Anticancer 101: Secrets from Dr. Servan-Schreiber

A Cancer Epidemic

My own disease is just one case in a cancer epidemic plaguing western societies. Cancer rates have been climbing steadily in the US since 1940. This is not due simply to increased use of screening tests or the aging of our population: cancer has been rising in children and adolescents at a rate of 1% to 1.5% per year in the past 25 years, according to published studies. And cancers that have no screening test (lymphomas, pancreatic and testicular cancers, for example) have been increasing as fast or faster than those that do, including colon and prostate cancers.

Asian countries have not experienced this rise, but Asian immigrants in the US have the same rates of western cancers as Caucasian Americans after one or two generations. Thus, cancer is not a genetic lottery. A new model has emerged from the last 10 years of research. It moves away from genetics and squarely into life-style factors that we can learn to control. At most, genetic factors contribute 15% to our cancer risk. What matters for 85% of cancers is what we do - or do not do enough of - with our lifestyle.

A new University of Cambridge study has shown that people who follow simple healthy lifestyle rules reduce their chances of dying from cardiovascular disease or cancer by roughly a factor of four. Other recent studies -- from the University of San Francisco -- found that, among men with prostate cancer, such simple lifestyle changes completely change the way genes behave, including the genes of cancer cells. This research shows that life-style choices play on our genes like a pianist's fingers play on a keyboard... transforming the body's ability to resist to cancer.

Changing the "Terrain"

When it comes to treating cancer, there is no alternative to conventional treatments: surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, immunotherapy or, soon, molecular genetics. However, these treatments target the tumor much like an army wages war: focusing on destroying the cancerous cells. They do not help prevent the disease if we don't have it, and, if we do, they do not help the body build up it's natural resistance to make the treatments work better.

For prevention or better disease management, it is important to change the environment---the "terrain" -- that supports the growth of new cancer cells, even if treatment pounds them with targeted attacks.

Modern research suggests that cancer cells grow much faster under three circumstances:

• When our immune system is weakened and less capable of detecting and destroying budding tumors.

• When low-grade chronic inflammation in our body supports the multiplication of cells and the invasion of neighboring tissue.

• When tumors are allowed to develop new blood vessels to expand to a larger size, much like a city expands when allowed to develop new roadways.

• When we strengthen our immune system, reduce inflammation and reduce the growth of new blood vessel, we help create an anticancer "terrain".

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term paper
Posts: 1

Reply #1 on : Thu June 10, 2010, 08:00:31

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Wow, looks like a medical advice of ht decade! =) Cool! Regards!