Ian Gawler Blog: Research, daily life and cancer

Groups, mushrooms, CD47, surgeons, PSA tests, mistletoe and coconut oil.
What do they have in common? They all feature in important research that throws light on what might make for a good choice if you or someone you love has cancer – or wants to avoid it. So this week, some compelling reading that just might help to save a life.

Plus Ruth and I start our tour of New Zealand next week, so more details of the talks and retreats, but first

Thought for the day
If I die
I want to be the healthiest person ever to die of this disease
                           One of the women in my Friday cancer group

Yes, that dot in the middle is me speaking at the Happiness and its Causes Conference in Perth last week; some highlights next week.

1. Attending a therapeutic group halves the risk of recurrence and the risk of dying from breast cancer
This study is a few years old now, but very significant all the same.

After a median of 11 years of follow-up, this study involving 227 women showed that those women provided with a psychological intervention via small groups that included strategies to reduce stress, improve mood and alter health behaviours, were found to have around halved the risk of both breast cancer recurrence (hazards ratio [HR] of 0.55; P=.034) and death from breast cancer (HR of 0.44; P=.016).

Follow-up analyses also demonstrated that women in the groups had a 50% reduced risk of death from all causes (HR of 0.51; P=.028) during the time of the study.
The authors concluded that psychological interventions can improve breast cancer survival.

Reference: Andersen BL et al, Psychologic Intervention Improves Survival for Breast Cancer Patients - A Randomized Clinical Trial.  Cancer. 2008; 113:3450-3458

2. Psychological and behavioural variables can have profound effects on cancer. 
In a related study, a meta-analysis (analysis of a large number of studies) revealed stress-related psychosocial factors to be associated with a higher cancer incidence in initially healthy people, poorer survival in patients diagnosed with cancer, and higher cancer mortality.1

Reference: Chida Y, Hamer M, Wardle J, Steptoe A. Do stress-related psychological factors contribute to cancer incidence and survival? Nat Clin Pract Oncol. 2008;5:466–475. [PubMed]

3. CD47: The cancer breakthrough I believe may really happen
Many of those who attend my workshops may remember I have been speaking hopefully of CD47 for some time. Here is an update.

CD47 is a kind of protein that is found on the surface of many cells in the body. It tells circulating immune cells called macrophages not to eat these cells. The body uses the CD47 protein to protect cells that should be protected and to help dispose of cells that are aged or diseased.

Unfortunately, some cells that should be destroyed are not. Researchers at Stanford discovered that nearly every kind of cancer cell has a large amount of CD47 on the cell surface. This protein signal protects the cancer against attack by the body's immune system.

Stanford investigators have discovered if they block the CD47 "don't-eat-me" signal through the use of anti-CD47 antibodies, macrophages will consume and destroy cancer cells. Deadly human cancers have been diminished or eliminated in animal models through the use of anti-CD47 antibody.

For the last year, many people have been working to make clinical trials in humans possible. Stanford is hopeful that the first human clinical trials of anti-CD47 antibody will take place in mid-2014, and clinical trials may also be done in the United Kingdom. Stay tuned; this one just might work!

4. Mushrooms – cook them and reap the rewards!
Some will know that mushrooms have been under something of a cloud (OK – bad pun ) and even on the Gerson banned list. I have never been able to find a satisfying rationale for this avoidance and more recent research indicates that maybe the problem was eating them raw, while cooking them seems quite beneficial.

In 2009 a study of 2,018 women correlated a large decrease of breast cancer in women who consumed common white button mushrooms (Agaricus bisporus). Women in the study who consumed fresh mushrooms daily were 64% less likely to develop breast cancer, while those that combined a mushroom diet with regular green tea consumption reduced their risk of breast cancer by nearly 90%.

Some studies have revealed that raw A. bisporus - along with some other edible mushrooms - contain small amounts of carcinogens. However, this research also noted that when cooked, these compounds were reduced significantly.

Reference: Zhang, M et al;  "Dietary intakes of mushrooms and green tea combine to reduce the risk of breast cancer in Chinese women". International Journal of Cancer 124 (6): 1404–1408.

HERE IS THE INVITATION

Pause,  focus on the scene below,  take a deeper breath or two,  bring yourself into this present moment     :-) 

then read on

Photo taken near the river at the Gawler Foundation's Yarra Valley Living Centre where we conducted the training /retreat with Dr Nimrod Sheinman recently and where Ruth and I will lead next year's pre-Easter retreat Meditation in the Forest

5. Would you travel to save your life? Surgeons and survival
A fairly well kept secret is that when it comes to cancer surgery, particularly the more complex, complicated surgery, your surgeon’s experience levels can drastically affect your chances of long-term survival. This is an excellent thing to know BEFORE you might ever need it. Tell anyone you care for about it!

This proposition has been further validated recently by a well-funded Swedish prospective cohort study in which all patients who underwent eosophagectomy between 1987 and 2005 were followed until 2011.

Results demonstrated that surgeons who performed above the Swedish median number of operations per year had a 20% reduction in mortality. The median number was about 10 operations per year. What that means is that if you had been operated on by a surgeon who was doing more than 10 esophagectomies per year, you would have had a 20% reduction in mortality.

What should we make of this? Seek an experienced surgeon if you need a tricky operation.

Reference: Derogar M et al. Hospital and surgeon volume in relation to survival after esophageal cancer surgery in a population-based study. J Clin Oncol. 2013;31:551-557.

6. Are PSA tests more trouble than they are worth?
Here we go! This is really going Out on a Limb! PSA testing for prostate cancer seems to ignite untold passions in many of those involved, but speaking in The Age recently, health reporter Julia Medew pointed out

“PSA tests are controversial because they can cause "overdiagnosis" of prostate cancer that is so slow-growing it was never going to cause men harm. It is now estimated that for every man thought to be saved by the test, another 12 to 47 will be diagnosed with cancer that will not kill them. Many will have surgery and other interventions that can lead to sexual impotence and incontinence.”

A recent Australian review has called into question one of the major studies that is used to support PSA screening and in doing so, adds more caution to taking that test.

Here is the Abstract of the paper so that if you are interested you have some facts.

Major clinical trials using prostate-specific antigen (PSA) as the screening test to detect localized early-stage prostate cancer and to attempt to change its natural history with early intervention have yielded conflicting interpretations.

The US Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian (US PLCO) cancer screening trial concluded that PSA-based screening conferred no meaningful survival benefit, whereas the European Randomized Study of Screening for Prostate Cancer (ERSPC) and the GOTEBORG clinical trial (GOTEBORG) trials claimed statistically significant life-saving benefits.

These divergent outcomes have not provided physicians with clarity on the best evidence-based treatment. To determine the extent to which these divergent outcomes are clinically meaningful, we evaluated these data and those of a long-term prospective cohort study in the context of the clinically documented harms of androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) (hormone treatment).

We noted the unheralded fact that in both European trials far more patients received hormonal treatment in the control than the prostatectomy arm, whereas hormonal therapy in the US trial was balanced between arms. We examined this imbalance in ADT treatment and prostate cancer–related deaths in the contexts of contamination, stage migration, and attribution of cause of death, all of which impinge on data interpretation.

The ERSPC and GOTEBORG data are compatible with the hypothesis that ADT treatment contributes differentially to an increase in prostate cancer deaths in control patients. If so, the claim of a reduction in prostate cancer deaths in the screened cohort requires reappraisal.

The conventional interpretation that PSA screening and radical treatment intervention are the major contributors to the results of these two studies needs more rigorous scientific scrutiny, as does the role of ADT treatment of nonmetastatic disease.

Reference: Haines I, Miklos G et al; Prostate-Specific Antigen Screening Trials and Prostate Cancer Deaths: The Androgen Deprivation Connection JNCI J Natl Cancer Inst, Vol 105; 20, 1534-1539.


To read The Age report: CLICK HERE: 

7. Mistletoe doubles survival in advanced pancreatic cancer
Advanced pancreatic cancer is a tough disease and while over the years I have seen a number of people actually survive for long periods following our approach, often the side-effects of any medical treatments are outweighed by any benefits. This then is an interesting study as although the times were still disappointingly short, the mistletoe injections almost doubled survival. Also, mistletoe has been one of those controversial treatments often labelled as "alternative", so it is good to see it being evaluates scientifically and that it does seem to have some efficacy.

Abstract: The unfavourable side-effects of late-stage pancreatic cancer treatments call for non-toxic and effective therapeutic approaches. Over 12 months, we compared the overall survival (OS) of patients receiving an extract of Viscum album Mistletoe (VaL) or no antineoplastic therapy.

Findings: We present the first interim analysis, including data from 220 patients. Patients in both groups received best supportive care. Median OS was 4.8 for VaL and 2.7 months for control patients (prognosis-adjusted hazard ratio, HR = 0.49; p < 0.0001). Within the ‘good’ prognosis subgroup, median OS was 6.6 versus 3.2 months (HR = 0.43; p < 0.0001), within the ‘poor’ prognosis subgroup, it was 3.4 versus 2.0 months respectively (HR = 0.55; p = 0.0031). No VaL-related adverse events were observed.

Conclusion: VaL therapy showed a significant and clinically relevant prolongation of OS. The study findings suggest VaL to be a non-toxic and effective second-line therapy that offers a prolongation of OS as well as less disease-related symptoms for patients with locally advanced or metastatic pancreatic cancer.

Reference: Tro ̈ger W. et al., Viscum album [L.] extract therapy in patients with locally advanced or metastatic pancreatic cancer: A randomised clinical trial on overall survival, Eur J Cancer (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ejca.2013.06.043
 

RELATED BLOGS
Let your food be your medicine - more dietary research

Multi-vitamins and cancer

Who needs prostate surgery?

NEWS UPDATE
I am being asked in workshops why coconut oil melts at room temperature, around 22 -24C, yet Prof George Jelinek in his guest blog on coconut oil (Coconut oil- are you nuts?) says the simple, obvious reason not to use coconut oil is that it contains saturated fats that are solid at body temperature - 37C.

At first glance this may seem confusing, but here is the detail, and again, I quote George:

The explanation for this melting point of the oil is pretty simple. Coconut oil is a complex mixture of fats; while 88.7% is saturated fat, there are also mono- and poly-unsaturated fats in the oil, as with other oils.

So the melting point of the oil depends on the relative proportions of the various fats making up the oil, and is lower than the individual melting points of the saturated fats referred to in the blog because of the lower melting points of some of the other shorter chain saturated fats, mono-unsaturated fats, and poly-unsaturated fats.

However, coconut oil does not get absorbed whole, but rather as the individual fatty acids, and it is the melting point of each of those individual fatty acids that is the important factor when they are incorporated into cell membranes.

By way of example, butter melts at 32-35C despite being composed of 63% saturated fats, most of them with melting points higher than body temperature, yet no-one would recommend it for good health.

NOTICEBOARD
Ruth and I will be presenting a range of public talks, workshops and retreats around New Zealand
in November/December.

There are a range of events in Auckland, Rotorua, Christchurch and Nelson.

We are delighted to be including our first meditation retreat in New Zealand (which quite a few Aussies have also booked for already!) - December 2 -8.

Please do let anyone you may know in NZ about the visit -  all the details are on my new public Facebook page: Dr Ian Gawler,    or the website.