Anticancer: A New Way of Life

Just heard about a book that sounds like Devra Davis's The Secret History of the War on Cancer (click here to read my entries on that book). The book is Anticancer: A New Way of Life by David Servan-Schreiber, a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, cofounder of the Centre for Integrative Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre -- Devra Davis is also at the University of Pittsburgh so it makes sense that another book related to the environmental causes of cancer would come from a colleague.

Here's what the publisher has to say about this book, which was published last month:

When David Servan- Schreiber, a dedicated scientist and doctor, was diagnosed with brain cancer, it changed his life. Confronting what medicine knows about the illness, the little known workings of the body’s natural cancer-fighting capacities, and his own will to live, Servan-Schreiber found himself on a fifteen-year journey from disease and relapse into scientific exploration, and finally to health. Combining memoir with a clear explanation of what makes cancer cells thrive and what inhibits them, and describing both conventional and alternative ways to slow and prevent cancer, Anticancer is revolutionary in its clarity. It is a moving story of a doctor’s inner and outer search for healing; radical in its discussion of the environment, lifestyle, and trauma; and inspiring and cautionary in its certainty that cancer cells lie dormant in all of us—and we all must care for the “terrain” in which they exist.

Anticancer takes us on a serious journey and, ultimately, an empowering one. In the tradition of Michael Pollan, John Kabat- Zinn, Barbara Kingsolver, and Andrew Weil, Anticancer genuinely guides us to “a new way of life.”

Michael Pollan and Barbara Kingsolver huh? Well then I definitely have to pick up a copy of this book.

Click here to watch a trailer (yes, a trailer) in Quicktime format for this book.

Servan-Schreiber is also the author of The Instinct to Heal: Curing Depression, Anxiety and Stress Without Drugs and Without Talk Therapy which sounds interesting too . . . it seems to me that we all want a simple answer to all health problems -- preferably just a prescription for pills -- and it would be good to hear from a doctor who seems to break from the orthodoxy and speak out against prescribing the latest drugs.

Click here to learn more on the author's website.

Diana Beresford-Kroeger

I just read "Advocating an Unusual Role for Trees" about the intriguing and pioneering scientist Diana Beresford-Kroeger (written by Jim Robbins and published on NYTimes.com on August 11, 2008).

I was drawn to this article partly because of my newfound appreciation for trees due to reading Richard Preston's The Wild Trees: A Story of Passion and Daring (click here to read all my posts on that book).

Born in Ireland and currently working at the University of Ottawa school of medicine, Beresford-Kroeger is a botanist, agricultural and medical researcher, lecturer, and self-described "renegade scientist" in the fields of classical botany, medical biochemistry, organic chemistry, and nuclear chemistry.

Here's an excerpt from the NYTimes.com article:

She calls herself a renegade scientist, however, because she tries to bring together aboriginal healing, Western medicine and botany to advocate an unusual role for trees.

She favors what she terms a bioplan, reforesting cities and rural areas with trees according to the medicinal, environmental, nutritional, pesticidal and herbicidal properties she claims for them, which she calls ecofunctions.

...

But some of Ms. Beresford-Kroeger’s claims for the health effects of trees reach far outside the mainstream. Although some compounds found in trees do have medicinal properties and are the subject of research and treatment, she jumps beyond the evidence to say they also affect human health in their natural forms. The black walnut, for example, contains limonene, which is found in citrus fruit and elsewhere and has been shown to have anticancer effects in some studies of laboratory animals. Ms. Beresford-Kroeger has suggested, without evidence, that limonene inhaled in aerosol form by humans will help prevent cancer.

Sounds a little crazy, and definitely lacking hard scientific proof, but it could be true! After all, studies have not been done to study the effects on humans due to natural ambient compounds from trees.

And that Miriam Rothschild, an eccentric home-schooled British naturalist whom I greatly admire, "wrote glowingly of Ms. Beresford-Kroeger’s idea of bioplanning and called it 'one answer to 'Silent Spring'' because it uses natural chemicals rather than synthetic ones" makes me even more interested in Beresford-Kroeger work.

Beresford-Kroeger is also the author of several books, all of which I'd like to take a look at:

• A Garden for Life: The Natural Approach to Designing, Planting, and Maintaining a North Temperate Garden
• Arboretum America: A Philosophy of the Forest
• North American Trees: An Ecological Green Guide
  
• North Temperate Gardening: An Ecological Green Guide
  

I will have to see if my local library carries any of these!

Cellphones and Cancer (The Secret History of the War on Cancer by Devra Davis)

Tara Parker-Pope's June 3, 2008 New York Times article "Experts Revive Debate Over Cellphones and Cancer" and naturally made me think of The Secret History of the War on Cancer by Dr. Devra Lee Davis, which I read in April (click here to read all my entries about this book).

Davis is a leader in the field of environmental oncology. And while Davis teaches readers in The Secret History of the War on Cancer about a myriad of environmental factors that cause or are contributing factors in cancer but I don't recall her mentioning cellphones or other radiofrequency (RF) or microwave (MW) radiation and I wonder what her thoughts are.

Certainly we know that ultraviolet (UV) light -- another type of non-ionizing radiation -- causes cancer and people have suspected for years that extremely low frequency radiation (ELF) from high-voltage power lines may contribute to cancer.

The website for the Center of Environmental Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh (which Devra Davis heads) does list cell phones as a risk factor so I suppose Davis either chose not to include this in her book or I simply forgot having read about it:

Use cell phones with an earpiece and speakerphone so the phone itself is not held up against your head. Children should not use cell phones. Studies claiming that there is no link between cell phone use and brain cancer were not conducted on people who used cell phones as much as the average person today. Cell phones emit low doses of microwave radiation that destroy rat brain cells and memory and reach one inch into the human brain. While British authorities recommend that children not use cell phones at all, some American firms are pushing phones for five year olds.

Some of the other items listed on the "12 Things You Can Do To Reduce Cancer Risk" Fact Sheet are equally alarming as they commonly occur every day:

Unless someone in your immediate family has had breast cancer before menopause, hold off getting your first mammogram until at least age forty, or until your doctor advises you start having them—and then have them done sparingly. Mammography does not prevent breast cancer, but can reduce deaths from the disease in post-menopausal women. It is also important to have regular physical exam of breasts by a health professional.

Use hormones sparingly. Lifetime use of hormones affects cancer risk. Consider alternatives to chemical contraception such as IUDs and condoms (which also protect against sexually transmitted disease). Avoid long term use of medications that contain hormones, including hormone replacement therapy.

Do not consume food and beverages that contain aspartame. Sweeten your food with good old-fashioned sugar or honey, or stevia instead. Despite having FDA approval, aspartame, the sugar substitute, was never given a green light by scientists—all were concerned about its potential to cause cancer. New independent studies raise further concerns about its long term safety.

Don't microwave anything in plastic, no matter what the directions say. Some plastic chemicals can leach into food.

Don't put anything on your baby's skin that you can't eat. The materials that create "no more tears" in baby shampoo are banned in several countries, because they cause cancer in animals. In some cases lotions used on the heads of African-American babies caused development of breasts and pubic hair. The FDA has no authority to regulate any of these harmful compounds in personal care products, unlike the European Union.

The note about microwaving plastic is especially scary since most of my friends microwave plastic without a second thought, though my parents have always warned me and my siblings to only microwave items in glass or ceramic or on paper plates.

Yikes!

The Secret History of the War on Cancer by Devra Davis

I heard about this book through this October 2007 New York Times review of The Secret History of the War on Cancer (I also read the other book reviewed in this article -- Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream: A Day in the Life of Your Body by Jennifer Ackerman -- and found it captivating and educational! Ackerman uses a scintillating title to catch your attention and writes expertly about different parts/systems of the human body with a focus on chronobiology, spending just a few pages on each topic.) and finally decided to read it after I read an article about cancer prevention in the Nov 1, 2007 issue of the Economist. I'm halfway through Devra Lee Davis's The Secret History of the War on Cancer.

While Davis is clearly passionate about her topic, her writing leaves something to be desired (like me -- a fellow scientist -- Davis uses far too many words when she could convey the same meaning/information in a more simple and elegant manner) and she also frequently repeats herself.

Still, I have learned so much from this book. Davis, Director of the Center of Environmental Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, argues that our country's $40 billion "war on cancer" has focused too much on treatment and largely ignored prevention due to the heavy handed tactics of large industrial companies and their economic interests. The result: at least 10 million preventable cancer deaths over the past thirty years.

I get the feeling this book doesn't present new information, but simply puts together publicly available information. Still, I was unfamiliar with most of the information in this book. Here are a few of the surprising facts:

• As early as the 1930s, the world’s leading cancer scientists determined that tobacco, radiation, asbestos, arsenic, benzene, chlorine, other chemicals, and estrogen and other hormones caused cancer. World War II and its focus on immediate survival and the growth of chemical industries sidetracked these early findings of cancer hazards for decades.
• Germany was a forerunner in cancer research and organic farming. Unfortunately, World War II and the desire to discredit and forget German science from that period also contributed to our early knowledge of the causes of cancer to be lost for decades.
• After World War II, many of the leading scientists doing cancer research were being paid by tobacco companies (and other companies whose success came from producing cancer-causing chemicals) and kept their results private as "trade secrets."
• In the late 1960s, the United States spent $30 million of taxpayer money to create a "safer cigarette" even though most scientists were sure there could not be such a thing and even if it was possible the tobacco companies themselves should have paid for such research & development.
• The life-saving simple test for cervix cancer (the Pap smear), was not put into use for more than a decade after it was shown to save lives, because of fears that it would undermine the private practice of medicine (Pap smears can be taken and interpreted easily by technicians without a medical degree). These delays led to the deaths of thousands of women who would have survived had the Pap smear been universally accepted sooner.
• Many personal care products (lotions, nail polishes, hair products, etc) contain hormones and/or chemicals that act like hormones.
• In 1993, the Supreme Court handed down a ruling in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. that laid out four tests for judges to use in deciding whether science is admissible. In effect, the Court ruled experimental studies in animals as irrelevant to human harm and that only large amounts of hard evidence of sick or deformed humans in published studies would constitute proof of human hazard. Click here for an analysis of this ruling.
• In terms of radiation dose, a typical chest CT scan is equivalent to 400 chest x-rays!
• Ritalin, frequently prescribed for ADHD, damages DNA and may lead to an increased risk of cancer.

I will write more when I finish the book.

In the meantime, check out the author's website, particularly this gallery of images from The Secret History of the War on Cancer, and the Center of Environmental Oncology's website on this book and this Q&A with Devra Davis on the NYTimes.com Freakonomics blog.

Then, next up is A New Earth: awakening to your life's purpose by Eckhart Tolle!