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FOR PAXILED FOLIC ACID & PROSTATE CANCER




http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/djp019
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Here's one possibility.  Foods that are high in fiber will have more omega 6 fatty acids than foods high in omega 3 oils, and it is theorized that a healthy intake of healthy fiber, as in beans, nuts, vegetables, and whole grains, reduces the chances of getting any type of cancer, though we usually think only of colon cancer for this.  Omega 6 fatty acids aren't bad for you, and there are many different ones, some of which are as good for you as omega 3 fatty acids, such as GLA.  As for seaweed being a source of DHA, it is generally believed that the DHA in seaweed isn't absorbed by humans.  It is absorbed by fish, which is where the fish get the DHA from in the first place -- eating seaweed, particularly red seaweed, which is usually not digestible for humans.  As for mercury, I don't know that it's more prevalent in fish that are higher in omega 3 acids.  Certainly salmon has less mercury than tuna, but a lot more omega 3 (at least wild salmon, that is).  And it also depends on where the fish is caught as to how high the mercury levels will be.  I think, as I've often said, that what we know about food and medicine is pretty much nothing -- lots of information, very little fact.  This is a misconception about the word "science."  People confuse it with fact, but it is just a process of learning, and much of what we learn will later turn out to be wrong.
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A new study suggests one of the omega 3 fats found in fish oil might actually increase a man's risk of developing prostate cancer! there are a lot of problems with this study. It's a long way from being the final word, and in fact it may mean nothing at all.
According to the study, published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, men with higher levels of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) were two-and-a-half times more likely to have an aggressive form of prostate cancer. Something else stunned the research team: men with the highest amounts of trans-fatty acids in their blood appeared to have a 50 percent reduction in their risk of developing prostate cancer!
Trans-fatty acids are synthetic "fake" fats found in thousands of processed food products. They've been linked to inflammation and heart disease. There's even talk of passing laws against them and removing them from the food supply altogether.
Along comes this study that seems to show trans-fatty acids DECREASED cancer risk.
The researchers found similar results for omega-6 fats. These have been associated with inflammation — and they tend to be seen as harmful. (But omega-6 acids aren't really evil.  In this study, omega-6 fats, like trans-fatty acids, were found to be linked to a LOWER cancer risk.
If you take this study at face value, the "bad" fatty acids were good, while the "good" omega-3 fats  thought to protect your body from inflammation were bad.
Lead researcher Theodore M. Brasky, Ph.D. and colleagues at Seattle's Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center based their conclusions on data gathered from 3,461 participants in the Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial.
The researchers wanted to determine whether high concentrations of omega-6 fats and trans-fatty acids in the bloodstream could be linked to the development of prostate cancer.
But the latest findings were the total opposite of what the researchers expected!
Commenting in a group statement, Brasky said the surprising results seem to "shine a light on the complexity of studying the association between nutrition and the risk of various chronic diseases."Thousands of Americans swallow fish oil capsules daily.
Fish oil supplements are reputed to help: Prevent cardiovascular disease,
Boost your immune system,Stop progression of psychotic disorders in high-risk children,
Guard against inflammation, Reduce prostate cancer tumors.
The people who participated in this study were not a "random" sample. The study was conducted ONLY on males and only on males over the age of 55. What's more, the roughly 3,400 men in this study were just a subset of about 19,000 men taking part in a study of the drug finasteride, prescribed to prevent prostate cancer.
Of the 3,400 men in the fatty acid study, half developed prostate cancer while the study was in progress. That's a very high cancer rate.
This was not a typical group selected from the whole population. The researchers said very few of the men in the study even took fish oil supplements. Those who got any omega-3 in their diet at all got it from eating fish. This makes me wonder how much mercury those fish eaters were taking in. I don't eat a lot of omega-3-rich fish for that reason.
I wonder how many of these men were taking the drug finasteride (since that's what the main study was all about). The drug could easily have played a role in the results. As could the lack of the drug, in those participants who DIDN'T take it.
A lot of people don't start taking fish oil and/or eating a lot of salmon until AFTER they're told they have prostate cancer. That's late in the game, and certainly no basis for decided whether the omega-3's prevented or caused their cancer.
Remember that half the men in this study came down with prostate cancer. Consider someone who's never bothered much with supplements and then learns he has cancer. In a panic he starts taking lots of vitamin C, vitamin E — the whole gamut of supplements, including fish oil. It's a good thing to do. But it seems to me it would be very easy for a researcher to misread the data: takes fish oil, has cancer; never touches the stuff, doesn't have cancer.
So don't go tossing your cod liver oil or other fish oil supplements! These study results could be a legitimate warning or not.
Brasky's team emphasized the need for further research to better understand the relationship between prostate cancer risk and omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids.
There are other omega-3s that were not linked to a possible increase in prostate cancer risk. if you're deciding on whether to use or continue using omega 3s-here's some information.
According to the American Cancer Society, there are three fatty acids in the omega-3 family:
Alpha-linolenic acid found in English walnuts, in some types of beans, and in canola, soybean, flaxseed/linseed, and olive oils. Olive oil would be the preferred source; avoid canola and soybean.
Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA)  found in seaweed and cold water, fatty fish  this is the one implicated in the recent study
Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA)  found in mackerel, salmon, trout and other cold water, fatty fish.
Recent dietary guidelines from the American Cancer Society (ACS) recommend a balanced diet with five or more daily servings of vegetables and fruit. They also suggest you limit intake of red meats and animal fats, including dairy fats, in order to reduce cancer risk.
A good way to do this is by eating more fish, poultry or beans instead of beef, pork or lamb. The ACS says that while studies suggest eating more servings of fish for their omega-3 fats can help lower heart disease risk the clinical evidence regarding cancer is uncertain.
One reason they may take this position.
In 2006, researchers examined 38 studies on the effects of omega-3 fatty acids conducted over the past 40 years. They considered studies that showed positive effects, negative effects, and even NO effects of omega-3 fatty acids on the development of cancer.
They concluded that these studies don't provide enough evidence to suggest a significant link between omega-3 fatty acids and the cancer rate. They further determined that using omega-3 fatty acid supplements is unlikely to prevent cancer.
Although research may not prove conclusively that omega-3s are a silver bullet for cancer preliminary study results suggest another benefit of fish oil supplements may be their ability to increase survival and the efficacy of chemotherapy in patients with non-small cell lung cancer.
And a clinical study published in the journal Cancer concluded that omega-3 fatty acids seemed to prolong the survival of cancer patients who were also severely malnourished.







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Avatar universal
A new study on prostate cancer
Nearly 98 percent of men who get prostate cancer and do absolutely nothing -- no surgery, no radiation, no treatment at all -- do not die of the disease.
Swedish researchers looked at data on more than 6,800 prostate patients under the age of 70 with low- or intermediate-risk cancers. Some fell into the surgery trap, while others took the more sensible watchful waiting approach.
After eight years, 20 percent of the waiters had died... twice as many as in the treatment group.
It turns out those extra deaths had nothing to do with prostate cancer -- these were mostly patients who wouldn't have been candidates for surgery in the first place because they were sicker with other diseases, conditions and overall poor health. They died of these other conditions, not the cancer.
Once the researchers calculated just the effects of prostate cancer over a 10-year period, they found that just 2.4 percent died of the disease. The cancer failed to kill nearly 98 percent of the patients, according to the study in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

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Avatar universal
The results of the study at the National Cancer Institute found that women who have higher food and total intakes of folate face a significantly lower risk of developing pancreatic cancer. Protection seemed to increase with higher intake of folate. This was  published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
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