As usual, I did my Heyoka thing and learned about this process backwards. I work at the library were we have 36,000 journals. So I'm reading all the time. I realize that there are probably 150 kinds of cancer and who knows how many causes, but these things seemed to fall in line for me. A few months ago I discovered I had a 5 cm Invasive ductal carcinoma that hadn't metatisized (beyond ta few lymph nodes) yet but it was getting ready to! 6 weeks and two chemotherapy sessions later it's half gone. I am very big on using food as medicine.
1. I was looking at articles on quorum sensing where bacteria scavenge for iron so they can breathe anaerobically.
"Quorum signaling and iron scavenging are instrumental in virulence, and it seems at least some pathogens have coordinated these important processes through the use of a single molecule with dual functions. Against a backdrop of ever-increasing antibiotic resistance, insight into integrated systems such as these could prove invaluable.
... Microorganisms secrete a multitude of small molecule natural products. Probably the most famous of these is antibiotics. For nearly a century, mankind has manipulated bacteria to produce vast quantities of such molecules for use in the fight against infectious disease. However, some have questioned whether growth inhibitory concentrations of antibiotics are ever reached in the environment and whether antibiotics themselves could not be better described as bacterial communcation molecules. Many antibiotics, when given at subinhibitory concentrations, greatly alter bacterial expression patterns while have no effect on bacterial growth --characteristics that are reminiscent of more conventional QS molecules.
... For any population, reaching a high density confers multiple advantages, but is also associated with several costs. There is inherent safety in numbers, yet if individuals do not work together, competition threatens viability and scarce resources are wasted. Bacteria at high density are no different. Thus, the ability to evolve diffusible QS signals that have far-reaching effects in both distance and scope would have been as vital for organisms to compete in a primoridial world as it is today. In a world initially devoid of oxygen, iron was an abundant primitive terminal electron acceptor for cellular respiration. The appearance of oxygen introduced the need to solubilize iron oxides and protect against ensuing oxidative damage. As more species arose, so too did the need to compete with others for metabolites and niches ... It is now known that some bacterial communication molecules do more than just interact with regulatory proteins to initiate changes in gene expression. They can also sequester limited resources, intercalculate into membranes or kill other organisms. In this way, QS molecules can have a direct role in community protection and nutrient scavenging.
As research in this area develops, we predict that new meanings for the communication signals will be discovered. Contextual information can largely affect the interpretation of a word, and thus it will also be important to examine how the environment influences which role of a QS molecule prevails. Only when we fully understand the nuances of bacterial language will we be able to decipher the message and manipulate bacteria to our advantage."
"More than a signal: non-signaling properties of quorum sensing molecules"
Jeffrey W. Schertzer, Megan L. Boulette and Marvin Whiteley in
Trends in Microbiology, vol 7 no 5
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2. Then I was perusing articles on avian thyroid development and adaptive plasticity because I discovered the soybean based organic bird food (I wrote, designed, published, and sold a book about it for a veterinarian who sells it worldwide) is a goitrogen. Farmers use goitrogens like corn and soybeans to fatten up cattle while they're feeding them less. (Because it turns off their thyroids.)
I was trying to ascertain a pattern among pet birds since veterinarians suggest feeding a pelleted diet (goitrogens) as the primary source of nutrition. Interesting that the cases they're siting include descriptions of birds who experience obesity first, then hypothyroidism ... like mammals ... like people. And they point to plant sources of goitrogens as being the most likely culprits. Anecdotally, parrots (who might have a lifespan of 70 years in the wild) can expect to survive for about 15 years on this diet.
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3. Shifting the focus back to people, candida hide out in the duodenum and can extend the time a woman's body puts out progesterone before her menstrual cycle (because the fungi proliferate under these conditions). Single celled organisms can wait to act until they detect enough of their counterparts to have a bigger effect. It's called quorum sensing. Can microorganisms affect food cravings? Can they assert their prime directive and cause their hosts to choose goitrogens? Some researchers believe that's exactly what they do. I was seeing a pattern in myself.
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4. This got me to investigating the link between candida (when it becomes chronic it looks like celliac disease), estrogen dominance, hypoestrogenism, and ultimately cancer based on genetic and environmental weaknesses. One of the first articles I found on breast cancer is this:
Dietary and stored iron as predictors of breast cancer risk Increases in risk of
breast cancer in successive generations of migrants to the United States from China
and rapid temporal changes in incidence rates in China following social
and economic changes clearly implicate environmental factors in the etiology of this
disease. Case-control
and cohort studies have provided evidence that at least some of these factors may be dietary. Iron, an essential element necessary for cell function, has also been demonstrated to have potential carcinogenic
and co-carcinogenic activities. Iron overload, which was previously uncommon, has become more common in the United States than iron deficiency
and may be increasing in China concurrently with dramatic increases in meat consumption. A case-control study nested in a cohort of women in Shanghai, China, was conducted to evaluate possible associations between risk of proliferative
and nonproliferative
fibrocystic changes as well as
breast cancer
and dietary iron intake
and plasma ferritin levels. Plasma ferritin levels
and reported dietary iron intake were compared in 346 women with
fibrocystic changes, 248
breast cancer cases
and 1,040 controls. Increasing ferritin levels were significantly associated with increasing risk of nonproliferative
fibrocystic changes (OR: 2.51, 95% CI: 1.16-5.45, p trend = 0.04). Similar, but weaker, trends were observed for proliferative changes
and for
breast cancer. Risk of
breast cancer relative to the risk of
fibrocystic changes was associated with dietary iron intake in women with nonproliferative
fibrocystic changes (OR: 2.63, 95% CI: 1.04-6.68, p = 0.02). In conclusion, this study finds significant associations between iron (stored
and dietary)
and fibrocystic disease and breast cancer. (C)
2009 UICC
http://web.ebscohost.com.proxy.lib.siu.edu/ehost/detail?vid=4&hid=108&sid=aceff7b0-6507-4d99-827e-e9fb73936bf0%40sessionmgr111&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=bxh&AN=BACD200900347791 As shown in Table I, women with NPFC, PFC and breast cancer (with or without proliferative changes) reported lower vitamin C intake than the control women consumption of high iron foods in the progression from fibrocystic disease to breast cancer.
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5. AND
HERE IS THE BOOK THAT'S SAVING MY LIFE ...
The No-Dairy Breast Cancer Prevention Program: How One Scientist's Discovery Helped Her Defeat Her Cancer by Prof. Jane Plant). Three days after my third chemo my tumor is still shrinking dramatically thanks to Chapter 3.
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6. Holy crap! I also found stories about how Vitamin C causes your body to dump more iron and the cancer collects it (so it can breathe anaerobically). Amazingly I found some articles proclaiming that avoiding hemi iron (from meat) and eating non-hemi iron (from plant sources) does the same thing goitrogens do which is to change the type of estrogen that is stored in the cells to estriol. (Even some popular women's magazines are proclaiming it as gospel and advising their readers to act accordingly.)
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7. So then we get to Tamoxifen. A goitrogen. Goitrogens turn off your thyroid and that leads to other things (except that I already had hypothyroidism, didn't I?) Oh what a tangled web. Tamoxifen's good quality is that it changes the estrogen in the breasts to estriol while it lets the estrogen in the uterus stay the same (except that some people get uterine cancer from that.) So what happens if you're so sensitive to estrogen you can't even do phytoestrogens without feeling bad? What if you can't take even the lowest dose birth control pill? What if you get migraines the day your estrogen kicks in during your menstrual cycle? How are you going to take Tamoxifen?
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8. So then I researched goitrogens and thyroid and found things like this:
Thyroid hormone is antagonistic to estrogen, so poor thyroid function can aggravate problems that are caused by estrogen.
Reducing the estrogen and prolactin effects and raising progesterone output may be the keys to reducing premenstrual symptoms.
Lowering body weight and stress while improving liver and thyroid function are important considerations in resolving this condition.
Certain dietary practices help normalize the hormonal activity when applied regularly. Providing adequate iodine intake for thyroid activity is necessary. Avoiding daily consumption of goiter-causing raw vegetables from the cabbage family (cabbage, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, kale, cauliflower, rutabagas, and turnips) improves thyroid output. Eliminating caffeine, fat, sugar and white flour in the diet and increasing consumption of complex carbohydrates (grains, beans and starchy vegetables) is important. These changes help maintain blood sugar and energy balance, lower body weight and reduce the metabolic demands on the liver. The increased intake of fiber from eating whole foods prevents constipation and improves excretion of estrogen adsorption.