Take a 30 Minute Walk 5 Days/Week for Cancer Prevention
WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION ISSUES EXERCISE RECOMMENDATIONS TO FIGHT CANCER
The World Health Organization (WHO) has issued new, global, exercise recommendations aimed at reducing the risk of breast cancer and colon cancers. While various types of cancer might be prevented by exercise, WHO experts estimate, after examining the scientific evidence, that 25% of breast and colon cancers could be prevented if sedentary people exercised just 150 minutes a week. The WHO stressed that this amount of exercise could be attained easily with a moderately brisk 30-minute walk five days a week.
The WHO reports that 31% of the world’s population is inactive, the fourth leading risk factor globally for death. One person in two will have a cancer in his or her lifetime and the risk increases with age.
The WHO released the new anti-cancer recommendations in time for World Cancer Day, which is February 4, 2011. The full report is available online on the WHO website at http://bit.ly/fClTR7 without charge.
A New Way to Screen for Cancer?
DIETARY FAT LINKED TO BREAST CANCER
Researchers found that the elevated levels of dietary fat and cholesterol found in the typical Western diet may contribute to the growth and spread of breast cancer.
Similar studies of humans have produced contradictory results, prompting this team to study the relationship between cancer, fat and cholesterol in mice with a predisposition towards developing mammary tumors. The development of breast cancer in mice is considered to be similar in many ways to human breast cancer. Mirroring the human Western diet, the study mice received a diet containing 21.2 percent fat and 0.2 percent cholesterol while the control group ate a diet of 4.5 percent fat and negligible cholesterol. Compared to the control group, the mice fed the typical, Western, high-fat, high-cholesterol diet developed twice as many breast cancer tumors and they were 50 percent larger, faster-growing and more easily metastasized.
Since blood cholesterol dropped substantially in mice with breast tumors, the researchers suggested that measuring blood cholesterol may be an effective means of screening for cancer development. Published in the January, 2011 issue of the American Journal of Pathology, this study is available online now at http://bit.ly/f7SZel without subscription or fee.
Smoking & Fatal Breast Cancer
SMOKING INCREASES RISK OF FATAL BREAST CANCER
A study has clarified a link between smoking and breast cancer that is independent of socioeconomic, clinical and lifestyle factors. Women who are current smokers, or who have a history of smoking, have a greater risk of breast cancer progression and a 39 percent higher rate of dying from breast cancer. Smoking has been linked strongly to lung cancer and several other cancers but the association with breast cancer has been unclear.
Smokers, or previous smokers, who were diagnosed with breast cancer also showed double the risk of subsequently dying from non-breast-cancer-related causes compared to women with the disease who had never smoked. The nine year study enrolled 2,265 multi-ethnic women. The researchers presented their findings on November 8, 2010 at the ninth annual Frontiers in Cancer Research hosted by the American Association for Cancer Research, in Philadelphia. It has not yet been published in any of the association’s seven journals and it is not available online.
Can Watercress Protect You?
WATERCRESS MAY “TURN OFF” BREAST CANCER
A study has found that a compound in watercress may have the power to suppress breast cancer cell development. Normally as cancer cells develop, they send out signals that cause new blood vessels to grow into the tumor and these nourish the rapidly growing cancer cells with oxygen and nutrients. But a watercress compound – called phenylethyl isothiocyanate – appears to turn off the tumor signal within the body, effectively starving the breast cancer cells.
The amount of watercress consumed by test subjects was 80gm, which is about a cereal bowl full. This leaf vegetable is known for its tangy, peppery flavor and is a member of the Brassica or cruciferous family, which includes cabbage and broccoli. Previously, watercress has been linked to a lower risk of lung cancer and of low thyroid levels.
The study leader suggested more research is needed on the relation between what we eat and cancer. This study was presented at a September 14, 2010 press conference and will be published in the current issue of the British Journal of Nutrition.
Do You Know How Much Vitamin D Your Body Needs?
Two thirds of the world’s population, including about half the people in North America and Western Europe, get an insufficient supply of vitamin D, according to vitamin D expert Anthony Norman, PhD.
His article appeared in the July, 2010 issue of Endocrine Today, a monthly newspaper about diabetes and endocrine disorders. Several studies have reported reduced risks of breast cancer, colon cancer and type 1 diabetes with adequate levels of vitamin D, the positive effect generally occurring within five years of beginning to get an adequate vitamin D intake, writes Norman.
It was Norman’s lab that discovered, in 1967, that vitamin D is converted by the body into a steroid hormone; and later discovered that 37 body organs respond to it biologically.
Vitamin D is found in very few foods naturally – fish, eggs and cod liver oil – which is why some other foods such as milk, orange juice, some yogurts and some breakfast foods are fortified with it.
Currently, the recommended daily intake of vitamin D is:
- 200 international units (IU) for people up to 50 years old;
- 400 IU for people 51 to 70 years old; and
- 600 IU for people over 70 years old.
But many scientists suggest that amounts as high as 2,000 to 4,000 IU are required for optimal health, levels which cannot be achieved through food alone; a combination of food, sunshine and supplements may be needed to achieve these levels.
Can Fish Oil Reduce Risk of Breast Cancer?
A study of 35,016 postmenopausal women with no history of breast cancer has found fish oil supplements may reduce the risk of this disease by 32 percent.
The study looked only at “specialty” supplements taken by each subject, those that did not fall into the category of vitamins or minerals.
The risk of invasive ductal breast cancer – the most common type of the disease – was shown to be reduced in those taking fish oil supplements, which contain high levels of the omega-3 fatty acids, EPA and DHA. None of the other “specialty” supplements, commonly taken for menopausal symptoms, showed any association to breast cancer. Previous studies of dietary omega-3 oils or fish provided conflicting results. This study’s researchers speculate fish oil supplements may contain much higher amounts of omega-3 fatty acids than are normally consumed in even an omega-3-rich diet and this could explain the difference in findings between supplements and diet.
A brief summary was released (12:05am ET, July 8, 2010) by the journal, Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention; but the full study will not be published until a future issue of the journal.