Health Spectator

On Tuesday, August 30 actress and activist Daryl Hanna was arrested in front of the White House for sitting in against the Keystone XL oil pipeline. That pipeline, if built, would transport oil from Alberta, Canada’s tar sands fields to Texas at the Gulf of Mexico.

What does that have to do with our health? you might ask. Indeed, that is a logical question.

First, the oil in question is extremely dirty crude oil. Its carbon content is exceedingly high. In fact, tar sands oil produces 82 percent more greenhouse gas than conventional crude oil. So not only is it much more expensive to convert to, say, gasoline than conventional crude, it also has a far worse effect on the environment even if it doesn’t spill.

But when it spills, it spells disaster. Residents of Michigan can tell you about that. An existing pipeline extends from these same oil fields to refineries in Oklahoma. Now barely a year old, that pipeline has leaked twelve times in twelve months. In July 2010 it spilled one million gallons of tar sands crude into a Kalamazoo River tributary. Forty miles of river are still contaminated with the oil more than a year later. In part, that’s because tar sand sinks in water. Of course, it still coats and kills fish and wildfowl.

So if you don’t want crude oil contaminating your waterways and drinking water or excess carbon, sulfur and mercury polluting your air and soil, there must be cleaner energy alternatives. Or maybe we just have to cut back on our use of energy and our miles of driving, perhaps using electric cars (which still require us to produce that electricity in the first place—we know).

But that soil, air and water pollution don’t really affect us, right? Breast cancer is still on the rise wordwide. Of course, that’s because of “Western” lifestyles, right? According to the World Health Organization (WHO) there will be 20 million new cases of cancer per year by 2030, up from 12 million new cases in  2008. But if the cause were simply our Western lifestyle as so much of the media assure us, shouldn’t the cancer rate reach a steady state, at least in the U.S.? How do we blame a continuing increase in cancer rates worldwide on our Western lifestyle? Has life changed that radically in India and Southeast Asia?

Incidentally, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) reports that the current increase in cancer translates into approximately 56% more cancer in men and 22% more cancer in women over the course of a single generation. The NCI reports that one in two men or women will experience cancer in their lifetime. And it expects the cancer rate to double by 2050. In Ireland, a report just out states that cancer cases have risen 50% since the 1990s. Has Ireland become that much more “Westernized” since 1990?

If this is purely the result of a Western lifestyle, which presumably means inadequate exercise and a diet of processed foods, why do the rates keep rising? Once one does not exercise and one’s diet consists entirely of processed food—which is, unfortunately, the case for many of us—how can you justify further increases in cancer?

The only explanation, we believe, is a continuing deterioration in our environment, with subsequent ill effects on our health. And the  Keystone XL pipeline is one more giant step in that direction.

There is evidence that the polyphenols found in green tea may slow the progression of prostate cancer, according to a study published recently in Cancer Prevention Research,¹ a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR).

According to researcher James A. Cardelli, PhD, professor and director of basic and translational research in the Feist-Weiller Cancer Center, LSU Health Sciences Center, Shreveport, LA, men with prostate cancer who consumed the active compounds in green tea demonstrated a significant reduction in serum markers predictive of prostate cancer progression.
(more…)

We reported more than a year ago on a study that claimed to show a link between consumption of red meat and various cancers, including breast and colorectal cancers. That study came from the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) in collaboration with its parent institution, the World Cancer Research Fund, and was controversial because of its findings.

Now, a new study based on the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study shows no correlations between consumption of meat and postmenopausal breast cancer. (more…)

This was not supposed to be the debut of Health Spectator. We had thought we’d make our entre with a well-researched update on antioxidants or perhaps an introductory lesson on the complexities of the immune system. Once our piece was researched and written, it might have taken another month or so for the design ideas to be finalized (we think a good first impression is important) had we stuck to the original plan.

But about a week after the news of Elizabeth Edwards’ cancer relapse, we realized this was something we couldn’t let pass. Although we have never med the Edwards personally, we did come surprising close, and while this is not intended to be a “personal” weblog in the sense that you need not expect to read about our lives in it routinely, since our rush to print is provoked entirely by a personal reaction, perhaps it would be prudent to explain.

We lived in Raleigh, North Carolina for about ten years, and were fortunate to have as a next-door neighbor for several of those years Betsy (Elizabeth) Brennan. Betsy was the widow of a prominent local developer and was herself immersed in the local arts, acting as an art agent and hosting occasional art shows in her home. She also was involved to some degree in local politics.

One day Betsy invited us to a dinner party she was planning for a local man she knew who was going to run for the Senate. I wasn’t paying close attention and assumed she was talking about the state senate, but since I was recently unemployed, I really wasn’t in the mood for socializing at a dinner party anyway and declined, despite Betsy’s repeated pleas. The guest of honor also happened to be our backyard neighbor, whom we had never met. Their daughter attended high school with my wife’s son. The night of the dinner party, my wife and I occasionally listened to the subdued merriment from our back porch, but we just didn’t feel up to joining in.

You guessed it. Our neighbor was John Edwards, who ran successfully for the U.S. Senate, achieved national prominence as a presidential candidate having started as an unknown, then nearly became the 47th vice president of the United States.

Shortly after his election, Senator Edwards and his family moved to another section of town, having stayed in the neighborhood until their daughter graduated from the local high school, I believe, and we never met.

I’m sure you all have similar stories of nearly meeting people who soon became nationally prominent, but that is not really the point of this story.

A few years later, my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer. As a matter of fact, we received the diagnosis the morning of September 11, 2001, around 8 am. We had stopped to pay for parking in the lot of the University of North Carolina cancer center, and as the guard raised the gate to let us exit, President Bush came on the radio to announce that the first jet had struck the World Trade Center. My wife and I rushed to downtown Chapel Hill for breakfast and arrived in time to see the second jet strike, then watched in horror as the towers collapsed.

It was the kind of morning you don’t soon forget.

[to be continued]