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Wednesday, June 26, 2013

John Hopkins Cancer Alternative Research


AFTER YEARS OF TELLING PEOPLE CHEMOTHERAPY IS THE ONLY WAY TO TRY (TRY THE KEY WORD) AND ELIMINATE CANCER, JOHN HOPKINS IS FINALLY STARTING TO TELL YOU THERE IS AN ALTERNATIVE WAY


Cancer Update from John Hopkins:
1. Every person has cancer cells in the body. These cancer cells do not show up in the standard tests until they have multiplied to a few billion. When doctors tell cancer patients that there are no more cancer cells in their bodies after treatment, it just means the tests are unable to detect the cancer cells because they have not reached the detectable size.

2. Cancer cells occur between 6 to more than 10 times in a person's lifetime

3. When the person's immune system is strong the cancer cells will be destroyed and prevented from multiplying and forming tumors.

4. When a person has cancer it indicates the person has multiple nutritional deficiencies. These
could be due to genetic, environmental, food and lifestyle factors.

5. To overcome the multiple nutritional deficiencies, changing diet and including supplements will strengthen the immune system.

6. Chemotherapy involves poisoning the rapidly-growing cancer cells and also destroys rapidly-growing healthy cells in the bone marrow, gastro-intestinal tract etc, and can cause organ damage, like liver, kidneys, heart, lungs etc.

7. Radiation while destroying cancer cells also burns, scars and damages healthy cells, tissues and organs.

8. Initial treatment with chemotherapy and radiation will often reduce tumor size. However prolonged use of chemotherapy and radiation do not result in more tumor destruction.

9 When the body has too much toxic burden from chemotherapy and radiation the immune system is either compromised or destroyed, hence the person can succumb to various kinds of infections and complications.

10. Chemotherapy and radiation can cause cancer cells to mutate and become resistant and difficult to destroy. Surgery can also cause cancer cells to spread to other sites.

11. An effective way to battle cancer is to starve the cancer cells by not feeding it with the foods it needs to multiply.

CANCER CELLS FEED ON:

a. Sugar is a cancer-feeder. By cutting off sugar it cuts off one important food supply to the cancer cells. Sugar substitutes like NutraSweet, Equal,Spoonful, etc are made with Aspartame and it is harmful. A better natural substitute would be Manuka honey or molasses but only in very small amounts. Table salt has a chemical added to make it white in color. Better alternative is Bragg ' s aminos or sea salt.

b. Milk causes the body to produce mucus, especially in the gastro-intestinal tract. Cancer feeds on mucus. By cutting off milk and substituting with unsweetened soya milk cancer cells are being starved.

c. Cancer cells thrive in an acid environment. A meat-based diet is acidic and it is best to eat fish, and a little chicken rather than beef or pork. Meat also contains livestock antibiotics, growth hormones and parasites, which are all harmful, especially to people with cancer.

d. A diet made of 80% fresh vegetables and juice, whole grains,seeds, nuts and a little fruits help put the body into an alkaline environment.About 20% can be from cooked food including beans. Fresh vegetable juices provide live enzymes that are easily absorbed and reach down to cellular levels within 15 minutes to nourish and enhance growth of healthy cells. To obtain live enzymes for building healthy cells try and drink fresh vegetable juice (most vegetables including bean sprouts)and eat some raw vegetables 2 or 3 times a day. Enzymes are destroyed at
temperatures of 104 degrees F (40 degrees C).


e. Avoid coffee, tea, and chocolate, which have high caffeine.Green tea is a better alternative and has cancer-fighting properties. Water-best to drink purified water, or filtered, to avoid known toxins and heavy metals in tap water. Distilled water is acidic, avoid it.

12. Meat protein is difficult to digest and requires a lot of digestive enzymes. Undigested meat remaining in the intestines become putrified and leads to more toxic buildup.

13. Cancer cell walls have a tough protein covering. By refraining from or eating less meat it frees more enzymes to attack the protein walls of cancer cells and allows the body ' s killer cells to destroy the cancer cells.

14. Some supplements build up the immune system (IP6, Flor-ssence,Essiac, anti-oxidants, vitamins, minerals, EFAs etc.) to enable the body ' s own killer cells to destroy cancer cells. Other supplements like vitamin E are known to cause apoptosis, or programmed cell death, the body ' s normal method of disposing of damaged, unwanted, or unneeded cells.

15. Cancer is a disease of the mind, body, and spirit. A proactive and positive spirit will help the cancer warrior be a survivor. Anger, unforgiveness and bitterness put the body into a stressful and acidic environment. Learn to have a loving and forgiving spirit. Learn to relax and enjoy life.

16. Cancer cells cannot thrive in an oxygenated environment. Exercising daily, and deep breathing help to get more oxygen down to the cellular level. Oxygen therapy is another means employed to destroy cancer cells.

ADDITIONAL ADVICE FROM JOHN HOPKINS HOSPITAL: 

1. No plastic containers in microwave.

2. No water bottles in freezer.

3. No plastic wrap in microwave.

Johns Hopkins has recently sent this out in its newsletters. This information is being circulated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center as well. 


Dioxin chemicals causes cancer, especially breast cancer.
 

Dioxins are highly poisonous to the cells of our bodies.
 

Don't freeze your plastic bottles with water in them as this releases dioxins from the plastic.

Dr. Edward Fujimoto, Wellness Program Manager at Castle Hospital , was on a TV program to explain this health hazard. He talked about dioxins and how bad they are for us.. He said that we should not be heating our food in the microwave using plastic containers.

This especially applies to foods that contain fat. He said that the combination of fat, high heat, and plastics releases dioxin into the food and ultimately into the cells of the body. Instead, he recommends using glass, such as Corning Ware, Pyrex or ceramic containers for heating food. You get the same results, only without the dioxin. So such things as TV dinners, instant ramen and soups, etc., should be removed from the container and heated in something else.


Paper isn't bad but you don't know what is in the paper. It's just safer to use tempered glass, Corning Ware, etc. He reminded us that a while ago some of the fast food restaurants moved away from the foam containers to paper. The dioxin problem is one of the reasons.

Also, he pointed out that plastic wrap, such as Saran, is just as dangerous when placed over foods to be cooked in the microwave. As the food is nuked, the high heat causes poisonous toxins to actually melt out of the plastic wrap and drip into the food. Cover food with a paper towel instead.



The TV Show, THE DOCTORS also recently had a "Health Hearsay" portion of their show dedicated to answering common myths about the household microwave. 
You can watch that video here: 

Hope you found this article as interesting as we did. 
 

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Eviction Notice for Biofilms and Prosthetic Joint Infections

This is an extremely interesting article provided by the Mayo Clinic's Online Research Magazine:

Biofilms present a sticky challenge to a team of Mayo Clinic researchers seeking to eliminate them as a source of infection on artificial joints and other medical devices.
 Robin Patel, M.D., and Arlen D. Hanssen, M.D.
 
Location, location, location. People, it turns out, are not the only ones in search of prime real estate. One class of bacteria is just waiting for the opportunity to settle down on a shiny, new home — a prosthetic joint implant.

These bacteria might visit the neighborhood during surgery and then take up residence on metal or polyethylene hip, knee, shoulder or elbow replacements, on spine hardware, on indwelling catheters, or on other medical devices. The bacteria have a distinctive mode of growth that allows them to adhere to the surfaces of some medical devices and produce a slimy coating.

The combination of the adherent bacteria and the material they produce is called a biofilm. Biofilm bacteria grow slowly but with sticky determination to resist antibiotics and the immune system.
Many biofilm bacteria are bacteria that typically live normally and harmlessly on the skin. But when they hitch a ride inside the body from the skin during surgery, they can cause an infection that may only be cured by another surgery, often with replacement of the implant.

Robin Patel, M.D., a microbiologist and infectious diseases specialist at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., wants to foreclose on these bad neighbors. She began working on prosthetic joint infections and medical biofilms in the 1990s, and today her research continues in collaboration with a team of doctors, researchers and patients.

"Our group is gaining a better understanding of the pathogenesis of biofilm-associated infections with the goal of developing better diagnostics and treatment for our patients," Dr. Patel says.
Dr. Patel well understands that successful science is a team undertaking. She appreciates her collaboration with Mayo Clinic's huge orthopedic practice and the crucial role of patients who consent to donating their tissue samples to help future patients.

Her research team extends beyond the Mayo Clinic research community to postdoctoral fellows and scientists from all over the world. She also credits her crossover leadership in both the Infectious Diseases Laboratory and the Clinical Microbiology Laboratory for allowing her to recognize and facilitate what each area needs to promote the translation of research to the clinic.

"Collectively, we have expertise in bacteriology, orthopedic infection and surgery, molecular microbiology, medical biofilms, histopathology, and biostatistics," she says. "My research would not be successful without the right people in all of these areas."

Staphylococcus epidermidis biofilm growth after 24 hours. Live cells are stained green; the red represents dead cells.

 

A new field, new diagnostics

According to the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, more than 750,000 total hip and knee replacement surgeries are performed each year in the United States. As a result of the aging population, these numbers are expected to increase to 4 million by 2030. While most people enjoy dramatic benefit from the surgery, a small group — 1 to 2 percent, according to the National Institutes of Health — requires a second operation because of infection.

The prosthetic joint infection field is relatively new to medicine. In fact, the Musculoskeletal Infection Society only settled on a standard definition for prosthetic joint infection in November 2011.

Infection of joints with no implant is diagnosed by withdrawing fluid or sampling tissue around the joint, and then identifying the bacteria through culturing or assessing the number and type of inflammatory cells present. Initially, the same techniques were used to test for prosthetic joint infection, but their inadequacy soon became obvious.

In prosthetic joint infection, bacteria are found in low numbers and cell counts can vary depending on the type of microbe.

Dr. Patel's team showed that infections were commonly missed when judged on a single sample.

"Five or six samples are needed because the bacteria stick to the implant with little infiltration into the surrounding tissue," Dr. Patel says. "In addition, if the single specimen yields a bacterium that is normal skin flora, it can be impossible to differentiate between contamination and infection. With multiple samples, if more than one grows the same organism, this is strong evidence of infection."

Dr. Patel rejected the perception that the bacterial counts in tissue were low because there just weren't many organisms.

"I thought it likely that we were just not sampling where the bacteria were located — the implant," she says. "It was a thought that launched us on a long journey."
 
 
Mayo Clinic sonography researcher James F. Greenleaf, Ph.D.

 Ultrasound vs. biofilms

 Although infected prosthetic joints have a strong resistance to antibiotic therapy, the surgical cure rate is good, according to research published by Mayo Clinic infectious disease specialists.

Orthopedic surgeons clean out the infection and then decide whether or not to remove and exchange the implant. For the next set of experiments, Dr. Patel pounced on the opportunity to test removed implants, aided by Arlen D. Hanssen, M.D., an orthopedic surgeon at Mayo Clinic in Rochester.

"Dr. Hanssen has been working with me since the beginning of my career, giving me ideas and enrolling patients in our studies," Dr. Patel says. "He has been collecting specimens since the '90s that we are now testing with diagnostic assays custom designed for prosthetic joint infections."

A major challenge was to develop a technique that would expel the bacteria from the surface of implants. Working with James F. Greenleaf, Ph.D., an ultrasound researcher at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., Dr. Patel and her team experimented with ultrasound techniques.

They placed a sample removed implant in a plastic container filled with a salt solution. They then placed the container in a sonicator, a device used in science but often used to clean jewelry. They varied the time, power and frequency of the ultrasound waves that were generated.

The sonicator not only cleaned off the surface of the implant and separated the different cells but it also left the bacteria alive — important for the culture-based tests that followed.

"We think that the energy from the ultrasound agitates microbubbles until they explode, tearing the biofilm apart and releasing the bacteria from their protective layers," Dr. Patel explains. "So we hypothesized that more microbubbles would generate better results."
With more organisms available for culture, the researchers were able to set threshold numbers of bacteria that indicated infection.

An initial study of 331 patients with hip or knee prostheses, published by Dr. Patel and her colleagues in the New England Journal of Medicine in August 2007, showed the vortex-sonication combination to be a superior diagnostic technique because it only requires one culture and is more sensitive, yet it is just as specific as standard multiple-tissue cultures. The Mayo Clinic researchers later validated the results in spine hardware and shoulder and elbow prostheses.

 

Bench to bedside

In 2007, Mayo Clinic made the diagnostic technique available to its patients.
"It is so exciting to be able to affect a change that helps patients," Dr. Patel says.
After introducing the technique, Dr. Patel's team discovered an additional advantage — their technique was faster, so appropriate treatment could begin earlier, eliminating days from a patient's hospital stay.

Now, Dr. Patel hopes to develop a diagnostic test that's even faster so that surgeons can detect biofilm bacteria while the patient is still in the operating room — avoiding the wait for culture results. She has a grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to develop a novel, rapid and sensitive molecular diagnostic for prosthetic joint infections using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assays.


PCR-based testing is a three-step process:

First, DNA is extracted from bacteria in a patient tissue sample. Next, the DNA is amplified (copied) to increase the amount available for testing. Finally, the amplified DNA is probed to identify the type of infection.

PCR tests in other areas of microbiology have established that they are more accurate and have a shorter turnaround time than does culture-based testing, which varies but can take as long as two weeks. Turnaround times for PCR assays can be less than an hour.
If Dr. Patel is successful in creating this first PCR test for biofilms, it means that surgeons may be more successful in removing all the infection the first time and a patient may be able to avoid follow-up procedures.


Electrical Current

Dr. Patel is also taking an entirely different approach to eliminating biofilms — using electric current.
To pursue this novel technique, Dr. Patel secured a second major grant from the NIH and has launched a large number of studies targeting biofilms with a low amount of electric current both continuously and intermittently and for varying amounts of time — from several hours to several days.
Early results have indicated that the electric current is active against some biofilm-related bacteria. Dr. Patel cautions that much more research is needed before this approach can be validated for patient therapies.
However, if she is successful, Dr. Patel and her team will be able to offer new and better methods for evicting biofilms from prosthetic implants.


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