Are we preprogrammed for disease or good health? Do you believe that your genes control your health or can you override your genetics?
A fascinating field of research called “epigenetics” challenges the conventional beliefs about genetic programming and examines the physical effects of emotion on our bodies and health.
In this video, author and cellular biologist Dr. Bruce H. Lipton, explores the importance of perception in maintaining optimal health.
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Researchers studying the preventive effects of vitamin D on cancer have proposed a new model of cancer development that hinges on a loss of cancer cells’ ability to stick together. The model, dubbed DINOMIT, differs from the older model of cancer development, which suggests genetic mutations as the earliest driving forces behind cancer.
“The first event in cancer is loss of communication among cells due to, among other things, low vitamin D and calcium levels,” said epidemiologist Cedric Garland. “This loss may play a key role in cancer by disrupting the communication between cells that is essential to healthy cell turnover, allowing more aggressive cancer cells to take over.”
Garland suggests that such cellular disruption could account for the earliest stages of many cancers. Previous theories linking vitamin D to certain cancers have been tested and confirmed in more than 200 epidemiological studies, and understanding of its physiological basis stems from more than 2,500 laboratory studies.
Each letter in DINOMIT stands for a different phase of cancer development – disjunction, initiation, natural selection, overgrowth of cells, metastasis, involution, and transition.
While there is not yet definitive scientific proof, Garland suggests that much of the evolutionary process in cancer could be arrested at the outset by maintaining adequate vitamin D levels.
According to another study, getting more of the “sunshine vitamin” may also help you stay mentally fit as you age.
Researchers compared the cognitive performance of more than 3,000 men aged 40 to 79, and found those with low vitamin D levels performed less well on a task designed to test mental agility. The findings are some of the strongest evidence yet of such a link, because of the size of the study and because the researchers adjusted for a number of lifestyle factors believed to affect mental ability.
The researchers do not know exactly how vitamin D and mental agility may be connected, but it could be connected to the vitamin’s role in increasing certain hormonal activity, or it could have a protective effect on brain neurons.
Source: Science Daily May 24, 2009
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New research makes a strong case for exercise as a way to help prevent cancer both for men and women. Let’s consider the results of two related studies.
Men - Those with stronger muscles from regular weight training are up to 40 percent less likely to die from cancer, according to new research. These findings suggest that muscular strength is as important as staying slim and eating healthy when it comes to protecting your body against deadly tumors.
A team of experts tracked the lifestyles of over 8,500 men for more than two decades. Each volunteer had regular medical check ups that included tests of their muscular strength. The men who regularly worked out with weights and had the highest muscle strength were between 30 percent and 40 percent less likely to lose their life to a deadly tumor.
Even among volunteers who were overweight, regular weight training seemed to have a protective effect, although the researchers stressed that keeping a healthy weight was still crucial for avoiding premature death.
But they added, “In the light of these results, it is equally important to maintain healthy muscular strength levels.”
Researchers said it’s possible to reduce cancer mortality rates in men by promoting resistance training involving the major muscle groups at least two days a week.
Women – exercise reduces breast cancer . Reports have shown that excess weight and large sizes have been associated to a higher risk of breast cancer.
It remains unclear the amount or intensity of exercise that is needed to produce this effect and at what age the physical activity must occur. The study consisted of a group of 74,171 women aged 50-79 from 40 U.S. clinical centers between 1993-1998 for the Women’s Health Initiative Observational Study.
Information collected was based on factors such as medical, family history, physical activity, diet, height, weight and lifetime use of hormone therapy.
In a four-and-a-half year follow-up of the study, breast cancer was newly diagnosed in 1,780 of the women. The study also revealed that women who participated in regular strenuous physical activities at the age of 35 decreased their risk of breast cancer by 14 percent compared with less active women.
This is further evidence that exercise before and after menopause are linked to breast cancer prevention. The effect was realized even with small increments of exercise equivalent to one to two hours per week of brisk walking. The results have shared similarities to those associated with decreasing the risk of cardiovascular disease among post menopausal women and those with diabetes.
Sources: Men – The Telegraph, Women – Canadian Medical Journal
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Worries about the hormone-mimicking chemical bisphenol A (BPA) used in Nalgene plastic water containers have led a major Canadian retailer to remove Nalgene, along with other polycarbonate plastic containers, from store shelves in early December.
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There is little dispute that the chemical can disrupt the hormonal system, but scientists disagree on whether the low doses found in food and beverage containers can cause harm. The FDA and the plastics industry have argued that BPA-based products do not pose a health risk.
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However, an expert panel of researchers recently reported that the potential for BPA to affect human health is a concern, and more research is needed. Many Americans currently have higher levels of BPA than those found to cause harm in lab animals.
Sources: Yahoo News December 23, 2007
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Further:
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The global chemical industry annually produces about 6 billion pounds of bisphenol A (BPA), an integral component of a vast array of plastic products, generating at least $6 billion in annual sales. The value of BPA-based manufactured goods is probably incalculable. Environmental Working Group studies have found BPA in more than half the canned foods and beverages sampled from supermarkets across the U.S.
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Soon after scientists Frederick Vom Saal and Wade Welshons found the first hard evidence that miniscule amounts of BPA caused irreversible changes in the prostates of fetal mice, a scientist from Dow Chemical Company showed up at the Missouri lab. He disputed the data and declared, as Vom Saal recalls, “We want you to know how distressed we are by your research.”
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“It was not a subtle threat,” Vom Saal says. “It was really, really clear, and we ended up saying, threatening us is really not a good idea.”
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The Missouri scientists redoubled their investigations of BPA. Industry officials and scientist allies fired back, sometimes in nose-to-nose debates at scientific gatherings, sometimes more insidiously. “I heard [chemical industry officials] were making blatantly false statements about our research,” says Welshons. “They were skilled at creating doubt when none existed.”
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The industry’s increasingly noisy denials backfired. By the turn of the millennium, dozens of scientists were launching their own investigations of the chemical. But the chemical industry can be expected to fight aggressively against more regulation. Earlier this year, the industry spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to defeat a California legislative proposal to ban BPA in food packaging. The Chemistry Council and allied companies and industry groups hired an army of lobbyists. Tactics included an industry email to food banks charging that a BPA ban would mean the end of distributions of canned goods for the poor.
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Sources: AlterNet September 15, 2008
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