Now, Vit D is essentially your “grow up and become mature” hormone that tells stem cells to become mature cells. A mature cell does three things: it stops dividing, it does its function and it goes through natural cell death. Each of those functions are the opposite of cancer. Knowing that basic function, you can understand why Vitamin D has so many disparate beneficial effects. It seems to affect every organ and body systems favorably, as it should if it made stem cells grow up in every tissue. Even plankton in the ocean use Vit. D to initiate cell division and maturation. A cancer cell never grows up, keeps dividing and never does its function. Vitamin D should be, by all accounts, a cancer preventative.

So, what would you expect Dr. Yao to discover in his exploration of Vit D and breast cancer? Well, first of all, in comparing African American women to Caucasian American women, he found lower D levels in the African Americans. Darker skin makes for slower D production so no surprises there. And who would you guess would have the more aggressive cancer? You got it, the African American women. And comparing women with cancer to those without, what would the levels of D be? Again, those with cancer averaged a D level of 22 ng and those without had 26. But those with the most aggressive Triple Negative cancer before menopause had D levels averaging 16 ng. For every 10 ng rise in serum Vit D level, there was a calculated 64% reduction in Triple Negative cancer risk.

Let me say that again. There was an inverse relationship between Vitamin D and aggressive breast cancer risk. And Vitamin D could be the explanation for why African American women have such aggressive cancers.

The question remains, could this be just the first study to clearly demonstrate the racial disparities in health outcomes we see in the African American community? What about premature babies and mortality? How about hypertension and diabetes? Each of those illnesses or conditions have Vitamin D documented risk.

This isn’t hard science. It’s observed associations. Proof in its final form requires a randomized trial. But explain to me the risk of raising your D level to normal when it’s just a natural substance, not a drug, with no toxicity below 100 ng.

WWW. What will work for me. I’m on 10 k a day of D. My blood level is 80. I intend to stay there. My African American friends know that, and hopefully their blood level is up there too. Time to treat Vit D like a life saving, inexpensive anti-cancer drug. If you know someone who isn’t on it, please give them the gift of life, a bottle of D. Wrap it in a pink ribbon, would ya.

Competency Vitamin D

A recent study in the Journal of Clinical Oncology reinforced existing evidence that women with breast cancer can greatly reduce their risk of recurrence by eating a healthy plant-based diet rich in fruits and vegetables and making other healthy lifestyle choices.

The study, conducted by researchers with the University of California, San Diego, tracked dietary patterns and exercise habits among about 1,500 women who were diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer between 1991 and 2000. It found that the death rate for women who consumed a high-fiber diet rich in fruits and vegetables and practiced good exercise habits was 44 percent lower than the rate for women who exercised little and ate few plant-based foods.

The Women’s Healthy Eating and Living (WHEL) study showed that women previously treated for breast cancer who consume at least five fruit and vegetable servings per day and are physically active have a nearly 50 percent reduction in mortality risk.

The WHEL study included more than 3,000 pre- and postmenopausal women. Half the participants (the intervention group) were asked to have five vegetable servings, 16 ounces of vegetable juice, and three fruit servings daily, as part of a low-fat, high-fiber diet. A comparison group was asked to consume at least five fruit and vegetable servings per day.

After seven years, those women in the comparison group who followed the guideline of eating at least five fruit and vegetable servings daily and who were physically active turned out to have nearly a 50 percent lower rate of mortality, compared with women who did not meet these healthful guidelines.

A 2005 National Cancer Institute study found that breast cancer patients in the study who reduced their fat consumption lowered their risk of tumor recurrence by as much as 42 percent. High-fat foods, including beef, vegetable oils, and chicken, can boost the hormones that promote cancer cell growth. But most plant-based foods are naturally low in fat and offer people a healthy way to stay slim.

Researchers followed 2,437 postmenopausal breast cancer patients for five years after standard surgery and cancer treatments. They instructed 1,462 of the patients to continue their regular diets, while 975 patients were given intensive counseling with a dietitian to reduce their fat intake. The control group consumed an average of 51.3 grams of fat per day, which is still lower than the average American’s fat intake. The low-fat group averaged 33.3 grams per day—slightly more than in a typical vegetarian diet. After five years, 12.4 percent of the women eating their usual diet had cancer recurrences, compared with only 9.8 percent of the low-fat diet group: that’s a 24 percent reduction in recurrence. Low-fat dieters with estrogen-negative tumors experienced a 42 percent reduction in recurrence.

In 1982, the National Research Council linked eating habits—particularly high-fat, meat-heavy diets—to cancer of the breast and other organs. The Journal of the National Cancer Institute recently reported that the rate of breast cancer among premenopausal women who ate the most animal fat was one-third higher than that of women who ate the least animal fat.

Consuming meat only increases a woman’s risk of developing breast cancer. A study of postmenopausal Danish women looked at 378 women who developed breast cancer and matched them to control subjects who did not develop breast cancer. A higher intake of meat—including poultry and fish, as well as red meat and processed meat—was associated with a significantly higher breast cancer incidence rate.

Every 25 gram increase (about one ounce) in consumption of total meat, red meat, and processed meat led to a 9, 15, and 23 percent increase in risk of breast cancer, respectively. However, the degree of risk may depend on genetics. Certain genes activate the carcinogens (heterocyclic amines) found in cooked meat. The study showed that women with genes that rapidly activate these carcinogens are at particular risk of breast cancer if they eat meat.

There are more than 2 million breast cancer survivors in the United States, but many of these women eat fewer than five servings of fruits and vegetables a day, consume too much fat, and lead sedentary lifestyles.

Simply adding healthy foods to an otherwise poor diet, rather than getting rid of the troublemakers—meat, dairy products, and fried foods—may not offer the same benefits of adopting a fully plant-based diet. But science has repeatedly shown that a plant-based diet composed of legumes, whole grains, fruits, and vegetables can help prevent cancer and cancer recurrence.

While scientists are hard at work searching for specific breast cancer-fighting compounds, the best approach is to apply what we already know: Diets that are highest in a variety of plant foods and stay away from heavy oils, meat, and dairy products help prevent many diseases. The earlier in life we start, the better.

Need help making dietary changes? Visit http://www.CancerProject.org for delicious vegetarian recipes, information on nutrition and cooking classes, fact sheets on nutrition and cancer, DVDs, videos, books, and a free copy of The Cancer Project’s booklet Healthy Eating for Life: Food Choices for Cancer Prevention and Survival.

By Jennifer K. Reilly, R.D.
The Cancer Project

And now, a large study following the fate of the ‘DES daughters’, as they became known, has dropped a new bombshell on the long-discredited drug. Women exposed to the drug while in the womb face two to three times the risk of breast cancer as those not exposed to hormones prenatally (Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev, 2006; 15: 1509–14).

This new disclosure is particularly unsettling as it identifies the age with the highest risk as the over 50s. Most of the DES daughters, exposed to the drug in the 1950s and 1960s, are now in their 40s or 50s.

At least 100,000 women in the UK were exposed to the drug while in the womb.

Between 1938 and 1971, up to 10 million American women took DES, believing it to be a safe and effective way to prevent miscarriage. It was only in the 1970s that studies revealed that the drug was a time bomb. The mothers themselves were at risk of developing breast cancer, while their daughters who’d been exposed to the drugs in utero were at high risk of developing a rare cancer of the cervix or womb. Even ‘DES sons’ had a risk of developing genital abnormalities and non-cancerous growths on their testes.

Although the risk of the DES daughters developing clear cell carci-noma is now undisputed, researchers suspected that exposure to DES in the womb also predisposed the women to breast cancer once they’d reached maturity. DES daughters appeared to have a higher incidence of breast cancer, but no one knew the extent of the risk.

Since the 1970s, researchers at Slone Epidemiology Center at Boston University have been attempting to work out the risk of exposure. They compared the incidence of breast cancer among women exposed to DES while in the womb with a comparable group of women who were not exposed to the hormone prenatally.

They recruited 4817 mostly white women, mostly born in the 1950s, who had been exposed to DES in utero and compared them with 2073 women born around the same time, but who had not been exposed to the drug. All of the women were sent questionnaires about their health. Any breast cancers that developed were confirmed by pathology reports. The researchers also controlled for other risk factors for breast cancer.

When the results were tallied, the researchers discovered 102 cases of breast cancer, 76 of which occurred in DES-exposed women and 26 among women not exposed. Those who’d been exposed to DES had a 91 per cent greater risk of breast cancer after age 40 as those unexposed, while women over 50 had a threefold greater risk.

Julie Palmer, a professor of epidem-iology at Boston University’s School of Public Health, who led the study, believes that the extra dose of hormone to which these women were exposed stimulated the development of more breast stem cells than usual, and that this increased number of such cells increases breast-cancer risk.

DES is not an oestrogen or even a steroidal compound. Nevertheless, in 1938, it was discovered that this chemical had all the hallmarks of an oestrogen. Because its molecules lock into the same cell receptors as does oestrogen, the body is duped into thinking that this activity has been stimulated by its own stores of natural oestrogen (Grant E. Sexual Chemistry: Understanding Our Hormones, The Pill and HRT. London: Cedar Press, 1994). It was produced by drug giant Eli Lilly and a number of smaller drug firms, although Lilly discontinued manu-facturing the drug several years ago.

The DES saga represents one of the most shameful episodes in modern medicine. Indeed, the effect of thalidomide, which produced a generation of deformed, limbless children, pales in comparison. Many mothers-to-be never even knew they were taking a drug. At the time, some medical centers, such as the University of Chicago Medical Center, carried out clinical trials of the drug on pregnant women without obtaining their consent (Mendelsohn RS. Male Practice: How Doctors Manipulate Women. Chicago, IL: Contemporary Books, 1981). In the Chicago study, women given DES were led to believe they were taking a vitamin supplement.

Furthermore, although the evidence published in 1953 clearly showed the drug to be ineffective in preventing miscarriage, doctors continued to pres-cribe the drug anyway for more than 20 years.

The DES daughters not only risk cancer of the cervix, but also deformiies of the reproductive system. Many were born with a T-shaped uter-us, and others are infertile or suffer from pregnancy complications such as premature birth or ectopic pregnancies.

Even more worrying, animal research has discovered that the drug’s effects can persist across several generations. Even the granddaughters of mice given the drug are affected.

Since 1972, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has maintained a registry of DES sons and daughters in an attempt to track down all the young people exposed to this drug of the risks. In the UK, a national registry has yet to be created.

In 1989, the Supreme Court upheld one of the most sweeping product-liability rulings ever seen in America. Numerous women have had successful lawsuits; for instance, in 1994, a jury awarded $42.3million to 11 women who sued for compensation.

States such as Michigan have relaxed their requirements for proving liability. Women who received the drug as fetuses do not have to name the manufacturers of the drug that was given their mother. Other states have imposed a statute of limitations.

Lynne McTaggart

Still, we couldn’t help noting the remarks of Prof Bruno Muller-Oerlinghausen about hormone replacement therapy (HRT). Prof Muller-Oerlinghausen, chairman of the German Commission on the Safety of Medicines, has described HRT as a ‘national and international tragedy’, and he likened it to the thalidomide scandal. Reports suggest that it has already killed thousands of women who just wanted a better menopause.

It has been estimated that HRT has caused 20,000 cases of breast cancer in Britain alone, and is known to double the risk of breast cancer, and increase the risk of blood clots, strokes and heart attack.

Now, this is something we’ve been saying for 10 years. As a result, many of our readers stopped their HRT therapy, or never started it, and sought out safer options instead.

All of which proves the benefits of subscribing to What Doctors, dear reader. So if you haven’t yet subscribed, isn’t it time you did? To join, and claim £28 of books and reports, AND claim major discounts off quality supplements and organic foods and goods, follow this link: http://www.wddty.co.uk/shop/details.asp?product=330.

The Iowa Women’s Health Study followed 37,105 postmenopausal, women for 11 years to see whether HRT increases the risk of three different types of breast cancer: benign lesions of the ducts, highly malignant cancers of the ducts or lobes, and invasive cancers with “favourable prognosis”, an uncommon but doctors claim highly treatable form of cancer.

The use of HRT seemed to mainly increase the risk of invasive cancers with favourable prognosis. Women who used HRT for five years or less were 1.81 times more likely to have this slow growing, supposedly curable cancer than women who never used hormones. Those who had used hormones for more than five years were 2.65 more likely to have this type of tumour.

Although other studies have shown a small increase in the risk of breast cancer with long term hormone use, this is the first to show that the risk varies among different types of breast cancer (JAMA, 1999; 281: 2091-7).

The researchers say their new study is the first to use data from clinical practice as opposed to the tightly controlled tests that have been used in previous studies.

The study team, from the University of Washington School of Medicine, looked at the records of 1351 women who had died from breast cancer between 1983 and 1998, and compared them against a group of 2501 women, who were matched for age and risk of developing breast cancer, but who were free of cancer. If screening works, the study team surmised, there should be more women in the cancer-free group who had been screened.

To their surprise, this was not the case. Of the cancer group, 66 per cent of the women had been screened compared with 64 per cent of the women in the cancer-free group.

In other words, just as many women who had died from breast cancer had been screened as those who didn’t have the disease, which suggests that screening either didn’t detect the tumour in time, or didn’t detect it at all (J Natl Cancer Inst, 2005; 97: 1035-43).

Three conflicting studies in The Lancet add to the growing literature but still do not answer the question.

A retrospective analysis of 36,222 patients with breast cancer in Yorkshire examining the effect of delays on survival rates concluded that delays of three months or more do not seem to be associated with decreased survival rates.

In fact, in this study, those who were treated most promptly had the worst outcomes.

According to the authors, more younger women under the age of 50 delay presentation by more than 90 days, when compared to those over 50 (8 per cent compared to 3 per cent).

The results suggest that the drive in the UK for all women with possible breast cancer to be seen within 14 days is a waste of resources (1999; 353: 1132-35).

This view is contrasted with two reviews by MA Richards and associates. The first (Lancet, 1999; 353: 1119-26) looked at symptoms and survival and concluded that delays of three to six months meant a 7 to 12 per cent lower five year survival rate than those with shorter delays. However, as the researchers point out, delay in reporting may mean that the disease is at a more advanced state when it is finally diagnosed.

As if to further muddy the waters, the second review (1999; 353: 1127-31) looked at who is responsible for delay. Among 23 studies, this team of researchers found that older women tended to delay going to the doctor with breast symptoms.

In contrast, younger women reporting breast symptoms other than a lump tended to meet with delays from their practitioners in being referred for proper assessment.

As the accompanying editorial suggests, rather than clarifying the issue, these analyses only add to the “delays, dilemmas and delusions” surrounding breast cancer diagnosis (1999; 353: 1112-3).

Researchers found that the average length of time a woman takes HRT is 11 years, and that the risk of breast cancer increases by 2.3 per cent for every year she uses HRT. The risk was also greatly increased in women with a lower than average body weight.

The analysis showed that those who developed cancer while on HRT tended to develop more localized tumours rather than one which had spread to other parts of the body. But the researchers acknowledged that this was not necessarily a protective effect of HRT but was probably due to the emphasis on regular breast examinations and thus earlier detection in those on the drug.

The good news is that the effect reduces on stopping HRT and disappears after about five years (Lancet, 1997; 350: 1047-59).

For more information see WDDTY Guide to Menopause and vol 7 no 10.

A recent study in the Lancet finally confirmed what Dr Ellen Grant and a few other brave souls have been shouting loudly about for years: that the Pill causes breast cancer.

A Dutch study of 918 women aged 20-54 with breast cancer, matched against a similar group of healthy women, compared Pill use in both groups. Their conclusion: younger (teenaged to 25) and women older than 39 had an increased risk of developing breast cancer.

“Our results strongly suggest that oral contraceptive use during the early and late fertile years is associated with an increased risk of breast cancer,” wrote the Dutch researchers.

Having reached that irrefutable conclusion, the authors, two doctors at the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam, began backpedalling like crazy.

They stressed the risk was small; Pill use for more than four years might account for one of the two breast cancers that develop in every 1000 women before they reach 36.

In the study, those aged between 25-39 on the Pill didn’t show up with an increased risk. By grouping their results together with those of the younger and older women at increased risks, the Dutch doctors were able to statistically flatten out the risk factor and produce their astonishing conclusion, which agrees with many other studies of the Pill: overall, women who have taken the Pill have no higher incidence of breast cancer than those who have never taken it.

Organizations like the Family Planning Association were quick to dismiss the results. Karin Pappenheim of the FPA was quoted as saying this study should be seen in context with some of the others, which had found no risk, although others had found a slightly increased risk of breast cancer. Even though she thought that young women considering taking the Pill ought to be warned that there is a slight risk of breast cancer, this ought to be weighed against the “evidence that the Pill protects against endometrial and ovarian cancer” (the Daily Telegraph, 23 September 1994).

Does anybody out there speak English? This may be the first time I’ve ever heard of a 50 per cent increase in cancer described as “small”. Or a study concluding that its results demonstrate an increased risk but, on balance, no risk.

Miss Pappenheim’s comments are also typical of the kind of torturous turn medical reasoning takes when faced with an unsavory conclusion. This drug is beneficial because it may “protect” you against one kind of fatal cancer (another highly questionable medical conclusion), even though it may give you another potentially fatal cancer.

Medicine always has difficulty retrenching after expressing uncritical enthusiasm over a discovery. For 20 years, doctors have been touting the Pill as the safest drug ever developed, and there are many moves afoot to make it available over the counter. The Dutch study is a colossal embarrassment to an entire industry devoted to contraception at all costs.

But all it takes is a little massaging of statistics and an uncritical press, and, presto, the problem goes away.

!ALynne McTaggart

After seeing in your article on essential fats (WDDTY vol 14 no 2) that these are phytoestrogens and that long-term use of fish oil increases the risk of breast cancer, I immediately discontinued all these fats. Everything settled down and felt ‘normal’ again. – S. Dawson, Richmond