LATEST NEWS AND RESEARCH ON WOMB, ENDOMETRIAL OR UTERINE CANCER
Increase your personal odds of survival by empowering yourself with the latest news and research on Womb Cancer, Endometrial cancer or Uterine cancer; news you can use today and incorporate into your integrative cancer treatment programme.
'It is just so helpful to have all this easy to read info in one place; not technical, not in Doctor's ling, just patient-friendly news. I used something immediately. Thank you CANCERactive". Joanne. North Carolina
CONTENTS
Just click on the title below to read the article.
2023 Research
2022 Research
2021 Research
2020 Research
2019 Research
Go to: Endometrial cancer, womb cancer, uterine cancer - causes, symptoms and alternative treatments
2017 Research
2015 Research
2009 Research
2007 Research
2006 Research
Womb Cancer - Tamoxifen shown to ‘cause’ cancer
We’ve covered it before, but now the International Journal of Gynecological Cancer has gone into it in detail. They have covered research by O. LAVIE, O.
BARNETT-GRINESS, S.A. NAROD, G. RENNERT in a paper entitled ‘The risk of developing uterine sarcoma after tamoxifen use’. (International Journal of Gynecological Cancer (OnlineEarly Articles): doi:10.1111/j.15251438.2007.01025.).
The researchers studied the history of Breast cancer patients, and followed whether they had used Tamoxifen or not. They then compared the 875 women who had used Tamoxifen with those who had not.
In conclusion they stated, ‘There were 17 uterine cancers observed among the 875 exposed to tamoxifen (1.9%), compared to 4 uterine cancers among the 621 women (0.6%) who did not use tamoxifen. There were four uterine sarcomas among the tamoxifen users, but none among nonusers. Five of the 875 tamoxifen users died of uterine cancer, compared to no deaths among nonusers. We conclude that in this national breast cancer cohort, tamoxifen use was associated with elevated risks of uterine cancer incidence and mortality. Uterine sarcomas appear to be overrepresented among women who use tamoxifen.’
Ovarian and womb cancer: Women who eat crisps or chips every day may double their risk
Dutch scientists reported on the eating habits of 120,000 people found that women who ate crisps and chips regularly appeared more at risk of cancer. The rogue element is acrylamide, a chemical produced when you fry, grill, bake or roast foods to a high temperature. We have reported on
this chemical several times before in icon.
About 5 years ago Swedish studies caused a panic with fingers pointed at all manner of foods from crisps to biscuits. A European team of scientists was briefed to make recommendations – the problem is that acrylamide is produced by most cooking methods if high temperatures are involved. The EU safe level is zero, so dangerous is the chemical .
Now the University of Maastricht study, published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, finds a link between acrylamides in the diet and cancer risk.
An EU spokesman said: "General advice, resulting from this project, is to avoid overcooking when baking, frying or toasting carbohydrate-rich foods”.
Fatter women risk womb cancer
The average British woman, who has a 34 inch waist, is more likely to develop womb cancer than her slimmer sisters. Women with a waist measurement of more than 34 inches have nearly double the risk of womb cancer than women whose waist is 31 inches or less – according to a Cancer Research UK international study published online.
The risk of endometrial cancer (lining of the womb) is also almost doubled in women who have put on more than 44 pounds since the age of 20. And obese women (those with a body mass index of 30 or more) also have almost double the risk of this kind of cancer compared to women of normal weight (those with a BMI between 19 and 25).
The study, part-funded by Cancer Research UK and the Medical Research Council and published by the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) scientists, analysed data from 223,000 women in 10 European countries to conclude that obesity, abdominal fat and adult weight gain had a strong link to endometrial cancer risk.
A CRUK spokesperson said, ”Today’s women are larger than they were when they existed on a wartime diet and were generally more active, and this is having serious consequences for their health”.
Chemo And Radiotherapy Patients Should Take Their Antioxidants
In a full review of all available research studies, US cancer expert Ralph Moss concluded that the case against taking antioxidants during chemo and radiotherapy is little more than subjective mythology. Rather, there are numerous studies which show that taking antioxidants actually improves the success rates of both. (Should patients undergoing chemotherapy and radiotherapy be prescribed antioxidants? Integrative Cancer Therapies, March 01 2006 5; 63-82. Also on PubMed).
(Ed: We have covered similar findings by American Hospitals in the past. This topic causes so much controversy, and friction between patients and their oncologists in Britain, that we will try to gain the magazine’s agreement to reproduce it for you - or at least summarise it. Ralph Moss has made the definitive study and deserves full credit for debunking the subjective nonsense that prevails. However if any of our readers has a definitive study against taking antioxidants we will be happy to print that too).
Cancer Of Womb Rising - Tamoxifen One Possible Cause
Cancer of the womb (or uterine cancer) affects about 6000 women a year in the UK. That’s twice as many as develop cervical cancer. Its incidence amongst women aged 60-79 has risen by 30 per cent in less than a decade.
Ninety per cent of all cases occur in women over 50 years of age, and 75 per cent in women who have been through the menopause. Vaginal bleeding after menopause is a key symptom.
Early diagnosis is crucial, as advanced state yields only 25 per cent 5-year survival rates. Overall the figure is 77 per cent, considerably better but a mere 16 per cent improvement in just 30 years.
Cancer Research UK has stated that overweight and obese women are twice as likely to develop the womb cancer as women of a healthy weight. They suggested this is due to oestrogen.
Other factors apparently include not having had children, late menopause and the drug Tamoxifen. The implication of oestrogen in the risk factors suggests the pill and HRT might also play a part although CRUK did not mention this.
Smear Tests - Women Don’t Know Their Benefits
Two thirds of Bristol women do not know the cervical smear test is designed to prevent cancer; and while 90 per cent of women know about breast screening less than 56 per cent know of the National Cervical Screen Programme. Between 1967 and 1987 cervical cancer death rates in Britain trebled.
Insulin resistence/intolerance found to increase cancer risk
A while ago, at CANCERactive we told you all about Insulin Resistance. ‘Do you have trouble losing weight?’ This is a common sign, as are low levels of HDL, high triglycerides, high blood glucose levels and more. And while you are not a true diabetic, the principles seem the same for an estimate of up to 70 per cent of the population, who (frankly) just eat badly. We have also given you a number of research studies showing glucose drives cancer.
Not surprisingly, insulin resistance is a step along the road to diabetes and heart disease. Now it has been shown to be a step along the road to cancer too.
New research published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, concluded that ‘there is a strong link between insulin resistance and the risk of developing postmenopausal breast cancer.’ Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York have concluded that the elevated insulin levels linked to insulin resistance result in post-menopausal women having a higher risk of breast cancer.
The researchers also found that elevated blood glucose and triglyceride levels raised the risk of breast cancer by 1.7 times. Increased diastolic blood pressure (the second number when you have your blood pressure measured ) raised the risk of breast cancer 2.4 times.
Two factors are important here:
- Although this research was conducted looking at breast cancer, you can bet this is true for many cancers, male and female.
- Yet again it highlights the point we consistently make about the daft sugar-laden diets given to cancer patients in UK Hospitals.
We have complained that the NHS booklet on ‘a diet for chemotherapy’ shows little drawings of cheese burgers, milk shakes and sticky doughnuts on every page. My daughter was given ice cream and Ribena endlessly in her oncology unit.
Of course the good news for everyone – preventers and people with cancer - is that insulin resistance and blood sugar levels are controllable and reverse-able. Just change your diet!!!
I will list here for everyone’s benefit some of the tips from my book ‘The Rainbow Diet – and how it can help you beat cancer’:
- Eat six small meals a day, not one or two big ones
- Eat whole foods and whole grains (never refined, processed or fast foods)
- Avoid alcohol, fizzy soft drinks, sweets, cakes, white bread, white pasta, biscuits, chocolate. Diet drinks are especially bad! As are smoothies and purchased fruit juices; even many so-called health drinks.
- Eat raw most days, on an empty stomach if possible
- Eat your fruit first thing in the morning on an empty stomach
- Eat steamed or grilled – never fried
- Avoid Dairy (lactose is a sugar)
- Take probiotics in several strains
- Ensure you have no yeast excesses in your body (take cinnamon, oregano, Pau D’Arco and wormwood).
- And eat fresh raw garlic.
Remember, research from North Western shows that if you lose excess weight you reduce risk and even improve survival times.
The book contains far more detailed advice.
Being overweight increases cancer risk – fact
Cancer Research UK have just researched 4,000 people and come up with the staggering fact that 97 per cent of people have no idea that being overweight is a significant cancer risk. Of course, had they read our report on the research we conducted 4 years ago they would have known that people haven’t much a clue what does cause cancer anyway. Indeed we went into all the key issues in our 2004 Cancer Prevention Conference, which was poorly attended by the ‘major’ charities.
As we have been telling people for seven years, it all depends which report you read, and how much overweight you are, but to be just 7 kgs overweight knocks over 5 years off your life expectancy, and a whopping 13 years if you smoke as well. .All this is well documented in my book, ‘Everything you need to know to help you beat cancer’ – indeed it has been there since the first edition some 7 years ago.
All this comes in parallel with new Swedish research showing overweight women tend to be diagnosed with higher grade cancers than ladies who have restrained their weight.
One of the real issues is that many overweight people are in denial. We have had ladies write to us with breast cancer and they are 13 kgs over normal weight for their height. One described herself as ‘cuddly’, another as ‘being a bit chunky’.
In our original 2004 prevention research, people stated that giving up smoking was important, as was avoiding excess alcohol, and staying out of the sun. As we pointed out at the time, ‘Burning is bad, sunshine is sensible’. 4 years ago there was too much bad science coming from cancer charities suggesting sunshine was carcinogenic. In fact there is actually a great deal of research that suggests that a daily dose of sun shine promotes vitamin D synthesis in the body, and reduces cancer risk. A few people also knew that exercise was a risk reducer. But, in all, few people knew any information about preventing cancer (unlike Heart disease or AIDS) and blame for this lack of information can only be laid at the doors of the Government and the cancer charities. It was in response to this research finding that CANCERactive decided to adopt the Precautionary Principle (that where there is expert research expressing concern, we will pass on that research information so that the people of Britain can make more informed choices). As a result just compare the volume of Prevention Topics we cover against those listed on the major charities web sites. Pesticides? EMF’s? Melatonin? Toxic Chemicals, from dioxins to oestrogen mimics in plastic bottles and preservatives?
Anyone who is unsure of the factors that may increase cancer risk should go to the prevention part of our web site where they will find more information on more possible causes than on any other UK charity web site. As you will see, we have given some weight to the issue of cancer prevention!
Men more likely to get cancer – the issue is why?
Men are almost 40 per cent more likely than women to die from cancer, reveals a report published by the National Cancer Intelligence Network (NCIN).
And they are 16 per cent more likely to develop the disease in the first place.
After excluding breast cancer and cancers specific to one or other sex from the analysis, the difference is even greater – with men being almost 70 per cent more likely to die from cancer and over 60 per cent more likely to develop the disease.
The researchers then looked at the figures, excluding lung cancer as well, because the disease and its main risk factor, smoking, is known to be more common in men.They expected to see that, across the broad range of remaining cancer types, men and women were just as likely as each other to die from and get the disease. But they found that for all of these cancers combined, men were still 70 per cent more likely than women to die from cancer and 60 per cent more likely to get cancer.
Experts suggest that a possible explanation for the differences seen for some types of cancer could be down to stereotypical male behaviour – like down-playing important early symptoms and having an unhealthy lifestyle.
Even rogue cancer DNA repairs itself
CRUK scientists (Nature) have discovered a sensor which exists even in cancer cells. Some drugs try to damage cancer DNA. This sensor system is actually a family of proteins (alkyltransferase-like proteins or ATL’s) warns the cell and activates the DNA repair systems and so the drugs lose their effect.
Organic foods are better – ignore the UK Food Standards Agency
All over the UK papers comes news of the ‘ruling’ from the FSA that ‘organic food is no more nutritious than other foods’. According to that well known medical journal, the Daily Mail, ‘watchdogs’ have declared this to be true.
Claiming to be the largest and most comprehensive study of its kind, researchers for the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine’ trawled through more than 50,000 studies on the value of foods since 1958.’ The results were published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Dr Alan Dangour (a public health nutritionist, no less) who was the lead researcher stated that, ‘Currently there is no research to support the selection of organically produced foods on the basis of nutritional superiority’.
Spokesperson Gill Fine from the FSA burbled on about, ‘Ensuring people had accurate information’ and ‘no evidence of additional health benefits from eating organic foods’.
What staggers us at CANCERactive is that in order to resolve this very same question the EU has just spent £12 million of tax payers’ money conducting as near as can be, the definitive Clinical Trial, growing fields of organic food in parallel with normal pesticide and fertiliser-grown crops and then employing top scientists to give us the results. The FSA, which is after all a Government funded unit, ought to know this and use the data. And be clear, Gill: The ‘accurate information’ is that there is a considerable difference. And this is just from early assessments. The project will continue for a few more years yet, as that is how long it takes to be sure. Professor Carlo Leifert, one of the CANCERactive patrons, is a lead member of the team.We covered the early conclusions in this very magazine.
The Daily Mail falls into the usual ‘bad science’ trap too, meandering on about 50 years of research and 50,000 studies. But, the researchers didn’t use 50,000 studies, they used, sorry selected, 55 that ‘met their criteria’, whatever they were. So one concludes therefore they left out a mere 49,945 studies from their conclusions. Perhaps one was the definitive EU study?
Then there is Dr Alan ‘no evidence to support nutritional superiority’ Dangour. I quote about 10 - 15 such studies in my book ‘The Rainbow Diet – and how it can help you beat cancer’. Leifert and his team have a hundred more! What planet do these people live on? Al, old chap, there is rather a lot of scientific evidence actually; I cannot believe you think there is none..
But for the last word we will return to Gill ‘no additional health benefit’ Fine. All I can conclude is that she finds pesticides tasty and of absolutely harmless. Of course that view would put her directly at odds with the EU, which recently concluded that there were ‘deep concerns’ and cited health hazards including cancer as a need for more regulation. It is puzzling that Gill ‘ensuring people have accurate information’ Fine does not seem to be telling you all about research studies showing that farmers using pesticides develop more multiple myeloma, and another that this is due to the pesticide making pre-cancerous MGUS proteins in the blood, or (for example) that some third world suppliers to British retailers still use the banned pesticides of DDT and Lindane, each linked to higher rates of Breast Cancer. (If she is unsure, she could always trawl through back issues of Cancer Watch for more ‘accurate information’.)
For the record, there is concern that organic foods grown on depleted soils offer little in additional mineral content over mass-farmed foods. How could they? On basic vitamins there is quite a lot of evidence that organic food is superior, but sometimes not by much. The real advantage seems to come in the area of complex natural compounds (like resveratrol, quercitin, omega 3 or polyphenols) where organic foods score much more highly. For example, the use of fungicide negates the need for grapes to produce fungus fighting resveratrol of their own – several studies have measured this. And even 10 years ago researchers didn’t know too much about these compounds or their health benefits, and so did not research for them. How many such studies were in the ‘selected’ group?
Personally I don’t think everybody should rush off and buy everything organic – we have told you which foods research studies show are more likely to hold their pesticides, and which do not. So in a number of cases there is not a lot to worry about. But red fruits like strawberries and greens like broccoli do need extra caution before using the sprayed versions.
It is all very sad really. I think that the people, and especially the patients who want to beat cancer deserve better than this. But then, that’s why we set up CANCERactive.
Need to prevent thousands of older people dying from cancer, prematurely
As many as 15,000 people over 75 could be dying prematurely from cancer each year in the UK, according to research presented today at the National Cancer Intelligence Network (NCIN) conference.
These premature deaths could be prevented if cancer mortality rates in the UK dropped to match countries in Europe and America which have the lowest rates.
The researchers from the North West Cancer Intelligence Service (NWCIS) in Manchester compared cancer death rates in the UK with Europe and America.
They found that over the past decade the numbers of people dying from cancer in the under 75s has significantly dropped in the UK. But, little progress has been made in the over 75s and the gap in death rates with other countries is getting wider.
Dr Tony Moran, lead researcher from NWCIS, said “It’s worrying that so many older people die from cancer in the UK compared with other countries. But, it’s not clear why this is. Research is urgently needed to understand the reasons for the extra deaths so that steps can be taken to prevent them.
New scientific study reveals flaws, even fraud, in Clinical Trials
Scientific study. Clinical Trial, Gold Standard. Non Sequetor. Well, at least according to Dr Daniele Fanelli at the University of Edinburgh. In a recent study Fanelli lists findings such as
Most clinical results are misleading
- 5 per cent of scientists have admitted falsifying results
- One third of scientists admitted observing such bad practice in others
Fanelli’s report states that the misconduct is more prevalent in clinical, medical, and pharmaceutical research. So much for the ‘gold standard’; but then he goes on to refer to the high profits at stake where a few word changes can make all the difference, even if it’s not fraud but ‘presentation’.
He also comments on studies that criticise vitamins suggesting that all too often, doses used are too low to have an effect, or the where vitamin tested is known not to have an effect on a particular disease whereas another, untested one, is.
All this coincides with a USA FDA report that reports deficiencies and flaws in up to 20 per cent of US drug clinical trials.
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