Blaming Bad Genes For Breast Cancer Is A Medical Myth

Article Of The Week:
Blaming Bad Genes For Breast Cancer Is A Medical Myth, Read Here


Doctor's Soapbox:
The studies continue to pile up! This one is from the journal Breast Cancer Research and the lead researcher found that "regardless of whether or not women have a family history of breast cancer, staying physically active, eating well, and avoiding excessive alcohol consumption reduce their risk of developing breast cancer to the same degree."

What does that mean? That means that if you have a "family history" of breast cancer, so what. You probably have a "family history" of poor lifestyle choices like sedentary lifestyle, poor diet, smoker, drinker, and/or high stress job, home, family life. In other words, it's not genetic, it's familial. You learned how to live from your mother who learned from her mother. If you all learned the same poor lifestyle and live the same poor lifestyle, you'll all more than likely develop the same chronic disease; in this case, breast cancer. Yes, genetics play a role, but it is a role that is far overblown by the media and industries that stand to make millions of dollars off of you living the victim mentality (Pharmaceutical companies, medical-industrial complex).

So take control of your life and your health. Live an anti-cancer lifestyle. Eat well, move well, think well, get adjusted.

Kate Pregnant Dance 37 Weeks 10-9-10.AVI

Human Genome Mapping A Failure In Finding Cures For Disease

Article Of The Week:
Human Genome Mapping A Failure In Finding Cures For Disease, Read Here

Doctor's Soapbox:
10 years ago, Bill Clinton announced that the complete human genome had been mapped. This was a huge day in science because the thought was that once we map the human genome, we can discover what genes cause what diseases and treat them accordingly by pharmaceutical methods. One quote by Francis Collins at the National Institutes of Health said, "you will see a complete transformation in therapeutic medicine."

10 years later, where are we? No better off. Medicine still has no answer for cancer, heart disease, diabetes, or obesity. The genomes are mapped, we know which genes and gene variants are linked to which diseases, yet disease rates are increasing across the board, not decreasing. Where is the pie in the sky? It's fallen on the faces of the medical establishment. You see, there are genetic factors that play a role in cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and obesity. But far and away, the more important factor when determining disease risk and prognosis is environment/lifestyle. This was proven yet again in an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association. After studying 19,000 women with heart disease and finding 101 different gene variants that contribute to heart disease, they found that the fact that the women had a gene that was linked to heart disease had zero predictive benefit over 12 years as to whether or not the women developed heart disease.

So what determined whether they developed heart disease? Their lifestyle. How they chose to eat, move, and think on a daily basis.

Harold Varmus, the president at the National Cancer Institute summed it up in one great line, "Genomics is a way to do science, not medicine."

Chiropractic Cuts Blood Pressure

Chiropractic Cuts Blood Pressure

Study Finds Special 'Atlas Adjustment' Lowers Blood Pressure

By Daniel J. DeNoon
WebMD Health News

Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD

March 16, 2007 -- A special chiropractic adjustment can significantly lower high blood pressure, a placebo-controlled study suggests.

"This procedure has the effect of not one, but two blood-pressure medications given in combination," study leader George Bakris, MD, tells WebMD. "And it seems to be adverse-event free. We saw no side effects and no problems," adds Bakris, director of the University of Chicago hypertension center.

Eight weeks after undergoing the procedure, 25 patients with early-stage high blood pressure had significantly lower blood pressure than 25 similar patients who underwent a sham chiropractic adjustment. Because patients can't feel the technique, they were unable to tell which group they were in.

X-rays showed that the procedure realigned the Atlas vertebra -- the doughnut-like bone at the very top of the spine -- with the spine in the treated patients, but not in the sham-treated patients.

Compared to the sham-treated patients, those who got the real procedure saw an average 14 mm Hg greater drop in systolic blood pressure (the top number in a blood pressure count), and an average 8 mm Hg greater drop in diastolic blood pressure (the bottom blood pressure number).

None of the patients took blood pressure medicine during the eight-week study.

"When the statistician brought me the data, I actually didn't believe it. It was way too good to be true," Bakris says. "The statistician said, 'I don't even believe it.' But we checked for everything, and there it was."

Bakris and colleagues report their findings in the advance online issue of the Journal of Human Hypertension.

Atlas Adjustment and Hypertension

The procedure calls for adjustment of the C-1 vertebra. It's called the Atlas vertebra because it holds up the head, just as the titan Atlas holds up the world in Greek mythology.

Marshall Dickholtz Sr., DC, of the Chiropractic Health Center, in Chicago, is the 84-year-old chiropractor who performed all the procedures in the study. He calls the Atlas vertebra "the fuse box to the body."

"At the base of the brain are two centers that control all the muscles of the body. If you pinch the base of the brain -- if the Atlas gets locked in a position as little as a half a millimeter out of line -- it doesn't cause any pain but it upsets these centers," Dickholtz tells WebMD.

The subtle adjustment is practiced by the very small subgroup of chiropractors certified in National Upper Cervical Chiropractic (NUCCA) techniques. The procedure employs precise measurements to determine a patient's Atlas vertebra alignment. If realignment is deemed necessary, the chiropractor uses his or her hands to gently manipulate the vertebra.

"We are not doctors. We are spinal engineers," Dickholtz says. "We use mathematics, geometry, and physics to learn how to slide everything back into place."

Atlas Adjustment and Hypertension continued...

What does this have to do with high blood pressure pressure?

Bakris notes that some researchers have suggested that injury to the Atlas vertebra can affect blood flow in the arteries at the base of the skull. Dickholtz thinks the misaligned Atlas triggers release of signals that make the arteries contract. Whether the procedure actually fixes such injuries is unknown, Bakris says.

Bakris began the study after a fellow doctor told him that something strange was happening in his family practice. The doctor had been sending some of his patients to a chiropractor. Some of these patients had high blood pressure.

Yet after seeing the chiropractor, the patients' blood pressure had normalized -- and a few of them were able to stop taking their blood pressure medications.

So Bakris, then at Rush University, designed the pilot study with 50 patients. He's now organizing a much bigger clinical trial.

"Is it going to be for everybody with high blood pressure? No," Bakris says. "We clearly need to identify those who can benefit. It is pretty clear that some kind of head or neck trauma early in life is related to this. This is really a work in progress. It is certainly in the early stages of research."

Dickholtz has been teaching, practicing, and studying the NUCCA technique for 50 years. He says high blood pressure is far from the only thing an Atlas misalignment causes.

"On the other hand, if people have high blood pressure, there is a tremendous possibility they need an Atlas adjustment," he says.

Stress-Induced Coronary Heart Disease

Stress Induced Coronary Heart Disease

By Dr. Paul J. Rosch, M.D., M.A., F.A.C.P. Here are a half dozen of the numerous mechanisms that link stress to coronary heart disease: 1. For those who still believe in elevated cholesterol, stress has a far greater effect than fatty foods as demonstrated in tax accountants as April 15 approaches, students on the eve of an important exam and several other studies. Stress also contributes to other risk factors such as smoking, hypertension, diabetes and obesity. 2. Stress can cause constriction of the coronary vasculature and increased platelet stickiness and clumping that promote clot formation. 3. Stress increases homocysteine, CRP and fibrinogen, all of which are risk factors or risk markers for coronary heart disease. 4. Stress causes increased deep abdominal fat deposits that contribute to insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome with its varied and sometimes deadly cardiovascular consequences. 5. In addition to Type A behavior, hostility, excessive anger, stressful life events, depression, and anxiety, have all been demonstrated to cause coronary heart disease. 6. It has been proposed that unstable atherosclerotic plaque might actually represent a "microabscess" that resulted from an infection. There is surprising support for this theory, and it is well established that stress can increase susceptibility to infections. Read the whole article here: Stress Induced Coronary Heart Disease Paul J. Rosch, M.D., M.A., F.A.C.P. Dr. Paul J. Rosch is President of The American Institute of Stress, Clinical Professor of Medicine and Psychiatry at New York Medical College, Honorary Vice President of the International Stress Management Association and Chairman of its U.S. branch.

Diet-Induced Obesity Accelerates Leukemia

Article Of The Week:
Diet-Induced Obesity Accelerates Leukemia

Doctor's Soapbox:
The title says it all. Lifestyle choice causes cancer. Lifestyle choice (poor diet leading to obesity; "diet-induced") causes cancer (Leukemia). It doesn't get any more cut and dry than this. And this is straight out of the medical literature: Cancer Prevention Research.

Each and every day studies continue to show that the more they look at lifestyle choices and their influence on cancer, the more they realize that lifestyle choices cause at least 80% of cancer.

The Fit Brain

The Fit Brain Mark's Daily Apple

You love the runner’s high, chiseled physique, steady energy, knock-out sleep, and that alluring post-workout glow. And, sure, there’s always the extraordinary cardiovascular benefit, cancer deterrent, anti-inflammatory impact, and age reversal effect. If that isn’t enough congratulations for your fitness endeavors, here’s more. Physical activity helps fortify your brain as well as your muscles. Yes, exercise goes to your head in dramatically healthy ways – throughout the course of a lifetime. Let’s examine.
Changing the Brain
Exercise supports the brain in a number of ways. Most obviously, exercise increases blood flow to the brain, which provides more oxygen and energy but also reduces free radical damage and enhances memory. Researchers also know that exercise stimulates the creation of new neurons and the production of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a chemical that is instrumental in neuron preservation and formation. And then there’s the impact on gene expression (always a favorite of mine). Exercise specifically promotes gene expression that supports plasticity, the brain’s crucial power to alter neural pathways.
A more recent study highlights exercise’s role in boosting the brain’s stem cell activity – essentially the ability to divide and differentiate throughout our lifetime. Research at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine shows that exercise moderates the activity of bone-morphogenetic protein (BMP), which reduces stem cell responsiveness in the brain. Within a weeks’ time, BMP levels were halved in lab mice that ran on a wheel, and an opposing protein called Noggin increased. As a result, the mice displayed remarkable adeptness in cognitive tests.
In addition to enhancing cognitive performance and stimulating ongoing brain growth, exercise also influences the chemical balance related to mood. Research has long connected physical activity with relief of depression and anxiety. Exercise not only stimulates the brain’s release of “feel good chemicals” like endorphins that induce calm and contentment but also supports the brain’s efficient use of dopamine by increasing the number of receptors and the time dopamine remains in the synapses (PDF).
When it comes to the “aging brain,” exercise rewrites the script on that notion. Physical activity can not only preserve brain function but can turn back the clock. As mentioned, exercise keeps the brain’s stem cells working efficiently over the course of a lifetime and preserve brain tissue density. The difference shows. When researchers scanned the brains of fifty-five subjects (ages 55-79), those with the fittest profile (as measured by their maximal oxygen uptake) showed significant differences in the frontal, temporal, and parietal regions of the brain, areas related to learning and memory functions.
Researchers have also found that sustained exercise improves cognitive measures in older adults already experiencing mild memory loss.
Which Exercise?
So, what kind of exercise and how much are we talking here? Science is currently chasing that one down. A Taiwanese study compared mice that played on wheel at their own pace versus mice that were provoked to run at fast speeds. Although researchers found changes in the brains of both groups, the mice that got the more intense workout sported more numerous and more cognitively complex alterations. Their conclusion? Different exercise elicits different changes. Other research, however, suggests that more intense cardiovascular activity spurs more dramatic improvements in cognition and memory. And let’s not leave out resistance training. A recent Canadian study found that resistance training improved executive functioning measures related to attention and conflict resolution. Moderate levels of exercise appear to be effective, but any level – and amount – of activity leaves a positive impact.
When?
The evidence clearly shows, however, that exercise sharpens our mental acuity at any point in our lives. In children, of course, there are plenty of cognitive and behavioral benefits. Study after study (PDF) has demonstrated that physical activity boosts academic performance as well as cognitive related functioning itself in areas such as attention, planning, and organization. (Was there ever any question on that one?)
Most research, however, has focused on older adults who have either been active throughout their lives and those who take up exercise in their later years. The fact is, the more sustained exercise is over a lifetime, the better. Research suggests that a “cognitive reserve” exists in those who were active early in life. Every workout adds to the overall – and lasting – benefit. Finally, experts believe that the best impact comes from a potent synergy between exercise and good nutrition. Now where have I heard that one before?
Have a great day, everyone, and be sure to share your thoughts!