Ultrasound, less X-Ray
Breast cancer:
Ultrasound better for some, and do not overlook Thermography
United Press International, 10-23-12
For women ages 30-39 with symptoms of possible breast cancer, ultrasound is a superior diagnostic tool to mammography, U.S. researchers say.
Dr. Constance Lehman, director of radiology at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance and professor and vice chair of radiology at the University of Washington, said the use of ultrasound in women ages 30-39 who have overt breast symptoms -- palpable lumps, localized pain and tissue thickening -- is common practice in Europe, where guidelines typically recommend ultrasound as the primary diagnostic imaging tool.
The risk for malignancy among women in this age group is small, but real, at about 1.9 percent, Lehman said.
The study, published in the American Journal of Roentgenology, found in the 1,208 cases examined, sensitivity for ultrasound was 95.7 percent compared to 60.9 percent for mammography -- ultrasound exams found 22 cancers versus 14 by mammography.
The researchers identified all women 30-39, who presented for diagnostic breast imaging evaluation at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance from January 2002 to August 2006.
"Imaging plays an important role in evaluating women with palpable breast lumps," Lehman said. "Most lumps are not cancer. Ultrasound and mammography help us separate women who need a biopsy from those who can safely be followed or reassured that the lump is benign. In women under age 40, ultrasound is better at evaluating breast lumps compared to mammography. Mammography is still our best tool for screening women 40 and older, but targeted ultrasound is our tool of choice in evaluating symptomatic women under 40."
Copyright United Press International 2012
Selections from Natural Health News
Oct 07, 2009
EDINA, Minn., Oct. 7 (UPI) -- Dr. John Wild, a leading developer of the use of ultrasound in cancer detection, died recently in Minnesota at the age of 95, his daughter said. Wild applied ultrasound technology that was being ...
May 13, 2008
I have been an advocate of ultrasound for breast screening for more than a decade. I have taught thousands of women to demand ultrasound - and better yet - THERMOGRAPHY - in the classes, workshops and writings that I ...
May 21, 2010
The web site mentioned in this article promotes MRI and ultrasound, also less cancer promoting than mammogram and doing a better diagnostic job as well. Dense breast increases cancer risk. Published: May 21, 2010 at ...
Apr 04, 2007
Ultrasound is effective too. Read more here and here. Computers hinder mammogram readings, report finds. By Gene Emery, Reuters 4 April 07. Computer-aided mammogram designed to help doctors spot cancer do not ...
Just Say NO to GMO!
SOURCE: http://www.encognitive.com/node/18609
Selections from 30+ on Natural Health News
Jun 23, 2012
Enjoy Your Holiday, GMO FREE. Originally published July 2010. As the Fourth of July holiday comes along this week end, here's wishing you a great time, and hope you BUY ORGANIC to avoid the risk of FRANKENFOOD ...
Oct 09, 2011
2011: This is the second year for the NO GMO Campaign. Natural Health News has been covering this issue for many years and our blog has many related articles. Today I learned that USDA gave a $500,000 grant to the firm ...
Jun 21, 2010
Generally speaking, Monsanto asked the Supreme Court to rule on three main issues: (1) to lift the injunction on GMO alfalfa; (2) to allow the planting and sale of GMO alfalfa; (3) to rule that contamination from GMO crops not ...
Dec 27, 2009
More herbicide use reported on genetically modified crops. Soy, corn, wheat, and any other crop you might want to list - again and again - are showing the long-criticized concerns postulated by scientists who have not been ...
Cancer Prevention
We do need to change the way we look at cancer and also every other disease that has an impact on people today. For too long we have held hard to dogma with no hope of changing thinking patterns to ones that might really lead to something beneficial.
In this mode it is exciting to learn of a tremendous new book that is doing just this.
Cancer as a Metabolic Disease: On the Origin, Management, and Prevention of Cancer written by Thomas Seyfried PhD, picking up where Otto Warburg left off.
The book is about, as stated by the publisher, "...addresses controversies related to the origins of cancer and provides solutions to cancer management and prevention. It expands upon Otto Warburg's well-known theory that all cancer is a disease of energy metabolism. However, Warburg did not link his theory to the "hallmarks of cancer" and thus his theory was discredited. This book aims to provide evidence, through case studies, that cancer is primarily a metabolic disease requring metabolic solutions for its management and prevention. Support for this position is derived from critical assessment of current cancer theories. Brain cancer case studies are presented as a proof of principle for metabolic solutions to disease management, but similarities are drawn to other types of cancer, including breast and colon, due to the same cellular mutations that they demonstrate."
This is in line with the work I have been doing for many years based on the work of Dr William D Kelley.
While the book is expensive and large it must be considered a viable resource for people and practitioners alike.
In this mode it is exciting to learn of a tremendous new book that is doing just this.
The book is about, as stated by the publisher, "...addresses controversies related to the origins of cancer and provides solutions to cancer management and prevention. It expands upon Otto Warburg's well-known theory that all cancer is a disease of energy metabolism. However, Warburg did not link his theory to the "hallmarks of cancer" and thus his theory was discredited. This book aims to provide evidence, through case studies, that cancer is primarily a metabolic disease requring metabolic solutions for its management and prevention. Support for this position is derived from critical assessment of current cancer theories. Brain cancer case studies are presented as a proof of principle for metabolic solutions to disease management, but similarities are drawn to other types of cancer, including breast and colon, due to the same cellular mutations that they demonstrate."
This is in line with the work I have been doing for many years based on the work of Dr William D Kelley.
From the Back Cover
A groundbreaking new approach to understanding, preventing, and treating cancer
Supported by evidence from more than 1,000 scientific and clinical studies, this groundbreaking book demonstrates that cancer is a metabolic disease and, more importantly, that it can be more effectively managed and prevented when it is recognized as such. Moreover, the book provides detailed evidence that the traditional view of cancer as a genetic disease has been largely responsible for the failure to develop effective therapies and preventive strategies.
Cancer as a Metabolic Disease reevaluates the origins of cancer based on the latest research findings as well as several decades of studies exploring the defects in tumor cell energy metabolism. Author Thomas Seyfried is a biochemical geneticist who has been investigating the lipid biochemistry of cancer for thirty years. In this book, he carefully establishes why approaching cancer as a metabolic disease leads to better understanding and management of all aspects of the disease, including inflammation, vascularization, cell death, drug resistance, and genomic instability. In addition, the book explores:Throughout the book, tables, figures, and graphs summarize key information and clarify complex concepts. In addition, the renowned cancer biochemist Peter Pedersen from Johns Hopkins Medical School also provides a historical perspective on the importance of the information presented in his foreward to the book.
- Origin of metastasis
- New treatment strategies that target tumor cell energy metabolism, including the ketogenic diet
- More effective prevention strategies in light of the metabolic origin of cancer
- Case studies and perspectives from the point of view of physicians, patients, and caregivers
Cancer as a Metabolic Disease is essential reading for all cancer researchers and clinicians as well as public health professionals. By treating cancer as a metabolic disease, the book sets readers on a new, more promising path to understanding the origins of cancer and developing new, more effective strategies to treat and prevent it.About the Author
THOMAS N. SEYFRIED, PhD, has taught and conducted research in the fields of neurogenetics, neurochemistry, and cancer for more than twenty-five years at Yale University and Boston College. He has published more than 150 scientific articles and book chapters and is on the editorial boards of Nutrition & Metabolism, Journal of Lipid Research, Neurochemical Research, and ASN Neuro.
While the book is expensive and large it must be considered a viable resource for people and practitioners alike.
Fluoridation - Unethical, Risky, Benefits Doubtful, Poor Most Harmed
NEW YORK, Oct. 1, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Fluoridation is an "unacceptable risk," says Public Health Professor Niyi Awofeso in the Journal Public Health Ethics, August 2012. He writes, "There is insufficient ethical justification for artificial water fluoridation," reports the New York State Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation, Inc. (NYSCOF). Awofeso, a University professor in Australia, who published over 70 peer-reviewed academic papers in respected journals, says:
Awofeso writes: "Rather than addressing the legitimate concerns of the public with regards to the ethics of fluoridation, pro-fluoridation activists dismiss anti-water fluoridation advocates as misinformed trouble makers intent on undermining public health." He speculates that pro-fluoridation advocacy groups won't concede 'victory' to opposing groups, who they deride as ignorant, to save face or that it's the "general inertia with policy disinvestment."
Despite assurances that artificial water fluoridation chemicals, hydrofluosilicic acid, act the same as naturally occurring calcium fluoride, Awofeso explains that calcium fluoride does not inhibit a tooth's calcium absorption but fluosilicic acid does "thus annulling the dental caries prevention effects of water fluoridated with fluosilicic acid." "The increasing prominence of anti-water fluoridation groups globally, greater appreciation of natural and artificial fluoride sources and likely dangers of excessive fluoride consumption among some population(s) necessitate(s) a thorough analysis of the merits of water fluoridation," he writes.
Attorney Paul Beeber, NYSCOF President says, "Fluoridation is a dismal failure and must be stopped. Any official or organization that blindly endorses and promotes fluoridation places children, especially, in harm's way."
Reference: "Ethics of Artificial Water Fluoridation in Australia" Contact: Paul Beeber, JD, NYSCOF President, 516-433-8882 nyscof@aol.com http://www.FluorideAction.Net
SOURCE New York State Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation, Inc. http://www.FluorideAction.Net PR Newswire (http://s.tt/1oPbG)
Selections from more than 30 articles about fluoride from Natural Health News
1) No evidence supports the assertion that artificial water fluoridation reduces social disparities in cavity incidence
2) Fluoridation's effectiveness is questionable
3) Poor children are more apt to develop dental fluorosis (discolored teeth)
4) Two potential adverse effects of fluoride, hypothyroidism and bone fractures, have been reported in scholarly journals
5) Fluoridation chemicals (fluosilicic acid) are contaminated with lead, arsenic and mercury, major health hazards for which no safe levels exist.Awofeso concludes: "It would appear that the effectiveness of artificial water fluoridation in the 21st century is at best questionable, given its fixed-dose medication approach, quality of fluoride used and its adverse impact on calcium metabolism and largely insignificant differences in dental caries experience between areas with artificial water fluoridation and those without."
Awofeso writes: "Rather than addressing the legitimate concerns of the public with regards to the ethics of fluoridation, pro-fluoridation activists dismiss anti-water fluoridation advocates as misinformed trouble makers intent on undermining public health." He speculates that pro-fluoridation advocacy groups won't concede 'victory' to opposing groups, who they deride as ignorant, to save face or that it's the "general inertia with policy disinvestment."
Despite assurances that artificial water fluoridation chemicals, hydrofluosilicic acid, act the same as naturally occurring calcium fluoride, Awofeso explains that calcium fluoride does not inhibit a tooth's calcium absorption but fluosilicic acid does "thus annulling the dental caries prevention effects of water fluoridated with fluosilicic acid." "The increasing prominence of anti-water fluoridation groups globally, greater appreciation of natural and artificial fluoride sources and likely dangers of excessive fluoride consumption among some population(s) necessitate(s) a thorough analysis of the merits of water fluoridation," he writes.
Attorney Paul Beeber, NYSCOF President says, "Fluoridation is a dismal failure and must be stopped. Any official or organization that blindly endorses and promotes fluoridation places children, especially, in harm's way."
Reference: "Ethics of Artificial Water Fluoridation in Australia" Contact: Paul Beeber, JD, NYSCOF President, 516-433-8882 nyscof@aol.com http://www.FluorideAction.Net
SOURCE New York State Coalition Opposed to Fluoridation, Inc. http://www.FluorideAction.Net PR Newswire (http://s.tt/1oPbG)
Selections from more than 30 articles about fluoride from Natural Health News
May 02, 2012
I am sure Mary also is blind to the damage caused by fluoride as it is forced on thousands of Washington State citizens without their permission in the form of toxic and heavy metal laden fertilizer waste provided by Cargill.
Apr 05, 2011
For example, rodent studies show that fluoride exposure can cause free radical damage to DNA molecules and cells in areas of the brain that are essential for cognition, as well as structural brain changes and phospholipid ...
Jul 08, 2011
Watch for fluoride is prescription drugs like antibiotics (fluorquinolones) and antidepressants (SSRI,SNRI) , as well as others. Many foods like soy and others sprayed with pesticides and herbicides contain fluoride too.
Better Let Go of that Cell Phone
Opinion: Cell Phone Health Risk?
Security concerns during the Cold War may have led to the generation of misinformation on the physiological effects of microwave radiation from mobile phones.
Natural Health News has over 100 posts about cell phone and health, use our search window to read more...
By Allan H. Frey | September 25, 2012
Recently, Congress tasked its investigative arm, the General Accountability Office (GAO), to consider the health risks of mobile phones and to report back to Congress. While a previous report published in May 2010 by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) stated that there was no evidence of increased health risk resulting from exposure to the radiofrequency (microwave) energy emitted by cell phones, the World Health Organization reported the following year that cell phone radiation may be carcinogenic. Also in 2011, the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse published a paper in JAMA reporting that 50 minutes of cell phone use by people altered glucose metabolism in the part of the brain closest to where the cell phone antennas were located. This summer, the GAO completed the task and sent a report to Congress stating that the risks were unclear and deserved greater scrutiny from the government.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) “should formally reassess and, if appropriate, change its current RF energy (microwave) exposure limit and mobile phone testing requirements related to likely usage configurations, particularly when phones are held against the body,” the GAO wrote.
The controversy over whether the technology poses a risk to human health is substantial. And while much of science could be considered controversial, what has, and is, happening in microwave research is not a routine scientific dispute. Concerns about the health risks of cell phones, confusion regarding the evidence for or against such risks, and even misinformation in the scientific literature may all be collateral damage of the Cold War between the USSR and the United States. This was a time when the use of microwave-generating equipment, such as radar, was seen by some as critical to the security of the United States, and efforts were taken to ensure that such innovations were not suppressed by findings that suggested such technology to be unsafe.
Hiding data
During the Cold War, a group at Brooks Air Force Base (AFB) was tasked with reassuring residents when the Air Force wanted to install radar (microwaves) in their neighborhood. To meet that responsibility, the Brooks group hired contractors to write Environmental Impact Statements to justify the placing of the radars—an obvious conflict of interest. Even worse, when a scientist did publish findings that might indicate a risk, Brooks selected contractors to do experiments that suggested the scientist’s research was invalid or not relevant to the safety of Air Force radar.
For example, after my colleagues and I published in 1975 that exposure to very weak microwave radiation opens the regulatory interface known as the blood brain barrier (bbb), a critical protection for the brain, the Brooks AFB group selected a contractor to supposedly replicate our experiment. For 2 years, this contractor presented data at scientific conferences stating that microwave radiation had no effect on the bbb. After much pressure from the scientific community, he finally revealed that he had not, in fact, replicated our work. We had injected dye into the femoral vein of lab rats after exposure to microwaves and observed the dye in the brain within 5 minutes. The Brooks contractor had stuck a needle into the animals’ bellies and sprayed the dye onto their intestines. Thus it is no surprise that when he looked at the brain 5 minutes later, he did not see any dye; the dye had yet to make it into the circulatory system.
Another Brooks AFB responsibility that further incentivized the spreading of misinformation was to lead a lab on a classified microwave-bio weapons program. Competition between this effort and the microwave-bio research programs undoubtedly going on in other nations at the time would explain the Brooks group’s attempts to block and discredit unclassified research in the microwave area and the subsequent publication of the results: it did not want advances in knowledge to appear in the scientific literature where the USSR could benefit from it. This is not unlike the recent uproar over whether bird flu results should be published—or even done at all—because of the fear that they may help terrorists develop biological weapons.
Stalling funding
In addition to actively suppressing results of microwave-bio research, the Brooks group also attempted to block funding for such research in the first place—and largely succeeded. For example, after we and others published the first papers in the mid- to late-’70s showing that very low intensity microwaves could open the bbb, the Department of Defense (DOD) issued a report, written by a psychologist at a Kansas Veterans Administration hospital who was neither trained nor experienced in research on the bbb, that concluded “…if a real potential for catastrophic effects exists, it would be evident from the research already reported in the literature.” (An original draft of the report also noted that “DOD funding of research evaluating the effects of microwaves on the bbb should be of low priority,” though this statement was removed before the report was released to the public.)
Largely as a consequence of this report, funding for open microwave-bio research in the United States was essentially shut down. Several months after the report was released, I requested renewal of government funding, which in part supported research on the bbb. I received a letter stating that funding would not be granted unless I dropped the bbb part of the proposal. And in a September 1981 article in Microwave News, 2 years later, the editor wrote, “Surprisingly, no new [bbb] work was reported this year.”
Even now, the recent GAO report states, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) “is the only federal agency we interviewed that is directly funding ongoing studies on health effects of RF energy (microwave radiation) from mobile phone use.” And the NIH funded only one relevant completed experiment, by an in-house researcher, during the time the GAO did its assessment. For many years now most of the published microwave research—what little that has been done—has been conducted in other countries. And as I noted in a recent paper, many, if not most, of those have been epidemiological studies looking for health problems associated with outdated technologies that are not relevant to the phones used today or that will be used in the future.
Thus, the shutdown of normal open microwave research in the U.S. and the misinformation placed in the literature appears to be collateral damage of the actions of people who saw themselves as fighting a war. And since the research was not allowed to proceed in the normal fashion, we don’t have the set of data needed to determine if there is a health hazard of mobile phone use—and, if so, how serious the hazard is. This suppression of research has now made hundreds of millions of people subjects in a grand experiment that may involve their health, without their informed consent, and the outcome of which can have substantial medical, legal, and economic consequences.
Allan H. Frey (allan@freys.us) is a semi-retired scientist in Potomac, Maryland, who was Technical Director of Randomline, Inc., a consulting and research firm. Read about more unsavory actions that I and others have observed in my chapter of bioethicist Nicholas Steneck’sRisk Benefit Analysis: The Microwave Case.
SOURCE: http://the-scientist.com/2012/09/25/opinion-cell-phone-health-risk/
SOURCE: http://the-scientist.com/2012/09/25/opinion-cell-phone-health-risk/
