mardi 8 janvier 2013

LIFESTYLE AND CANCER: TO GAIN RESPECT, YOU GIVE RESPECT


LIFESTYLE AND CANCER

While the MORTALITY (death) from cancer has declined in the USA (Treatment and Early diagnosis), the incidence (new cases, lack of prevention, lack of knowledge) is increasing.

"An increasing number of new cases that are more associated with reproductive, dietary and hormonal factors."  (Lancet, May 2012)

And of course we have the Epidemiologists who have no understanding of the context of lifestyle but blame lifestyle, those troubadours of tragedy, would tell us that it is the race or genes that is the reason.



The mean adjusted incidence rates were three times higher in Porto Alegre than in Fortaleza both for men (25.1 vs. 8.6/100 thousand) and women (19.9 vs. 7.1/100 thousand). This rise in incidence rates may be due to early cancer detection strategies, lifestyle changes, and alterations in the population age structure. A population profile similar to that of developed countries may explain the higher incidence rates in Porto Alegre. 

Several migrant studies have documented that cancer rates in successive generations of migrants shift in the direction of the prevailing rates in the host country, suggesting that the international variations in cancer rates for most cancers largely reflect differences in environmental risk factors (including lifestyle and culture) rather than genetic differences.

(Porto Alegre in Rio Grande do sul in southern Brasil has much more people of European origin than indigenous, black or mixed. I remember fondly a glass of wine I shared with a local fellow Jewish doctor, Moacyr Skliar, who is a well known writer of Novels. The autographed copy I have is: A Majestade do Xingu)
(recently a Quarup, a ceremony to honour ancestors was done at the Parque nacional do Xingu to honour the great Brasilian Anthropologist Darcy Ribeiro)


The increase in the incidence rates in several Asian and Eastern European countries and Spain is thought to reflect changes in dietary and lifestyle factors associated with westernization, including smoking and obesity For example, in some Eastern European countries such as the Czech Republic, nearly 60% of men are current cigarette smokers and more than 25% of adults are obese.

So it would be interesting to speculate what role nutrition plays in all that, it is obvious that that which makes you fat has chemical harmful to your cells. Are there things in the nature that are healing agents for this damage? Of course there are, studies will show that Japanese drink green tea and have lesser prevalence of many cancers.
Everything has to be done WHOLE rather than just one thing at a time. Cinnamon may bring down your blood sugar but certainly, cinnamon is not the treatment for Diabetes!

The rapid increase in cancers in the developing world point out to a shift from a local traditional way of life or the so called lifestyle to the one more resembling a western lifestyle, but without the benefits of being western. Many nerds in India and wannabees in Indonesia and Malaysia and Singapore think that eating Hamburgers and drinking Starbucks makes you western, no my dear, read Gilles de Leuze and some other philosophers to understand the western mind!
In Brasil like in many of these emerging nations, there is a long tradition of traditional medicine, using herbs and leaves and roots. In Northeast Brasil rich as they are in folk history and folk illnesses (nervos for example), there is a tree Pau de Oleo that is consumed with the belief that it is good for the health. Some researchers had done some biochemical studies on rats and this is what they found.

Chemopreventive effect of Copaifera langsdorffii leaves hydroalcoholic extract on 1,2-dimethylhydrazine-induced DNA damage and preneoplastic lesions in rat colon
Juliana Marques SenedeseJacqueline Morais AlvesIldercílio Mota LimaErick Augusto de AndradeRicardo Andrade FurtadoJairo Kenupp Bastos and Denise Crispim Tavares
·        
BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine 2013, 13:3 doi:10.1186/1472-6882-13-3
Published: 7 January 2013
Abstract (provisional)
Background
Natural antioxidants present in common foods and beverages have drawn great attention to cancer prevention due to its health benefits, remarkable lack of toxicity and side effects. Copaifera langsdorffii, known as "copaiba", "capaiva", or "pau-de-oleo", belongs to the Leguminosae family and occurs in fields and grasslands in the northern and northeastern parts of Brazil. Biological studies of Copaifera corroborate its widespread use by the population. This paper describes the effects of C. langsdorffii leaves hydroalcoholic extract on the 1,2-dimethylhydrazine (DMH)-induced DNA damage and aberrant crypt foci (ACF) in the colon of male Wistar rats.
Methods
The hydroalcoholic extract of C. langsdorffii was administered to rats by gavage at daily doses of 20, 40 and 80 mg/kg body weight. To evaluate DNA damage by the comet assay, animals received the C. langsdorffii extract for seven days and a single subcutaneous injection (sc) of 1,2-dimethylhydrazine (DMH) at a dose of 40 mg/kg on day 7. Animals were sacrificed 4 h after injection of DMH, to assess DNA damage. For the ACF assay, animals were acclimatized for one week (week 1) and then treated with the C. langsdorffii extract five times a week for four weeks (weeks 2 to 5). The rats received sc injections of DMH (40 mg/kg) on days 2 and 5 of weeks 2 and 3, to induce ACF. Animals were euthanized at week 5; i.e., four weeks after the first DMH treatment.
Results
Animals treated with different doses of the C. langsdorffii extract combined with DMH had significantly lower frequency of DNA damage as compared with the positive control (animals treated with DMH only). The percentage of reduction in the frequency of DNA damage ranged from 17.30% to 40.45%. The groups treated with 40 and 80 mg/kg C. langsdorffii extract during and after DMH treatment presented significantly lower numbers of ACF and aberrant crypts compared with the control.
Conclusion
The C. langsdorffii extract significantly reduced the extent of DNA damage and ACF induced by DMH, suggesting that the extract has a protective effect against colon carcinogenesis.


It is important to respect the indigenous knowledge of the people, before the arrogance of our medical training force upon them hardly proven therapies! American Indians have repeatedly said: these outsider doctors (meaning non Indian) think that we have no knowledge and do not respect what we have.

To Gain Respect, You have to give Respect.

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