Herbal Health

When cancer spreads, via the blood or lymph to other areas of the body, this is termed metastasizing, and new tumours are called secondaries. Although the cancer that has spread may be in a new part of the body, it is still referred to as the cancer of origin and treated accordingly. Breast cancer that has spread to, say, the liver is not treated in the same way as primary cancer of the liver.     Some cancer cells develop pseudopodia, or ‘feet’, to push out into surrounding tissue. They can also secrete an enzyme which dissolves the cement between neighbouring cells, making it easier for them to migrate. Strengthening this cellular cement is an important nutritional tool in the arsenal against breast cancer.     Statistics-While carrying out research, I found that the majority of articles dealing with breast cancer started with statistics depicting the mortality rate for the disease. Reading this can be depressing if you have just been diagnosed with cancer, and hanging on to the idea that you are an individual, and not a statistic, is essential. Is a glass half empty, or half full? For every report you read telling you that X per cent die, the fact is that Y per cent live.     Having said this, we are in a crisis at the moment and the incidence of breast cancer is on the increase. The World Health Organization says that worldwide, the breast cancer incidence is set to double by the year 2020.     In less than thirty years incidence has increased by 40 per cent, from around 22,000 cases per year in the UK in 1971 to 30,000 cases at the end of the 1990s. Nowadays one in eleven women can expect to develop breast cancer at some point in their lives in the UK, and one in eight if they live in the USA.     Bad news tends to be more widely reported than good news and the figures of a death rate from breast cancer of 15,000 each year in the UK and 46,000 a year in the USA doesn’t make happy reading (in fact during the Vietnam War when 60,000 troops died, 330,000 American women died from breast cancer in the same period). What you rarely see reported is the good news – more than 70 per cent of women who have breast cancer that is operable will be alive and well five years after the diagnosis – and maybe longer: longer-term figures are not available.     It is recognized that advancing years are a major risk factor, with the majority of women diagnosed being post-menopausal. However, around 15 per cent of breast cancers happen in women of child-bearing age and there seems to be an increase in incidence2 in the twenty to forty age group. In England and Wales the figures3 for all age groups showed an increase of 28 per cent from 1980 to 1994 (the latest year for which accurate figures are available). And yet younger women, up to the age of thirty-nine, showed a 40 per cent increase, from 1,235 cases in 1980 to 1,713 cases in 1994.*38\240\2*

LiposuctionLiposuction involves the suction of fatty material from under the skin by way of a trochar. It usually results in the removal of approximately 3 L of fat, but can sometimes involve the loss of 10-12 L in extreme cases. Although the technique has been attempted as a treatment for the morbidly obese, its value is as a cosmetic procedure. It has no influence on visceral or abdominal adiposity and therefore has no appreciable physiological effects on insulin resistance or other comorbid disease markers.
Jaw wiringJaw-wiring procedures are no longer recommended. The weight lost was rapidly regained once the wires were removed, often despite the fitting of a cord round the waist to limit the amount of weight regained.
Apronectomy Apronectomy is not a treatment for obesity but is helpful for patients who have lost large quantities of weight and have overhanging folds of excess skin. Skin contouring operations are not restricted to the abdomen; other sites include brachioplasty, and the inner and outer aspects of the thighs. Abdominal apronectomy can be circumferential, and males can undergo gynaecomastia correction.It can be very psychologically damaging to deny patients such surgery on cost or other grounds after they have followed medical advice diligently but are left feeling uglier and with a lower self-esteem than when they started. It is a technically straightforward procedure, and its satisfying results can help maintain long-term weight loss.
Artificial bezoarAn artificial bezoar is a balloon or other object that is inserted into the stomach to lessen its capacity as a restrictive technique. It has a limited role but can be beneficial in, for instance, initiating weight loss in the short term in individuals who are not fit for more major surgical procedures.*62/312/5*

Some of the most effective remedies are drugs containing ergotamine although, like many other well-known drugs, the way in which this compound worked was unknown for many years.The drug comes from a mould that grows on rye; the name is derived from the French word ‘ergot’ meaning a ‘spur’ because part of the plant resembles a riding spur in shape. Eating bread made from mouldy rye can be poisonous, producing painful blue hands and feet (‘St. Anthony’s Fire’). As a result of such poisoning, whole villages in Eastern Europe were reported to have been visited by the devil and cure was obtained by visiting St. Anthony’s shrine (which was in Egypt and outside the infected area). The use of ergotamine in the treatment of headache was first reported in Germany in 1883. In 1889, Dr. W. Thompson of the United States advised taking fluid extract of ergot by mouth but also suggested that rectal administration could be useful: ‘As nausea is such a general accompaniment of this affection it is prescribed that if either of the doses be vomited it should be taken in an enema of two ounces of water. This medication rarely fails to arrest the attacks.’ After this report, the use of ergot seems to have been forgotten, possibly because of the inconsistent effect of the extracts, until 1906, when an extract from ergot, ergotoxine, was isolated. This was later found to be a mixture of compounds. In 1918 a single compound was isolated – ergotamine – which was initially used to speed up uterine contractions during labour (ergot derivatives are still used in obstetrics). In 1925 ergotamine in its pure form was first used in the treatment of migraine and began to be prescribed widely. But it was not until 1937 that the main cause of the migraine headache was found to be due to blood vessels in the head becoming wider (extracranial vasodilation); and it was then shown that ergotamine worked because it narrowed these blood vessels (vasoconstrictor action). Because the migrainous aura was due to vasoconstriction, it was theoretically worrying to give a powerful vasoconstrictor drug at a time when vasospasm was present in the intracranial circulation. However, although ergotamine may prolong the migraine aura, there is no lessening of cerebral blood flow, possibly because the vessels at this time are less sensitive to the vasoconstrictive action of the drug.
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