Tag: Cancer

Belly Fat Really Is A Killer: Here’s How It Can Increase Your Cancer Risk

Obesity waistline diet concept as a group of unhealthy fast food as hamburgers,fries and hot dogs bulging out as a fat stomach with a tape measure wrapped around the greasy food.

(Natural Blaze) It’s no secret that obesity is harmful to health, and recent studies have debunked the myth that one can be “fat but fit.”

Also well-established is the link between obesity and increased cancer risk, but how it actually causes cancer has yet to be fully explained.

A recent study offers more details on the association. Researchers at Michigan State University found that a certain protein released from fat in the body can cause a non-cancerous cell to turn into a cancerous one.

The research also found that a lower layer of abdominal fat, when compared to fat just under the skin, is the more likely culprit, releasing even more of this protein and encouraging tumor growth.

It is estimated that at least one-third of the population is obese. Obesity has been linked to several types of cancers including breast, colon, prostate, uterine, and kidney.

Recommended Reading: Food, Vitamins, and Herbs That Kill Cancer

But Jamie Bernard, the study’s lead author and an assistant professor in pharmacology and toxicology, said that just being overweight isn’t necessarily the best way to assess risk:

“Our study suggests that body mass index, or BMI, may not be the best indicator. It’s abdominal obesity, and even more specifically, levels of a protein called fibroblast growth factor-2 that may be a better indicator of the risk of cells becoming cancerous.”

There are two layers of belly fat. The top layer, known as subcutaneous fat, lies right under the skin. The layer under that, called visceral fat, is the one she found to be more harmful.

In the article Do You Need a Reason to Stop Drinking Soda? Here it Is, I explained what visceral fat is and why it is so dangerous:

Visceral fat – also known as “deep fat” – wraps around your internal organs, including your liver, pancreas, kidneys, and intestines. It is much more dangerous than subcutaneous fat (the fat that you can see – the “inch you can pinch”). That’s because visceral fat (which gets its name from viscera, which refers to the internal organs in the abdomen) affects how our hormones function and is thought to play a larger role in insulin resistance – which may increase Type 2 diabetes and heart disease risk.

Excess visceral fat is also linked to an increased risk of developing cancer, stroke, dementia, depression, arthritis, obesity, sexual dysfunction, and sleep disorders.

You don’t have to be visibly overweight to be at risk. Even relatively thin people can have too much visceral fat, which is why it is often referred to as “hidden” belly fat.

Recommended Reading: Healthy Fats the Healthy Way

Back to the study.

Here’s how Bernard and her team conducted their research:

Bernard and her co-author Debrup Chakraborty, a postdoctoral student in her lab, studied mice that were fed a high-fat diet and discovered that this higher-risk layer of fat produced larger amounts of the fibroblast growth factor-2, or FGF2, protein when compared to the subcutaneous fat. They found that FGF2 stimulated certain cells that were already vulnerable to the protein and caused them to grow into tumors.

She also collected visceral fat tissue from women undergoing hysterectomies and found that when the fat secretions had more of the FGF2 protein, more of the cells formed cancerous tumors when transferred into mice. (source)

What does this mean?

Bernard explains,

“This would indicate that fat from both mice and humans can make a non-tumorigenic cell malignantly transform into a tumorigenic cell.”

There are several other factors released from fat, Bernard said, including the hormone estrogen, that could influence cancer risk, but many of those studies have only been able to show an association and not a direct cause of cancer. She added that genetics also play a role.

“There’s always an element of chance in whether a person will get cancer or not. But by making smarter choices when it comes to diet and exercise and avoiding harmful habits like smoking, people can always help skew the odds in their favor.”

The study is published in the journal Oncogene and was funded by the National Institutes of Health.

5 Reasons You Should Never Eat Tilapia Again

Fish Feeding at the temple Thailand

(Natural Blaze) Eating tilapia can be toxic to your health and can cause all sorts of health problems.

Here are at least 5 reasons why you should probably avoid consuming the 4th most consumed fish in America according to the National Institute of Fisheries.

1.) Eating tilapia is worse than eating bacon (HIGH INFLAMMATORY LEVELS) according to nutritionists
You may be surprised, but some nutritionists believe that an average serving of tilapia has more fatty acid than bacon

The quantity of omega-6s in tilapia is higher than in a hamburger or bacon.

In 2008, researchers at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine released a study comparing fatty acid levels among popular farm fish. The researchers found that tilapia contained far less omega-3 fatty acid than other fish, such as salmon and mackerel.

The report stated that the “inflammatory potential of hamburger (80 percent lean) and pork bacon is lower than the average serving of farmed tilapia (100 g).” In theory, scientists believe this may contribute to heart disease, cancer, and other chronic health problems.

Related: What Causes Chronic Inflammation, and How To Stop It For Good

2.) Tilapia are fed a diet of feces

A 2009 study conducted by the Economic Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture stated Chinese farm-raised fish are fed poultry and livestock feces.

“It is common practice to let livestock and poultry roam freely in fields and to spread livestock and poultry waste on fields or use it as fish feed,” the report said.

Researchers noted that “many of China’s farms and food processors are situated in heavily industrialized regions where water, air, and soil are contaminated by industrial effluents and vehicle exhaust.”

So how much tilapia in the U.S. actually comes from China?

You would be shocked to know the answer. According to Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch, over 95 percent of tilapia consumed in the U.S. came from overseas with a whopping 70% from China.

3) Tilapia Could Cause Alzheimer’s and Cancer

Tilapia can carry up to 10 times the amount of carcinogens as other farm raised fish. This is because of the “food” the farmers typically feed the fish is — feces, pesticides, and industrial-grade chemicals.

Additionally, the fish may contain high levels of arachidonic acid, which, in excess, has been linked to conditions like Alzheimer’s.

Related: How to Improve Brain Health and Reduce the Risk of Alzheimer’s

4) Antibiotics are used to modify the fish to grow faster

Tilapia are fed antibiotics, malachite green and methyl testosterone hormones to keep the population safe and to grow them faster. The chemical dye malachite green is banned for food use since 1983 because it is a suspected carcinogen.

In 2007, the FDA halted imports of farmed fish from China after finding antimicrobials — nitrofuran, malachite green, gentian violet, and fluoroquinolone.

Nitrofuran, malachite green and gentian violet are chemicals that are known to treat fungal infection and have been shown to be carcinogenic with long-term exposure, while fluoroquinolones are used to increase antibiotic resistance.

Related: How to Detoxify From Antibiotics and Other Chemical Antimicrobials

5) Tilapia contains the harmful chemical dioxin

Researchers have found that dioxin, which is linked to the development and progression of cancer is found within Tilapia due to the food farmers feed it. However, that doesn’t mean that Tilapia as a whole all contains contaminants it all depends on where it was raised and harvested over all.

So what are your alternatives to tilapia?

It is always best to eat wild-caught fish. If you choose to buy farmed fish, then you should look for fish that are free of hormones, antibiotics, pesticides, and are certified by the Marine Stewardship Council.

Even so, the best solution is to avoid tilapia altogether. I wouldn’t want to eat feces or antibiotics, would you?

Chemotherapy found to SPREAD cancer throughout the body

(Natural News) Though conventional medicine claims to be winning the war against cancer, along with the holistic health community, we at Natural News have consistently been trying to expose one of the biggest frauds known in human history: CHEMOTHERAPY.

Brainwashed by doctors, oncologists, and the mainstream media, most cancer patients think their only hope for survival is chemotherapy. In America, treating cancer is BIG business. Since the cancer industry makes billions of dollars each year, a cure is not what they are after.

Did you know that the number one side effect of chemotherapy is cancer? Conventional cancer treatments not only fail miserably, they are also designed to make cancer patients sicker. Though chemotherapy may shrink the initial tumor(s), what is happening in the background is far more important. It is the one dark and criminal truth nobody seems to knows about.

Related: How to Detoxify From Chemotherapy and Repair the Body

A new study published in the journal Science Translational Medicine earlier this month proved what we have been saying for decades; conventional cancer treatments cause more cancer. A team of scientists at New York’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine has found compelling evidence that chemotherapy is only a short-term solution.

Eventually, the drugs will make you sick again, pushing patients towards a second round of expensive treatments. Clever money generating trick: Instead of helping patients to get rid of the disease, they temporarily put it on hold so they can take the dollars twice.

Chemotherapy kills more patients than cancer itself

In 2017, an estimated 1,688,780 new cancer cases are expected to be diagnosed and about 600,920 people will die from the disease in the United States, according to the annual report by the American Cancer Society.

The New York scientists explained that while shrinking the tumors, chemotherapy simultaneously opens new doorways for tumors to spread into the blood system, triggering more aggressive tumors which often result in death.

The researchers believe toxic chemo drugs switch on repair mechanisms in the body that allow tumors to grow back faster. Furthermore, Dr. George Karagiannis, lead author of the study, and his team found that two common chemo drugs increased the number of “doorways” on blood vessels which allowed cancer cells to spread to other parts of the body. The team also discovered that chemotherapy increased the number of cancer cells circulating the body and lungs of mice.

Related: Chemotherapy vs Placebo

Though this study only investigated the effects of chemotherapy on breast cancer, the researchers are currently experimenting with other types of cancer to see if similar effects occur, reported The Telegraph.

Dr. Karagiannis noted that women receiving preoperative chemotherapy to treat breast cancer should be monitored to check if the cancer isn’t circulating or creating more possibilities to spread. He recommends taking a small amount of tumor tissue after a few doses of preoperative chemotherapy. If the markers are increased, the therapy should be terminated immediately.

This study is not the first to demonstrate the ways in which chemotherapy can trigger secondary or metastatic cancers. In 2010, researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Comprehensive Cancer Center and UAB Department of Chemistry were awarded a $805,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program to investigate the question whether chemo encourages cancer to spread throughout the body.

Many studies later, we can no longer ignore the answer to that question. YES, patients are dying from chemotherapy, not cancer itself. It has been shown to not only cause secondary cancers but also accelerates tumor growth and causes cancer cells to become resistant to treatment.

Seventy-five percent of physicians and scientists would refuse chemotherapy for themselves or their family

What does this number say about the effectiveness and risks of therapy? Do these people know more? And what is the mainstream media hiding from us?

Due to the devastating effects on the entire body and the immune system, and an extremely low success rate, three of every four doctors and scientists would refuse chemotherapy, according to polls taken by the McGill Cancer Center. Additionally, an estimated 97 percent of cancers don’t respond to chemotherapy, yet it remains the go-to treatment for nearly every cancer type.

Think about it. When your body is fighting cancer, the last thing it needs is more cancer-inducing, immune suppressing chemicals, right? Though all scientists and doctors know that chemotherapy is pure poison and can make things worse, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) outlaws doctors from choosing non-chemical routes, such as vitamins, supplements, herbs, superfoods, and other natural cancer solutions, for their patients.

Over the past few years, one study after another has been coming out, linking chemotherapy to cancer. Yet authorities fail to make the healthy call. How much more proof do they need before they start to acknowledge that there are far better, less expensive real cures out there?

Related:
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Groundbreaking Study Confirms Cannabis Has ‘Significant’ Effect on Killing Cancer Cells

epa03462089 (FILE) A file photo dated 31 August 2010 shows a worker tending to cannabis plants at a growing facility for the Tikun Olam company near the northern Israeli town of Safed, Israel. Reports on 07 November 2012 state that Colorado and Washington became the first US states to legalize cannabis for recreational use, while medical marijuana initiatives were on the ballot in Massachusetts, Montana and Arkansas. EPA/ABIR SULTAN ISRAEL OUT *** Local Caption *** 02310452

(The Free Thought Project) Leukemia has a new foe — one reviled by the U.S. DEA, loved as a tool for law enforcement profiteering, and purposely maligned by Big Pharma — cannabis.

A new study found that, in combination with traditional chemotherapy, cannabinoids — the active compounds in cannabis — significantly improved treatment of leukemia.

Adding cannabinoid therapy to a traditional cancer treatment regimen meant doctors could lower the dose of chemotherapy while minimizing its oft-debilitating side effects, such as nausea.

Researchers also found the order in which the two medicines were administered proffered different results — more cancer cells die, or experience apoptosis, when cannabinoids follow chemotherapy.

“We have shown for the first time that the order in which cannabinoids and chemotherapy are used is crucial in determining the overall effectiveness of this treatment,” explained Dr. Wai Liu of St. George’s, University of London, and lead author of the study, quoted by the Daily Mail.

Cannabis has long been touted as efficacious in alleviating nausea and vomiting associated with rigorous chemotherapy treatment — but this study marks a groundbreaking foray into the study of the plant as a potentially curative medicine.

Liu deemed cannabinoids a “very exciting prospect in the oncology.”

Researchers sought to analyze the effects of various cannabinoids — specifically THC, the compound known for giving recreational users a ‘high,’ as well as CBD, or cannabidiol — on leukemia cells and whether the order in which the plant compounds and two common chemotherapy drugs, cytarabine and vincristine, are given would impact results.

“In addition to the well-known palliative effects of cannabinoids on some cancer-associated symptoms, a large body of evidence shows that these molecules can decrease tumour growth in animal models of cancer. They do so by modulating key cell signalling pathways involved in the control of cancer cell proliferation and survival. In addition, cannabinoids inhibit angiogenesis and decrease metastasis in various tumour types in laboratory animals.”

Taken after chemotherapy, cannabinoids “can increase the cancer cell-killing effects of the chemotherapy and decrease the growth of new tumor cells and tumor-feeding blood vessels,” UPROXX reports.

“These extracts are highly concentrated and purified,” Liu elaborates, “so smoking marijuana will not have a similar effect.”

Most momentously for advocates of medical cannabis, the team found phytocannabinoids indeed display significant “anticancer activity” — even when used as sole treatment against the disease.

Further analysis and study must be completed, however,

“Studies such as ours serve to establish the best ways that they should be used to maximise a therapeutic effect,” Liu said.

Leukemia wasn’t the only cancer studied by the researchers — glioblastoma, the most aggressive brain cancer, may also be significantly impacted by the introduction of cannabinoids, should promising animal testing be ultimately translatable for treatment in humans.

This study adds to the evidence as presented by the National Cancer Institute as well. As the Free Thought Project previously reported, the government agency recently acknowledged the power of cannabis to kill cancer cells which is backed up by laboratory tests.

“Cannabis has been shown to kill cancer cells in the laboratory,” states the cancer.gov website. 

But, in order for swaths of patients in the United States to even dream of eradicating their leukemia, cannabis prohibition — existent primarily for the highly politicized agenda of criminalizing the antiwar left, African-Americans, and, earlier, jazz musicians — must be lifted.

Perhaps the steepest obstacle to ending cannabis prohibition rests with the lucrative pharmaceutical industry, whose societally-established drugs for treating cancer rake in billions each year.

As long as the astonishingly beneficial plant remains out of reach for many U.S. patients, any future cannabinoid additions to chemotherapy could theoretically find the user fined or locked in a cage.

Dr. Liu and his team conclude the abstract of their promising by imploring immediate further examination of their results, stating,

“Given that cannabinoids show an acceptable safety profile, clinical trials testing them as single drugs or, ideally, in combination therapies in glioblastoma and other types of cancer are both warranted and urgently needed.”

Now, only the dollar signs blinding the U.S. government and Big Pharma to the indisputable benefits of cannabis stand between cancer sufferers and relief.