otmmindbody.com Blog

Cancer and lifestyle

roe@roegallo.com (Roe Gallo) — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0400

Cancer prevention took a big step forward on February 26th. The American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) and World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) launched the most comprehensive report on cancer prevention policy ever undertaken.

Their second expert report gives us their new policy recommendations for "clean living" in an effort to prevent cancer.
1.   Be as lean as possible without becoming underweight.
2.   Be physically active for at least 30 minutes every day.
3.   Avoid sugary drinks. Limit consumption of energy-dense foods (particularly processed
foods high in added sugar, or low in fiber, or high in fat).
4.   Eat more of a variety of vegetables, fruits, whole grains and legumes such as beans.
5.   Limit consumption of red meats (such as beef, pork and lamb) and avoid processed meats.
6.   If consumed at all, limit alcoholic drinks to 2 for men and 1 for women a day.
7.   Limit consumption of salty foods and foods processed with salt (sodium).
8.   Don't use supplements to protect against cancer.
9.   It is best for mothers to breastfeed exclusively for up to 6 months and then add other liquids and foods.
10.   After treatment, cancer survivors should follow the recommendations for cancer prevention.
And always remember – do not smoke or chew tobacco.

The lifestyle link

According to Professor Mike Richards, National Clinical Director for Cancer, "The evidence linking diet, physical activity, obesity and cancer has become stronger over the last decade and this report can play a part in people adopting healthier lifestyles.

"After not smoking, it is clear that diet, physical activity and weight are the most important things people can do to reduce their cancer risk."

Cancer is on the rise.

Professor Martin Wiseman, project director, said: "We are expecting a substantial increase in cancer rates with the aging population, obesity rates soaring, and with people becoming less active and increasingly consuming highly processed and energy dense foods and drinks. The good news is that this is not inevitable."

Most cancers can be prevented.

Smoking alone accounts for about a third of cancers and over 40% come from poor diet and lifestyle choices.

According to panel chair, Professor Sir Michael Marmot: "This report shows that by making relatively straightforward changes, we could significantly reduce the number of cancer cases around the world."

A major step forward.

Richard Davidson, of the charity Cancer Research UK said around 13,000 cancer cases in the UK were linked to being overweight or obese, and even more were linked to poor diet, drinking too much alcohol and not doing enough exercise.

He said: "Doing nothing could be disastrous.”

“There is no magic bullet, no one single fix to the problem. If we are to tackle the situation we need individuals, business and government to work together to encourage healthy lifestyles by promoting things like cycle lanes and food labeling."

The obesity epidemic: eating our way to sickness, death and economic hardship.

roe@roegallo.com (Roe Gallo) — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0400

Former President Bill Clinton and the American Heart Association (AHA) announced Thursday, February 19, 2009 , the launch of a national initiative on childhood obesity.

AHA president Dr. Tim Gardner said, "One in three teens in this country are overweight or obese."

And, he added, "there's a risk that this generation will be the first in our history to have a shorter lifespan than their parents."

The obesity epidemic not only affects our health but has also become a growing economic hardship.

Gardner reported that the direct health care costs for the treatment of children who are already overweight or obese currently tops $14 billion annually, and, overall, obesity costs the nation an estimated $117 billion annually in both healthcare costs and lost productivity.

Here’s a link to the AMA site and a host of articles that talk about the obesity epidemic:

www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml

osteoporosis

roe@roegallo.com (Roe Gallo) — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0400

Here's another reason not to eat animals.

When we eat beef, pork, lamb, chicken, or other foods from animals, our bodies take in proteins that may be rich in sulfur. That's unlike the proteins in plant foods—fruits, veggies, nuts, grains, or legumes like peas or dry beans. As we digest animal proteins, the sulfur in them forms acid. A slight, temporary acid overload—called acidosis—may result.

To regain our natural balance of acidity to alkalinity, or pH, in the bloodstream, our bodies must buffer the influx of acid. One possible buffer is calcium phosphate, which the body can borrow from our bones—the body's main storage depot for this essential mineral.

Though calcium phosphate is an effective buffer and neutralizer, taking it from bones might increase our risk of osteoporosis. This unhealthy increase in the porosity of bones, and resultant thinning, leaves those afflicted with this disease especially vulnerable to fractures of the spine, hips, and wrists.

Read the entire article at:

www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/mar03/osteo0303.htm

Allergy training more doctors should get…

roe@roegallo.com (Roe Gallo) — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0400

Dr. David Freed talks about toxic food in his medical paper, Physiology and Immunology of Digestion (2007). http://www.adhoc-web.co.uk/SAC/mp-digestion.html This paper is part of a training program for allergy doctors, and highlights a source for allergies that is widely unrecognized by doctors or the general public.

"Of particular importance to allergists is the group of plant compounds called lectins, present in grains (wheat, corn, rice etc), beans and in virtually all plant seeds and many tubers, " writes Dr. Freed.

"Within the last 25 years it has been discovered that lectins have many effects on animals and humans when eaten, including inflammation of the intestine, joints, kidneys and many other organs – and also enhanced intestinal permeability (leaky gut) and growth stunting. Fortunately most lectins are at least partly damaged by heat, so cooking does make them somewhat safer. Wheat lectin, on the other hand, remains active after normal baking and is only destroyed by much higher temperatures. Lectins also tend to be rather resistant to digestion. True, many people are naturally immune to lectins because of their individual biochemical construction, but there is no room for complacency – dietary lectins can accumulate slowly in the body tissues and are probably responsible for much chronic ill-health."

"Most doctors are unaware of the food lectin problem, whereas it is a big issue for farmers (especially in fish farms, where high-lectin feedstuffs reduce productivity and profits). Vets and animal husbandmen are in general well aware of ‘poisonous foods’, and take care to keep them fenced off from their herds, but doctors are curiously apathetic to the phenomenon."

These foods are common and found everywhere and yet they are considered "poisonous." With allergies affecting more than 50 million people in the United States according to the American academy of Allergy Asthma & Immunology, perhaps a better informed population might help doctors "apathetic to the phenomenon" be more successful at eliminating the causes of the allergies, not just treating the symptoms.

In addition to allergic reactions, these "poisonous foods" are being linked to other gastrointestinal tract diseases. In particular Celiac disease which damages the small intestinal mucosa and prevents absorption of nutrients. People with celiac disease cannot tolerate gluten and now researchers are also linking lectins to the source of the problem.

Celiac disease is know to affect 1 in 10 people. However, more people have Celiac disease then have been diagnosed because a person with celiac disease may or may not have symptoms or the symptoms can be looked at as general mild discomforts that can be taken for granted. Without a major change in diet, people with celiac disease can develop complications like cancer, osteoporosis, anemia, and seizures.

It's becoming more obvious that wheat and other grains can do more harm than good – allergies, excess fat, colon problems, leaky gut, arthritis, cancer, diabetes, immune dysfunctions, asthma and the list keeps getting longer.

Time to take the lessons of lectin beyond the allergy doctor's classrooms to a broader population – starting with your home!

Fatter, sicker and more diabetes

roe@roegallo.com (Roe Gallo) — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0400

The fatter we get, the sicker we get and the greater our risk of getting type 2 diabetes becomes. Yet, based upon recent news, we are on the verge of a breakthrough for this growing epidemic – diabetes operations.

Forget that artificial pancreas, these new treatments leverage the fact that researchers are finally getting to the root cause of type 2 diabetes. "The prevalence of diabetes is going up because obesity is going up," says Judith Fradkin, director of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases at the National Institutes of Health.

Adult onset diabetes (Type 2 diabetes) used to just affect adults, hence the name, now because of the obesity epidemic there is an emerging diabetes epidemic among children. Because of seriousness of this problem, 2007 "World Diabetes Day" focused on children and adolescence. One message that came out of "World Diabetes Day" – type 2 diabetes is preventable. How? With changes to diet and lifestyle (which includes exercise, stress and weight management).

Type 2 diabetes is an epidemic that is killing us both literally and economically. The latest stats say over 246 million people have diabetes and most of these people are obese. The research says that 90% of these cases are preventable. This means 222 million people do not have to be sick. Think about it. Over 200 million people have this life threatening disease because they are fat.

John Buse, president of the American Diabetes Association, and other experts warn that it will take a major societal change of the kind that changed smoking habits to prevent a future of fatter, sicker people. But what kind of change are we looking for?

Enter the Diabetes Wonder Cure!

Yes, the diabetes operation is on its way. What is it? It’s putting a band around your stomach. Isn’t that amazing?

Some researcher feel that the only way people will lose weight is to band their stomachs, laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding (LAGB), so they can't eat as much food. This is a restrictive procedure that connects a balloon to a band around the upper part of the stomach. A reservoir is placed under the skin and is used to inflate the balloon and adjust the gastric band. With the inflation of the balloon the gastric band tightens and decreases the amount of food passing through at the given time. When the balloon is deflated the band loosens and the weight loss begins to be reduced.

Of course, LAGB is not without risk.

Some studies document a substantial number of patients who have required re-operation for long-term complications of the adjustable band (such as for port problems, erosions and slippage, or inadequate weight loss). In addition, conversion of a failed LAGB to another bariatric procedure may be technically more difficult and associated with more complications than with a first time operation.

But is this stopping our brilliant but illogical surgeons?

Hardly. In the Wednesday, January 23rd issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Dr. John Dixon said, "I think diabetes surgery will become common within the next few years." Dr. Dixon and his collegues at the Monash University in Melbourne, Australia published their study in JAMA that showed how laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding (LAGB) surgery was more effective in getting rid of diabetes than other treatments.
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/299/3/316?
lookupType=volpage&vol=299&fp=316&view=short

Why? Because people cannot eat as much, so they lose weight.

"An important finding of this study is that degree of weight loss, not the method, appears to be the major driver of glycemic improvement and diabetes remission in obese participants," says Dr. Dixon.

Reread the last paragraph. The degree of weight loss and NOT the method. FAT is killing us. How many times do we need to hear this? However, instead of eating more enhancing foods (fresh raw fruits and veggies), eating less in general and exercising, we are choosing to put a band around our stomachs to force us not to eat as much? What planet are we from?

If we could cut out diabetes like we do cancer, we would. But just like with cancer, we would get rid of the symptom but not the cause. Diabetes is a symptom of a diseased body. And the sad truth is that we can stop and reverse the diabetes epidemic so much more easily, effectively and economically with a focus on healthy life style choices.

The diabetes operation sounds like another ineffective and illogical band (excuse the pun) aide approach that gives us some short-term relief and consequently dooms us to long-term disease.

Health care? Are we debating the right topic?

roe@roegallo.com (Roe Gallo) — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0400

With the upcoming elections, health care will be one of the top domestic issues in the 2008 presidential campaign, but I think the debates are discussing the wrong issue

Let's look at this "health care issue."   How much money we need, and where is that money coming from, for Medicare, Medicaid, prescription drugs, doctors, hospitals, long term care, chronic disease management, chronic care?

According to the Center for Disease Control, chronic diseases—such as cardiovascular disease (primarily heart disease and stroke), cancer, and diabetes—are among the most prevalent, and costly all health problems. They are also preventable.
http://www.cdc.gov/NCCdphp/overview.htm#2

Here are some heartbreaking stats from the Center for Disease Control:
•   More than 90 million Americans live with chronic illnesses.
•   Chronic diseases account for 70% of all deaths in the United States.
•   Seven of every 10 Americans who die each year, or more than 1.7 million people, die of a chronic disease.
•   Chronic, disabling conditions cause major limitations in activity for more than one of every 10 Americans, or 25 million people
•   Chronic diseases account for one-third of the years of potential life lost before age 65.

And what about the cost of these diseases:
•   The medical care costs of people with chronic diseases account for more than 75% of the nation’s $1.4 trillion medical care costs.
•   The direct and indirect costs of diabetes are nearly $132 billion a year.
•   Each year, arthritis results in estimated medical care costs of more than $22 billion, and estimated total costs (medical care and lost productivity) of almost $82 billion.
•   In 2001, approximately $300 billion was spent on all cardiovascular diseases. Over $129 billion in lost productivity was due to cardiovascular disease.
•   The direct medical costs associated with physical inactivity was nearly $76.6 billion in 2000.

Imagine what we could do for ourselves and our country if we spent even a quarter of the money we spend treating disease on truly creating health and eliminating these diseases by:
•   educating people about how to get and stay healthy
•   cracking down on the industries that are producing and advertising "food" and drug products that are clearly endangering our health
•   giving monetary incentives to people who truly take care of themselves and are disease-free
•   creating incentives for business to promote health and wellness programs

Unfortunately, the issues the candidates will be debating aren't "health care" they are "disease care." And, continued emphasis on disease care is costing us a fortune in shortened life spans, physical pain and money.

Healthy Thinking

roe@roegallo.com (Roe Gallo) — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0400

In the January 15, 2008 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, a study was printed on stress and heart attacks. It showed that anxiety could up the risk of heart attacks by 30% to 40%. http://content.onlinejacc.org/cgi/content/short/51/2/113

What causes anxiety? Lots of things – anger, sadness, envy, lack of sleep, negative change in blood chemistry, nervous tension, jealousy, fear, worry, grief, pain (physical, mental and emotional), stress (physical, mental and emotional), resentment, apathy – just to name a few.

You can relieve the anxiety caused by negative physiology by making simple changes to your diet and exercising. But what about anxiety caused by negative emotions? Can they really do us that much harm?

If you look at the National Institute of Health's website, you will find under the National Library of Medicine, a great piece of information on emotional health put together in collaboration with The International Society for Neuroimmunomodulation called,
"The Exhibition of Emotions and Disease." http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/emotions/about.html

The historical report takes us back to Hippocrates and his followers who made the first attempts, in our medical history, to understand emotions as mental phenomena, which had surprising and complex connections to health and disease.

It talks about how the dramatic achievements of the last twenty years "extended the frontiers of the mind by embodying emotions in the biology of the brain more successfully than ever before and by creating the possibility of identifying the intricate interconnections between brain-based emotions and the functioning of the neuroendocrine and immune systems."

The report looks at "the explosive development of neuroscience, a field which has quickly become one of the most respected, exciting and actively pursued in medicine. Within the neurosciences an area variously called "psychoneuroimmunology" (PNI) and "neuroimmunomodulation" (NIM) has made amazing discoveries tracing the pathways between emotions and disease."

The bottom line is that their discoveries provide "the scientific basis for understanding--at long last--how emotions can in fact influence the onset, course, and remission of disease."

How you feel emotionally can have a significant impact on how healthy you are physically. So, if your negative emotions are making you sick, how can you change them?

How you feel emotionally is a good indicator for how you are thinking. When you have negative disempowering thoughts, you don't feel happy, joyful, content, peaceful, loving. You feel sad, unhappy, discontent, angry, fearful. If you don't do anything about it, it creates a downward spiral – the more negative thoughts you have, the more negative emotions you manifest. Keep it up and you can make yourself physically sick.

If you find you feel bad about something, anything, you know your thinking is negative. There are many things you can do to change negative thoughts. What I do when this happens to me is ask myself: what am I grateful for right now? Sometimes I feel like there is nothing to be grateful for especially when things look so glum. However, what I found is that if I keep asking the question, eventually - sometimes it takes longer than others - I will find things to be grateful for and I start feeling better. Then the positive cycle starts. Once I feel better I can think of lots more things to feel grateful for.

You can enhance your healthy with positive emotions and you can control your emotions by controlling your thoughts. Asking positive, empowering questions will change the way you are thinking and therefore change you emotions and make you healthier. Try it.

More than 1 percent per pound – don’t risk it

roe@roegallo.com (Roe Gallo) — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 00:00:00 -0400

One of the amazing things I notice about how we perceive disease, is that we often disassociate the disease and our choices. Disease happens to us and so we go out and treat it. We manage our diseases, instead of managing our lives to eliminate the disease.
As a result, people end up on drugs when they shouldn’t be, and for far longer than they need to be on drugs. Worse yet, they rob themselves of the very real opportunity to change the root cause of their disease and get healthy.

Another interesting study that came out during the recent conference of the American Associations for Cancer research showed that life style choice directly affects the outcome of cancer treatment and survival rates. The conference reported new research on breast cancer survival. The studies found that patients had a better odds of surviving the disease by losing weight and that weight gain can prove fatal. The research suggests that for every 11 pounds a woman gains after being diagnosed with breast cancer, the chances of it proving fatal go up 14 percent. That’s 1 percent greater fatality rate for every extra pound.

You have all the tools at your disposal to avoid illness. Making healthy choices by adding enhancing foods, exercise and positive attitude to your life not only dramatically improves your odds of surviving cancer, but also improves your odds of avoiding it in the first place. So drop a pound and cut a percent instead.

Fresh News from the Cancer Research Conference

roe@roegallo.com (Roe Gallo) — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 00:00:00 -0400

The news is fresh fruits and veggies.

Not that you didn’t know it already, but the beneficial evidence for fresh raw fruits and vegetables is mounting rapidly and causing the cancer research community to refocus on life style as a cancer preventative and treatment.

On Friday, December 7, 2007 the American Association for Cancer Research conference on cancer prevention was held in Philadelphia. Several studies were released that add to the growing case that our diet and life style is the strongest weapon we have against cancer.

Researchers at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, New York found that those who ate just a minimal amount of raw veggies had a 40 percent lower risk of bladder cancer. But the team did not find the same effect for cooked vegetables.

"Cooking can reduce 60 to 90 percent of ITCs, (isothiocyanates)," Dr. Li Tang, who led the study, said in a statement. ITCs are known to lower cancer so keep the raw percentage of your veggie intake high to get the best nutrient value.

At the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center researchers found that both smoker and nonsmokers can reduce their risk for lung cancer by adding salads to their diet and exercise to their life. Think about that for a second. Salads can help even for smokers. Leafy greens have more mojo than cigarettes!

"Although this is a very preliminary analysis, it give us some important clues about how everyone -- smokers and non-smokers alike -- might be able to reduce their risk of developing lung cancer," Michele Forman, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Texas, said in a prepared statement.

"If you are worried about lung cancer risk, this study shows that you may benefit from eating a healthy diet and being physically active," she said.

The more that researches study cancer, the more they find that we – our bodies – have an incredible power to keep us healthy if we make healthy choices. Take a tip from the U of T and add a salad to your meals at least once a day. You’ll be amazed at the change.

If it's not salty, will you still like it?

roe@roegallo.com (Roe Gallo) — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 00:00:00 -0400

The Grocery Manufacturers Association doesn't think so. There is now a move to regulate the amount of salt in processed foods, but, The Grocery Manufacturers Association agrues that cutting salt too much turns off consumers because of bland taste. It also said studies on health risk have not been rigorous enough. Robert Earl, senior director for nutrition policy at the Grocery Manufacturers of America, says "Salt has been used safely in foods since antiquity."

But is salt safe???

According to the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), cutting the overuse of salt by most Americans could save thousands of lives annually and urged tighter restrictions by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on salt content in food.

Excessive salt in Americans' diets is a major factor in high blood pressure and increases risk for heart disease. Salt consumption has risen steadily in the U.S., and with it, heart-related diseases.

The bulk of sodium in modern diets comes from processed foods like frozen dinners and condiments. One frozen chicken teriyaki dinner, or one small can of Bloody Mary mix, contains a full day's worth of sodium, said Michael Jacobson, executive director of CSPI.

"Clearly, salt should be considered generally recognized as dangerous, not safe," Jacobson said.

Britain adopted an aggressive labeling system including front-of-package labeling, and it has been successful in moving the industry to change.

According to Jacobson, several of McDonald's Corporation products in Britain contain nearly half the amount of sodium as similar products in the United States.

"Americans don't consume large amounts of salt because they request it, but often do so unknowingly because manufacturers and restaurants put it in," says Dr. Stephen Havas, vice president for science and public health at the American Medical Association.

Trimming the salt content in processed and restaurant foods by half could save up to 150,000 lives a year by reducing heart-related disease.

According to Dr. Hayas, "I am sure no one would tolerate so many deaths from airline crashes, so why tolerate it from food?"

Some easy ways to lower the salt in your diet:

1.   Use herbs and lemon to add zest and flavor to foods, instead of relying on salt to bring out flavor.
2.   Purchase products without salt. If you really want salt, add it yourself. You will probably add less.
3.   Prepare food without salt, especially if you are cooking because the tongue doesn’t really taste the amount of salt cooked in. If you really want salt, add a little before eating.
4.   If you are used to eating a lot of salt, cut back slowly. Your taste buds will start tasting the food and adapt to not having as much salt. If you continue to do this, your taste buds will be more in tune to the taste of your food and you may find that you don't need salt to make your food taste good.