Teniposide

Fish Protects Against Cancer and Heart Disease

In March, 2002, a group of Swedish scientists discovered a relationship between eating fish and preventing cancer. Women who ate six to eight ounces per week of fatty fish, such as herring and salmon, had 40% less cancer of the endometrium (uterus) than those who ate just lean fish or no fish at all. "Our results suggest that the consumption of fatty fish, but not other types of fish, may decrease the risk of endometrial cancer," they wrote.

The researchers speculated that the omega-3 oils found in fatty fish were protective. Other kinds of cancer may be similarly prevented. Last year, an article in The Lancet showed that men who regularly ate moderate to high amounts of fish had about half the chance of developing prostate cancer of those who didn't. "Fish consumption could be associated with decreased risk of prostate cancer," scientists reported (Lancet 2001;357:1764-1766).

Protecting the Heart

Eating fish may also decrease the risk of a heart attack. Last November, American scientists published a huge survey of men in Shanghai, China. Older men who ate at least 7 ounces of fish or shellfish per week had 59% fewer fatal heart attacks than those who ate less than two ounces (Am J Epidemiol 2001;154:809-16). Two recent articles in top journals have confirmed these claims. The first was a study of 22,000 male doctors. Researchers compared physicians who had died of sudden heart attacks to others who maintained normal hearts. In particular, they compared bloodstream concentrations of omega or n-3 fatty acids, which are primarily found in fish oils. The men who had the highest levels of omega-3s had only one-fifth the risk of sudden death as those who had the lowest levels. (N Engl J Med 2002;346:1113-1138).

A second study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, looked at the health records of 85,000 female nurses. Researchers found that the more frequently a woman ate fish, the less likely she was to suffer a heart attack or to die of heart disease. Those who ate fish once a week had a 30% lower risk of heart attack or death as those who never ate fish (JAMA 2002;287:1815-1821).

My recommendation is to eat six to eight ounces of fatty fish per week. That said, I realize there are difficulties in doing so. Healthful fish has become difficult to procure. In January, 2001, the FDA cautioned pregnant women, and those of childbearing age, not to eat shark, swordfish, king mackerel and tile fish. All of them are contaminated with methyl mercury, an extremely dangerous form of mercury, which can cause birth defects. Lactating women and small children were also advised to steer clear of these fish. What these four fish have in common is that they are at the top of the oceanic food chain. "These long-lived, larger fish that feed on smaller fish accumulate the highest levels of methyl mercury," said the FDA, "and therefore pose the greatest risk to the unborn child."

The FDA further advises these women to "select a variety of other kinds of fish, including shellfish, canned fish, smaller ocean fish or farm-raised fish" (FDA Consumer Advisory, March 9, 2001). The FDA's position is that, although childbearing women and young children should avoid these fish, it is safe for all others: "Most people have no reason to limit their fish consumption." This is strange, considering the vast data on methyl mercury's harm to adults as well as children.

According to Maine's Natural Resources Council, the safest fish are haddock, cod, hake, flounder, pollock, Atlantic salmon, herring, smelts, clams, shrimp, scallops, lobster (except the tomalley, which can contain dioxin) and canned "light" tuna (safer than canned "white" tuna). The safest freshwater fish are brook trout, yellow perch and landlocked salmon.

G Is For Garlic

In April, the number of medical publications on garlic topped 1,500, over 250 of which are related to cancer. Garlic and its cousins (onions, chives, scallions and leeks) are probably the most intriguing of all vegetables. Garlic lowers cholesterol, reduces the risk of heart disease, fights infection and boosts immunity. And, as if that weren't enough, the data is strong for the prevention of cancers of the digestive system, including the esophagus, stomach, colon and rectum. The NCI is sponsoring a huge clinical trial on garlic's ability to prevent stomach cancer. But why wait years for the results of this clinical trial? You can't go wrong if you eat garlic, along with other foods of the allium family.

Parts of China have the misfortune to be among those places with an inordinately high rate of cancer of the stomach and esophagus. Scientists at the Nanjing Cancer Institute compared the incidence of several cancers among thousands of those who ate lots of allium vegetables versus thousands who ate little or none (Jpn J Cancer Res. 1999;90:614-21). ("Lots" in this case means at least once per week while "little" means less than once per month.)

Scallions and onions maybe even more powerful than garlic in preventing some cancers. It is a good idea to incorporate all of these foods into your weekly, or even daily, diet. I keep them all handy...scallions with ginger and garlic on a piece of broiled fish, sweet, red or Vidalia onions chopped up for a tuna or mesclun salad, chives for a scoop of cottage cheese...there are numerous possibilities. If you do cook these vegetables, do so with a light touch. Always put garlic in last when you are cooking and let it get just soft enough to eat, never mushy.

Antibacterial Effects

It was Louis Pasteur who first described the antibacterial effect of onion and garlic juices. In World War II garlic was called "Russian penicillin" because it was the main antibiotic available on the Eastern Front. It kills both gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria. Garlic is effective even against antibiotic-resistant strains. It even kills Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori), a kind of bacteria that is implicated in the cause of some stomach cancers and ulcers.

H Is for Herbs

It has not been a good year for herbs. Late last month, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a consumer advisory linking the herb kava to liver damage. In January, researchers claimed that the widely used herb ephedra (ma huang) was related to strokes, heart attacks and deaths. St. John's wort was recently said to interfere with the birth control pill, warfarin, digoxin and theophylline. Not surprisingly, total herbal product sales declined 21% in 2001. The biggest losers were St. John's wort (down 40.5%), Ginkgo bioba (down 35.3%) and ginseng (down 32.8%).

In the face of this barrage of bad publicity, I wish to affirm the usefulness of herbs. Most herbal products are safe and can be quite effective for a variety of ailments. According to a recent survey, 31.6% of patients used herbal remedies and 59.2% used other dietary supplements. I think it is something of a small miracle that in the face of the barrage of advertising and media hype for prescription drugs, herbs manage to hang on.

Despite their very different positions in the marketplace, drugs and herbs are historically related. In fact, many drugs are derived from herbs. In cancer, examples include Taxol (derived from the yew tree), vincristine and vinblastine (from the periwinkle), etoposide and teniposide (from the mayapple), and many others. Modern chemotherapy would be inconceivable without its plant-derived agents. But there is an essential difference between prescription drugs and herbal teas and formulas. All of the plant-derived cancer medicines were isolated and synthesized in a laboratory, patented by pharmaceutical companies, and packaged as profit-making prescription drugs.

Herbal medicine exists in a humbler world. Across the planet, billions of people still gather herbs in the field or grow them in their garden. Increasingly, Americans seek out packaged herbs at health food stores and co-ops. Knowledge of what seems to work is passed by word of mouth or through writings designed for the layperson. The cost of herbs is low and although there are profits to be made, there is little incentive to classify most herbs as drugs, since plants in the public domain cannot be patented. Herbs are the underappreciated stepchildren of allopathic medicine.

Are Herbs Dangerous?

Don't get me wrong. Like all compounds with medicinal properties, herbs can he dangerous. However, most of the widely reported serious adverse effects of herbs result from their misidentification. In reality, fatalities resulting from misidentification of herbs are few and far between. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about half a dozen people die in the US each year after ingesting some poisonous plant that was misidentified as an edible herb. During 1989-1992, the American Association of Poison Control Centers recorded a total of four deaths attributed to ingestion of poisonous plants, about one per year. In Germany, where 65% of the residents use herbs, such deaths are equally rare. There have been no reported deaths from botanical medicine since they instituted their regulatory system in 1978.

The Germans have a sensible system of safeguards and when they discover a possible danger they take the product off the market. In America, we act as if the end of the world were at hand. Every report of real or potential damage is accompanied by condescending lectures. Yet these lecturers say nothing about the danger of pharmaceuticals. According to an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, approximately 106,000 deaths occur each year in US hospitals because of adverse reactions to prescription drugs used as directed (JAMA. 1998 Apr 15;279(15):1200-5). And so, while herbal medicine is not without potential problems, it is much safer than synthetic drugs.

The challenge today is to scientifically validate the traditions of herbal medicine. This requires researchers who possess both a mastery of the tools of science, especially clinical trials, and a deep. appreciation of the richness of the world's many herbal traditions. One such researcher is Debu Tripathy, MD, of the University of California, San Francisco. He has said, "We are trying to.. .apply the principles of scientific investigation to an area of medicine that has thrived for centuries in the absence of a lot of data to support it" (Oncology Times, April 2002). He and his colleagues have now studied 71 Chinese herbal extracts, 19 of which show promise against lung, pancreatic, prostate and lymph cancer cell lines. One of the most promising, Scutellaria barbata, or skullcap, has now entered clinical trials.

A Tragic Accident

Ray Rosenthal, MD, a prominent researcher of CAM treatments, died on Wednesday, April 17, after being involved in a traffic accident in his home state of Hawaii. He veered his bicycle to avoid hitting some pedestrians and was run over by a boat trailer. For the last four years Ray had himself been a lymphoma patient and was researching a book about Wolfgang Scheef, MD, of Bonn, Germany, the innovative oncologist whom he credited with saving his life.

Last summer, I had the pleasure of spending a week with Ray at a conference in Helsingor, Denmark. He was a delightful person, knowledgeable about all aspects of cancer. Here is a picture that I took of him at the time. I think it shows some of his joyfulness.

It is ironic that Ray survived his cancer only to die in a traffic accident. He was on his cell phone with a friend at the time and was describing the wonderful day he was having. But his last words were, "You never know in life.. .there are no promises." He would agree that the time to live your life is now, since you never know what fate has in store. Ray was an exceptional physician and person and will be sorely missed.

COPYRIGHT 2002 The Townsend Letter Group
COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group