Bottom Line Health
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| Myth: It's okay to keep smoking after a lung cancer diagnosis. Some people believe that because the damage is done, they don't have to quit smoking—but those who continue to smoke after a lung cancer diagnosis have significantly poorer outcomes than those who quit. There's also evidence that the chemicals in cigarette smoke interfere with radiation and chemotherapy. lung cancer patients who quit smoking respond better to the treatments.
Important: lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths in men and women. Lung tissue gradually returns to normal when people quit smoking. |
Elaine Magee
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 Beta-carotene, the phytochemical supplement once thought to reduce the risk of cancer, was found to actually increase the risk of lung cancer in smokers. The results from large, controlled trials of beta-carotene supplementation provide striking evidence of adverse effects in smokers (more lung cancer than expected, as well as overall mortality). But the harm may be in taking large amounts of beta-carotene all by itself, via supplements; numerous past studies indicated that people who eat the most vegetables and fruit and foods rich in carotenoids have the lowest risk of lung cancer. |
Bottom Line Health
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| Some people believe that because the damage is done, they don't have to quit smoking—but those who continue to smoke after a lung cancer diagnosis have significantly poorer outcomes than those who quit. There's also evidence that the chemicals in cigarette smoke interfere with radiation and chemotherapy. lung cancer patients who quit smoking respond better to the treatments.
Important: lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths in men and women. Lung tissue gradually returns to normal when people quit smoking. |
Gerald E. Markle and Frances B. McCrea
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 The entire chapter on lung cancer screening is but three pages in length (about one-quarter the length of other chapters) and offers a grim assessment for lung cancer screening. The implications for our book are clear: that for this most dangerous of all cancers, medical prophylaxis accomplishes little.
Colorectal Cancer. For this second most dangerous of all cancers, screening appears to improve survival rates. Fecal blood screening could reduce mortality by 15 to 21% over ten years, meaning that annual testing of 500 to 1,000 people for ten years might prevent one death. But at what price? |
| For example, standard medical practice focuses considerable resources on the diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer with very little success. Five year survival rates are about 13%, a figure which unfortunately has not improved in several decades. In an accompanying editorial titled, "The Immediate vs the Important," two physicians, themselves authors of a groundbreaking 1993 article on the same subject, called for a different approach for treating lung cancer. |
| The entire chapter on lung cancer screening is but three pages in length (about one-quarter the length of other chapters) and offers a grim assessment for lung cancer screening. The implications for our book are clear: that for this most dangerous of all cancers, medical prophylaxis accomplishes little.
Colorectal Cancer. For this second most dangerous of all cancers, screening appears to improve survival rates. Fecal blood screening could reduce mortality by 15 to 21% over ten years, meaning that annual testing of 500 to 1,000 people for ten years might prevent one death. But at what price? |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 Kenneth Warner polled the SAB's 13 current members, asking, 'Do you believe that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer?' Seven of the SAB members refused to answer the question, even after Warner promised individual anonymity. The other six all answered in the affirmative. 'I don't think there's a guy on the [Board] who doesn't believe that cigarette smoking contributes to an increased risk of lung cancer,' one said, adding that the SAB's members were 'terrified' to say so publicly out of fear of involvement in tobacco product liability lawsuits. |
Erich Grotewold
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 H, 1998, Genistein-induced G2-M arrest, p21WAFl upregulation, and apoptosis in a non-small-cell lung cancer cell line, Nutr Cancer,
31: 184-191.
Lian, F., Li, Y, Bhuiyan, M., and Sarkar, F. H., 1999, p53-independent apoptosis induced by genistein in lung cancer cells, Nutr Cancer, 33: 125-131. Liang, Y. C, Lin-shiau, S. Y, Chen, C. F, and Lin, J. K., 1997, Suppression of extracellular signals and cell proliferation through EGF receptor binding by (-)-epigallocatechin gallate in human A431 epidermoid carcinoma cells, J Cell Biochem, 67: 55-65. Liang, Y. C, Chen, Y. C, Lin, Y. L., Lin-Shiau, S. |
Dan Buettner
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 For lung cancer, we found an extensive relationship with smoking, which is no surprise, although most Adventists are past smokers if they smoked at all. We naturally have a large percentage of Adventists who never smoked, and when we looked at them, the ones who ate two or more servings of fruit per day had about 70 percent fewer lung cancers than those nonsmokers who ate fruit only once or twice a week."
"Tell him about water," Butler prompted.
"Right," Fraser said. "My personal view is that this is a potentially very interesting—although overall still tentative—finding. |
Bottom Line Health
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| Important: lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths in men and women. Lung tissue gradually returns to normal when people quit smoking. Ten years after quitting, lung cancer risk is reduced to one-third of what it was.
Myth: Cell phones cause brain cancer.
Large population studies have shown no evidence that cell phones cause any kind of cancer, including brain cancer.
Cell-phone use today is much higher than it was a decade ago. If there were any truth to the cancer/cell-phone link, we would be seeing an increased incidence of brain cancers by now, but that hasn't happened. |
J. Douglas Bremner
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 There was a 28% increase in lung cancer in the supplemented group, which was statistically significant.4 Mortality was 17% higher in the supplemented group as a result of a 28% higher rate of lung cancer and a 17% higher rate of heart disease. In other words, those who received the vitamin got more cancer, not less.
In the Alpha-Tocopherol, Beta-Carotene (ATBC) Cancer Prevention Study 29,133 male smokers from Finland were treated with beta-carotene, alpha-tocopherol (vitamin E), a combination of the two, or a placebo in a randomized double-blind trial. |
KC Craichy
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 It was found that children who grow up with smokers in their homes are three times more likely to develop lung cancer in their later years than those who come from non-smoking homes.
The study results pointed to a definite link between lung cancer and passive smoking:
¦ 97 people developed lung cancer.
¦ 20 more had related cancers, such as cancer of the larynx.
¦ 14 died from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
¦ Ex-smokers faced up to twice the risk of respiratory diseases from passive smoke than those who had never smoked.34
Don't smoke! |
Tori Hudson, N.D.
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 There are potential concerns about using beta-carotene by itself, especially in women who are at higher risk for lung cancer. As a precaution, I avoid beta-carotene supplementation in women at high risk for lung cancer (smokers), and for everyone else, I only recommend products that have mixed carotenes and natural carotenes. Careful label reading is essenrial. If the label doesn't say "natural," then the product has synthetic beta-carotene.
Do not be alarmed if your skin turns an orange tint when supplementing with high amounts of carorenes. |
Elaine Magee
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| The results from large, controlled trials of beta-carotene supplementation provide striking evidence of adverse effects in smokers (more lung cancer than expected, as well as overall mortality). But the harm may be in taking large amounts of beta-carotene all by itself, via supplements; numerous past studies indicated that people who eat the most vegetables and fruit and foods rich in carotenoids have the lowest risk of lung cancer.
A similar story cropped up a few years later with vitamin E supplements. |
Jack Challem
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 However, studies have clearly shown that former smokers and nondrinkers do benefit from beta-carotene and have a lower risk of developing lung cancer when taking supplements. In addition, several studies suggest that a combination of antioxidants, including natural beta-carotene, is associated with a lower risk of lung cancer. Natural beta-carotene supplements are preferable to the synthetic form, because they contain some alpha-carotene, which appears to protect against lung cancer. |
Gabriel Cousens
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 LUNG CANCER
A study by Curtis Mettlin, funded by the American Cancer Society and cited in the International Journal of Cancer, April 15, 1989, showed that people drinking three or more glasses of whole milk a day had a twofold increase in lung cancer.42
BREAST AND PROSTATE CANCERS
The journal Cancer in 1989 reported that men drinking three or more glasses a day of whole milk were shown to have a 2.49 times increase in prostate cancer.43 A 2001 Harvard review of the research put a finer point on it:
Twelve of ... fourteen case-control studies and seven of ... |
Michele Simon
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 Notice that advocates working to reduce smoking rates are in the field of "tobacco control," not "lung cancer" or "emphysema." (Among the few exceptions are the American Lung Association and American Cancer Society, but these are organizations that mainly prefer to play it safe politically.) Just as lung cancer is one result of smoking (a bad habit encouraged by the savvy marketing strategies of the tobacco industry), obesity is one result of poor diet (another bad habit fostered by the equally manipulative marketing practices of the food industry). |
Jonny Bowden, Ph.D., C.N.S.
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 One study in Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers and Prevention followed more than
63,000 people in China and found that those eating the most cryptoxanthin-rich foods had a 27 percent lower risk for lung cancer. And some research indicates that exposure to a carcinogen in cigarettes— either directly or secondhand—induces a vitamin A deficiency, so foods like squash that are rich in vitamin A may help counter that and provide some level of protection. Vitamin A is also a great immune system stimulator. |
Devra Davis
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 In 1979, when I served as scientific director of the Environmental Law Institute, the Tobacco Institute's Fred Panzer offered me funds to study lung cancer in the chemical industry, so long as I not consider the role of tobacco. I declined; many others did not.
The chemical industry has also engaged in finger-pointing by supporting groups whose sole focus has been to finger the dangers of tobacco. The American Council on Science and Health sounds like an impeccably independent research group. It's not. |
| By 1961 no one could seriously dispute the existence of studies in humans showing an increased risk of lung cancer and heart disease in those who smoked the longest and the most. Over the next few years, the top experts in public health research pored over data from twenty different countries examining the health hazards of tobacco.
Kennedy distanced himself from the process. |
| Clinical, epidemiological, chemical and pathological evidence demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that cigarette smoking is a major cause of lung cancer."24 Two years later the U.S. Surgeon General issued a report (Smoking and Health: Report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General of the United States) echoing the evaluation of the Royal College of Physicians: cigarette smoking causes cancer.
Within three months of the surgeon general's report, cigarette consumption in the United States had dropped by 20 percent. The report put Emerson Foote into agony. |
Marshall Editions
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 It could indicate a more serious condition such as pneumonia, TB, or lung cancer.
• A dry, hacking cough
• Pain and discomfort in the chest
• Chesty cough
• Copious phlegm
• Rapid breathing that is often accompanied by wheezing
• Fever
• Loss of appetite
• General lethargy
• Symptoms may be worse at night
SYMPTOMS
TREATMENT GOAL
• Flu symptoms in the upper respiratory tract
To establish the cause of the bronchitis and treat it accordingly.
TTo treat acute bronchitis: Treatment is dependent on several factors. |
Devra Davis
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| The trick was to come up with a way to take into account the underlying growth in smoking-related lung cancer and figure out whether there were yet other causes. Two tools were the mainstay of such work. A standard mortality ratio contrasted deaths at different ages found in the coke oven workers, both those who quit and those who got to retire, with those that occurred in the general population of people who were the same age as the workers at the time of diagnosis. |
Donna Jackson Nakazawa
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 On the other hand, if your great aunt were to be diagnosed with lung cancer tomorrow, she would be added automatically by the physician or hospital treating her to statistics systematically gathered on the 9 million Americans who have ever been diagnosed with any sort of cancer in the United States. The National Cancer Institute, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries all fund surveillance research on who has which cancer by age, sex, race, and locale. |
Devra Davis
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| We had to find out whether deaths that had in the past been attributed to tuberculosis had really been lung cancer in disguise. I needed some way to look at what was happening to cancer over time that took into account not only that more people were living longer but that we had better methods of finding the disease. And after I had allowed for those two factors, there was yet a third complication: I had to learn about styles and fads of diagnosis. Physicians are like everybody else, Lilienfeld advised; they are influenced by fashions. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 It's almost as big a deal as when the American Medical Association, after years of taking millions of dollars from tobacco companies, finally admitted that smoking causes lung cancer and heart disease. (A decade after the scientific evidence was irrefutable, of course, but then again, the AMA was making money off Big Tobacco by running tobacco ads in JAMA...)
What is "processed meat" exactly?
A woman asked me this question at a recent live event where I was warning the audience about the dangers of chemicals found in popular grocery products. Frankly, I was surprised to hear the question. |
Jonny Bowden, Ph.D., C.N.S.
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 In the voluminous literature linking dietary habits and disease, quercetin has an impressive history of being linked to a reduction in heart disease as well as to a reduction in lung cancer. Epidemiological studies have suggested that high consumption of apples may protect against asthma, and quercetin may be the main reason why.
The quercetin in the apple is, interestingly enough, in the peel. "The peel prevents the harmful effects of the UV rays of the sun from hurting the fruit," Nieman says. "It also prevents microbes from getting in. |
| There was a 37 percent reduction in total cancer incidence, a 63 percent decline in the incidence of prostate cancer, a 58 percent decrease in the incidence of colorectal cancer, and a 46 percent decline in the incidence of lung cancer. Oh yes, and a 50 percent decrease in total cancer mortality. (The authors speculate that the reason they didn't see results with skin cancer was because the nature of skin cancer is such that this study may have been too short to demonstrate a positive effect.)
An Antioxidant Superpower
Selenium is also one of the most powerful antioxidants on the planet. |
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