By Michelle Roberts Health reporter via www.news.bbc.co.uk
Scientists have unlocked the entire genetic code of two of the most common cancers – skin and lung – a move they say could revolutionise cancer care.
Not only will the cancer maps pave the way for blood tests to spot tumours far earlier, they will also yield new drug targets, says the Wellcome Trust team.
Scientists around the globe are now working to catalogue all the genes that go wrong in many types of human cancer.
The UK is looking at breast cancer, Japan at liver and India at mouth.
China is studying stomach cancer, and the US is looking at cancers of the brain, ovary and pancreas.
The International Cancer Genome Consortium scientists from the 10 countries involved say it will take them at least five years and many hundreds of thousands of dollars to complete this mammoth task.
But once they have done this, patients will reap the benefits.
Professor Michael Stratton, who is the UK lead, said: “These catalogues are going to change the way we think about individual cancers.
“By identifying all the cancer genes we will be able to develop new drugs that target the specific mutated genes and work out which patients will benefit from these novel treatments.
“We can envisage a time when following the removal of a cancer cataloguing it will become routine.”
It could even be possible to develop MoT-style blood tests for healthy adults that can check for tell-tale DNA patterns suggestive of cancer.
Russian Roulette
The scientists found the DNA code for a skin cancer called melanoma contained more than 30,000 errors almost entirely caused by too much sun exposure.
Most of the time the mutations will land in innocent parts of the genome, but some will hit the right targets for cancer
The lung cancer DNA code had more than 23,000 errors largely triggered by cigarette smoke exposure.
From this, the experts estimate a typical smoker acquires one new mutation for every 15 cigarettes they smoke.
Although many of these mutations will be harmless, some will trigger cancer.
Wellcome Trust researcher Dr. Peter Campbell, who conducted this research, published in the journal Nature, said: “It’s like playing Russian roulette.
Continue reading about Scientists Crack ‘Entire Genetic Code’ of Cancer
By Dana Ullman, MPH via www.HuffingtonPost.com
It is commonly assumed that homeopathic medicines are composed of extremely small doses of medicinal substances. And yet, does anyone refer to an atomic bomb as an extremely small dose of a bomb? In actual fact, there is a power, a very real power, in having atoms smash against each other.
Homeopathic medicines are made through a specific pharmacological process of dilution and vigorous shaking. However, when skeptics say that there is nothing but water in homeopathic medicine, they are proving their ignorance, despite the incredible arrogance in which they make these assertions. Dr. Martin Chaplin, a respected British professor who is one of the world’s experts on water, has verified that “homeopathic water” and “regular water” are not the same, and his review of almost 2,000 references to the scientific literature on water (!) confirm this fact (Chaplin, 2009).
It should be noted that a large number of homeopathic medicines sold in health food stores and pharmacies are made in doses with known physiological doses. In fact, there are several thousand (!) studies in conventional scientific journals showing a wide variety of biological effects from extremely small doses of various substances on specific systems.
Homeopathic medicines can and should be considered to be a type of “nanopharmacology” (Ullman, 2006). Although the word “nano” also means one-billionth of a size, that is not its only definition. In fact, “nano” derives from the word “dwarf,” and “nano” is the only word in the English language that is used on common parlance as denoting extremely small AND yet extremely powerful. Homeopathic medicines are both extremely small in dose and yet extremely powerful in their therapeutic effect.
For 200 years now, millions of physicians and hundreds of millions of homeopathic patients have observed and experienced the power and effectiveness of homeopathic medicines
The Power of Nano-doses
Precisely how homeopathic medicines work remains a mystery, and yet, nature is replete with mysteries and with numerous striking examples of the power of extremely small doses.
For instance, it is commonly known that a certain species of moth can smell pheromones of its own species up to two miles away. It is no simple coincidence that species only sense pheromones from those in the same species who emit them (akin to the homeopathic principle of similars), as though they have developed exquisite and specific receptor sites for what they need to propagate their species. Likewise, sharks are known to sense blood in the water at distances, and when one considers the volume of water in the ocean, it becomes obvious that sharks, like all living creatures, develop extreme hypersensitivity for whatever will help ensure their survival.
That living organisms have some truly remarkable sensitivities is no controversy. The challenging question that remains is: How does the medicine become imprinted into the water and how does the homeopathic process of dilution with succussion increase the medicine’s power? Although we do not know precisely the answer to this question, some new research may help point the way.
Continue reading about How Homeopathic Medicines Work: Nanopharmacology At Its Best
On November 16, a number of nongovernmental organizations (NGO) urged the World Health Organization (WHO) to end the use of mercury in dental care procedures.
More than 70 NGOs signed a letter that was presented to the WHO that called for a ban on the use of dental mercury in procedures such as fillings. Mercury can damage both the environment and human health.
“We strongly urge the WHO to foster the innovative use of mercury-free alternatives in parallel with its commendable goal of bringing affordable dental healthcare to the global population,” said Michael Bender of the Mercury Policy Project. “This is entirely consistent with the vast number of similar initiatives going on worldwide to phase out the use of mercury in products and processes.”
When mercury transforms into highly-toxic methylmercury, it can pass through blood-brain barriers. Mercury can become especially dangerous for pregnant women and children when it is in this state.
The American Dental Association says that thanks to advances in dental care, dentists can now use ceramics and compounds instead of traditional dental materials.
Continue reading about Dental Care Procedures Without Mercury
Sneezing, coughing, fever, aches and pains…
Worried about flu symptoms like these? As winter approaches, most of us are.
But this year, the flu seems even more alarming, thanks to increased health concerns about the H1N1 influenza strain, also known as the swine flu. Even though this strain doesn’t appear to be particularly threatening, it has the potential to mutate into a more dangerous form.
The main question my patients have been asking is whether they should get vaccinated against H1N1 or against the regular flu.
This is not a simple yes or no answer. The guiding principle of functional medicine is personalized care, not the one-size-fits-all belief that everyone should have the same treatment. This applies equally to vaccines. There is risk and benefit to every medical treatment or procedure.
That is why in today’s blog I want to review what you need to consider if you are thinking about vaccination, discuss some of the risks involved, and provide you with a comprehensive 7-step plan for preventing swine flu and staying healthy all winter long.
Should You Get Vaccinated?
The choice to get vaccinated is an individual one. Selective vaccination may be helpful for some groups of people–but not everyone. Here are the facts as I see them:
• The current strain of H1N1 is a generally mild strain of the flu. It sounds scarier, but, so far, fewer people have actually died from it than from the traditional flu. It may mutate but it hasn’t yet. Pushing widespread vaccination on low-risk populations exposes them to unnecessary risks.
• If the H1N1 mutates, the current vaccine may not be effective against it.
• The studies on the H1N1 vaccine have been limited in the rush to market.
• The 1976 swine flu vaccine was linked to a serious neurological disease called Guillain-Barré syndrome, which causes severe (but usually temporary) paralysis.
• The government has agreed to protect vaccine manufacturers from any lawsuits due to side effects of the vaccine, otherwise pharmaceutical companies would not make it.
Continue reading about Preventing The Swine Flu: A Comprehensive Approach
Kids may seem an unlikely group to include in the medical marijuana debate, but some children with autism are reaping life-changing benefits from the drug. Mieko Hester-Perez, a mother in California, told the Early Show’s Hattie Kauffman that marijuana saved her son’s life.
Hester-Perez’s 10-year-old son, Joey, was uninterested in food and weighed a startling 48 pounds. “Everyone that came to my home was watching me watch Joey die,” Hester-Perez told Kauffman. “He was deteriorating hourly.”
But that all changed with a batch of marijuana brownies. After four years of only eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, Joey’s appetite came to life and revived him in other ways as well.
“We’re seeing Joey come out,” Hester-Perez said. “He’s never made noises, we didn’t even know he could make noise until the first batch of brownies.”
While Kauffman noted that there’s no evidence of marijuana helping with autism symptoms, other parents have come out with similar success stories, as seen in Marie Myung-Ok Lee’s story on Slate’s Double X blog in May.
WATCH the Early Show’s interview with Hester-Perez:
Continue reading about Mom: Marijuana Saved My Autistic Son’s Life