Disease Proof : Disease Proof : Health & Nutrition News & Commentary : Dr. Joel Fuhrman

Head coach of the Denver Nuggets George Karl knows how serious cancer is. He recently celebrated his first anniversary free of prostate cancer. But the coach wants to know why more isn’t being done to shutdown cancer for good. Chris Tomasson of The Rocky Mountain News quotes Karl:

"I have no idea why there is no national program to cure cancer," he said Wednesday. "If I were a politician, that would be my first platform. Forty to 50 years ago, we said, 'Let's go to the moon.' Now let's cure cancer. Let's throw millions and millions of dollars in federal funding to wipe away the pain and the death that cancer causes."

Regular readers know that most Americans can do a lot more to prevent cancer than they are currently doing. For instance, check out this previous post: Cancer Is a Disease of Fruit- and Vegetable Deficiency.

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As you know Dr. Fuhrman contends obesity heightens cancer risk and healthy body weight helps prevent cancer. This claim seems to be catching on. According to Michelle Fay Cortez of The Boston Globe a new study shows women can lower their risk of breast cancer by losing weight:

Researchers found that breast cancer may occur in about one in seven women because of the weight they gain as adults.

The risks rose to one in four among weight gainers who never used hormone replacement therapy, the study said.

``Weight is one of the few breast cancer risk factors that women can do something about," said lead author Heather Eliassen. ``Our study suggests it's never too late to lose weight to reduce breast cancer risk. The best advice would be to avoid gaining it in the first place."

The research revealed it doesn’t take a lot of weight gain to increase breast cancer risk:

The increased risk came even from adding as little as 5 pounds, the study found, and rose in proportion with the scale. The good news was that losing weight appeared to be protective.

Check out this previous report to see how obesity affects prostate cancer recurrence.

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We’ve talked about the power of pomegranates in the past, but it seems this fruit’s legend continues to grow. According to Reuters reporter Lisa Richwine a new study funded by juice maker Pom Wonderful found men who drank the beverage had a longer time until doubling of their blood levels of PSA occurred:

In the study, the time until PSA doubling after treatment extended to 54 months on average when the men started drinking eight ounces of pomegranate juice a day. Before drinking the juice, PSA doubled in an average of 15 months.

"That's a very big difference. ... It's an indicator of how quickly the cancer is growing," said Dr. Allan Pantuck, a urologist at UCLA Jonsson Cancer Center and the study's lead author.

Each of the 50 men who took part had radiation, surgery or other treatment for prostate cancer before enrolling in the study. No major side effects were reported from drinking the juice.

"It's too early to tell people with prostate cancer they should drink pomegranate juice" because the evidence is preliminary, Pantuck said in an interview.

A larger study is under way to try to confirm the findings, with results expected in two years, he said.

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