The Aussie tradition of a steak on the barbecue is in the gun, after a major dietary study found people who eat red meat are more likely to die from cancer or heart attack.

Barbecuing red meat was also the cooking method that caused the most cancer causing “carcinogens”, experts have warned.

The US study looked at the diets of more than 500,000 people and a follow-up 10 years later found those who ate the most red, or processed, meat had a higher incidence of death.

Eating white meat – poultry or fish – did not have the same effect and was associated with a slightly decreased risk.

Cancer Council Australia chief executive Professor Ian Olver says that while the study could not be said to show that red meat caused cancer, the apparent link warranted further research.

“Such population studies demonstrate these relationships between red meat and cancer deaths but are not able to prove that one causes the other,” he says.

“With red meat, for example, the method of cooking is important.

“For example, more carcinogens would be expected to be produced from barbecue than by slow cooking (while) the other factor predisposing to cancer is the fat content of the meat.”

The research, produced as part of the National Institutes of Health-AARP Diet and Health Study, is published in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine.

The study raised the question of what role meat should play in the diet, says Mark Wahlqvist, Director of the Asia Pacific Health and Nutrition Centre at Victoria’s Monash University.

He says that red meat in small amounts – even about an ounce or 30 grams daily – could make a significant difference to the risk of micronutrient (vitamins and minerals) deficiency.

“(But) the corollary is that a plant-based diet is a preferred orientation for food intake in the human species and many studies support this conclusion,” Professor Wahlqvist says.

Source:http://www.theage.com.au

If you get cancer today you are now more likely to survive it. New government research shows there has been a 30 per cent increase in five-year cancer survival rates since 1986. According to the Cancer Council here in Australia, 64 per cent of Australian women and 58 per cent of men have survived five years after a cancer diagnosis compared with 53 and 41 per cent respectively, between 1982 and 1986. The findings reflect the effectiveness of early detection and advances in chemotherapy, radiation therapy and surgery. These treatments extend the lives of people who have been diagnosed with a range of cancers.

Tall tales about what causes breast cancer can do more harm than good.

MYTH ONE

Having a family history of breast cancer means you will get the disease
Most women who get breast cancer don’t have a family history of the disease, Boyages says. “Therefore, all women should think about their breast health,” he says. “For women aged 50-69, that means going for regular mammograms. Call 132 050 for information about the free breast-screening program.”

MYTH TWO

Breast cancer is a young woman’s disease
With the public face of breast cancer featuring the young faces of Belinda Emmett, Jane McGrath, Kylie Minogue and Christina Applegate, you could be forgiven for thinking it’s a young woman’s disease. It’s not.

“The data is quite strong,” Henderson says. “In Australia we are not seeing an increase in young women [under 50] with breast cancer. The [most common] age is the late 50s and 60s.”

MYTH THREE

Antiperspirants and underwire bras cause breast cancer
“These are urban myths that have been debunked many times,” Henderson says. Boyages says: “Breast cancer has been around since the ancient Egyptians and I don’t think they had underwire bras.”

MYTH FOUR

Freezing water in plastic, or microwave cooking with plastics releases cancer-causing toxins
One email doing the rounds warns of the dangers of the above and is attributed to the John Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Centre in Baltimore. John Hopkins has labelled the email a hoax.

“Freezing water does not cause the release of chemicals from plastic bottles,” Boyages says. “And there are clear recommendations to only use microwave-safe containers. “

MYTH FIVE

Lumpy breasts increase your risk
Boyages says: “A lot of women get lumpier breasts before their period or may have cysts, which are common in the breast. Nine out of 10 lumps are not cancer. But if you have a lump that doesn’t go away, have a triple test.”

MYTH SIX

Small breasts reduce your risk
Breast size has nothing to do with the risk of breast cancer but Henderson says obese women, specifically women who are post-menopausal, have an increased risk.

MYTH SEVEN

Implants increase your risk of breast cancer
Silicon breast implants are not linked to breast cancer risk. The National Breast and Ovarian Cancer Centre reports that a large study on the long-term effects of implants followed women for more than 10 years and showed no increased risk.

Boyages says: “In some ways it’s easier to find breast cancer, because the implant pushes the breast tissue forward.”

MYTH EIGHT

Breast pain indicates breast cancer
Most breast cancers don’t cause significant pain but a few do. “So you can’t be complacent if a lump is painful,” Boyages says. “In about 10 per cent of cases of breast cancer there is pain.”

MYTH NINE

Nipple discharge indicates breast cancer
The majority of nipple discharge has nothing to do with cancer but Henderson says bloody discharges are a concern. “Even then, more often than not, it is not breast cancer,” he says. Boyages says doctors will also be concerned by discharge that is coloured “like straw”.

MYTH TEN

Mammograms cause breast cancer
Exposure to ionising radiation can cause cancer. However, given the limited number of mammograms a woman has in her lifetime and the standards of mammographic equipment in use in Australia, the increased radiation exposure from a mammogram is minimal, says the NBOCC.

“If you are 50 [and] having a mammogram every two years, the risk of radiation is far less than other risks we take every day,” Boyages says.

However, having radiation for other cancers does increase your risk of breast cancer.

“If, for example, someone had Hodgkin’s lymphoma as a teenager and had radiation treatment, they would be at much higher risk of breast cancer, so should start having mammograms 10 years after their initial treatment.
Read more….

Read this forwarded email. True or not, I would like to let anyone know about this and not only the people on my mailing list.

In November, a rare kind of breast cancer was found. A lady developed a rash on her breast, similar to that of young mothers who are nursing.

Because her mammogram had been clear, the doctor treated her with antibiotics for infections. After 2 rounds, it continued to get worse, so her doctor sent her for another mammogram. This time it showed a mass.

A biopsy found a fast growing malignancy. Chemo was started in order to shrink the growth; then a mastectomy was performed; then a full round of Chemo; then radiation. After about 9 months of intense treatment, she was given a clean bill of health.
She had one year of living each day to itsfullest.

Then the cancer returned to the liver area. She took 4 treatments and decided that she wanted quality of life, not the after effects of Chemo. She had 5 great months and she planned each detail of the final days. After a few days of needing morphine, she died. She left this message to be delivered to women everywhere:

Women, PLEASE be alert to anything that is not normal, and be persistent in getting help as soon as possible.

Paget’s Disease:

This is a rare form of breast cancer, and is on the outside of the breast, on the nipple and aureole

It appeared as a rash, which later became a lesion with a crusty outer edge. I would not have ever suspected it to be breast cancer but it was…

My nipple never seemed any different to me, but the rash bothered me, so I went to the doctor for that. Sometimes, it itched and was sore, but other than that it didn’t bother me. It was just ugly and a nuisance, and could not be cleared up with all the creams prescribed by my doctor and dermatologist for the dermatitis on my eyes just prior to this outbreak. They seemed a little concerned but did not warn me it could be cancerous.

Now, I suspect not many women out there know a lesion or rash on the nipple or aureole can be breast cancer.

(Mine started out as a single red pimple on the aureole.

One of the biggest problems with Paget’s disease of the nipple is that the symptoms appear to be harmless.

It is frequently thought to be a skin inflammation or

infection, leading to unfortunate delays in detection and care.)

What are the symptoms?

1. A persistent redness, oozing, and crusting of your nipple causing it to itch and burn (As I stated, mine did not itch or burn much, and had no oozing I was aware of, but it did have a crust along the outer edge on one side.)

2. A sore on your nipple that will not heal.

(Mine was on the aureole area with a whitish thick looking area in center of nipple).

3. Usually only one nipple is effected. How is it diagnosed?

Your doctor will do a physical exam and should suggest having a mammogram of both breasts, done immediately.

Even though the redness, oozing and crusting closely resemble dermatitis (inflammation of the skin),

your doctor should suspect cancer if the sore is only on one breast.

Your doctor should order a biopsy of your sore to confirm what is going on.

This message should be taken seriously and passed on to as many of your relatives and friends as possible; it could save someone’s life.

My breast cancer has spread and metastasized to my bones after receiving mega doses of chemotherapy, 28 treatments of radiation and taking Tamaxofin. If this had been diagnosed as breast cancer in the beginning, perhaps it would not have spread…

TO ALL READERS:

This is sad as women are not aware of Paget’s disease. If, by passing this around on the e-mail, we can make others aware of it and its potential danger, we are helping women everywhere.

Please, if you can, take a moment to forward this message to as many people as possible, especially to your family and friends. It only takes a moment, yet the results could save a life.

Moisturizers used by millions of people every day may raise the risk and severity of skin cancer in those who were heavily exposed to sun as youngster.
A new study has found evidence that some skin creams accelerate the growth of the most common form of skin cancer – and increase the number and size of tumors.
In the tests, four products – Dermabase, Dermovan, Eucerin and Vanicream – were applied over four months to mice who had been exposed to UV light.
A dramatic increase was noted in the growth of skin cancers. The cancers were not melanoma, the deadliest kind.
Australian disease experts said the study was inconclusive.

So what do you think with the study? All I can say is that, if you keep on using moisturizer, just avoid prolong staying under the sun. And if your work required prolong exposure to UV rays, better to stop using moisturizer. It is absolutely better to have dry skin than to have cancer. Prevention is better than cure.

Many young women with breast cancer are risking their lives by opting for surgery to save their breast over more protective radical treatment.
Women under 50 are more likely than older women to choose a lumpectomy than a full mastectomy, results from the Australian National Breast Cancer Audit show.
This is despite their tumors being more aggressive and more likely to recur.
It is best that surgeons should consider a mastectomy.

Cervical cancer is the second most common cancer of women’s, next to breast cancer.
Cervical cancer however, is more dangerous, with only 2 or 3 surviving
from the disease for every 4 that survives breast cancer.
It is estimated that almost 70,000 Filipinas have cervical cancer with 7,000 acquiring the disease every year.
The leading cause of cervical cancer is the human papillomavirus or HPV which is also one of the most common causes of sexually transmitted infections in the world.
Women
who have had sex soon after they had their first menstruation, who had
several sexual partners, are smokers or are regularly exposed to
secondary smoke, have five children or more, and have weak immune
systems are susceptible to acquiring cervical cancer.
The most
dreadful fact about cervical cancer is that it doesn’t have any cure.
Prevention is your only protection against cervical cancer.
It is
highly preventable. According to the National Institute of Health
(USA), the correct and consistent use of condoms demonstrated a strong
protection against low and high-risk types of HPV infection among women.

AFTER YEARS OF TELLING PEOPLE CHEMOTHERAPY IS THE ONLY WAY TO TRY (TRY THE KEY WORD) AND ELIMINATE CANCER BUT THERE IS AN ALTERNATIVE WAY .

1. Every person has cancer cells in the body. These cancer cells do not show up in the standard tests until they have multiplied to a few billion. When doctors tell cancer patients that there are no more cancer cells in their bodies after treatment, it just means the tests are unable to detect the cancer cells because they have not reached the detectable size.

2. Cancer cells occur between 6 to more than 10 times in a person’s lifetime.

3. When the person’s immune system is strong the cancer cells will be destroyed and prevented-from multiplying and forming tumors.

4. When a person has cancer it indicates the person has multiple nutritional deficiencies. These could be due to genetic, environmental, food and lifestyle factors.

5. To overcome the multiple nutritional deficiencies, changing diet and including supplements will strengthen the immune system.

6. Chemotherapy involves poisoning the rapidly-growing cancer cells and also destroys rapidly-growing healthy cells in the bone marrow, gastrointestinal tract etc, and can cause organ damage, like liver, kidneys, heart, lungs etc.

7. Radiation while destroying cancer cells also burns, scars and damages healthy cells, tissues and organs.

8. Initial treatment with chemotherapy and radiation will often reduce tumor size. However prolonged use of chemotherapy and radiation do not result in more tumor destruction.

9. When the body has too much toxic burden from chemotherapy and radiation the immune system is either compromised or destroyed, hence the person can succumb to various kinds of infections and complications.

10. Chemotherapy and radiation can cause cancer cells to mutate and become resistant and difficult to destroy. Surgery can also cause cancer cells to spread to other sites.

11. An effective way to battle cancer is to starve the cancer cells by not feeding it with the foods it needs to multiply.

CANCER CELLS FEED ON:

a. Sugar is a cancer-feeder. By cutting off sugar it cuts off one important food supply to the cancer cells. Sugar substitutes like NutraSweet, Equal,Spoonful, etc are made with Aspartame and it is harmful. A better natural substitute would be Manuka honey or molasses but only in very small amounts. Table salt has a chemical added to make it white in colour. Better alternative is Bragg’s aminos or sea salt.

b. Milk causes the body to produce mucus, especially in the gastrointestinal tract. Cancer feeds on mucus. By cutting off milk and substituting with unsweetened soya milk cancer cells are being starved.

c. Cancer cells thrive in an acid environment. A meat-based diet is acidic and it is best to eat fish, and a little chicken rather than beef or pork. Meat also contains livestock antibiotics, growth hormones and parasites, which are all harmful, especially to people with cancer.

d. A diet made of 80% fresh vegetables and juice, whole grains,seeds, nuts and a little fruits help put the body into an alkaline environment. About 20% can be from cooked food including beans. Fresh vegetable juices provide live enzymes that are easily absorbed and reach down to cellular levels within 15 minutes to nourish and enhance growth of healthy cells. To obtain live enzymes for building healthy cells try and drink fresh vegetable juice (most vegetables including bean sprouts)and eat some raw vegetables 2 or 3 times a day. Enzymes are destroyed at temperatures of 104 degrees F (40 degrees C).

e. Avoid coffee, tea, and chocolate, which have high caffeine. Green tea is a better alternative and has cancer-fighting properties. Water-best to drink purified water, or filtered, to avoid known toxins and heavy metals in tap water. Distilled water is acidic, avoid it.

12. Meat protein is difficult to digest and requires a lot of digestive enzymes. Undigested meat remaining in the intestines become putrified and leads to more toxic buildup.

13. Cancer cell walls have a tough protein covering. By refraining from or eating less meat it frees more enzymes to attack the protein walls of cancer cells and allows the body’s killer cells to destroy the cancer cells.

14. Some supplements build up the immune system (IP6, Florescence, Essiac, anti-oxidants, vitamins, minerals, EFAs etc.) to enable the body’s own killer cells to destroy cancer cells. Other supplements like vitamin E are known to cause apoptosis, or programmed cell death, the body’s normal method of disposing of damaged, unwanted, or unneeded cells.

15. Cancer is a disease of the mind, body, and spirit. A proactive and positive spirit will help the cancer warrior be a survivor. Anger, unforgiveness and bitterness put the body into a stressful and acidic environment. Learn to have a loving and forgiving spirit. Learn to relax and enjoy life.

16. Cancer cells cannot thrive in an oxygenated environment. Exercising daily, and deep breathing help to get more oxygen down to the cellular level. Oxygen therapy is another means employed to destroy cancer cells.

CANCER UPDATE FROM JOHN HOPKINS HOSPITAL

1. No plastic containers in micro.

2. No water bottles in freezer.

3. No plastic wrap in microwave.

Dioxin chemicals causes cancer, especially breast cancer.

Dioxins are highly poisonous to the cells of our bodies.

Don’t freeze your plastic bottles with water in them as this releases dioxins from the plastic.

This especially applies to foods that contain fat. The combination of fat, high heat, and plastics releases dioxin into the food and ultimately into the cells of the body. Instead, he recommends using glass, such as Corning

Ware, Pyrex or ceramic containers for heating food. You get the same results, only without the dioxin. So such things as TV dinners, instant ramen and soups, etc., should be removed from the container and heated in something else.

Paper isn’t bad but you don’t know what is in the paper. It’s just safer to use tempered glass, Corning Ware, etc. He reminded us that a while ago some of the fast food restaurants moved away from the foam containers to paper.

The dioxin problem is one of the reasons.

Plastic wrap, such as Saran, is just as dangerous when placed over foods to be cooked in the microwave. As the food is nuked, the high heat causes poisonous toxins to actually melt out of the plastic wrap and drip into the food. Cover food with a paper towel instead.