This link below leads to a U.S. newspaper article with which I agree in the greater part. However I cannot agree with his downbeat mention of alternatives having had personal successful experience of Beta sitosterol for instance nor with his offhand remark on PSA testing. As I have said many times the result of a PSA test may be high for reasons other than prostate cancer. Such a reading can result in the first steps on a road which can lead to results which a patient may never have wanted if he had been fully aware of all the facts. So first gain the knowledge !
It has been known for some time that Green tea is a strong antioxidant, there are even companies selling capsules.Now we have a study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology which found men who drank five or more cups of green tea a day were 48 percent less likely to develop advanced prostate cancer.The association was not seen for localised prostate cancer though. i.e. there was not a 48% drop in men having localised prostate cancer
The study was conducted by researchers from Japan's National Cancer Centre and involved almost 50,000 Japanese men aged from 40 to 69 who participated in the Japan Public Health Centre-based study.
Green tea contains 30 to 40 percent of water-extractible polyphenols. In comparison, black tea contains only 3 to 10 percent. Early studies have also found that green tea provides protection against Alzheimer's disease and helps weight loss in addition to its anticancer properties.Studies provide convincing evidence that green tea components like EGCG protect against cancer by promoting apoptosis, cell death. This in turn means a longer life span.
Recent Newspaper reports on increasing your life span by cutting out smoking, restricted drinking and eating a better diet also has a bearing on a longer healthy life.
I notice that one of the checks mentioned in the report was a test to find the amount of Vit C in the blood.It has long been known that Vit C is a potent cancer killer. Little seemed to be made of this aspect in the article I read.Whilst eating fruit is one way of enhancing your Vit C ration, taking three or four grams in tablet form is more guaranteed.If you haven’t already read ‘Ascorbate’ by Dr’s Hickey & Roberts please read it, it could save your life. PD
PROSTATE CANCER - DO BIOPSIES DIAGNOSE ?
One of the problems with a biopsy is that just because your medic says, after such a check, that you are clear, is ‘ain’t necessarily so’.
It certainly allows you to go home clear headed, pleased that you have no worries on the prostate score, but regrettably what the result means is that the needles found no cancer cells, i.e. the portion of the gland biopsied had no PC cells to find.Minute cells maybe elsewhere within the prostate tissue.
Researchers at SUNYUpstateMedicalUniversity in Syracuse, NY, investigated the accuracy of prostate biopsies. They looked at the prostates of 164 deceased men who did NOT have a history or symptoms of this disease. The researchers took tissue samples for analysis from various locations within the gland.
Some 30 percent of the biopsies revealed that the prostates that were biopsied had cancerous cells.! Nearly half of these cancerous cells were deemed "significant" by clinical standards. They concluded that cancer detection was more dependent upon the part of the prostate that was biopsied, not how many samples were taken. The complete results of this study was published in the October 3, 2007 edition of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
"This information ... can assist the clinician to design the appropriate biopsy regimen to detect clinically significant cancers that pose biologic risk and avoid the over diagnosis of clinically insignificant cancer that would be unlikely to have an adverse effect on the patient," wrote the authors of this study.
Comment. It is not clear to me just how this would help a medic in designing an appropriate method of doing a biopsy in the correct place !PD
18th Century Urologist.
"We really must devise a better system
of relaxing a patient for a biopsy."
Hormone treatment and indirectly a possible increase in heart disease.
Hormone treatment for prostate cancer can lead to an increase in the breast size of the patient. This increase can impact on a mans lifestyle to a greater or lesser extent dependant upon his desire to socialise or engage in physical activity. (i.e. running, or swimming). One of the treatments for this side effect is to give radiation treatment to each breast.
Now I am sure that the amount of radiotherapy which is given is nowhere as great as that given to women who have breast cancer. However, it is as well to know that such treatment given to women has been shown to dramatically increase the risk of heart disease.
A study in 2007 produced the result that 22% of patients developed heart disease following radiotherapy for their breast cancer. The percentage was higher for those who were given treatment to the lymph nodes as well.
So it as well to consider all aspects of treatments which on the face of it appear straight forward.
A NEW APPROACH TO CANCER TREATMENT.
By Robert Jones MA, Ph.D
Robert Jones is a scientist, now retired, who spent over 40 years in cancer research after graduating from Cambridge in Biochemistry.
He argues that new treatments offering hope to many cancer sufferers have not been taken sufficiently seriously by the cancer establishment.
Examination of mummified bodies has established that forms of cancer were known to the ancient Egyptians. Considering the problem from a logistical standpoint, it appears odd that no generally effective treatment has been found when temporary regression of malignant disease is a phenomenon which, though rare, is by no means unknown.
Cancer chemotherapy began in the wake of World War II, when American doctors obtained limited success in treating patients with derivatives of highly toxic mustard gas. Since those early days a huge variety of chemical means of inducing the death of cancers in the living body have been devised.
Conventional chemotherapy has for the most part sought to prevent the growth of cancers by using poisons to block the division of cancer cells. Unfortunately maintenance of the mammalian body involves cellular division within all organs, especially the bone marrow and mucosal surfaces of the intestine. The poisons act indiscriminately against normal and cancerous tissues alike, and are responsible for the unpleasant side effects commonly experienced by so many patients. Nature has shown her resentment of the imposition of unnatural forms of cell death by stubbornly refusing to cooperate with clinicians. The underlying strategy is fundamentally flawed, which is why the current impasse prevails.
(Of course prostate cancer is one of the fewcancers which is not 'normally' treated with chemo, but remains the preserve of surgery, radiotherapy and hormone treatments. Ed.)
WWI Tommy. "I haven't noticed nature showing any resentment
to the prospect of my unnatural form of death."
The basic difficulty has stemmed from ignorance of how tumour cells die. In fact the seeds of understanding were sown centuries ago. Long before the role of bacteria in infection was understood it had been known that cancers in hosts developing certain kinds of infection, notably erysipelas, (a bacterial infection usually of the face) underwent regression, usually temporary. In 1891 the American surgeon William Coley recognised the importance of the observations. "Nature often gives us hints to her profoundest secrets," he wrote, "and it is possible she has given us a hint which, if we will but follow, may lead us to the solution of this difficult problem. " He treated patients with a mixture of preparations of pathogenic and non-pathogenic bacteria. Unfortunately the responses were highly variable and much too unsuccessful to use clinically. Therapy with mixed toxins remains the province of the truly heroic, determined to hang onto life come what may.
It was not until the 1970's that the destructive changes underlying the few successes Coley reported were at last understood. When tumour-bearing mice were treated with a purified form of a bacterial toxin, it was found that the production of chemical energy within the cancers was rapidly halted. Within a day tumours were quite dead, and sloughed off the bodies of the animals within two weeks. Nature's profound secret was revealed at last, the trick is to disrupt the main source of energy of the malignant cell.
The quest for safe pharmacological alternatives began on a very modest scale. Serendipity ended the search. Anti-cancer activity is present in a number of so-called tricyclic drugs, at least one of which, Largactil, was shown in 1959 to attack energy production in tumours selectively. Most of these drugs act on the brain. In 1990 Dr Riad Mahmud, a diabetologist working in a London teaching hospital, passed on experiences gained while working at a hospital in Kuwait in the early 1970's. He had three patients with inoperable cancer of the pancreas, a painful form of cancer with a bad prognosis. Initially he gave promethazine an anti-histamine and paediatric sedative, by the intravenous route. The drug was followed by calcium, and then given orally every eight hours. One patient died thirteen years later, not from cancer; in 1990 the other two were still alive. Dr Mahmud was urged to publish, but before the paper could be written he died.
A safe and humane treatment for cancer based on Dr Mahumd's observations and effective in the early stages of disease became available at the end of 1994. Promethazine, the active principle of the therapy, was introduced into clinical practice in 1947 and is long out of patent. In marked contrast with standard cancer drugs, no fatalities appear to have been recorded despite widespread international use.
(Promethazine is sold currently as Avomine, Pamergan and Phenergan. Avomine is sold for motion sickness, nausea, vertigo and vomiting and is noted as suitable for children from 5 upward. Pamergan is sold as a sedative for adults and children. Phenergan is sold for all the above. It is noted as not being suitable for children under two. Amongst the limited possible side effects are drowsiness, impaired reactions and photosensitivity. Ed.)
The first patient to adopt the procedure was a lady in her early forties with breast cancer. Through an administrative failure she was made to wait for nine months before receiving specialist attention. By which time her cancer was well advanced. Surgery failed to remove the malignancy completely and chemotherapy produced only a transitory regression. Radiotherapy led to neuritis and caused such intense pain that she sought to have her arm amputated on the affected side. Promethazine brought permanent relief, and two of the four secondaries lodged in the bone disappeared.
Tragically the treatment was stopped prematurely after five months, far too soon. Recommencement produced no advantage, and the patient died eighteen months later. It cannot be overstressed that, once begun, the treatment has to be continued for at least six months beyond the complete elimination of disease.
The procedure was published on the internet in 1996. An updated version together with the scientific rationale is available (www.cancersupportwa.org.au/spotlight/ index.htm). A farmers wife in Western Australia diagnosed with non-hodgkin lymphoma in 1997 began a new treatment at the age of 55. Eight months later she was declared cancer free. Unfortunately she too stopped prematurely. Nine months later her condition returned and, as in the previous case, a return to the therapy was ineffective. She underwent a variety of treatments in the hope of regaining sensitivity, including cutting gluten out of her diet. The cancer did become sensitive again but returned once more, and she died five years after the original diagnosis.
Since then a variety of cancers have displayed sensitivity to promenthazine, including further cases of non-hodgkin lymphoma and pancreatic carcinoma, a grade III astrocytoma, a chordoma, stomach cancer, colorectal cancer, Ewings sarcoma and an instance of breast cancer with secondaries in the liver and lung. (Although no prostate cancer is mentioned breast is and both are, hormone related Ed.) Although the data is anecdotal and the patients were receiving a wide range of conventional treatments, the common factor has been that improvements began only after the initiation of therapy with promethazine. Even those patients whose cancer failed to regress have enjoyed a better quality of life and prolonged survival.
(This is not unusual. In the early days of leukaemia treatment it was stated that the initial treatments produced remission but the same drugs became ineffective when given on the second or subsequent occasions. Somehow the leukaemic cells acquired the means of counteracting the anticancer effects. Ed.)
The health of sufferers has not always improved. Three patients taking high dose supplements of Vit. E (400, 750 and 1200 units daily) failed to respond, as did others whose disease was seriously advanced. The ability of tumours to accumulate Vit E has been known since 1940, and the protective effects of the trace nutrient now seem to extend to tumours. More serious is the intractable condition of multi-drug resistance; a single cell clone arising from a mutation caused by orthodox treatment becomes, in effect, immortal.
Simultaneous discovery is rather more common in science than the general public might believe. For a number of years Prof David Wilkie, a geneticist, suspected that the sedative clomimpramine might find use against tumours of the brain. The study is still in its early days, but Prof Geoffrey Pilkington together with several clinical consultants have been obtaining encouraging results with these intractable forms of the disease.
Unexpected problems have beset the introduction of the therapy of cancer with promethazine. Although the cost is less than two pounds a week, patients given the advice may decide not to proceed. Second, the attitude of the medical profession has been consistently indifferent. Letters written to doctors caring for individual patients who are getting better never receive replies; one consultant even went so far as to equate the offered advice with gossip. In sharp contrast, what is remarkable, is the willingness of doctors to embark upon clinical trials with newly patented drugs which, more often than not, fail to realise the anticipated success.
Before amalgamating with the Cancer Research Campaign to form Cancer Research UK. The Imperial Cancer Research Fund was sent the rationale for the procedure in 1996. By way of response a senior clinician refrained from comment; 'the organisation had nobody working in that area, and there were no plans to begin'. Approached at the same time, the Cancer Research Campaign preferred to place its faith in molecular biology, and looked to gene therapy to provide the solution to the problem of cancer.
Pharmaceutical companies have shown hardly any interest. Almost all tricyclic drugs are out of patent, so no fat profits can be expected from the introduction of these novel treatments. One manufacturer has argued that it would cost too much to mount a clinical trial for a return expected to be only meagre, though that has not prevented an American company from hiking the price of its generic product up last year from 3 cents to a whopping 31 cents per tablet.
So can a solution to the cancer problem ever emerge ? Imagine a cheap and humane self-treatment that works against most cancers, has a good success rate, produces so few side effects that patients can go about their business normally while sustaining the full force of the therapy, has caused no deaths and is active against secondary spread. The answer to a prayer, one might think. When used exactly in the correct manner, promethazine fulfils these criteria, and is moreover available in most countries without a doctors prescription. Some, though, conclude that the idea of treating a merciless disease with a child's sedative is not to be taken seriously. Proof is urgently needed. Meanwhile no cancer research organisation or commercial enterprise is prepared to undertake a necessary trial. Until cancer patients themselves are prepared to take the initiative, the scourge of cancer will persists unchallenged.
Inclusion of links is NOT an endorsement by the Prostate Help Association (2003), nor do we guarantee any information you will find, other than our own. We would remind everyone that they should discuss with their medical team all aspects of their condition and then come to a decision in regard to the best treatment for their condition. Prostate Help Ltd t/a Prostate Help Association (2003)
