If you or a loved one has skin cancer, the only treatment available is surgery. Until now! There is a new alternative to curettage and electrical ablation (the two types of surgery used on skin cancer) that works well and causes much less scarring.
The FDA recently approved the topical drug imiquimod (brand name: Aldara) for specific types of basal-cell cancers. This drug stimulates the immune system to cause local inflammation. The inflammation can kill the wayward cells.
In two studies involving 179 treated patients, and 179 placebo recipients, there was a 75% clearing compared to only 2% respectively after 12 weeks. After two years, 79% of those who cleared the cancer remained cancer free.
Now here are the caveats. The FDA approved it only for superficial basal cell cancers in people with competent immune systems. And the cancer must be located on the trunk, neck, or extremities, excluding hands and feet. It also cannot exceed two cm in size.
I would prefer this to surgery for myself. However, most problematic basal cells occur on the head and face. I believe it is only a matter of time before this or another agent is found to be successful for these lesions. Now that the product is on the market, your physician can legally try this off-label in the privacy of his office. So if you have failed surgical treatment for head and/or face basal cell cancer, this is good news. I would not hesitate to use it, along with artemisinin, in these cases.
Another important test I’ve told you about is for homocysteine, a toxic amino acid produced normally in the body. Elevated homocysteine levels are strongly associated with heart disease and stroke. But now were finding that it causes even more problems.
The long-running Framingham study has now linked elevated homocysteine to a doubled risk of Alzheimers for those with the highest levels. And a Netherlands study has linked homocysteine to a two-to-four times elevated risk of osteoporosis.
Homocysteine damages mitochondria, the furnaces that generate energy in your body. Their injury can directly accelerate cell death and aging.
Action to Take: (1) Please get your homocysteine levels checked. If it is 10.0 or greater, then consider the treatments in #2 and #3 below.
(2) A Harvard professor reports lowered homocysteine levels in those with good lifestyle habits, including quitting (or never starting) smoking, exercising, and reducing alcohol consumption. This is the first place to start, along with a good diet. Plus it is free.
(3) Get plenty of folic acid, vitamins B6 and B12 (especially), and betaine (found in beets), which help rid your body of unwanted homocysteine. When bread and cereal makers added folate (which is a salt of folic acid) to their flour in 1996 to combat birth defects, it dropped neural tube defects by 20 percent. But it also dropped mortality from stroke and heart disease. Researchers estimate that folic acid added to food led to 31,000 fewer deaths from stroke between 1998 and 2001. In those same years, it also saved 17,000 from heart disease.
It makes sense to get plenty of folic acid from your diet and supplements. However, I am not a fan of flour. There are far better ways to get folic acid; the best is in fresh vegetables. You can also get it in B-complex supplements and most multivitamins. Healthy Resolves Max Plus has ample amounts of all the B-vitamins. I recommend you take at least 800 mcg of folic acid, 100 mg of vitamin B6, and 100 mg of vitamin B12 daily.
Ref: Dembner, Alice. Diseases of Aging Tied to Amino Acid, New York Times Syndicate, May 18, 2004; Associated Press, March 8, 2004.
I’ve told you in the past about C-reactive protein (CRP), which is a marker for general and ongoing inflammation in your body. CRP is usually associated with heart disease. But now there is evidence that an elevated CRP level is linked to cancer and macular degeneration. Do not be too alarmed, though, there is a simple way to treat the problem.
The first study indicates that an elevated CRP measurement is common with colon cancer. Researchers measured CRP in 22,887 Maryland adults in 1989. These subjects were followed for the next 11 years. Higher CRP was found in those who subsequently developed cancer. Those with the highest CRP had the highest risk (about 2.5 times those with the lowest). The weakness of this study was that CRP was measured only once, and the study did not determine whether elevated CRP is a risk for colon cancer or a consequence. However, the association is clear.
Another study shows that high CRP is also associated with macular degeneration (MD). In the study, 930 subjects had CRP tested in the mid-1990s. This study controlled for other known risk factors, such as smoking, age, sex, and body mass index. Those with the highest CRP were 65% more likely to develop MD.
Action to Take: (1) Have your doctor test for CRP. I think it is one of the most important tests you can have done. Its far more important than cholesterol. CRP is a measure of inflammation system-wide. That means it can cross the boundaries between the vascular and immune systems, making it an independent risk factor for a variety of diseases. I measure it routinely in my patients.
If your CRP level is elevated, it signals inflammation is present somewhere in your body. But it does not necessarily tell you where. You will need to see an astute integrative physician who can help detect the source, and eliminate it! You can find a doctor by calling one of the organizations on page 7.
(2) Take 500 mg of curcumin, three times daily. Curcumin, the substance that gives turmeric it is yellow color, is the most effective way to lower CRP. I especially like a product called FYI (For Your Inflammation). FYI is available at Farmacopia or at gardenoflifeusa.com
Ref: JAMA, February 4 & 11, 2004.
I’ve given you many alternatives through the years that I’ve found to be very helpful treatments for high blood pressure. I’ve recommended such treatments as fasting, taking certain nutrients, completely changing your diet, and many others. And I’ve heard wonderful stories from many of you.
Unfortunately, high blood pressure sometimes is a very difficult problem to solve. And you might have a stubborn case that does not respond to natural treatments. Its rare, but I do see it happen. And some people have trouble sticking to a lengthy fast or strict diet.
If you fall into one of those groups, there is a group of prescription drugs that will actually reduce your risk of heart attack with minimal side effects. The drugs are called ACE inhibitors (Angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors).
ACE inhibitors, long my favorite conventional treatment for blood pressure, sharply decrease the rate of endothelial cell death. Endothelia are the cells that line the inside of your vessels. They are critical to healthy circulation. All cells die after a certain amount of time (apoptosis). If the death rate is too high, you lose function. If more of these fragile endothelial cells die than should, you get holes in your vessels. This causes cholesterol and toxic compounds to build up in your vessels, which is called atherosclerosis.
At the beginning of a recent study, the researchers found that the healthy participants had 1.3% of their endothelial cells die and get replaced every 30 minutes. In heart-diseased patients, the rate was 7.8% per 30 minutes.
Those with heart disease were given an ACE inhibitor or a placebo. In the group that took the placebo, the death rate remained at the 7.8% rate.
However, in the patients given the drug, the cell death rate fell from 7.8% in the beginning to 4.7% by the end of the study. Still higher than normal, but a huge improvement. It offers a reason why the risk of heart attack falls with ACE inhibitor use, whether the user has hypertension or not. Simple use of ACE inhibitors slows down the stripping of your arterial lining.
I believe this rate would be reduced even more if the natural means I discuss in these pages were used at the same time as the drug.
Action to take: Now I do not recommend you stop what you are doing and rush to start on these drugs. I think endothelial cell death can be reduced with chelation therapy, which rids these cells of poisons such as lead. Eating the Living Foods Diet will provide them with nutrients to remain healthy.
Combine these two with proper exercise and herbs and supplements individualized for you by your integrative physician, and you can likely reduce your blood pressure and apoptosis rate without chemicals.
However, if you are one with serious and stubborn hypertension, an ACE inhibitor may be your best bet.
Ref: Study Shows How Blood Pressure Pill Improves Health of Blood Vessels, Associated Press, August 31, 2004.
