Supplements Shown To Reduce Breast Cancer Risk

February 2, 2011 by

In a randomized, placebo-controlled study involving 47 premenopausal and 49 postmenopausal women, results indicate that supplementation with a herbal formula may reduce the risk of breast cancer. The women were randomized to placebo or supplementation with a mixture of HMR lignan, indole-3-carbinol, calcium glucarate, milk thistle, Schisandra chinesis and stinging nettle, for a period of 28 days. At intervention end, a significant increase in urinary 2-OHE concentration and a trend toward an increase in 2:16alpha-OHE ratio was observed in the herbal group (Meaning that the “more harmful” form of estrogen was significantly diminished after use of this herb/nutrient combination).


While this proves that various supplements can certainly be beneficial in the prevention of breast cancer, 2 of the main ingredients (HMR lignan and indole-3-carbinol) can be found in flax seeds and cruciferous vegetables, respectively. Therefore, I would encourage all women to incorporate these foods into their diet on a regular basis, as well as supplementing with some of the herbs and nutrients mentioned above.

Source: “Effects of A Breast-Health Herbal Formula Supplement on Estrogen Metabolism in Pre- and Post-Menopausal Women not Taking Hormonal Contraceptives or Supplements: A Randomized Controlled Trial,” Laidlaw M, Sepkovic DW, et al, Breast Cancer (Auckl), 2010; 4: 85-95.
Filed Under: Cancer, Diet and Nutrition, Women's Health Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Vegetarian Source of Essential Fats

January 27, 2011 by

In the first study to investigate the effect of the omega-3 DHA (docosahexaneoic acid) derived from algae, researchers found that people suffering from age-related decline in their thinking (cognition) could get a memory boost by supplementing with the extract.
DHA is a fatty acid found in high concentrations in some fish. Together with other fish-derived oils, DHA is believed to help slow the rate of cognitive decline in people with mild impairment, but it has never been studied on its own.
As the world’s population continues to age, health issues related to aging bodies and brains are becoming more common. Many population-based studies have noted the association between lower DHA levels and cognitive decline in healthy people and those with Alzheimer’s disease.
According to the journal Alzheimer’s and Dementia, the new study was led by doctors at Martek Biosciences Corporation, the company that manufactures the algal DHA supplement used in this study. A total of 437 people aged 55 or older with age-related cognitive decline completed the 24-week study. Half of them were given 900 mg per day of DHA from the algae, Schizochytrium sp.; the rest were given a matching placebo.
Tests were given before and after the supplementation period to measure memory, learning, attention, problem solving, and skills involved with decision making and abstract thinking (executive function skills).
Anti-aging for the brain
The ability to recollect past experiences (episodic memory) and learning in the DHA group significantly improved. People with lower scores at the study outset seemed to benefit the most, as did those with a family history of dementia and those taking cholesterol-lowering medications, “suggesting that potential genetic and cardiovascular factors may influence the effects of DHA on cognition,” the team commented. There was also a significant decrease in heart rate associated with DHA supplementation.
Working memory–that which is used to store and manage information–was not affected, nor was executive function. Participants reported no adverse side effects related to treatment.
Use it, don’t lose it
Try these tips to help keep your mind spry.
• Get moving. Physical exercise helps keep the mind and body young by protecting brain tissue from age-related damage and by keeping the heart healthy.
• Stay involved. People who connect with others through church, volunteering, travel, and leisure activities are doing their brains a favor. Staying socially engaged reduces stress and helps keep the mind sharp.
• Eat right. Diets rich in brightly-colored fruits and vegetables and lean protein (especially fish) help ward off brain-damaging free radicals, preserving tip top brain function.
 (Alzheimers Dement 2010;456-64)
Filed Under: Alzheimer's, Diet and Nutrition Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Food Allergies-More Common Than You Think!

December 15, 2010 by

A study published in the October issue of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology estimated that nearly 2.5 percent of Americans have at least one food allergy. The study, which is believed to be the largest food allergy study to date, showed that the allergies were more common in children 5 years old or younger. 


“This study is comprehensive in its scope and is the first to use specific blood serum levels and look at food allergies across the whole life spectrum,” says study senior investigator Darryl Zeldin, M.D., acting clinical director at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS). 

In the study, children under the age of 5 were more than twice as likely as those older than 20 to have a food allergy and black people were three times as likely as white people to have one, while men were nearly 1.9 times more likely than women to be affected. Black boys were more than four times as likely as white women over 20 to have a food allergy. 

The findings also show that food allergies were more common in those with asthma. While the researchers did not study cause and effect between food allergies and asthma, having a food allergy appeared to compound the risk for asthma and vice versa. 

Those with asthma had nearly four times the risk of having a food allergy than those without it. Overall, people with food allergies were nearly seven times more likely than those without them to have required ER treatment for their asthma in the 12 months leading up to the study. 

“Our findings confirm a long-suspected interplay between food allergies and asthma, and that people with one of the conditions are at higher risk for the other,” says investigator Robert Wood, M.D., director of Allergy and Immunology at Hopkins Children’s. 

Wood notes that many children experience an “allergic march,” developing a food allergy first and getting asthma and hay fever later. 

While people with food allergies were somewhat more likely to be diagnosed with hay fever, the link between the two was not particularly strong, and they did not appear to have higher risk for eczema, the investigators found. 


If you or your child are suffering from asthma or other allergy-related conditions, you should definitely consider pursuing food allergy testing from a licensed naturopathic physician.
Filed Under: Allergies, Asthma, Food Allergies Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Acupuncture, Hot Flashes, and Tamoxifen

November 17, 2010 by

The Journal of Complementary and Alternative Medicine published a recent study demonstrating the benefits of acupuncture for treating hot flashes and other side-effects related to chemotherapy and tamoxifen. Patients used in the study had been receiving tamoxifen for at least 6 months, and experiencing at least 4 hot flashes and night sweats per day for at least 3 months. Treatment with acupuncture (8 treatments) was found to reduce the frequency of hot flashes and night sweats by an average of 50%. At the end of the treatment period, significant improvements were found in: anxiety/fears; memory/concentration; menstrual problems; sexual behavior; sleep problems; somatic symptoms; and vasomotor symptoms. The authors state, “These results compare favorably with other studies using acupuncture to manage HF&NS, as well as research on nonhormonal pharmaceutical treatments. In addition to reduced HF&NS frequency, women enjoyed improved physical and emotional well-being, and few side-effects were reported.” 

Filed Under: Acupuncture, Cancer, Women's Health Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Natural Remedies and Anxiety-A Summary

November 4, 2010 by

The October 7th, 2010 edition of Nutrition Journal published a summary of studies investigating nutritional and herbal treatments of anxiety. 71% of the studies (15 of 21) showed that the nutritional and herbal interventions were indeed effective in the treatment of anxiety. Specific supplements tested which showed positive results included those containing extracts of passionflower, kava, combinations of L-lysine and L-arginine. Supplementation with magnesium showed promise, while St. John’s wort was not found to be effective as an anti-anxiety treatment. Another benefit with these therapies, as opposed to pharmaceutical interventions, is that minimal side-effects were reported.

If you’re suffering from anxiety or other mood disorders, it’s definitely worth pursuing “alternative” forms of treatment, as the risk of becoming dependent on anti-anxiety medications is very high. Clinically, I’ve found a number of these treatments, along with acupuncture and other modalities, to be just as effective or better than pharmacological interventions for anxiety.
Filed Under: Anxiety Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Collards, Carrots, and Breast Cancer

October 27, 2010 by

Researchers looking at data from the ongoing Black Women’s Health Study found that eating carrots, collard greens, cabbage, and broccoli can reduce breast cancer risk, particularly an aggressive form common among African American women. Previous studies of the relationship between fruit and vegetable consumption and breast cancer in white women have led to conflicting results, and no prior research has investigated this link separately among African American women.

The ER-negative form of breast cancer, which is insensitive to the hormone estrogen, is more common in this population than among white women. It is more difficult to treat and more often fatal than estrogen-sensitive cancers.

Researchers found that women who ate at least two servings of vegetables a day had a 43 percent lower risk of ER-negative breast cancer compared with women who ate fewer than four servings of vegetables each week.

Further, they identified certain types of vegetables that appeared to reduce the risk of all types of breast cancer, including broccoli, collard greens, cabbage and carrots.

Women who ate three or more servings a week of carrots, for instance, had a 17 percent lower risk of developing breast cancer than women who ate carrots less than once a month.

Still, it is too early to determine if this is a true cause-and effect-relationship, they note. High vegetable consumption could mark a healthier lifestyle in general or some other unknown mechanism that accounts for the apparent protection. Vegetables’ cancer-staving power needs to be confirmed in further studies, the researchers write. However, it is clear that, in addition to potential protective effects against breast cancer, higher vegetable consumption can lead to many health benefits, including lower risk of cardiovascular disease. Therefore, it is recommended that all women, especially African Americans, try to increase their daily intake of vegetables to meet the established guidelines.

Filed Under: Cancer, Women's Health Tagged With: , , , , ,

Breast Cancer and HRT (Once Again)

October 20, 2010 by

We’ve known for several years that hormone replacement therapy (HRT) increases the risk of breast cancer.  Now, a new report derived from following the same population that was originally studied in the Women’s Health Initiative demonstrates even more risks associated with HRT.  The new findings showed that women who took Prempro (one of the main drugs prescribed for HRT) and developed breast cancer were more likely to have an aggressive form of the disease, and more likely to die than breast cancer patients who had never taken hormones.  One explanation for this is that HRT increases the density of breast tissue, making cancerous tumors harder to identify on mammogram and physical examination, delaying the diagnosis, and increasing the risk of death. For a more detailed article on the subject, visit:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/20/health/20hormone.html?src=mv
Of course, there are plenty of alternatives to pharmaceutical HRT, so talk to your naturopathic doctor about safer options for managing menopausal symptoms and/or osteoporosis. 
Filed Under: Cancer, Women's Health Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Artificial Sweeteners=Real Trouble

September 22, 2010 by

Most of my patients know that I’m not a fan of artificial sweeteners, but people often have      a hard time cutting them out of their diet. Hopefully this evidence (excerpted from   mercola.com) will be enough of a motivator!

Why Artificial Sweeteners Can be Detrimental to Your Waistline

The belief that eating artificially sweetened foods and drinking artificially sweetened beverages will help you to lose weight is a carefully orchestrated deception. So if you are still opting for sugar-free choices for this reason, you are being sorely misled.

For years now studies have shown that consuming artificial sweeteners breaks the connection between a sweet sensation and a high-calorie food, thereby changing your body’s ability to regulate intake naturally.

In one study by psychologists at Purdue University’s Ingestive Behavior Research Center, rats that ate yogurt sweetened with an artificial sweetener consumed more calories (and didn’t make up for it by cutting back later), gained more weight, and put on more body fat than rats that ate yogurt sweetened with sugar.

Other studies, too, have shown that eating artificial sweeteners might hinder your body’s ability to estimate calorie intake, thus boosting your inclination to overindulge. Your body and your brain simply do not have the same biological response to artificial sweeteners that they do to regular sugar, and this can pose some serious problems.

Your Brain Can Tell the Difference

You may have convinced yourself that your favorite artificial sweetener tastes the same as sugar, but rest assured your brain is not being fooled.

In one brain-scan study by neuroscientist Paul Smeets, volunteers were given two version of a beverage, one sweetened with sugar, the other with a blend of artificial sweeteners. The brain scans showed that the artificially sweetened beverage failed to activate an area of the brain called the caudate nucleus, which is an area associated with rewards.

A separate study by psychiatrist Guido Frank at the University of Colorado in Denver also looked into your brain’s response to sugar versus artificial sweeteners. Women given a taste of the two said they could not consciously determine a difference. However, a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of their brain responses showed differences indeed.

As in the previously mentioned study, the sugar activated the reward areas of your brain more strongly than the artificial sweetener, suggesting that the latter may not make you feel satisfied the way sugar would.

This is not an endorsement to indulge in sugar; rather it’s a major clue that your body is not being fooled by artificial sweeteners.

Filed Under: Metabolic Syndrome, Type II Diabetes, Weight Loss Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Cognitive Impairment and B Vitamins

September 8, 2010 by

Daily tablets of large doses of B vitamins can halve the rate of brain shrinkage in elderly people with memory problems and may slow their progression toward dementia, data from a recent British trial showed.

Scientists from Oxford University said their two-year clinical trial was the largest to date into the effect of B vitamins on so-called “mild cognitive impairment” — a major risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia.

Experts commenting on the findings said they were important and called for larger, longer full-scale clinical trials to see if the safety and effectiveness of B vitamins in the prevention of neurodegenerative conditions could be confirmed.

“This is a very dramatic and striking result. It’s much more than we could have predicted,” said David Smith of Oxford’s department of pharmacology, who co-led the trial.

“It is our hope that this simple and safe treatment will delay development of Alzheimer’s in many people who suffer from mild memory problems.”

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) affects around 16 percent of people aged over 70 worldwide and is characterized by slight problems with memory loss, language or other mental functions.

MCI does not usually interfere with daily life, but around 50 percent of people diagnosed with it go on to develop the far more severe Alzheimer’s disease within five years. Alzheimer’s is a mind-wasting disease for which there are few treatments and no cure, and which affects 26 million people around the world.

Smith and colleagues conducted a two-year trial with 168 volunteers with MCI who were given either a vitamin pill containing very high doses of folic acid, vitamin B6 and vitamin B12, or a placebo dummy pill.

These B vitamins are known to control levels of an amino acid called homocysteine in the blood, and high blood levels of homocysteine are linked to an increased risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.

Brain scans were taken at the beginning and the end of the trial to monitor the rate of brain shrinkage, or atrophy.

The results, published in the Public Library of Science (PLoS) One journal, showed that on average the brains of those taking the vitamin treatment shrank at a rate of 0.76 percent a year, while those taking the dummy pill had an average brain shrinkage of 1.08 percent.

People who had the highest levels of homocysteine at the start of the trial benefited the most from the treatment, with their brains shrinking at half the rate of those on the placebo.

Although the trial was not designed to measure cognitive ability, the researchers found those people who had lowest rates of shrinkage had the highest scores in mental tests.

Filed Under: Alzheimer's Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Blueberries and Insulin

August 25, 2010 by

A new study published in the Journal of Nutrition (August 19, 2010) showed that subjects who consumed blueberries twice/day for 6 weeks had an improvement in insulin sensitivity. The participants were all obese and insulin-resistant, but not diabetic.

Blueberries have long been considered a “super-food” because of their high antioxidant and fiber content, and are often recommended for diabetic or insulin-resistant patients due to their negligible affect on blood sugar (as opposed to other fruits). However, the fact that they are now proven to actually reverse insulin-resistance makes it even more important for doctors to emphasize that all patients who are pre-diabetic and/or obese consume blueberries on a daily basis.
Filed Under: Diet and Nutrition, Metabolic Syndrome, Weight Loss Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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