Anorexia nervosa protects from cancer?

Hardly a sensible approach to breast ca prevention!

If you think about the role of estrogen in some breast cancer and how
adipose tissue is associated with estrogen, it makes perfect sense. It is
like the runners who lose so much body fat they stop menstruating. I wonder
if it is the caloric restriction as opposed to the amount of body fat
leading to this reduction in the rate of cancer. Seems to me that the
latter would be a healthier solution. Also, I seem to have read somewhere
that obesity does increase the risk of breast cancer again, supporting the
notion that it is the amount of body fat rather than calories.

j
"Ignoramus16578" wrote in message
...
JAMA, March 10, 2004?Vol 291, No. 10
Caloric Restriction and Incidence of Breast Cancer
Karin B. Michels, Anders Ekbom

Design, Setting, and Participants Retrospective cohort study ....
Participants were 7303 Swedish women hos-pitalized for anorexia
nervosa prior to age 40 years between 1965 and 1998. Women were
excluded (n=31) if they were diagnosed with cancer prior to their
first +discharge from hospitalization for anorexia nervosa....

Results Compared with the Swedish general population, women
hospitalized for anorexia nervosa prior to age 40 years had a 53% (95%
confidence interval [CI], 3%-81%) lower incidence of breast cancer;
nulliparous women with anorexia +ner-vosa had a 23% (95% CI, 79%
higher to 75% lower) lower incidence, and parous women with anorexia
nervosa had a 76% (95% CI, 13%-97%) lower incidence.

Conlusions Severe caloric restriction in humans may confer protection
from +inva-sive breast cancer. Low caloric intake prior to first birth
followed by a subsequent pregnancy appears to be associated with an
even more pronounced reduction in risk.

RESTRICTING CALORIC INTAKE is one of the most effective ways to extend
lifespan and to reduce spontaneous tumor occurrence in experimental
animals.1,2 Caloric restriction has an important protective role in
experi-mental mammary carcinogenesis.3,4 A recent meta-analysis
summarized the available evidence of the effect of energy restriction
on spontaneous mammary tumors in mice.5 The com-bined estimate for the
14 included studies implied that the energy-restricted animals
developed 55% (95% confidence interval [CI], 41%-69%) fewer mammary
tumors than did those in the control groups, irre-spective of the type
of restricted nutri-ent.5 The authors called for dietary cohort
studies to gain insight into the effects of energy restriction on
devel-opment of breast cancer in humans.5

Ignoramus16578 wrote:

So, eating less seems to be beneficial, unless it becomes starvation.

Wrong conclusion. Having less fat is beneficial to the reduction in
occurance of estrogen-related cancer.

Dally

"Julianne" wrote in message
news:ga04c.14944$PY.1588@lakeread05...
Hardly a sensible approach to breast ca prevention!

Well, yeah. If you do not stop being an anorexic you will DIE before cancer
has a chance to ever form. It's a no-brainer and the OP should have thought
about it. I'm beginning to think he has the beginnings of anorexia.

Martha

If you think about the role of estrogen in some breast cancer and how
adipose tissue is associated with estrogen, it makes perfect sense. It is
like the runners who lose so much body fat they stop menstruating. I
wonder
if it is the caloric restriction as opposed to the amount of body fat
leading to this reduction in the rate of cancer. Seems to me that the
latter would be a healthier solution. Also, I seem to have read somewhere
that obesity does increase the risk of breast cancer again, supporting the
notion that it is the amount of body fat rather than calories.

j
"Ignoramus16578" wrote in message
...
JAMA, March 10, 2004?Vol 291, No. 10
Caloric Restriction and Incidence of Breast Cancer
Karin B. Michels, Anders Ekbom

Design, Setting, and Participants Retrospective cohort study ....
Participants were 7303 Swedish women hos-pitalized for anorexia
nervosa prior to age 40 years between 1965 and 1998. Women were
excluded (n=31) if they were diagnosed with cancer prior to their
first +discharge from hospitalization for anorexia nervosa....

Results Compared with the Swedish general population, women
hospitalized for anorexia nervosa prior to age 40 years had a 53% (95%
confidence interval [CI], 3%-81%) lower incidence of breast cancer;
nulliparous women with anorexia +ner-vosa had a 23% (95% CI, 79%
higher to 75% lower) lower incidence, and parous women with anorexia
nervosa had a 76% (95% CI, 13%-97%) lower incidence.

Conlusions Severe caloric restriction in humans may confer protection
from +inva-sive breast cancer. Low caloric intake prior to first birth
followed by a subsequent pregnancy appears to be associated with an
even more pronounced reduction in risk.

RESTRICTING CALORIC INTAKE is one of the most effective ways to extend
lifespan and to reduce spontaneous tumor occurrence in experimental
animals.1,2 Caloric restriction has an important protective role in
experi-mental mammary carcinogenesis.3,4 A recent meta-analysis
summarized the available evidence of the effect of energy restriction
on spontaneous mammary tumors in mice.5 The com-bined estimate for the
14 included studies implied that the energy-restricted animals
developed 55% (95% confidence interval [CI], 41%-69%) fewer mammary
tumors than did those in the control groups, irre-spective of the type
of restricted nutri-ent.5 The authors called for dietary cohort
studies to gain insight into the effects of energy restriction on
devel-opment of breast cancer in humans.5

MH wrote:
"Julianne" wrote in message
news:ga04c.14944$PY.1588@lakeread05...

Hardly a sensible approach to breast ca prevention!


Well, yeah. If you do not stop being an anorexic you will DIE before cancer
has a chance to ever form. It's a no-brainer and the OP should have thought
about it. I'm beginning to think he has the beginnings of anorexia.

Martha

I think he just has an avid fascination with the 120-year-life ideas
that recommend eating a very low calorie diet forever. The
near-starvation diet appeals to some people as a way to ascert their
extreme discipline. Judging by his other regimens - an hour + a day of
walking, never eating after 6 pm, etc, I'd say this appeals to him.

Igor, your fascination with starving to death (I remember some other
posts on this subject) is starting to be a little unnerving. Maybe you
should talk to someone about this!

Dally (other than us, I mean)

"Ignoramus16578" wrote in message
...
In article ga04c.14944$PY.1588@lakeread05, Julianne wrote:
Hardly a sensible approach to breast ca prevention!

true.

If you think about the role of estrogen in some breast cancer and how
adipose tissue is associated with estrogen, it makes perfect sense. It
is
like the runners who lose so much body fat they stop menstruating. I
wonder
if it is the caloric restriction as opposed to the amount of body fat
leading to this reduction in the rate of cancer. Seems to me that the
latter would be a healthier solution.

You are suggesting that CR is better than anorexia, right?

Also, I seem to have read somewhere
that obesity does increase the risk of breast cancer again, supporting
the
notion that it is the amount of body fat rather than calories.

Good points.

Here's what I understand. Calorie restriction has been studied for a
long time in various animals such as rodents and even
monkeys. Everywhere, calorie restriction coupled with adequate
nutrition (not Auschwitz style nutrition), produced great health
improvements and increased mean and maximum lifespan.

There has not been a formal study of CR in humans. So, some
researchers noted that anorexics somewhat emulate CR, and anorexics
also often eat relatively good food, just very little. No one claims
that anorexia is a healthy thing to do, as they could lose too much
weight and die from starvation. Unlike anorexia, CR is not starvation
in that the objective of CR is to reduce calories, but no to the
levels that are dangerous to health.

Anyway, all that it means is that anorexics are an interesting group
that sometimes emulate CR. Especially the anorexics who starve for
wrong reasons, but cannot quite starve to actually die, due to
their [fortunate] lack of willpower.

As for female reproductive cancers, they have been linked to
estrogen. CR does lower estrogen (and also lowers male hormones in
men), hence, possibly, a part of its protective effect on breast ca is
due to that. Also, CR means lower levels of blood glucose and
oxidative damage to DNA, so that could account for lower mutation
rate, as an independent factor.

That's my understanding and it is pretty limited.

So, eating less seems to be beneficial, unless it becomes starvation.

i
223/174/180

Eating less than what? Obviously, eating less than the average seems
healthy as it appears that the average person eats too much in the USA.

Still, there are two ways to decrease percentage of body fat. One is to
lose body fat and the other is to gain lean tissue. If you think about it,
the normal process of aging leads to less lean body mass and more adipose
tissue. And, since the incidence of most cancers increases with age, it
seems to reason that at the cellular level, the aging body is less resistant
to influences that cause mutations. So, ideally, reversing the aging
process is the key. Alas, we cannot do this.

We can mimic youth by behaving as younger folks do. We can exercise, add or
maintain lean body mass and increase our metabolism. Also, exercise
improves many other endocrine functions including regulation of insulin,
estrogen, hGH, etc. There are probably many more but I am challenged when
it comes to the endocrine system.

So, maybe, caloric restriction can help but I cannot see that reversing
ratios of fat to lean tissue as much as exercise can (except in severely
anorexic patients) so therefore, I vote for exercise to decrease total body
fat percentages.

j

"Julianne" wrote in message
news:sk94c.15275$PY.5208@lakeread05...

Eating less than what? Obviously, eating less than the average seems
healthy as it appears that the average person eats too much in the USA.

Still, there are two ways to decrease percentage of body fat. One is to
lose body fat and the other is to gain lean tissue. If you think about
it,
the normal process of aging leads to less lean body mass and more adipose
tissue. And, since the incidence of most cancers increases with age, it
seems to reason that at the cellular level, the aging body is less
resistant
to influences that cause mutations. So, ideally, reversing the aging
process is the key. Alas, we cannot do this.

We can mimic youth by behaving as younger folks do. We can exercise, add
or
maintain lean body mass and increase our metabolism. Also, exercise
improves many other endocrine functions including regulation of insulin,
estrogen, hGH, etc. There are probably many more but I am challenged when
it comes to the endocrine system.

So, maybe, caloric restriction can help but I cannot see that reversing
ratios of fat to lean tissue as much as exercise can (except in severely
anorexic patients) so therefore, I vote for exercise to decrease total
body
fat percentages.

j

First off, it is painfully (for us readers) obvious that ig knows nothing
about anorexia. Anorexia is NOT, repeat NOT about food. It is about power,
control and lack of self esteem.

Young women and some men become anorexics because frequently, it is the only
part of their lives where they are in control. It certainly was with me. I
couldn't the horrible things that were happening to me, but boy I could
control what I ate. Everytime I saw myself in the mirror, I saw a big, fat
person, yet I was underweight by at least 15 pounds.

Anorexia kills. If one suffers from this and they do not stop, they will
die. It eats away at their vital organs and finally their heart will give
up.

It is an extremely difficult addiction to stop. I don't know how many of you
saw the TV special on the ex-news reporter who looks like a concentration
camp victim, yet she could not be convinced to eat. (I wonder what's
happening with her now...) Anyway, anorexics have a terrible record. Many do
not stop and many die.

Martha
this thread wins the "Are You Freakin' Serious??" Award of the day

So, eating less seems to be beneficial, unless it becomes starvation.

Wrong conclusion. Having less fat is beneficial to the reduction in
occurance of estrogen-related cancer.

This is a little rant
I think a healthy way to live, is to not try and "avoid" things that cause
cancer, but to simply live life, and live it healthy. Eat right, exercise,
and try to enjoy the life we have.

Everything we do can cause cancer, breathing can cause cancer. I recently
found out, not having children, can cause ovarian cancer, cervical cancer,
breast cancer. Breathing the air we do, can cause lung cancer. Some of the
chemicals we injest can cause liver cancer, brain cancer. Men with too much
testosterone are prone to prostate cancer. Busy people who work too much
and don't take breaks are prone to colon cancer, and kidney cancer.

We are all going to die some day. That is inevitable, something you have no
choice over. So why not choose to life life to the fullest, in the way that
makes you happy. Live life to the fullest, and the healthiest you can, and
you will probably be a happier person than if you had worried all your life
about what was cancer causing and what wasn't. I'm not saying to
deliberately put yourself in front of the mac truck, but don't avoid going
for a walk because you might get hit by a truck.

Meaghan
who's had a long bad day, and is appologizing now if this offends anyone





---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.590 / Virus Database: 373 - Release Date: 2/16/2004

"Meaghan" wrote in message ...

So, eating less seems to be beneficial, unless it becomes starvation.

Wrong conclusion. Having less fat is beneficial to the reduction in
occurance of estrogen-related cancer.

This is a little rant
I think a healthy way to live, is to not try and "avoid" things that cause
cancer, but to simply live life, and live it healthy. Eat right, exercise,
and try to enjoy the life we have.

Everything we do can cause cancer, breathing can cause cancer. I recently
found out, not having children, can cause ovarian cancer, cervical cancer,
breast cancer. Breathing the air we do, can cause lung cancer. Some of the
chemicals we injest can cause liver cancer, brain cancer. Men with too much
testosterone are prone to prostate cancer. Busy people who work too much
and don't take breaks are prone to colon cancer, and kidney cancer.

The biggest cause of cancer is growing old. If you live long enough
you will eventually get cancer. So, the best way to avoid cancer is to
die of something else first.

Renee

Ignoramus28275 wrote:
In article , Renee wrote:

Try going to a cancer center somewhere accompanying an incurable
patient, and see if that changes your mind. Cancer is horrifying, once
you witness how it progresses, personally. Pain, false hopes,
confusion, desperation, doctors giving up on you etc.

Really? My mother used to be a home health nurse in a hospice program
and she was always enlisting me to come help at dying people's houses.
I saw sorrow and adjustments and sometimes despair, but also joy and
contentment and chances to say good-bye.

We depersonalize it a little bit and hide what it really is like, so
to us it is an abstract risk like a risk of being killed by a falling
brick. A statistic. Truth is, it is much better to be killed by a
brick than by cancer.

I just heard an interesting conversation about this from cancer
sufferers. Their consensus (overwhelmingly) is that they'd prefer to
die from cancer than any sudden death. Cancer gives them time for
closure and lets the relatives ease into it. Sudden deaths are terribly
traumatic for their families in a way that a gradual sickening isn't.

The only death they preferred was "in their sleep of extreme old age."

The biggest cause of cancer is growing old. If you live long enough
you will eventually get cancer. So, the best way to avoid cancer is to
die of something else first.

That is not true.

True enough. Getting old doesn't CAUSE cancer (I don't think) but it
certainly increases your odds that some cells will be abnormal during
your life just based on having a longer life.

When my grandmother was in her 80's she used to marvel that she was the
only one of her friends with boobs. She lived until 90 and died in her
sleep with her daughter holding her hand, of congestive heart failure.
(Now that's what I call a good death.) I'm wearing the shoes right now
that we bought when we went shopping together three weeks before she died.

Dally

"Dally" wrote in message
...
Ignoramus28275 wrote:
In article , Renee
wrote:

Try going to a cancer center somewhere accompanying an incurable
patient, and see if that changes your mind. Cancer is horrifying, once
you witness how it progresses, personally. Pain, false hopes,
confusion, desperation, doctors giving up on you etc.

Really? My mother used to be a home health nurse in a hospice program
and she was always enlisting me to come help at dying people's houses.
I saw sorrow and adjustments and sometimes despair, but also joy and
contentment and chances to say good-bye.

Wendy, your mom must be really cool! Most of my work is in home health,
nursing homes and I do a little work for a couple of hospices. I love the
hospice nurses. I just completed a review of a large hospice looking for
areas where improvement could be noted. I do these 'mock' surveys for a lot
of clients. It is only in the Hospice ones that I can't find problems in
delivery of care. More importantly, I always feel so good in a hospice.
Who would have thought that spending the afternoon reviewing clinical
records of terminally ill patients would be one of the most pleasant ways I
could find to spend a day!

Death is a part of life - not necessarily one I want to happen at the
moment, but still a part of life. I would have never thought that death
could be as peaceful, beautiful as the first death I ever had as a nurse.
True story. A woman in her late 80's was admitted to the CCU when I was
still in orientation right out of nursing school. She was spry and
delightful and had opinions she was willing to share. Later in the
afternoon, her cardiologist came to me and told me I could give her whatever
I wanted to make her comfortable - Lasix and morphine for CHF, she could eat
whatever she wanted and I could extend visiting hours for as long as her
family desired. I thought the doc was nuts. He said she had the largest MI
he had ever seen and there was no chance for this sweet patient. I left
that night after watching Gone with the Wind with her in her room in CCU -
after all she didn't appear to be sick to me.

I got to work the next morning and she was breathing 40 times a minute on
100 percent oxygen. (Try breathing 40 times a minute or ten times in 15
seconds - it is exhausting.) She was pale, diurphoretic and I thought a
little out there neurologically. Her heart rate was very, very fast trying
to make up what it lost in strength by beating more often. I went in to
assess her and thought she might like a little OJ reasoning her mouth had to
be dry breathng that fast.

"Look at the woman up there with her bare feet." she said to me as I
approached the bed.

"Sweetheart, there is no woman up there and shoes are required in the
hospital setting," I responded. "Here, have some orange juice."

"You don't see the lady with all the lambs," she asked.

"No, we don't allow animals here, I told her matter-of-factly. "Have a sip
of juice,"

"Look at the man with the halo," she said with a peaceful expression clearly
out of sorts with her physcial condition.

Now, I wasn't about to deny the man with the halo so I just said, "Here have
a sip of juice."

A half hour later, she asked me to open the door for her. She was looking
out the window. I explained that the door was on the other side of the room
and it was opened.

"No," she said. "I want to go through that door."

And she did. Her heart rate went from 140 to asystole just like that. In
all the years answering codes in the hospitals and cath labs I have only
seen that happen one other time. Most people have a series of arrythmias or
a gradual slowing down until a heart rate becomes 'agonal'. Only twice have
I seen, on a monitor, someone go from a fast regular heart rate to asystole.

I covered her with her crocheted blanket and called her family. I am not a
very religious person but I have never been surrounded by such warmth and
peace as her family said goodbye. It was sad - not tragic, not desperately
so. Just sad. And joyful. And peaceful.

I will tell you this, had I not had another patient die in a more regular
fashion later in the week, I would have never stayed a CCU nurse. The
emotional energy of that first death was like none I have experienced since.

So, death is part of life. Regardless of spiritual beliefs, I want to be as
ready for my death as my first dying patient was. I want my death to be a
part of my life and I want to share it with those who are special to me.



We depersonalize it a little bit and hide what it really is like, so
to us it is an abstract risk like a risk of being killed by a falling
brick. A statistic. Truth is, it is much better to be killed by a
brick than by cancer.

I just heard an interesting conversation about this from cancer
sufferers. Their consensus (overwhelmingly) is that they'd prefer to
die from cancer than any sudden death. Cancer gives them time for
closure and lets the relatives ease into it. Sudden deaths are terribly
traumatic for their families in a way that a gradual sickening isn't.

The only death they preferred was "in their sleep of extreme old age."

The biggest cause of cancer is growing old. If you live long enough
you will eventually get cancer. So, the best way to avoid cancer is to
die of something else first.

That is not true.

True enough. Getting old doesn't CAUSE cancer (I don't think) but it
certainly increases your odds that some cells will be abnormal during
your life just based on having a longer life.

When my grandmother was in her 80's she used to marvel that she was the
only one of her friends with boobs. She lived until 90 and died in her
sleep with her daughter holding her hand, of congestive heart failure.
(Now that's what I call a good death.) I'm wearing the shoes right now
that we bought when we went shopping together three weeks before she died.

My grandmother died at home, too. She broke her hip when she was 92 and
came to live with me when my son was an infant. Talk about a mess. The
infant and the old woman! She became increasingly senile after the surgery.
In retrospect, I would not have had her undergo surgery. She never
recovered from the anesthesia. Up until the day she broke her hip, she
lived by herself. Just before she died (at age 94), she started a
breathing pattern known as Cheyne Stokes which often precedes death. I sat
with her and held her hand. After she died, I called the coroner for legal
stuff and had the funeral home come get her body. I sat in my son's room
while he slept in the middle of the night and opened the window. For a
couple of hours, I sipped on wine and visited with my memories of Granny
Sarah - the woman she was long before the hip surgery. Later in the week,
she was buried.

Next week, we will celebrate my Grandmother's birthday. Yes, this is
retarded. We always enjoyed her birthdays as a reason for the family to get
together and we didn't see any reason to stop just because she died. Do
you?


Dally