Menopause Management. Many women pay close attention to their gynecological health during their younger years and start to ignore it after menopause. Bowel cancer can affect your daily life in different ways, depending on what stage it's at and the treatment you're having. How people cope with their diagnosis and. TopConsumerReviews.com reviews and ranks the best Menopause products available today. The Dublin doctor who is not beating cancer – Respectful Insolence. As I’ve said so many times before, this blog is my hobby. I write about what interests me for my own amusement. If it also interests you, that’s awesome. Fortunately, I’ve found that several thousand people a day do like what I lay down on a daily basis, sometimes with occasional spikes to ridiculous levels of traffic (such as this Dr. Oz post, which for some reason broke all traffic records for this blog since the very beginning, and not by a little bit) and, more recently, this post about how the CDC did not apologize and “admit” that the flu vaccine this year doesn’t work, which got quite a respectable spike, about 4- 5 times normal daily traffic that took until today to drift back down to normal) but that’s not the primary reason I write. I did this blog back when its readership was minuscule in the months after its beginning, and I continue to do it now that it gets quite respectable traffic for a medical/science blog with a single blogger. ![]() ![]() ![]() The facts and figures on bowel cancer including the symptoms, what is known to cause bowel cancer and information on reducing your risk of developing it. Symptoms of bowel cancer: FIVE signs YOU could have the disease BOWEL cancer is one of the most common forms of cancer - mostly affecting people over the age of 60. ![]() Bowel cancer: The 5 warning signs you shouldn't ignore Here's some signs you should never ignore. We save lives by preventing, controlling and curing cancer. We're working to beat all 200 cancers and rely completely on donations from people like you. Chronic gastritis occurs when your stomach lining becomes swollen or inflamed. Learn more about its causes and symptoms. Pancreatitis Diet: What's a Pancreatitis Diet? What foods can you eat when on a pancreatitis diet and what should you avoid? Bowel cancer, also called colorectal cancer or colon cancer, includes cancer of your large bowel and cancer of your back passage (rectal cancer). It’s the fourth. ![]() That being said, none of this means that I won’t on occasion take requests, particularly when more than one reader emails me about a topic. So it was that, over the last few days, I’ve had several of you send me a link to this book review, which appeared in the Irish press on Sunday, specifically Independent. It’s by the book editor (John Spain) and entitled The Dublin doctor who is beating cancer. It’s subtitled John Spain on what is probably the most important book to be published here this year. The book is entitled Stop Feeding your Cancer, and it’s by a Dublin GP named John Kelly. Spain characterizes it thusly. It may seem an extraordinary statement to make, given the billions poured into cancer research by multinational pharma companies and medical research facilities. But a new book by a veteran GP on the northside of Dublin may well offer the first real proof that a way has been found to beat cancer. Depending on the cancer, there are already several ways to “beat cancer.” If you have early stage breast cancer, for instance, surgery combined with radiation . Heck, even if it’s stage III cancer, patients have a reasonable chance of living 1. As long as the cancer hasn’t spread beyond the lymph nodes under the arm, breast cancer is potentially “beatable.” The same is true for other cancers. Lymphomas and leukemias can be cured with a combination of chemotherapy . Other solid tumors can be cured with a combination of surgery . This book review has thus started out with a breathtakingly ignorant statement. That does not bode well for the quality of the rest of the review or how well Spain understands cancer. Such is life. Spain continues. In Stop Feeding your Cancer, Dr John Kelly does not produce a “cure” for cancer. Instead he presents convincing evidence, based on the experience of his own patients, which shows that cancer can be stopped in its tracks and even reversed into a dormant state, allowing sufferers to regain good health and lead normal lives. The core of this approach is the discovery a decade ago of a direct link between the consumption of animal protein and the development of cancer. Cancer cells need protein to divide and flourish. Cut off the supply of animal protein and you can stop the growth and spread of cancer cells. You can starve the cancer into submission. As so many promoters of medical pseudoscience have done, he’s collected anecdotes from his practice. As they say, when it comes to medicine, the plural of “anecdote” is usually not “data,” and this sounds like an excellent example of this phenomenon. But first, why does Kelly think that cutting out animal protein will treat cancer? According to Spain, Kelly based this idea on the China Study. I don’t believe I’ve ever written about the China Study before, but Harriet Hall has, not just once but twice. It’s an epidemiological study of diet and health conducted in villages throughout China by Colin Campbell of Cornell University. It was first published in the US in 2. It’s also a favorite of advocates of “raw food” and vegan diets as a panacea because the major claim made in the book is that we can prevent or cure nearly all diseases (heart disease, cancer, diabetes, autoimmune diseases, bone, kidney, eye and other diseases) if only we would give up meat and dairy products entirely, drastically decrease our protein intake, and eat a strictly plant- based diet. You can see why such a view would be attractive. Unfortunately, Campbell’s book, aside from being a book rather than a study subjected to the peer- reviewed scientific literature, has a lot of problems, as related by Harriet Hall: References whose conclusions are not as represented in the book and do not support Campbell’s thesis, including a citation that touts the quackery that is the Gerson protocol; downplaying and even failing to mention research whose results do not agree with the China study; and finally shoddy research. Indeed, a reanalysis of the raw data of the China study by Denise Minger found many weaknesses and errors, including finding no direct correlation between animal protein intake and cancer and many others. Meanwhile, a lot of follow up research failed to validate the findings reported in the China study. Seriously, Spain (and Kelly) really need to read this roundup of science- based analyses and criticisms of the China study. Spain, for instance, is completely unskeptical of the claims made in the China study and swallows what Kelly says about it, who in turn swallowed what Campbell claimed. So, basically, right off the bat, Kelly is proceeding from a flawed premise. It’s just not as simple as Campbell or Kelly makes it out to be and there exists, either in the China study or elsewhere, strong evidence that a vegan diet can cure cancer. Unfortunately, Kelly’s survey of his patients doesn’t provide such evidence either, although you wouldn’t know that from Spain’s description of the book. And the results, which he details in his book Stop Feeding your Cancer, are jaw dropping. As in any large GP practise in Ireland, a number of Kelly’s patients develop cancer every year. He began to tell them about the link, gave them a copy of The China Study, and suggested they go on an animal protein free diet (no meat, no dairy produce). At the same time he continued to refer them on to cancer specialists in the normal way and did not try to dissuade them from having whatever surgery, radiotherapy or chemotherapy might be recommended. What emerged is truly extraordinary. All of the patients who adopted the animal protein- free diet and stuck to it strictly found that their cancer stopped growing and spreading. The tumours became dormant, sometimes even reducing in size. Since all of these patients were also having conventional cancer treatment, it was not possible to categorically say they had been saved by the diet alone. But conventional cancer treatment alone does not have this success rate and in many cases the specialists involved were amazed at the recovery of the patient. Invariably, the specialists put the recovery down to surgery or chemotherapy.)Kelly gives the full details of over half a dozen cases in the book, including profiles of the patients and their lifestyles. The cases cover prostate, lung, colon, bowel, brain and other cancers. In some cases the patients stuck rigidly to the diet; in others they became complacent as they got better and could not resist going back to having steaks and fry- ups when their specialists gave them the all clear – whereupon their cancers came back. We have no inclusion criteria other than cancer and apparently no exclusion criteria. The patients were treated normally. Are there any statistics on these patients? What stages? What cancers? What treatments? Are these all detailed systematically? Was there approval from an ethics board, the Irish equivalent of institutional review boards (IRBs) in the US? After all, this “field trial run,” as Kelly describes it, is basically a clinical trial. How do we know that this isn’t simply a massive case of confirmation bias, very much like when the Home. First Clinic in Chicago, a practice that does not vaccinate, famously claimed that it had no autistic children in its practice. Mighty convenient—isn’t it?—that the only patients who seemingly suffered progression of their cancer were ones who had “fallen off the wagon” as far as their vegan diet goes. Particularly telling is this passage. The personal stories he gives are very human as patients try to stick with the diet, the disease comes and goes and the patients swing between despair and elation. Invasive treatments run alongside attempts to keep to the diet. I don’t think it’s being done intentionally, but rather as a means of rationalizing why not every patient on the vegan diet did as well as Kelly apparently expected. All of this makes Spain’s description of him as “scrupulously scientific” as doubtful at best, although the description of Kelly as “open- minded” brings to mind the crack about being so open- minded that your brains fall out. Patients who didn’t stick to the diet weren’t the only patients who didn’t do well. Not surprisingly, given its deadliness, patients with pancreatic cancer weren’t miraculously cured by switching to a vegan diet. Unfortunately, it is an explanation that is neither convincing nor rooted in reality. When I read this review, I had a hard time believing that Kelly doesn’t realize how physiologically nonsensical his explanation for why vegan diets won’t cure pancreatic cancer is. There is one exception to this, pancreatic cancer, the virulent form that killed Brian Lenihan and is usually fatal. But far from undermining the diet theory, Kelly, who has lost several patients to pancreatic cancer including his own brother, says this is actually an exception that proves the rule. The reason the animal protein free diet does not work against pancreatic cancer and some gastric cancers, he explains, is that the pancreas itself produces animal protein. Home Remedies for Gallbladder: Cures & Herbs for Gallbladder Problems. The gallbladder is tucked up underneath the liver on the right side of the body. Its main function is to store bile – historically called “gall” – which is produced by the liver and carried to the common hepatic duct and the gallbladder through a series of tubules or ducts (bile ducts) embedded in the liver tissue. Normally 3- 5 inches long, an inch wide and shaped like a tiny eggplant, the gallbladder can store about 1/4 cup of bile. A tube called the cystic duct connects the gallbladder to the larger common hepatic duct to form the common bile duct. Not all bile goes to the gallbladder; some of it flows directly from the liver to the common hepatic duct to the common bile duct. The bile that goes to the gallbladder becomes concentrated by removal of fluids. When a meal is eaten, hormonal signals cause the gallbladder to contract and eject its bile. Just before it connects with the duodenum or the first section of the small intestine, the pancreatic duct joins with common bile duct. A ring of muscle called the Sphincter of Oddi regulates passage of both bile and pancreatic juices into the small intestine. There the bile mixes with food that has come from the stomach and helps to emulsify and digest fats. Gallbladder Disorders. Gallstones. Conditions that interfere with the flow of bile are the common sources of gallbladder disorders. Chief among these are the occurrence of gallstones (choleliths). Gallstones can be like sand grains or as large as a walnut. There are two main types of gallstones, pigment gallstones, made mostly of bilirubin, which is the breakdown product of red blood cells, and calcium salts and cholesterol gallstones. Cholesterol gallstones are commonest and are yellowish or greenish in color. Pigment gallstones are dark- colored, either brown ones found in the bile duct or black ones found in the gallbladder. The liver synthesizes about one- quarter of the body’s daily cholesterol requirement, and it is fed into the bile along with other liver products. The liver oxidizes some cholesterol into bile salts, also called bile acids. Gallstones cause problems when they become large or numerous enough to block bile flow within the liver, the gallbladder or the ducts between the gallbladder and small intestine. People often have gallstones but do not have symptoms (silent gallstones), in which case they are not of medical concern. The presence of gallstones in the gallbladder is called cholelithiasis; if they occur in bile ducts the condition is called choledocholithiasis. Gallstones can also block the pancreatic duct, leading to pancreatitis. Symptoms. The symptoms of gallstone blockage, usually referred to as a gallstone attack or biliary colic, are pain in the upper right, sometimes central, abdominal region, nausea, vomiting, referred pain between the shoulder blades or below the right shoulder blade. Abdominal pain can be severe and is due to the swelling of the gallbladder and/or ducts as bile builds up due to the blockage or the passage of stones through a duct. Presence of gas and burping can also occur. Consuming a lot of food at one sitting can trigger an attack. Often attacks occur during the night. Gallstones can move about, and symptoms often abate as they reposition themselves or are excreted and allow a renewed flow of bile. Symptoms of more advanced gallstones, where the blockage remains in place for longer periods of time or if infection sets in, are chills and fever, jaundice or a yellow tinge to skin and eyes, pain that doesn’t go away, and light- colored stools. It is the presence of bile that gives stools the characteristic brown color. When such symptoms occur, medical help should be sought immediately. Causes. Gallstone formation is thought to be influenced by inherited factors, by conditions that affect how often and how well the gallbladder empties, and bile imbalances such as excess cholesterol or bilirubin or lower levels of bile salts. For instance, elevated levels of estrogens encourage the liver to increase the amount of cholesterol in bile. This higher amount of cholesterol in bile, plus possible imbalance in bile salts, which are necessary to keep the cholesterol in a liquid state, makes gallstone formation more likely. Progesterones reduce the movement of the gallbladder so that it doesn’t empty as often or as completely, allowing bile to concentrate further and crystals of cholesterol or precipitates of bilirubin and bile salts to form. These clump together and harden to form gallstones. If there are narrow places or constrictions along any of the ducts between the gallbladder and the duodenum, blockages can more readily lodge in those areas. People who have decreased gut motility and hence decreased gallbladder activity due to such causes as being bedridden, limited food intake, or nutrition by IV are also susceptible to gallbladder disorders. These people are likely to produce not gallstones but “sludge” or pseudoliths – small particles of cholesterol, calcium and bile salts which can also produce blockages. Risk Factors. Risk is elevated in the following categories: womenoverweight people. Caucasian, Hispanic, Native American. Prevention Tips. Estrogen and progestin. Since being female is a risk factor, female hormones estrogen and progestin are implicated in the eventual expression of symptomatic gallbladder disease. The increase of estrogen after pregnancy can be lessened when a woman breast- feeds her child, since milk production keeps her estrogen level low. Considerations should also be given to the amounts of estrogen in birth control formulations and in hormone replacement therapy given around the onset of menopause. The length of use is also important. Hormone replacement therapy has been shown to signficantly increase the number of gallbladder surgeries done. Maintaining a healthy body weight. Being overweight increases the risk of getting gallbladder disease. In addition, fat tissue produces estrogen, which is a risk factor for developing gallbladder disorders. Dietary considerations. Eating regular meals of moderate size and foods high in fiber content helps intestinal tract and gallbladder motility, reducing the likelihood of infrequent or partial gallbladder emptying. Reduced intake of foods high in trans- fatty acids and saturated fats is recommended. Conversely, not having enough fat in the diet can also predispose toward gallbladder disease. Fat in food is the stimulus to produce the hormone cholecystokinin (CCK), which triggers the contraction of the gallbladder to expel its contents. In the absence of fat in foods, gallbladder activity is lessened and gallstones have more of an opportunity to form. Testing and Diagnosing. When symptoms suggest gallstone disease, detecting their presence or absence is necessary. There are other serious conditions such as appendicitis, ulcers, hiatal hernia, pancreatitis, heart attack, hepatitis which give mid- or right- abdomen pain, and these need to be considered and ruled out since the presence of gallstones alone doesn’t necessarily cause symptoms. Laboratory studies. These are usually most helpful in diagnosing other conditions that may give abdominal pain. They are not as useful in diagnosis of gallbladder disease except if an infection (cholecystitis) is present. Even then, elevated white blood cell counts are not present in one- third of patients. Some blood tests may indicate the possible location of the problem – if transaminase is high, the liver; if bilirubin and alkalkine phosphatase are high, the common bile duct could be obstructed. Imaging Techniques. Ultrasound. Gallstones larger than 2 mm can be imaged by ultrasound (sonogram). Noninvasive, with no radiation risk or exposure to contrast dyes, and less expensive than most other options, ultrasound is the diagnostic tool of choice. Images can also reveal if the gallbladder wall has thickened or if the gallbladder is enlarged, both further signs of gallbladder disease. Classic x- rays. X- rays are used in conjunction with dye tablets swallowed by the patient in doing an oral cholecystogram or OCG. The dye improves the visibility of stones when the gallbladder is x- rayed. Another test, the percutaneous transhepatic colangiogram, uses x- rays in conjunction with an injected contrast dye to image the progress of dye through the biliary system on a fluoroscope. CT scans (Computerized tomography)This serves as a secondary tool following sonograms to further image areas of interest. CT scans are used to find stones within the liver’s system of ducts and to delineate the possibility of persistent infections. Scintigraphy is helpful in imaging blockage of bile ducts within the liver or of the cystic duct. This technique is part of nuclear medicine, where aharmless radioactive isoptope is administered intravenously and its eventual location in the body is mapped by a device which detects radioactivity. ERCP (Endoscopic Retrograde Cholangiopancreatography)This outpatient procedure is used to view the inside of the duodenum where the common bile duct enters. It helps evaluate any blockages as well as conditions of the sphincter and ducts. After sedation, a thin tube is put from the mouth into the stomach and then into the small intestine. There is a light and an imaging device – either fiberoptic or video chip – at the end of the tube. Small tools can also be used to take tissue samples and perform other tasks. Treatment Options. Surgical removal of the gallbladder or cholecystectomy. When gallstones are found present and symptoms occur and recur, treatment of choice is removal of the gallbladder. The biliary system is still able to function without the gallbladder. Bile flows directly from the liver to the small intestine. Removal can be done laparoscopically or by traditional open surgery involving a 4- 7 inch abdominal incision. In laparoscopic sugery, 3- 4 small incisions are made at designated points on the abdomen.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
October 2017
Categories |