” , you find that the statistical impact is 0.03%.
 
And if you analyze this statement, “Only 681 of the remaining 26,000 women developed breast cancer.” , you find that the statistical impact is 0.02%.
 
And in conclusion, the report says, “A relatively small number of women who took the daily vitamins were diagnosed with breast cancer, which lends to the suggestion that if there is a risk, it is very modest.”

The moral of this story is don’t be fooled by headlines, and yes, digest what you read.

If you do a search for Dr. Susanna C. Larrson you can locate over one hundred articles based on meta-analysis of existing research. She has yet to respond to the inquiry I sent.  Also note that there is no definition of exactly what multi-vitamins were used in the studies.

This is a critical concern, as most vitamin studies done in the mainstream use low quality, synthetic or too low dose products.

Complete article posted here

Breast cancer drug did not extend lives

FDA says breast cancer drug did not extend lives
By MATTHEW PERRONE, AP Business Writer, 17 July, 10

WASHINGTON – Follow-up studies of a Roche breast cancer drug showed that it failed to extend the lives of patients, federal health scientists said Friday, opening the door for it to be potentially withdrawn for use in treating that disease.
The Food and Drug Administration approved Roche's blockbuster Avastin in 2008 based on a trial showing it slowed growth of tumors caused by breast cancer. The decision was controversial because drugs for cancer patients who have never been treated before must usually show evidence they extend lives.
Avastin's so-called "accelerated approval" was based on the condition that later studies would show a survival benefit.
But in briefing documents posted online, FDA reviewers said two follow-up studies recently submitted by Roche failed to show that Avastin significantly extended lives compared to chemotherapy alone.
Additionally, the FDA said that in follow-up studies the drug did not slow tumor growth to the same degree as in earlier studies.
Patients taking Avastin showed significantly more side effects, including high blood pressure, fatigue and abnormal white blood cell levels.
On Tuesday the FDA will ask a panel of outside cancer experts to review the evidence on Avastin. The panel's recommendations are not binding, but the FDA usually follows their guidance.
The FDA has the option to remove the drug's approval for breast cancer.
Avastin is also approved for colon, lung, kidney and brain cancer. The drug was Roche's top-selling cancer treatment last year with global sales of $5.9 billion.
Roche is headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, and its biotech unit Genentech is based in South San Francisco.
Avastin was the first drug to fight cancer by stopping nutrients from reaching tumors. Such "targeted therapies" were thought to hold promise for eliminating chemotherapy, but the two approaches are now used in combination.
Since 1992, the FDA has granted accelerated approval to drugs based on so-called surrogate endpoints, or initial measures that suggest the drug will make real improvements in patient health. For cancer drugs, tumor shrinkage is considered a predictor of increased survival.
Drugmakers favor the program because it helps them get products to market sooner.
But the program has not escaped criticism from government watchdogs.
Last fall the Government Accountability Office issued a report saying the FDA should do more to track whether drugs approved based on preliminary results actually have live up to their promise.
According to the GAO, the FDA has never once pulled a drug off the market due to missing or unimpressive follow-up data.

Several of the more than a dozen Avastin related posts from Natural Health News

A BAD DECISION ON AVASTIN

Mar 03, 2008

22, 2008, top administrators of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the drug Avastin for the treatment of advanced breast cancer. Avastin, which has already been approved for colon and lung cancer, is controversial because ...

Black Box for Avastin

Nov 19, 2008

We reported earlier this year that the FDA approved Avastin, manufactured by Genentech, for breast cancer treatment. It had been previously approved for colon and lung cancer treatment. ...

Avastin NOT Effective for Breast Cancer

Dec 17, 2007

Last week, the Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee (ODAC) of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) voted 5-4 to recommend against approving the drug Avastin for first-line use in advanced breast cancer. In clinical trials to date, ...

Large Numbers of Breast Cancer Cases Avoidable

As this supports what we have had posted on our main domain for years - http://www.leaflady.org/cancer.htm - we are posting it for your consideration

Experts: One-third of breast cancer is avoidable  By MARIA CHENG, AP Medical Writer  

BARCELONA, Spain – Up to a third of breast cancer cases in Western countries could be avoided if women ate less and exercised more, researchers at a breast cancer conference said Thursday, renewing debate on a sensitive topic.
While better treatments, early diagnosis and mammogram screenings have dramatically slowed the disease, experts said the focus should now shift to changing behaviors like diet and physical activity. The comments added to a series of findings that lifestyle changes in areas such as smoking, eating, exercise and sun exposure can have a significant effect on all sorts of cancer rates.
"What can be achieved with screening has been achieved. We can't do much more," Carlo La Vecchia, head of epidemiology at the University of Milan, told The Associated Press. "It's time to move onto other things."
La Vecchia spoke Thursday on the influence of lifestyle factors at a European breast cancer conference in Barcelona.
Michelle Holmes, a cancer expert at Harvard University, said people might wrongly think their chances of getting cancer are more dependent on their genes than their lifestyle.
"The genes have been there for thousands of years, but if cancer rates are changing in a lifetime, that doesn't have much to do with genes," she told The Associated Press in a phone interview from Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women. In Europe, there were about 421,000 new cases and nearly 90,000 deaths in 2008, the latest available figures. The United States last year saw more than 190,000 new cases and 40,000 deaths.
A woman's lifetime chance of getting breast cancer is about one in eight. Obese women are up to 60 percent more likely to develop any cancer than normal-weight women, according to a 2006 study by British researchers.
Many breast cancers are fueled by estrogen, a hormone produced in fat tissue. So experts suspect that the fatter a woman is, the more estrogen she's likely to produce, which could in turn spark breast cancer. Even in slim women, exercise can help reduce the cancer risk by converting more of the body's fat into muscle.
Yet any discussion of weight and breast cancer is considered sensitive, for some people may misconstrue that as the medical establishment blaming victims for getting breast cancer. Victims themselves could also feel guilty, wondering just how much the issue of weight factored into their own cancer case.
Tara Beaumont, a clinical nurse specialist at Breast Cancer Care, a British charity, said her agency has always been very careful about issuing similar lifestyle advice. She noted that three of the major risk factors for breast cancer — gender, age and family history — are clearly beyond anyone's control.
"It is incredibly difficult to isolate specific factors, therefore women should in no way feel that they are responsible for developing breast cancer," she told the AP on Thursday.
Yet Karen Benn, a spokeswoman for Europa Donna, a patient-focused breast cancer group, said it was impossible to ignore the increasingly stronger links between lifestyle and breast cancer.
"If we know there are healthier choices, we can't not recommend them just because people might misinterpret the advice and feel guilty," she said. "If we are going to prevent breast cancer, then this message needs to get out, particularly to younger women."
Other patient advocates agreed.
"We hope that no one comes away from these studies with the idea that they're an attempt to 'blame' anyone for breast cancer," said Diana Rowden, a vice president at Susan G. Komen for the Cure, a breast cancer group in Dallas. Rowden said the research was essential to warn people of their potential risks for developing breast cancer.
Other lifestyle factors like smoking and spending time in the sun have long been implicated in lung cancer and melanoma. Experts say there is now increasing evidence that what people eat and how much they weigh can contribute significantly to whether or not they develop cancers including those of the colon, stomach, and esophagus.
La Vecchia cited figures from the International Agency for Research on Cancer, which estimated that 25 to 30 percent of breast cancer cases could be avoided if women were thinner and exercised more.
That means staying slim and never becoming overweight in the first place. Robert Baan, an IARC cancer expert in Lyon, France, said it wasn't clear if women who lose weight have a lower cancer risk or if the damage was already done from when they were heavy.
The recommendation to stay slim applies only to breast cancer in post-menopausal women, as there isn't enough evidence to know whether this applies to younger women.
Drinking less alcohol could also help. Experts estimate that having more than a couple of drinks a day can boost a woman's risk of getting breast cancer by four to 10 percent.
After studies several years ago linked hormone replacement therapy to cancer, millions of women abandoned the treatment, leading to a sharp drop in breast cancer rates. Experts said a similar reduction might be seen if women ate better — consuming less fat and more vegetables — and exercised more.
Holmes said changing one's diet and nutrition is arguably easier than tackling other breast cancer risk factors.
"Women who have early pregnancies are protected against breast cancer, but teenage pregnancy is a social disaster so it's not something we want to encourage," she said. "But there's no downside to reducing obesity and increasing physical activity."
In the 1980s and 1990s, breast cancer rates steadily increased, in parallel with the rise in obesity and the use of hormone replacement therapy, which involves estrogen.
The American Cancer Society recommends 45 to 60 minutes of physical activity five or more days a week to reduce a women's risk of breast cancer.
In one study from the Women's Health Initiative, as little as 1.25 to 2.5 hours per week of brisk walking reduced a woman's risk by 18%. Walking 10 hours a week reduced the risk a little more.
La Vecchia said countries like Italy and France — where obesity rates have been stable for the past two decades — show that weight can be controlled at a population level.
"It's hard to lose weight, but it's not impossible," he said. "The potential benefit of preventing cancer is worth it."

A Best Breast Cancer Site

Taking a prevention perspective allows group to point out the problems with the current model in the breast cancer industry

A cancer-industry view of its future
Authors of a report predicting a continuing rise in cancer rates expect cancer will increasingly be managed with lifelong drug treatment and lifelong monitoring, as in diabetes and asthma. The direct cost for managing the medical care of one cancer patient was approximately £20,000 in 2004. If we are heading into a 'positive chemotherapy future' then, 'by 2025 this figure could easily rise to £100,000 per patient per year – a total of perhaps £1 million over a lifetime. We are starting to spend vast amounts of UK tax on the National Health Service (NHS) taking the total healthcare budget up to £80 billion per year. We could consume a lot more than this in the future just on treating cancer. The explosion of new therapies in cancer care is going to continue and pricing of these drugs will remain high. If effective drugs emerge from the research and development pipeline, the cancer drug market will be worth US$300 billion globally by 2025.'
(Sikora 'Cancer 2025: the future of cancer care' 2004)

A thriving enterprise with a guaranteed future, 'cancer' is a growth industry in every sense of the word. It would be extremely unlikely that this particular industry would champion a case which has the potential to undermine its very existence.

Bone Drugs Cancer Protective?

UPDATE: 2/3/10  Fosamax and breast cancer  A Caution to women to not take headlines so seriously

Original Post 12/10/09
It seems very strange to me that any woman would want to take a potentially cancer creating drug under the guise that it might help prevent breast cancer.  Most of these drugs also are fluoride based; fluoride is a known carcinogen as well as destructive to bone.

Here are a few of the numerous related NHN articles:
http://naturalhealthnews.blogspot.com/2009/10/osteoporosis-drug-forteo-linked-with.html
http://naturalhealthnews.blogspot.com/2009/03/fl-difficult-halogen-for-people-to.html
http://naturalhealthnews.blogspot.com/2006/08/we-told-you-so.html

Bone drugs may help prevent breast cancer

New results from a landmark women's health study raise the exciting possibility that bone-building drugs such as Fosamax and Actonel may help prevent breast cancer.

Women who already were using these medicines when the study began were about one-third less likely to develop invasive breast cancer over the next seven years than women not taking such pills, doctors reported Thursday.

The study is not enough to prove that these drugs, called bisphosphonates, prevent cancer. Read Complete Article

Become a more knowledgeable consumer and patient, question authority.  Remember the drug and insurance giants are controlling medical care in the US today.

Early Detection DOES NOT PREVENT Breast Cancer

At last, another thinking health professional with a mind set for real prevention

from Desiree Jones--

We have all heard the slogan, “Early detection is the best protection.” As a matter of fact, as a health professional, I find that I can seldom sort through my weekly medical mail without having that slogan staring at me from nearly a dozen different postcards and other mail received from a myriad of local health facilities and hospitals. Notwithstanding that, in this post, I challenge conventional wisdom vis-à-vis this slogan, and ask you to consider another crucially important perspective on this matter.
 
http://www.basilandspice.com/journal/every-13-minutes-a-woman-dies-of-breast-cancer.html

See also: The Prevention Revolution

Why Insurance Reform Doesn't Get You Better Health

Senator Lieberman who is holding positive movement on insurance reform in limbo may have reason to be concerned, especially where women's health is concerned.

It seems as if the controversy over Hadassah Lieberman, the Senator's wife, is on the payroll of the Komen Foundation to the tune of about $300K a year.  Gary Locke's wife is on their payroll too, most likely lobbying while she's living in DC.

The problem with this is that Komen has no interest in CHANGE. For them it is PhRMA all the way, along with cancer promoting mammogram.

It might be why there is no effort to do more for prevention or more for research into the known environmental causes of cancer.

Nancy Brinkerman, CEO and sister of Susan Komen, is also suspect because she is on some PhRMA director's boards.

Do you wonder why the so-called health reform effort and the "race for the cure" keep circling the wagons and make deeper ruts?