CANCER PREVENTION STUDY
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, particularly if you are preventing cancer. The challenge is finding out what actually prevents cancer. Many suggestions have been offered: specific diets, certain vitamins, various herbs, stress reduction, detoxification programs, etc. Unfortunately, when many of these are examined more closely, the original reports don’t hold up.
For example, Vitamin A is an antioxidant, it can prevent cancer in certain animals, and deficiency of Vitamin A is associated with cancer. However, when a rigorous double-blind placebo controlled study was done on cigarette smokers at risk for lung cancer, the group receiving Vitamin A had a HIGHER INCIDENCE OF LUNG CANCER THAN THE CONTROL GROUP.
Historical research on diet as a cause of cancer (i.e., high animal fat or low fiber intake) has lead to studies on preventing cancer by diets lowering fat or increasing fiber to prevent cancer (breast and colon, respectively). These controlled studies, unfortunately, did not demonstrate that single dietary changes prevent cancer. There are statistical limitations on these studies that weaken the conclusions and the recommendation that you decrease animal fat and increase fruits and vegetables—sources of fiber—remain good advice.
Rather than being discouraged by these findings I recognize that something as complex as cancer doesn’t have a simple answer. One size doesn’t fit everyone. Generic advice may be good advice—“Eat Produce”—but its validity rests on common sense rather than controlled research studies.
To promote research on cancer prevention our office is helping the American Cancer Society in a national study on cancer prevention called CPS-3. We hope to enroll half a million people to examine the effect of lifestyle, environmental and genetic factors that cause or prevent cancer. You are eligible for this study if you are between 30 and 65 years old, do not have cancer, and are willing to have a blood test and answer a questionnaire. Sign ups will be at the Los Altos Relay for Life, June 21-22, 2008, at Los Altos High School. You can learn more about this necessary research at www.cancer.org/cps3. I encourage you to participate in this study so that you and your children can have reliable information on how to prevent cancer.
CAN ILLNESS BE A “HEAVENLY MESSENGER?”
The story of how the historical figure Siddhartha became Buddha describes his encounters with the “heavenly messengers” of a sick person, an old person and a corpse. When he realized that he, too, would become sick, grow old and eventually die, he embarked on his journey to overcome the suffering inherent in being human.
I have been invited to give a lecture on the medical perspective of illness as a message. This is part of a six week series offered by a mindfulness meditation group I attend, Insight Meditation South Bay. The lectures are free though you may make donations. My talk on Mar. 4 is entitled “In sickness and in health—a medical-Buddhist perspective on illness.” For more information see the website www.imsb.org
EMBRACING AGING, SICKNESS & DEATH AS HEAVENLY MESSENGERS.
6 Tuesday Evenings, 7:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
February 19–March 25, 2008
LOCATION:
Edwards Hall of St Timothy’s Church
2094 Grant Road, Mountain View, 94040.
TAKE A HIKE
Exercise is good for you. Right? Right!
Everybody should do aerobics and lift weights. Right? Wrong!
Exercise is an individual thing: what is correct for someone age 65 will be different than age 45. If you’re trying to lose weight the distance you walk is most important; if you’re trying to gain aerobic capacity, you have to consider your speed and heart rate. Even if you’ve exercised all your life, getting a little “coaching” from experts may be helpful. Though yoga and Pilates videos are useful, you may need the feedback from an experienced instructor observing you and making individual suggestions. Advice from well trained instructors for weight lifting, bicycling, swimming, running, etc. can improve your form, prevent injuries and make it more fun. There are classes at local colleges, senior centers and countless gyms, spas and clubs.
There are countless reasons to exercise (and, unfortunately, as many excuses not to exercise). Besides the obvious benefits of exercise—looking better, feeling better, higher energy—good quality research has shown that exercise reduces your risk of getting cancer, decreases diabetes or heart disease, and decreases your chance of dying from all causes. Exercise is an effective antidepressant, done appropriately reduces pain (especially from arthritis), decreases side effects of chemotherapy, and generally improves quality of life. So, what’s not to like?!
Because our office strongly encourages people to exercise we are delighted to offer the IMPACT program, kindly offered by a foundation sponsored by Western Athletic Clubs. This program for our cancer patients offers a free 6 month membership in an athletic club (e.g., Decathlon Club, Courtside, etc.) and the free services of a personal trainer to help you develop an individualized exercise program that is appropriate for you and your goals. Patients who have already enrolled in this program have been universally pleased with it. If you are one of our patients and are interested in this please contact our office.
Moving Beyond Survival: After Treatment, What's Next?
It may come as a surprise to patients after all the attention they receive during initial cancer treatment that there is no organized system to insure survival. Certainly getting through treatment-surgery, chemotherapy and/or radiation is a challenge to survival. But after treatment, what comes next?
If you have had cancer and are reading this now YOU ARE A SURVIVOR. (The technical definition is a person who had cancer 5 years ago and remains alive. From our viewpoint, survivorship begins at the moment of diagnosis.) You join the over 10 million people who have survived cancer. Grateful to be alive, nevertheless you probably have many questions and issues unresolved. These may include:
Cancer survivorship includes both the patient and family since everyone is affected by the disease. The Institute of Medicine report, From Cancer Patient to Cancer Survivor: Lost in Transition (2006) divides the issues into four quadrants.
- Physical Well Being includes knowing what follow-up tests are useful, regaining energy and physical strength, and treating physical symptoms.
- Psychological Well Being deals with the emotional distress - anxiety and depression - that accompanies the diagnosis of cancer as well as the fear of recurrence and regaining a sense of control in life.
- Social Well Being addresses the disruption of personal, family and social roles and relationships including sexuality, body image, and work.
- Spiritual Well Being involves making sense of the experience, discovering meaning and becoming the "person who had cancer" different from the people who have never gone through it.
We are developing a CANCER SURVIVOR PROGRAM at Buchholz Medical group, the first such program in the area. This program is dedicated to insuring that cancer survivors - that includes patients in active treatment, too - receive the correct treatment and follow up with attention to all the four quadrants listed above. We will offer individual consultations that assess future risks based on past treatments, integration of complementary treatments with conventional treatment, and a plan for follow-up testing. Dr. Susan Buchholz and other staff members are available if there are special needs for issues of psychological well being.
An important part of this Survivor Program will be a series of free workshops dealing with various issues of survivorship.
Workshops will be scheduled throughout the coming years. Please call our office 650-988-8011 or check our Cancer Survivor section for more information. There are articles in the publications section that offer advice on dealing with fear, fatigue, and hope.
We will post new articles as they are written.
