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Maternal Dietary Risk Factors in Childhood Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (United States)
Jensen CD, Block G, Buffler P, Ma X, Selvin S, Month S.
...
Abstract
Objective: Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is the most common childhood cancer, and the second most common cause of mortality in children aged 1–14 years. Recent research has established that the disease can originate in utero, and thus maternal diet may be an important risk factor for ALL.
Cancer Causes Control. 2004 Aug;15(6):559-70. http://www.springerlink.com/content/t87661x864l14368/fulltext.pdf
Is vitamin D deficiency in childhood leukemia an underestimated reality?
Could cod liver oil - the old remedy, a relic from the past - help in the
empirically arranged but clinically effective today's treatment protocols?
Regards,
Enrico Incarbone MD
(Lucky father of an ALL survivor)
ALL: Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (common type: 65-75% alive after 5 years)
Unable to evoke the interest of local colleagues, I am sending this message through the Web.
I meant to discuss about Evidence Based Medicine or Patient Oriented Decisions...
It's about whether to strongly and officially recommend a nontoxic nutrient when data to prove its efficacy are still unconfirmed.
In the case of a disease of unknown cause and poor treatment results (2/3)...unsatisfactory results, or 'suboptimal' if you prefer.
It's Philosophy of Science and practical medicine altogether
ikod [^]
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.religiousforums.com%2Fforum%2Fimages%2Fsmilies%2FBow.gif&hash=e482421b150bbc62645cda76cb723d1a)(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.religiousforums.com%2Fforum%2Fimages%2Fsmilies%2FBow.gif&hash=e482421b150bbc62645cda76cb723d1a)(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.religiousforums.com%2Fforum%2Fimages%2Fsmilies%2FBow.gif&hash=e482421b150bbc62645cda76cb723d1a) thanks to the >100000 viewers!
To support this one I started a special
"Cod Liver Oil" topic in Complementary Medicine.
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=5065.0
You are kindly invited to read and discuss both topics.
iko
Key words: nutrition leukemia diet cod liver oil vitamin
Parole chiave: nutrizione dieta leucemia linfoblastica olio di fegato di merluzzo vitamine
I can't tell you how many times I've came back to this topic and read postings over and over. I still haven't read it all yet! I can only thank you for being here and for sharing your knowledge and thoughts.
"A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle."
Kahlil Gibran
Thank you dqfry!
This thread started with a question for young scientists and open-minded medical students*:
Is vitamin D deficiency in childhood leukaemia an underestimated reality?
Could cod liver oil - the old remedy, a relic from the past - help in the
empirically arranged but clinically effective today's treatment protocols?
The aim was to make some smart girl/boy cross "cod liver oil" and "leukemia" on PubMed database and find the old 1988 "Shanghai report".
Then we would have discussed the opportunity to give some "cod" to leukemic patients.
Your totally unexpected, dramatic, precious contribution fixed the limits of this issue, proving, at the same time, that our message is reachable by parents and patients.
They are -in the end- the real target of this topic.
ikod
*a young scientist!
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.cerbero.eu%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2007%2F09%2Fmessage-in-a-bottle.jpg&hash=dd492fcd63488c792bacf38e1388220c) (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.usm.edu%2Fbsclearningcenter%2Fgraphics%2Fmicroscope.jpg&hash=c61d71700b7944b70464d82ac5d64687) (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fannietv600.files.wordpress.com%2F2006%2F11%2Fjournal_reading.thumbnail.gif&hash=f501d912345cadb68726b1a079022ab0)
http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:f_8eZbUquaFsEM:http://www.uwosh.edu/science_outreach/kid%20microscope.jpg
http://blog.cerbero.eu/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/message-in-a-bottle.jpg
http://annietv600.files.wordpress.com/2006/11/journal_reading.thumbnail.gif
"the Shanghai Report": http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/112672783/PDFSTART
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mc.vanderbilt.edu%2Freporter%2Freporter_jpgs%2Freporter_3.10.06_11.jpg&hash=646c5bf728003a6dc3ff89d7335209c0)
http://www.mc.vanderbilt.edu/reporter/reporter_jpgs/reporter_3.10.06_11.jpg
Dr. Xiao Ou Shu
We know from the 'Shanghai report' that daily doses of vitamins A and D (actually cod liver oil!) -taken for at least one year- could be able to reduce leukemia incidence to half or 1/3.
It's not much, but we (parents) should give it a chance and offer this protection to our sick children, to avert relapse risk.
"Now every evening, everywhere in the world, some parent
is reminding one of the kids to take his 'cod'."
one parent's dream
Parents don't need to ask a doctor or get a prescription
before giving a glass of orange juice and/or
cod liver oil caps to their children,
either they are healthy or sick.
Good NEWS on D-vitamin!!!
Vitamin D insufficiency in the pediatric oncology population:
defining who is at risk and the need for standardized screening.
M. A. Helou, G. Massey, G. Francis, K. Godder, J. Laver
Abstract:
Background: Survivors of childhood cancer are at increased risk for osteoporosis. Contributing factors include direct effects of chemotherapy and radiation therapy on bone, secondary hormone deficiencies, and chronic illness. However, vitamin D insufficiency could be a major risk factor during and after cancer therapy. Vitamin D insufficiency is common in healthy school aged children (median 25-hydroxy vitamin D [25(OH)D] = 28 ng/mL, 55% <30 ng/mL, 5% < 10 ng/mL.) Based on this data, we hypothesize that vitamin D insufficiency would be common among children with cancer. If vitamin D insufficiency is prevalent, correction may contribute to better bone health and immune responses in children with cancer. Methods: We determined the serum levels of 25(OH)D, PTH, calcium, and phosphorus for 40 children with leukemia or lymphoma currently on therapy (group 1), 34 children with leukemia or lymphoma off therapy (group 2), 16 children with solid tumors currently on therapy (group 3), and 10 children with solid tumors off therapy (group 4.) Prevalence of 25(OH)D insufficiency ( <32 ng/mL) and severe deficiency (<10 ng/mL) was compared by Chi square test to the healthy reference population (established by Weng, et al.)
Results: For the majority of patients, calcium and phosphorus levels were within normal limits. Conclusions: Vitamin D insufficiency was very common in all groups, especially in children with solid tumors on therapy (Group 3.) 25(OH)D levels did improve off therapy, but for Group 2, still remained significantly less than normal reference population (p=0.0001.)
The data suggests that vitamin D status should be determined for all children at diagnosis of malignancy with a strong recommendation to consider vitamin D supplementation during treatment and follow up.
J Clin Oncol 26: 2008 (May 20 suppl; abstr 10023)
http://www.asco.org/ASCO/Abstracts+&+Virtual+Meeting/Abstracts?&vmview=abst_detail_view&confID=55&abstractID=35975
Something is finally "moving" on the clinical research side...
I hope(dream) that many parents -on the other side- are giving 'cod for more than one year'!
Unfortunately, if vitamin D is needed mainly, and too much vitamin A is either toxic or counteracting "D" wonderful effects (J.Cannell et al. Nov.2008), we would need a special cod liver oil formula:
a moderate amount of vitamin A, plenty of D-vitamin and lots of omega-3!
This probably WAS the original cod liver oil, before they started removing D-vitamin, erroneously thinking that it was too close to toxic amounts. Two thousands I.U. per day of vitamin D3 were considered almost toxic for humans.
What a shame: we seem to have destroyed the original formula.
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fd2993411.u58.surftown.nu%2Fimages%2FAalesund2.jpg&hash=174d855ac2ffcf882ab22ebcbe4a34f1)(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg234.echo.cx%2Fimg234%2F659%2F25917wa.gif&hash=6b2de9175724042bf5dd85010ab9bab9)
55220
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I will put it in a more interesting way, like a sort of quiz for fresh brains and open-minded medical students that might be interested in this very specific topic.
To make this corner a bit less neglected.
It could take more than a human life to read everything about human leukaemia, but a few basic answers are still missing...
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.heathersanimations.com%2Fbabies%2Fanimated_baby.gif&hash=7aed6964824e9079ec2921e744857139)
http://www.heathersanimations.com/babies/animated_baby.gif
many others plus me
- Using PubMed you find over 190000 citations for "leukaemia" (they were over 120000 in 1999).
- Just one citation crosses "leukaemia" and "cod liver oil".
It's a 1988 old paper with astonishing data that when confirmed, - and they won't be ever confirmed, I am afraid - could have the power of some thousands of those other scientific reports. In practical terms.
I am not at all sure there is a single cause of leukaemia – why should there be only one cause?
I think it is fairly certain that some leukaemias are caused by viral infections.
another someone
Studying homozygous twins lives from the cradle to the end of life we get lots of data about gene & environment interactions: if a certain disease is due to an inherited genetic defect, the incidence in twins will be much higher than in the general population. If the cause is mostly environmental, the incidence in twins will be similar to the control population.
The risk of leukaemia in identical twins is higher for children, decreasing to normal over 15yrs of age, these observations suggesting that multiple factors responsible for human leukaemia are probably in the environment.
Surely there is not a single cause for leukaemia, and in most cases it is not genetically determined (apart from some toddlers in which genetic damage has been demonstrated looking back at the DNA sampled at birth for screening tests).
In most mammals it is a viral and infectious disease. Feline leukaemia in cats is an easy model: cats get the FeLV bug, develop a flu-like disease and neutralizing antibody to get rid of it. In some animal no antibody comes out (defective immune reaction?), viruses persist for a certain time and damage cell precursors, then a leukaemia or lymphoma start.
In humans it doesn't seem so easy and crystal-clear. Thanks to Bob Gallo HTLVI retrovirus has been found in a small subgroup of human T-cell leukaemias in 1981...He was almost the last researcher who studied new human viruses in leukaemia and so spotted the AIDS retrovirus shortly after.
Epstein Barr Virus (EBV) is perhaps involved in some leukaemia or lymphoma but the mechanisms are still unclear.
Mel Greaves's hypothesis (the last "hit" may be infectious) is quite interesting:
A series of genetic mutations make a cell clone expand a bit too much, then a strong stimulation, an overridden immune response to an infection by a common pathogen (strepto, mycoplasma, adenoviruses, toxoplasma,CMV, EBV, parovirusB19 etc.) leads to sustained growth of the expanded clone and starts bone marrow and organ invasion.
The internal environment ("milieu interieur": infection-inflammation-immunity) around these immature and unstable cells might be fundamental, at least in the initial phases and later on, during the post-therapy so called remission phase. Unfortunately, research in this context is lacking.
The whole interest seems to be on the bad cells themselves (blasts).
iko (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2Fprograms%2Fspecials%2Fstemcells%2Fimages%2Fstemcells.jpg&hash=45a8a6ccf52e242f2edea67712586e16)
"We had been studying those cells in a bottle for too long,
and forgot to have a look at the original container..."
Anonymous
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Given comments that have been made, from yourself, and I believe quotes from elsewhere, about the relevance of vitamin D to the immune response; I would ask whether you are suggesting that vitamin D deficiency is a primary cause of leukaemia, or whether you are merely suggesting that adequate vitamin D levels can help the immune system fight a latent leukaemia, and that a deficiency in vitamin D is merely causing an impairment of the immune system that might lead to a failure of fighting a latent leukaemia?
George
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Thank you George, for trying to resuscitate this hypoxic topic!
No primary cause, no major breakthrough or bright discovery...
Just a neglected area of investigation.
If even 1 patient out of 100 benefit from a non-toxic nutritional support, it would be worth trying.
In this "setting" only 65-75% of patients are alive after 5 years.
You have exactly got the point!
quote:
"Vitamin D levels can help the immune system fight a latent leukaemia, and that a deficiency in vitamin D is merely causing an impairment of the immune system that might lead to a failure of fighting a latent leukaemia.."
another_someone
But I didn't have a chance to cite
the 1988 report from Shanghai yet.
For me everything started from there in the summer 1999.
We'll make it step by step (for medical students, I mean).
Bye
iko
Addendum:
Let's have a quick look at the past and more
recent improvements in patients' survival after
standard chemotherapy for childhood leukemia:
Click down here to see the diagram:
http://www.abpi.org.uk/publications/publication_details/targetLeukaemia/details/detail_pg16_b.asp (http://www.abpi.org.uk/publications/publication_details/targetLeukaemia/details/detail_pg16_b.asp)
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.abpi.org.uk%2Fpublications%2Fpublication_details%2FtargetLeukaemia%2Fdetails%2Fdetail_pg16_b.asp&hash=1f15a6aacb9e156e52cf4c331ddf84c1)
Improvement in survival after diagnosis of children under 15 with ALL or non-ALL between 1971 and 1997.
Results from the National Registry of Childhood Tumours, provided by the childhood Cancer Research Group, University of Oxford.
from: Target Leukaemia website: The Association of British Pharmaceutical Industry
http://www.abpi.org.uk/publications/publication_details/targetLeukaemia/tl-questions.asp
Click on the Image
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=4987.0;attach=69;image (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=4987.0;attach=69;image)
Important Note: In the last 5-10 years treatment protocols are practically unchanged.
-
Did anybody search for that basic abstract in PubMed?
It doesn't take much...
Enter PubMed database:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed
just write: leukemia and cod liver oil.
then Enter. and read.
I'll wait. (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.totaltravel.com.au%2Fphotos%2Fcorreacorner%2Fgarden-large.jpg&hash=db49e030b6bd1236488472448f5caead)
http://www.totaltravel.com.au/photos/correacorner/garden-large.jpg
PostScriptum:
(yes, I like P.S., no unfair increase in the number of posts! Less chatting-effect in a scientific forum...)
Over the years I learned that it does not pay much to quote a paper, even talking to a distinguished scientist or colleague. I am getting more and more convinced that clever people have to check the facts themselves, analyse data from their own point of view and then think.
Skepticism is a bad beast in a discipline that should be 100% scientific but has got too many "black holes" and unknown things to be so.
You cannot just start with: "Hey folks, there is this 1988 chinese paper that changed my life..."
No way.
iko
-
...Taking advantage of this relatively uncrowded topic of the forum,
please allow me to squeeze in a sort of essay (and forgive my italian-english).
In memory of my father and our long discussions about aircraft and medical sciences.
running title:
"The Shanghai Report"
Engineers versus medical doctors: practical application of statistical analysis
...
Engineers (fiction)
…In 1988, analyzing routine maintenance reports related to a particular type of airplane, engineers discover that the aircrafts in which red fluid had been used, had significantly less troubles in the hydraulic system, compared to the ones with blue fluid. Even the plane that recently crashed had blue fluid, but the causes of that accident didn’t seem related to a hydraulic system failure. There is no evidence suggesting that red fluid is chemically superior, compared to the other.
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.lib.umn.edu%2Fcdescomm%2Fcdes_memo%2Fimages%2Ftuning_meeting.jpg&hash=de050d5e785d350da0303de5f184d4f4) (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.exxonmobil.com%2Flubes%2Fexxonmobil%2Femal%2Fimages%2Farticle_240x240_plane_orange_sky.jpg&hash=ed2cd5e6ee5e5754c79f932a68fe3f06) (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.claytonleather.com%2Fseals.gif&hash=601d90962233da3ecdd842b16e71aa10)
http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cdescomm/cdes_memo/images/tuning_meeting.jpg
http://www.exxonmobil.com/lubes/exxonmobil/emal/images/article_240x240_plane_orange_sky.jpg
http://www.claytonleather.com/seals.gif
After a meeting with all the technical staff, a decision is taken. A dispatch is immediately sent to all the airliners flying that type of plane with an official recommendation to use red fluid for the hydraulic system. A technical team working for the company will try to find out all the differences between the two chemicals and solve the problem. Results will eventually be published in a special Aviation bulletin.
Medical Doctors (reality)
…In 1988 a group of epidemiologists analyze data related to children suffering from different types of leukemia in Shanghai. Data from a similar group of healthy children are used as reference control. They surprisingly find a significantly lower incidence of leukemia in children taking cod liver oil for more than one year.
A scientific report is sent to a widely known medical journal (Cancer), peer-reviewed, accepted and published after a few weeks.
Strangely enough, a possible therapeutic effect of cod liver oil administration to leukemic children is not even mentioned by the Authors.
Click down here to see the abstract:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=3164642&query_hl=6&itool=pubmed_DocSum
Cod liver oil contains vitamin A, which has well established positive effects in a particular type of leukemia, and vitamin D3, known to be necessary for bone (marrow?) growth and suspected to be important in controlling immune reactions.
Long term use (more than one year) to reach the protective effect would be feasible in leukemia: most treatment protocols last more than one year and during the 3-5 years after diagnosis the risk of disease relapse is high.
Cod liver oil is considered a nutrient, not a drug: nontoxic at normal dosages, it does not interfere with most of the commonly used pharmaceutical products. It should be defined 'historically safe', having been extensively used since the beginning of the last century for various ailments (rickets, tuberculosis, etc.).
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.enempo.com%2Fpics%2FCod%2520Liver%2520Oil.jpg&hash=2f59d413bf4f4a87b35e8df79a5f85b5)
http://www.enempo.com/pics/Cod%20Liver%20Oil.jpg
…In 1999 an italian doctor reads the article and decides to get more information writing a letter to the Author (who moved to USA in the meantime). He basically asks two questions:
1) are there further studies to confirm a protective effect of cod liver oil?
2) was the protective effect stronger in older children, suspected to develop leukemia after an overridden immune response to a common pathogen? (Mel Greaves’s hypothesis: “the final hit may be infectious”).
He gets a kind reply from the Author in a short while, but the content is pretty dismal for human science as a whole.
No further data are available to confirm those results: cod liver oil is not anymore commonly used. The over ten year old study is unfortunately “buried” in 5 inches diskettes and a detailed revision of those data is almost impossible.
Tricky Note:
The "Shanghai report" is almost unreachable by a rough search through Medline databases. A peculiar text-string: "cod liver oil containing vitamins A and D" makes it impossible to find it out just crossing "leukemia" and "vitamin d"...you have to go for cod liver.
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.vivo.colostate.edu%2Fhbooks%2Fpathphys%2Fmisc_topics%2Fvitamina.gif&hash=167ce64050eed8db828d4a2b5b340aa4) (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cyberlipid.org%2Fimages%2Fpict44.gif&hash=12b139e584a839934159041cb5e719fa)
Getting close
…In late 1999 a team of Finnish pediatricians investigate bone turn over in children suffering from cancer (40% leukemias) at completion of therapy. They find abnormal data related to calcium and bone metabolism that explain the high incidence of osteoporosis and pathological fractures observed in these patients. Together with calcium, vitamin D is found significantly lower (P<0.0001). These alterations are referred to bone invasion by cancer initially, but most of all to chemotherapy damage later. These Authors suggest to consider a controlled clinical trial to evaluate the possibility of vitamin D and calcium supplementation.
Click down here to see the abstract:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=10531569&query_hl=2&itool=pubmed_docsum
Suprisingly, in 1999, writing from the very same country (Finland) the bright hematologist T.T.Timonen gets published in Ann.Hematol. "A hypothesis concerning deficiency of sunlight, cold temperature, and influenza epidemics associated with the onset of acute lymphoblastic leukemia in northern Finland." In the end of the summary: "is hypothesized that sunlight deprivation in the arctic winter can lead to a deficiency of the 1, 25(OH)2D3 vitamin, which might stimulate leukemic cell proliferation and block cell differentiation through dysregulation of growth factors in the bone marrow stromal cells, causing one mutation and an overt ALL in progenitor cells damaged during the current or the previous winter by influenza virus, the other mutation."
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.yukonhelmut.de%2FWinter%2FArtic1.jpg&hash=ce21c541dc48912ce9779e77cabc10bf)
http://www.yukonhelmut.de/Winter/Artic1.jpg
"A hypothesis concerning deficiency of sunlight, cold temperature, and influenza epidemics associated with the onset of acute lymphoblastic leukemia in northern Finland." by T.T. Timonen, 1999.
Click down here to see the abstract:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=10525828&query_hl=6&itool=pubmed_docsum
...but all this is just supporting Mel Greaves’s hypothesis: “the final hit may be infectious”.
Timonen T.T. actually introduces the concept that vitamin D3 deficiency itself might cause leukemia in some patients.
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corecharacter.com%2Fuploads%2Feinstein3-thumb.jpg&hash=9b8ce1ed14784aa1d1aaf71ff0cde89e)
http://www.corecharacter.com/uploads/einstein3-thumb.jpg
Closer and closer…
…In 2005 a group of pediatricians in Mansoura, Egypt, investigate bone turnover in 43 children with leukemia. They measure bone mineral density (BMD) and markers of calcium homeostasis (including vitamin D3) at diagnosis, after induction chemotherapy (3months), and during maintenance therapy (12months). They find that osteopenia is a serious problem at presentation and after chemotherapy and it seems to be of the low turnover type. Vitamin D3 is reported significantly lower (P<0.0001) in all patients, lowest at presentation but even later it is rarely close to the half of the control value. They conclude that osteopenia in childhood acute leukemia can get benefit from osteoblastic stimulation by sodium fluoride and vitamin D3, which help mineralization of bone.
The Authors of this astonishing research never suggest that the impressive and persistent vitamin D3 deficiency found in all the children might have been present much before the diagnosis of leukemia.
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.christophundgabi.de%2Fbilder%2Fegypt%2Fsphinx.jpg&hash=74af4243c052af6b97907af51f673454)
http://www.christophundgabi.de/bilder/egypt/sphinx.jpg
Click down here to see the abstract:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=16085546&query_hl=4&itool=pubmed_docsum
...one paragraph missing
(it might sound too much personal
I'll leave it empty for now).
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.continuingeducation.net%2Fimages%2Fcaribbean11.gif&hash=020464567b0b1a0bfe871a66b5eb6afa)
http://www.continuingeducation.net/images/caribbean11.gif
Future
...in 2008 at the annual congress of the most famous association for Hematology and Oncology a little group of doctors joining the Childhood Leukemia Conference are celebrating the 20th anniversary of the “Shanghai report”, together with the Authors and a bunch of epidemiologists. Some folks tell funny stories about fishes and make the usual jokes about vitamins.
The first results available are not statistically significant yet (no placebo group, no double blind, it's hard to tell), but patients seem to grow up much better and may be -fingers crossed- have fewer relapses. There is skepticism about the decision to recommend the stinky natural association of vitamins A and D instead of purified synthetic compounds, and the supposed synergistic action of the two cofactors has not been demonstrated yet.
Research to develop and test vitamin D analogues is still far behind: Randomized Clinical Trials will take years but a major pharmaceutical company is supporting them.
A researcher from Israel is showing his final results related to the synergistic effects of carnosic acid (rosemary) and vitamin D on leukemic cells.
A couple of years have past since the Wisdom In Medicine Panel (WIMP!) and the Association of Parents Against Leukemia together with the Commonsense Committee revised the data and took a decision. They immediately issued a special recommendation to be sent to all the families concerned.
Now every evening, everywhere in the world, some parent is reminding one of the kids to take his ‘cod’.
...Epilogue.
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fbp3.blogger.com%2F_zjtdEB0M1JI%2FRvB-MjHLWNI%2FAAAAAAAAA14%2Ff1FetYiKC4E%2Fs200%2Fac-ERJ145-283x216.jpg&hash=470b7ace7f72cb1668dd867c8bc4a52d)
http://bp3.blogger.com/_zjtdEB0M1JI/RvB-MjHLWNI/AAAAAAAAA14/f1FetYiKC4E/s200/ac-ERJ145-283x216.jpg
Engineers (final fiction)
…In 2008 a Polytechnic professor is illustrating the now famous “blue-fluid case” to a group of students of the Aviation Safety course. She is one of the engineers who 20 years before decided to send as soon as possible a dispatch to all the owners of that type of plane. For various reasons, the recommendation to use red fluid for the hydraulic system was not taken into account by few of them. Over the years, there had been other three near-accidents due to a major hydraulic system failure: two planes had to rush to emergency landings, one was flying in bad weather conditions and almost hit the peak of a mountain. All of them were still using blue fluid. Further and stronger official recommendations were issued, mentioning the incidents and the “growing evidence” that blue fluid could have been the cause.
It took years of investigation to solve the problem: obviously multiple factors were involved. After checking all the data again and again the puzzle was completed. The final piece was an "innocent" chemical in the blue fluid, a stabilyzer substance that had been able to damage only seals from a specific defective batch, and only after a certain period of time. It had been extremely hard and difficult for the whole team of investigators.
The results of this study were finally published in a special Aviation bulletin.
The professor is stressing her point:
"Once you have looked at your results and redone all the calculations, if it is all statistically sound, do not waste anymore time...just move! What did you do all that work for...if you do not put it into practice?"
She is smiling a bit saying:
"Sometimes it is tough to keep on the ground hundreds of planes...but it may happen, and you must be perfectly sure of your results. It takes guts".
At the end of the lesson a student asks:
"How many lives did you and your team save by informing everybody so early?"
The teacher now becomes serious again:
"Do not forget that there is a backup emergency system, reliable enough in normal weather conditions. By the way, our duty is to make aircrafts safer and safer, doctors save lives".
Yes. The professor is right. Doctors and nurses run from emergency rooms to operating theater, from clinic to outpatients, day and night, taking care of their patients in an endless struggle with time (and budget problems). Technology has finally "invaded" Medicine: CATscan, ECHO, MRI and even fiberoptics (that started in aircrafts much before) brought a sort of peaceful revolution into this branch of Science.
The old stethoscope is now almost obsolete and finally engineers work close to doctors these days.
Engineers respect doctors and probably think that they must be special to manage in such a peculiar discipline full of "black holes" and unknown causes...they are a bit scared when they see treatment protocols being improved by trial and error.
They trust medical doctors anyway.
Nevertheless, back in 1988, a couple of open-minded medical doctors discussing the results of the "Shanghai report" together with one or two engineers and a parent of a leukemic child, could have made the difference.
...even now, in this new hypertech century, "it takes guts" to propose cod liver oil use as a nutrient for leukemic patients.
The End Flying over Sicily at sunrise: the Etna volcano
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.n4ls.com%2Fimages%2Flinch_sunrise_over_med_enroute_to_desert_small.jpg&hash=39152cc01b97894b6f32742408bc33f5)
http://www.n4ls.com/images/linch_sunrise_over_med_enroute_to_desert_small.jpg
Iko
"Il sole dona la vita, il sole se la riprende" M.U. Dianzani 1975
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=4987.msg241504#msg241504
Thank you Zoey,
for asking about my favourite quote. Well, to explain it properly, in a short 'essay' in english... it will take me more than a few minutes! But translating it is the easiest thing:
"The sun gives life, the sun takes it back"
These words concluded one of the best lectures I attended in my life. At the 3rd year of Medical school, General Pathology course, more than thirty years ago. Professor Mario Umberto Dianzani was our teacher, Dean of the Medical Faculty and a distinguished scientist, totally dedicated to his students. Later on he has been Rector of the University of Turin for several years before retiring.
In those days biochemistry was 'the' thing: new cofactors and vitamins were deeply explored by medical research.
I'm sure I owe to his excellent lectures my following research interest in cofactors.
"Aging of cells and living organisms" was the subject of the lecture.
In less than one hour we went from the origin of life on our Planet to the present time.
Volcanoes and oceans plus UV light to catalyze the synthesis of organic compounds (Miller's experiment), then nucleic acid formation after million years of random combinations.
Primitive organisms, bacteria and algae. Again the sunlight creates energy through photosynthetic processes and here come trees and forests! Different species of primitive life, unicellular, multicellular towards more and more complex organisms, thanks to spontaneous mutations, natural selection and evolution. For the whole 'biosphere' survival is always tightly bound to its origin, to the sunlight.
Sunlight and ultraviolet rays give energy and feed the whole system, nevertheless they are responsible -in the end- for lipid peroxidation and DNA damage. A series of biochemical reactions lead to senescence in multicellular organisms too.
Complex systems are progressively deranged: skin, bones, muscles, nerves, glands and immune cells get older...diseases follow.
The sun itself puts an end to our lives.
Magic
...
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.bootsnall.com%2FChuck%2Ffiles%2F2008%2F01%2F_Beautiful_Sunrise.jpg&hash=f223a1e5bc8fc44fac26a5b2f0212940)
http://blogs.bootsnall.com/Chuck/uploads/_Beautiful%20Sunrise.jpg
"Il sole dona la vita, il sole se la riprende"
Mario Umberto Dianzani, 1975.
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The real question is: why a scientific evidence found in 1988 has not been used, put into practice, for our patients' sake? It would have been so easy to confirm those data, arrange a meeting and send a despatch to all the pediatric-oncology departments...after that a proper study could have been started and a scientific article eventually published.
Unfortunately we are humans, not aircrafts!
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.admaioramedia.it%2Fpublic%2FFoto%2Feliambulanza.jpg&hash=06f7b454251bada902c7370f332e5bf4)
http://www.admaioramedia.it/public/Foto/eliambulanza.jpg
iko
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MYSTERY
"There is certainly a secret behind spontaneous remissions in leukemia,
whether this is important or not for future research, we do not know."
Marcel Bessis, 1977.
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Jean-Pierre Soulié, Marcel Bessis, Jean Bernard et Jean Dausset
Remissions after exchange transfusions in acute leukemia.
On the possible antileukemic properties of normal blood. Historical notes and recent reflections.
Bessis M, Bernard J.
Blood Cells 1983;9(1):75-82
Can artificial intelligence help us understand “spontaneous remissions” in leukemia?
Marcel Bessis
Blood Cells 1993;19(3):660-1
In 1988 Marcel Bessis was an old scientist in his seventies (he died in 1994). Either he missed the "Shanghai paper" or read it in '94 and collapsed.
He seemed to be sort of a genius, a scientist full of curiosity more than a medical doctor, sometimes looking at things from a totally different point of view.
Before the introduction of chemotherapy, he witnessed a few spontaneous remissions of leukemia after infections or blood exchange in infants (most remissions did not last longer than few months) and got this convinction that the real cause was in the "milieu interieur", the internal environment.
He probably died together with his questions.
His last question about the future application of "artificial intelligence", the extraordinary power of computers to solve the 'mystery' , is an extremely good point.
It seems so normal today to reach, analyze and combine information of any sort in seconds, but imagine how it was few years ago: long days and years spent in libraries to grab just a bunch of data.
...Let's show everybody how powerful this forum is compared to a message in a bottle or even person to person e-mails.
I sent lots.
iko
Paradox
Spontaneous remissions in acute leukemia are so rare and short-lasting to be considered paradoxical events. Consequently, they are too often ignored and disregarded by the scientific community.
Paradoxical results are not uncommon in studies of carcinogenesis. Ignoring these paradoxes is tantamount to saying the prevailing theory holds in all instances except the paradoxycal cases. However ignoring "outliers" in data analysis is not satisfying; it should be the last refuge when all else fails.
But more importantly, ignoring paradoxycal results means missing potentially exciting new avenues for research.
Rather than relegate the paradoxycal results to the periphery of investigations, they should be the centerpiece of a paradox-driven research portfolio.
Summary in:
"Paradoxes in carcinogenesis: New opportunities fo research directions."
Stuart G Baker and Barnett S Kramer
BMC Cancer 2007, 7:151
this article is available from: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2407/7/151
Bessis Marcel (1917-1994)
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Inserm actualités 1994
Marcel Bessis vient de nous quitter. De la campagne d'Italie à la première rémission des leucémies aiguës, tel pourrait être le titre du chapitre initial de l'oeuvre de Marcel Bessis. C'est pendant la campagne d'Italie qu'il avait proposé de traiter les blessés victimes de graves écrasements musculaires par le grand échange du sang, l'exsanguino-transfusion. C'est à l'hôpital Saint-Antoine que, un des tout premiers, il traite par l'exsanguino-transfusion les nouveau-nés victimes de la maladie hémolytique par conflit Rhésus. D'où de pénétrantes études sur cette maladie du nouveau-né qu'il reproduit chez le raton, qu'il retrouve chez le muleton du Poitou, victime des anticorps anti-baudet sécrétés par la mère jument. C'est enfin, en novembre 1947, à l'hôpital Herold, pour la première fois dans l'histoire des leucémies, la rémission complète d'une leucémie aiguë obtenue par l'exsanguino-transfusion, début d'un long combat.
Cependant, Marcel Bessis, se consacrant entièrement au laboratoire, devenait le pionnier des nouvelles méthodes microscopiques. Il applique la microscopie électronique à l'étude des structures des cellules sanguines normales et leucémiques. Il reconnaît, décrit des formes, des structures nouvelles. Surtout, il met au point la microcinématrographie accélérée en contraste de phase. Il passe de l'anatomie à la physiologie. Il crée littéralement l'écologie, l'éthologie des cellules sanguines, reconnaissant les informations qui couvent à l'intérieur de la cellule, d'organelle en organelle, de mitochondries en centriole. C'est ainsi qu'on lui doit la première description du nécrotaxis, de cette mort cellulaire qui inspire actuellement de nombreux travaux.
Marcel Bessis, comme les grands hommes de sciences, a su constamment allier la rigueur technique à une réflexion générale philosophique dont témoignent des essais sur l'histoire de la recherche scientifique, la créativité dans l'art et la science, la définition du soi et du non-soi.
Cette oeuvre, très étroitement liée à celle des chercheurs de l'Inserm, a été accomplie à l'Institut de pathologie cellulaire de l'hôpital de Bicêtre, puis au Centre d'écologie des cellules du sang à la Salpêtrière.
Membre de nombreuses académies et sociétés savantes étrangères, Marcel Bessis avait été élu en 1979 membre de l'Académie des Sciences.
Professeur Jean Bernard
http://infodoc.inserm.fr/histoire/Histoire.nsf/(WWWReponses)/5AFB06BDC8B13BE480256DCC004EBFBF?OpenDocument&Infos
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August 19th 2006.
First positive result: if you write "leukemia cod liver oil" on Google this topic comes first, just before the 1988 "Shanghai paper".
At least a scared parent who is looking for something good on the nutritional side will find an updated essential review about cod liver oil.
Extremely synthetic -I must say- and without complicated medical terms...engineers like it this way.
The today famous 1988 "Shanghai report" is safe now. Thanks to this fantastic world wide web...and related search engines.
For a while it had run a risk of disappearing, together with thousands of other "old" and "useless" scientific reports from the past century.
Even Marcel Bessis and his mystery about spontaneous remission is back on the stage.
We can easily predict the different reactions after reading this topic:
- Medical doctors won't take it into account as they did before (no controlled trial available).
- Engineers will be amazed, but they would probably find it by pure coincidence, searching for: "Aviation bulletin" or "Hydraulic system".
- Parents of leukemic children will consider to give their child some cod liver oil, instead of getting confused between hundreds of alternative and unproven nutritional supplements.
...and they (the parents) will immediately start feeling better...and less terrified.
Why are these parents so scared?
Just because they are told that their child's disease will be effectively cured in a certain percentage of cases after a series of cycles of highly toxic drugs.
But in a consistent number of cases (25-30%) the disease will come back, resistant to further treatment.
When this happens, more toxic cycles of chemo will be required, and may be RADIATION TREATMENT and a bone marrow transplantation.
In some patients with aggressive types of leukemia, the disease comes back even after a graft, in one case out of two...
After chemo and during maintenance therapy there is no official recommendation for parents:
going down to the seaside or up to the mountains, to the pool or living sealed at home, staying in the shade or in the sunshine, eating this food and avoiding that...nothing.
There is no confirmed evidence about these factors (are we sure?).
So do what you want, but please follow your regular checkups every two weeks and then every month.
In the meantime...we all wait and see if and when IT strikes again.
There is just enough to go mad or/and spend your days in useless searches through medical databases...
When IT strikes back it's a real tragedy for patients and parents.
They suddenly realize why doctors were never totally relaxed during their regular checkups, even months and years from stop-therapy. The invisible enemy is back and nobody seems to know why, as it was at the very beginning of their illness. Girls and boys have grown up and forgotten about those awful days, such a long time has past, wasted without anything specific to do or even try, to avoid all this mess coming back again.
Something should be done for these people.
Quick.
We know from the 'Shanghai report' that daily doses of vitamins A and D (actually cod liver oil!) -taken for at least one year- could be able to reduce leukemia incidence to half or 1/3.
It's not much, but we (parents) should give it a chance and offer this protection to our sick children, trying to avert relapse risk.
...in 2006 I joined the Wisdom In Medicine Panel (WIMP!) as a junior member. I have been in the Association of Parents Against Leukemia since '99. We are still looking for the Common Sense Committee. It seems a bit difficult to find one though. Then we'll arrange a meeting to revise all these data and take a decision...
Unfortunately, it's just a dream.
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.randburg.com%2Fis%2Flysi%2Fimages%2Flysi05.jpg&hash=3f51ed8040b070c09a7fb71a19fbd200)
Another positive fact:
...there should be quite
enough cod liver oil for
all our sick children...
www.randburg.com/is/lysi
iko
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimage.motortrend.com%2Ff%2Feditorial%2Ffar-from-everywhere-land-rovering-through-mongolia%2F10273290%2Bw750%2Fland-rover-defender-110-in-gobi-desert.jpg&hash=6bea57ccdd0309c4c3021c0853d0d86f)(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fupload.wikimedia.org%2Fwikipedia%2Fen%2Fthumb%2F4%2F41%2FSaudi-desert.gif%2F300px-Saudi-desert.gif&hash=1f7c7b1a0ae82fdf6dff3f60f6472aad) (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.geocities.com%2Floes_3%2Ffotos1%2Fjeep.jpg&hash=ded176f7506cd017bf373d752615af7d) (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mikestrawbridge.com%2Fimages%2Fjeep-91-HO-blow-by.jpg&hash=2fe3ffd0ae7630b489f2da106411d489)
...
After a diagnosis of childhood leukemia
It would be like having to drive across the desert with your family in a jeep, after having been told by the mechanic who fixed the engine that you had one chance in three of getting stuck in the middle of the desert!
Your immediate reaction would be trying desperately to get better informed and, checking the old and greasy car's instruction manual, you might find that a particular brand of light yellow oil is strongly recommended for that type of engine.
Surprisingly enough, nobody ever told you that.
What would you do then, wait for 'confirmed evidence'...or rush to buy a few cans of the special oil?
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.yellowbiodiesel.com%2Fimages%2Fjug.gif&hash=0912dde8eafef7bc6a88d6ce56f90df3) (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fnews.bbc.co.uk%2Folmedia%2F1815000%2Fimages%2F_1817974_cod_liver_oil300.jpg&hash=6bb35cd8584ce9aba60d60b72267acd9) (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fbotecoliterario.files.wordpress.com%2F2007%2F08%2Fsun.gif&hash=11ad19cce79f9e05427fd492dc702d81)
Today's patients and children's parents cannot afford to wait for a scientific confirmation, they need more hope and a little help right NOW.
Vitamin D As Treatment
How much vitamin D should one take if they have cancer? We don't know as the research is far from complete. Although vitamin D may help, it should only be taken in addition to standard cancer treatment. It should not be considered a first, or only, treatment but used in addition to regular chemotherapy or surgery. Oncologists and surgeons work miracles every day.
Remember, vitamin D may be toxic in overdose, although one expert recently said, "worrying about vitamin D toxicity is like worrying about drowning when you are dying of thirst".
That said, many people think "if a little is good then a lot is better". This is definitely not true about vitamin D.
http://www.vitamindcouncil.com/cancerMain.shtml
...in the meantime, waiting for scientific confirmation, a little bit of 'cod' every day should work just fine.
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Speaking of why giving stinky "cod" instead of specific synthetic substances, let's borrow this note from the anti-oxidant topic of the Forum:
quote:
A quote from the article is "Just because a food with a certain compound in it is beneficial to health, it does not mean a pill with the same compound in is"
That's exactly right. A pill sometimes works better than the original food and viceversa.
Scientists versus Mother Nature and her tricks
In the late '70s researchers opened their enormous freezers where thousands of serum samples from blood donors had been stocked since over 10yrs before. They wanted to test vitamin A concentration (knowing that it is well preserved in frozen samples) and look for a correlation with cancer incidence in those individuals. Experimental data in animals had demonstrated a positive effect of retinoic acid on precancerous lesions.
They found a strong inverse relation between vitamin A concentration and risk of tumor. All the media started recommending vitamin A to prevent or even fight cancer.
Few years later a proper RCT (randomized clinical trial) was started: a group of nurses and doctors took either a certain dose of vitamin A or a placebo every day for years. The conclusion of the study was disappointing: no difference in cancer incidence with or without vitamin A.
Some clever mind offered an explanation for this: vitamin A had been found increased in blood donors who had lower risk of cancer because it had been eaten together with some other more effective anticancer compounds.
Here we go with all the broccoli, cabbage, cauliflowers and so on...they are rich of vitamin A and probably have other mysterious anticancer factors.
iko
Addendum:
Vitamin A instead of cod liver oil would play the same trick...if you gave vit.A to patients because the ones taking 'cod' had higher levels of retinoic acid in their blood and were doing better (hypothesis!), you could get poor results because you are not giving together Vit.D and a bit of omega-3 fatty acids, the original recipe.
:mudneddA
Vitamin D instead of cod liver oil would play the same trick...if you gave vit.D to patients because the ones taking 'cod' had higher levels of vitamin D3 in their blood and were doing better (hypothesis!), you could get poor results because you are not giving together Vit.A and a bit of omega-3 fatty acids, the original recipe.
Conclusions:
The reason why only CLO should be recommended in childhood leukemia as a nutritional support is that we have unconfirmed, neglected, and perhaps weak evidence of its efficacy thanks to a study published in 1988.
But we do have it and we should use it for our patients' sake.
The alternative use of one or more components of CLO separately, suggested by anyone's deductions or thoughts, should be considered unsubstantiated and empirical.
This level of evidence is obviously useless in the case of toxic and expensive drugs that require properly arranged experimental tests before being approved and used in patients.
On the contrary, weak evidence should be quite enough in the case of nontoxic and inexpensive nutritional supplements (especially those historically-safe like cod liver oil).
Parents don't need to ask a doctor or get a prescription
before giving a glass of orange juice and/or
cod liver oil caps to their children,
either they are healthy or sick.
iko
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Hi iko,
this is a very interesting topic, I'm surprised not more have joined in.
It does look like Vit D is very importantly related to various cancers, especially as you say, cell proliferation and differentation.
I've been searching around at different websites and have found a couple you may be interested in.
http://pharmacology.case.edu/department/faculty/primary/macdonald.html
This one looks at the research of VDR's and the transcription process.
The other site is;
http://www.umass.edu/microbio/chime/pipe/2000/rxr/intro.htm
This one deals with Retinoid X receptors.
I have found a few other sites if you are interested in the molecular/genetic side of this.
Hope this is of some interest [:)]
Debs
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I'm happy that somebody replied to this underdiscussed (but with some "viewers") forum...even if I had to recruit her from another topic! Thank you anyway, I was almost thinking to send some question to myself...
The point here should be more phylosophical about Science.
A comparison between different ways of using statistical evidence in aircraft and medical sciences...
A major problem could have been a sort of misunderstanding in results communication:
- doctors were not interested in cod liver oil use in their patients (for various understandable good reasons)
- parents of leukaemic children -on the other side- were not informed that some positive evidence had been found.
- If anybody had wanted confirmed evidence of something like that in a controlled study...
Well, it would have been like dividing airplanes into two groups (red-fluid versus blue-fluid) and counting the accidents in the two sets until more significant evidence had come out.
Can you imagine a placebo group versus cod liver oil in this setting (1/3 die in 5-10yrs)?
Neither that has been done...just nothing.
So called alternative treatments are usually defined "unproven". When they are tested and found useless they become "disproven".
In this very specific case, i.e. use of cod liver oil in childhood leukemia, we should be in between from unproven to proven (weak evidence) with no toxicity and very low costs.
Recommendations could be sent directly to the parents concerned (but who should tell them and how?).
Scientific evidence will come in years. Patients may benefit from a nutritional supplement today.
Parents do not need to ask a doctor or get a recipe before giving orange juice
and/or cod liver oil to their children, either they are healthy or sick.
iko
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I have a question.
Could an over abundance of vit D over stimulate the retinoid X receptors and thus transcription of RNA, and actually lead to further cancers rather than reducing them, by prolification of cellular tissue? Which would then possibly explain why sitting in the sun can cause cancer.
I wonder if UV denatures receptors, like the RAS receptor not being able to turn off?
Debs
PS. I've found some reference to ubiquitin/proteom pathways which also seem to be a factor. I'm still trying to work all that one out at the moment. I'll post back if it has any relevance.
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I cannot answer your questions: I just read "something" about these complex interactions: I'm a sort of beginner. Even experts would find it hard...
When multiple factors are interacting so closely like in biology, nothing is streight and easy to predict or even understand. You need lab.research, standard conditions, knockout genes and many other things to make it simpler and...still.
...why sitting in the sun can cause cancer.
lotusbunny
This is an interesting point: apparently regular and prolonged (most of the year) exposure to sunlight without burning makes your body produce vit.D3 and prevents skin tumors!
Isn't it neat?
Check this out on PubMed easily:
cross "Holick m" and "skin cancer" and find all the reviews where this point is quite stressed (epidemiological data).
I warn you: a vitamin D3 tsunami is going to hit the media pretty soon...this stuff has been around in scientific press for too long.
Up with the old cod liver oil!
iko
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P.S. Ubiquitin is everywhere...in my next life I'll try to study and understand something about it: it is too difficult.
For now I'd like to give 'cod' to most of the children with leukaemia. This seems really impossible to achieve.
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Maybe low level contant Vit D, as in continuous small amounts of sun exposure, allows the body to find an equalibrium and gradually increase its level to optimum. Where as intense saturation of Vit D over stimulates at causes damage to receptors?
Usually when they talk of too much vit D, it is about kidney damage and its lost ability to metabolise it. I wonder if it is much more than this.
One of the articals I've found talks about bacteria and RXR.
It mentions the bacterias ability to cause macrophage apotosis and so limit the T cell response, so damaging the innate immune system. But RXR and LXR seem to protect the cells, when given an antipoptic regulator AIM/CT2
I think you mentioned T cells be the problem in leukemia? I'll have to find out more about it. I don't know much about the illness.
I'm a novice myself, I just study topics as my hobby. I love learning and would dream of working in research.
At this moment I'm still working hard on the methyl bromide front.
I have access to a number of databases with the OU. This is going to be a long work, but I love it [:D]
Debs
Ps I hope I'm not boring the pants off you, please say if I am
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Sorry, my English in the last post was a bit erratic, my calcium levels have dropped.
It makes thinking and writing a bit foggy. I appologise when that happens
[:D]
Debs
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There is no evidence of toxicity due to hyperproduction of vitamin D3 by sunlight exposure. Internal mechanisms seem to inactivate and/or stock in the skin byproducts of this hormone. Vitamin D intoxication has been reported in the cases of prolonged assumption by mouth of excessive doses of fish liver oil or synthetic compounds. This is what I knew and it's not much. Toxic levels of vitD (It is a fat-soluble vitamin) lead to abnormal calcium adsorption and accumulation mainly in the kidneys.
quote:
I think you mentioned T cells be the problem in leukemia? I'll have to find out more about it. I don't know much about the illness...
...It could take more than a human life to read everything about human leukaemia, but a few basic answers are still missing...
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http://www.heathersanimations.com/babies/animated_baby.gif
many others plus me
keep up the good work
iko
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Some recent hints on the vitamin D side...
...to keep my monologue alive.
Vitamin D compounds: clinical development as cancer therapy and prevention agents.
While 1,25 dihydroxycholecalciferol (calcitriol) is best recognized for its effects on bone and mineral metabolism, epidemiological data indicate that low vitamin D levels may play a role in the genesis and progression of breast, lung, colorectal and prostate cancer, as well as malignant lymphoma and melanoma. Calcitriol has strong antiproliferative effects in prostate, breast, colorectal, head/neck and lung cancer, as well as lymphoma, leukemia and myeloma model systems.
Antiproliferative effects are seen in vitro and in vivo.
The mechanisms of these effects are associated with G0/G1 arrest, induction of apoptosis, differentiation and modulation of growth factor-mediated signaling in tumor cells. In addition to the direct effects on tumor cells, recent data strongly support the hypothesis that the stromal effects of vitamin D analogs (e.g., direct effects on tumor vasculature) are also important in the antiproliferative effects.
Antitumor effects are seen in a wide variety of tumor types and there are few data to suggest that vitamin D-based approaches are more effective in any one tumor type. Glucocorticoids potentiate the antitumor effect of calcitriol and decrease calcitriol-induced hypercalcemia. In addition, calcitriol potentiates the antitumor effects of many cytotoxic agents. Preclinical data indicate that maximal antitumor effects are seen with pharmacological doses of calcitriol and that such exposure can be safely achieved in animals using a high dose, intermittent schedule of administration. AUC and C(max) calcitriol concentrations of 32 ng.h/ml and 9.2 ng/ml are associated with striking antitumor effects in a murine squamous cell carcinoma model and there is increasing evidence from clinical trials that such exposures can be safely attained in patients. Another approach to maximizing intra-tumoral exposure to vitamin D analogs is to inhibit their catabolism. The data clearly indicate that agents which inhibit the major vitamin D catabolizing enzyme, CYP24 (24 hydroxylase), potentiate calcitriol killing of prostate tumor cells in vitro and in vivo. Phase I and II trials of calcitriol, either alone or in combination with carboplatin, taxanes or dexamethasone, as well as the non-specific CYP24 inhibitor, ketoconazole, have been initiated in patients with androgen-dependent and -independent prostate cancer and other advanced cancers. The data indicate that high-dose calcitriol is feasible on an intermittent schedule, no dose-limiting toxicity has been encountered, but the optimal dose and schedule remain to be delineated. Clinical responses have been seen with the combination of high-dose calcitriol + dexamethasone in androgen-independent prostate cancer (AIPC) and, in a large randomized trial in men with AIPC, potentiation of the antitumor effects of docetaxel were seen.
from: Trump DL et al.
Anticancer Res. 2006 Jul-Aug;26(4A):2551-6.
...the 'protective effect' of cod liver oil
versus childhood leukemia suggested by the
Shanghai study in 1988 finds a support in
this more recent report about vitamin D:
Anticlastogenic potential of 1alpha,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 in murine lymphoma.
Sarkar A, Saha BK, Basak R, Mukhopadhyay I, Karmakar R, Chatterjee M.
Department of Pharmaceutical Technology, Jadavpur University, Calcutta, India.
Vitamin D3, having gained scientific interest for so long because of its role in mineral homeostasis, has now received great importance as a possible antitumor agent.
This study was undertaken in an attempt to visualize the possible anticlastogenic potential of the vitamin in an ascitic mouse lymphoma model namely, Dalton's lymphoma. Frequencies of structural type chromosomal aberrations, sister chromatid exchanges and micronucleus assays have been chosen as the genotoxic endpoints in the proposed investigation. All these cytogenetic markers have been found to be markedly elevated during the progression of lymphoma in bone marrow cells.
Vitamin D3 effectively suppressed the frequencies of chromosomal aberrations and sister chromatid exchanges in the lymphoma-bearing mice during the entire phase of tumor growth that significantly coupled with almost two-fold increase in survival time (37 +/- 2 and 68 +/- 2 days in lymphoma controls and vitamin D3-treated lymphoma-bearing mice, respectively), thus substantiating the antineoplastic efficacy of this secosteroid. The outcome of this study also is clearly reflected in the depletion of circulating (serum) vitamin D3 levels in the lymphoma control mice compared with normal (vehicle) controls while a still higher level was maintained in the VD3-treated lymphoma mice. This anticlastogenic property of the vitamin has so far been neglected and this is the first attempt to unravel the vitamin D3's effect in combating tumor development in vivo by limiting the frequencies of chromosomal aberrations, sister chromatid exchanges and micronuclei at least in transplantable murine model studied herein.
Cancer Lett. 2000 Mar 13;150(1):1-13.
...but an anti-mutagenic effect of vitamin A
had been previously reported by several investigators.
This is one example:
Antimutagenicity profiles of some natural substances.
Brockman HE, Stack HF, Waters MD.
Department of Biological Sciences, Illinois State University, Normal 61761.
Selected antimutagenicity listings and profiles have been prepared from the literature on the antimutagenicity of retinoids and the carotenoid beta-carotene. The antimutagenicity profiles show: (1) a single antimutagen (e.g., retinol) tested in combination with various mutagens or (2) antimutagens tested against a single mutagen (e.g., aflatoxin B1).
Data are presented in the profiles showing a dose range for a given antimutagen and a single dose for the corresponding mutagen; inhibition as well as enhancement of mutagenic activity is indicated. Information was found in the literature on the testing of selected combinations of 16 retinoids and carotenoids vs. 33 mutagens. Of 528 possible antimutagen-mutagen combinations, only 82 (16%) have been evaluated. The most completely evaluated retinoids are retinol (28 mutagens), retinoic acid and retinol acetate (7 mutagens each), and retinal and retinol palmitate (6 mutagens each). beta-Carotene is the most frequently tested carotenoid (15 mutagens). Of the remaining retinoids and carotenoids, 8 were evaluated in combination with a single mutagen and the other 2 were tested against only 2 or 3 mutagens. Most of the data on antimutagenicity in vitro are available for S. typhimurium strains TA98 and TA100. Substantial data also are available for sister-chromatid exchanges in vitro and chromosome aberrations in vitro and in vivo. This report emphasizes the metabolic as well as the antimutagenic effects of retinoids in vitro and in vivo.
Mutat Res. 1992 Jun;267(2):157-72.
One, two, and three!
Vitamin D, vitamin A, and even
omega-3 fatty acids have an
anti-mutagenic capability.
A natural mix of rare and precious moleculae
in a cheap, smelly, light yellow oil...
Desmutagenic and bio-antimutagenic activity of docosahexaenoic acid
and eicosapentaenoic acid in cultured Chinese hamster V79 cells.
Kuroda Y, Shima N, Yazawa K, Kaji K.
National Institute of Genetics, Mishima, 411-8540, Shizuoka, Japan.
The antimutagenic activities of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) were examined by studying their effects on induction of 6-thioguanine (6TG)-resistant mutations by ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS) in cultured Chinese hamster V79 cells.
DRA had a remarkable inhibitory effect against the cytotoxicity of EMS, when cells were simultaneously-treated with EMS, showing a blocking or scavenging activity of DHA in reduction of surviving fraction of cells. DHA had not so significant effect, when cells were treated before and after treatment with EMS. On the other hand, EPA had marked inhibiting effects against cytotoxicity of EMS, when cells were treated with EPA, before, simultaneous and after treatment with EMS. Against the induction of mutations by EMS, an antimutagenic activity of DHA was found when cells were pre-treated, simultaneously-treated or post-treated with DHA. EPA was also effective in reducing EMS-induced 6TG-resistant mutations when the cells were treated using the three different treatment procedures described above.
The results suggest that in cultured Chinese hamster V79 cells, DHA and EPA may have both desmutagenic activity, which inactivates EMS chemically and/or enzymatically and bio-antimutagenic activity which suppresses mutation fixation after DNA is damaged by EMS.
Mutat Res. 2001 Oct 18;497(1-2):123-30.
One, two, and three...
and four! Cod liver oil contains
even vitamin E that has similar
antioxidant properties, and who
knows if this is the end of it...
Not long ago I read that those peculiar omega-3 so good for our brain (EPA & DHA) that
we get from sea creatures, mainly blue-fish, seem to be made by the ocean plankton itself.
Humans and even those fishlets are not able to synthesize them.
It is a wonderful hypothesis: those special unsaturated fatty acids represent a sort of vitamin
for all of us and come directly from where life originated million years ago on this Planet...
Our survival seems to be inevitably bound to the sea and the sunshine.
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2F2.bp.blogspot.com%2F_x0lygOs8SA4%2FRnGs4uIIbmI%2FAAAAAAAAAFw%2FrDgMbS_bplM%2Fs320%2F607230%7ESunset-Beach-Volleyball-Posters.jpg&hash=5745e1bd7943003c0066947d4732264a)
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_x0lygOs8SA4/RnGs4uIIbmI/AAAAAAAAAFw/rDgMbS_bplM/s320/607230~Sunset-Beach-Volleyball-Posters.jpg
ikod
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You may want to contact some of the vitamin D researchers who are belong to the vitamin D council.
Below is the link to a recent article by Michael Holick, long a researcher in vitamin D. He does mention leukemia in the article. His bio, link below, is on the Vitamin D Council web site and has his contact information there along with other researchers you may want to contact.
Zoey
http://www.vitamindcouncil.com/scientists.shtml
Link to Holick's recent article:
http://www.jci.org/cgi/content/full/116/8/2062
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Thank you Zoey,
I wrote to prof. Holick a couple of months ago and he sent me the pre-print of that jci paper!
Since then I realized that a vit.D 'tsunami' was coming soon...
I wrote to the vit.D council to inform them about this topic of the forum just few days ago.
The comparison engineers versus doctors came out just writing to this forum...and became -to me- the most important issue of this topic.
I had been looking for an example for a few years...and finally it came out.
Thinking of my father and his beloved aircraft safety science.
I tried to write a short 'essay' to strenghten my point and realized I'm not a writer...
But you probably got my point of view here:
-I'm going directly to the children's parents.
It's a sort of emengency: we're almost 20 years late.
-I'm going for cod liver oil (not vit.D3 alone).
Original recipe, with no prescription and low costs.
The only 'evidence' we have is for cod liver oil.
And it'is historically safe.
This is obviously rejected by vitamin D supporters.
I would not like to watch again the vit.A failure in cancer prevention...I learned my lesson.
I do not want to be any longer the only parent (I guess) to remind one of the kids to take his 'cod' in the evening...and watch him grow up taller than his older brother, perfectly healthy again (thanks to his doctors!), swim like a fish (cod), well and fit.
In this particular case we could do without evidence based medicine for a while.
It is emergency based medicine, to find a remedy for an old mistake of the past in a neglected field of investigation.
This is only my personal opinion, of course.
Please do give me back my wise and white-haired professors of Medicine and their old "ex-adjuvantibus" criteria.
And keep so called evidence based medicine somewhere else just for now.
Here we have a case of weak evidence because nobody wanted to search more. (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.enempo.com%2Fpics%2FCod%2520Liver%2520Oil.jpg&hash=2f59d413bf4f4a87b35e8df79a5f85b5)
http://www.enempo.com/pics/Cod%20Liver%20Oil.jpg
...The old Norse name for cod liver oil was "lysi" – light, and the oil was actually used to fuel lamps all over Europe.
iko
-
Hello Iko,
"tsunami" is right. However, even with major, major efforts to publicize the issue, vitamin D deficiency, and it's symptoms, are likely to continue being unrecognized or misdiagnosed, as with other vitamin syndromes. I wrote an article for my web page about vitamin D deficiency related to seizures and came away wondering how many "miraculous" cures of seizures [esp. in young children] might occur were there not a mental block to seeing the obvious [going beyond the engineering approach to evaluating seizure disorders]. Cod liver oil is available in gel caps so the resistance to the taste is easily overcome now. Resistance to figuring out why A and D may work better together may be more difficult to overcome.
I am looking for information to document the prevalence of vitamin B12 deficiency in the USA for an article. According to the federal agency I contacted, there is not, cannot be, a "problem" with B12 deficiency here because we have food abundance. How can anyone find a novel solution to a problem if they cannot consider information that doesn't fall into the current doctrine?
Have you written anything up summarizing your experience with your child's recovery and how you became interested in the issue of vitamin A & D [cod liver oil]? If so, can you post it or send me a copy? Maybe an essay on why novel approaches to treatment need to be considered is in order.
This book may interest you, "Military Strategies for Sustainment of Nutrition and Immune Function in the Field" by the Committee on Military Nutrition Research, Institute of Medicine. It is available to read on the net:
http://newton.nap.edu/catalog/6450.html
It contains a chapter by Richard Semba on vitamin A and his research, with some references to leukemia.
Zoey
-
Hi Zoey,
part of my personal story is in this topic, inside the short essay "the Shanghai report".
Some other bits in my cod liver oil topic (complementary medicine)...and I may keep the rest for myself. The point here shouldn't be about the single medical history of my younger son: in 1999 he was lucky to have a middle-risk type of ALL, went through all the scheduled chemo plus spinal punctures (!) without major complications -thanks to our splendid and dedicated nurses and doctors- and now is a mature young adult studying at the Polytechnic to become an aircraft engineer and move to LA asap (he likes it there).
If you read my 'novel', there is an italian doctor who finds in 1999 the now famous 1988 "Shanghai report". I was 11yrs late and found it by pure coincidence, crossing CLO and leukemia: we just got PubMed at home and in my office, my son was sick...so long hours on Medline data bases were 'physiological', just normal.
I didn't want to interfere with the treatment, so we started with 1 CLO capsule a day (!!!) for 24 months (better than nothing...over 720caps!). After stopping any treatment he was ready for the standard daily dose of 4-6caps.
He is alive thanks to his doctors and their medical knowledge.
Cod liver oil might have helped him or not (we'll never know that): it has certainly been good on me, it gave me the feeling of having done something for my son (big placebo effect).
The real question here is: why a scientific evidence found in 1988 has not been used, put into practice, for our patients' sake?
It would have been so easy to confirm those data, arrange a meeting and send a despatch to all the pediatric-oncology departments...after that a proper study could have been started and a paper eventually published.
But we are humans, unfortunately, not airplanes!
Vitamin B12 deficiency is pretty rare (but exists!) in developed countries: as a result of malnutrition (alcoholics, faddists, anorectics etc.) or impaired adsorption caused by gastric atrophy.
Please find something about vitamin B12 from the "form of vitamin" topic of this forum (cells/microbes/viruses), two posts from few weeks ago:
Vitamin B12 deficiency could cause pernicious anemia and/or severe neurolgic damage, psychotic behaviour and in rare cases irreversible blindness. I remember a report of few years ago about a young man left completely blind after a badly managed vegan diet.
Dementia caused by vitamin B12 deficiency
Behrens MI, Diaz V, Vasquez C, Donoso A.
Departamento de Neurologia y Neurocirugia, Hospital Clinico Universidad de Chile.
Cyanocobalamin (vitamin B12) deficiency can cause polyneuropathy, myelopathy, blindness, confusion, psychosis and dementia.
Nonetheless, its deficiency as the sole cause of dementia is infrequent. We report a 59 years old man with a 6 months history of progressive loss of memory, disorientation, apathy, paranoid delusions, gait difficulties with falls, and urinary incontinence. He had suffered a similar episode 3 years before, with a complete remission. On examination there was frontal type dementia with Korsakoff syndrome, a decrease in propioception and ataxic gait. Cerebrospinal fluid examination showed a protein of 0.42 g/L. Brain computed tomography showed sequelae of a frontal left trauma. Brain single photon computed tomography (SPECT) was normal.
Complete blood count showed a macrocytic anemia with a hematocrit 29% and a mean corpuscular volume of 117 micron3.
Plasma vitamin B12 levels were undetectable, erythrocyte folate levels were 3.9 ng/ml and plasma folate was normal. The myelogram showed megaloblastosis and the gastric biopsy showed atrophic gastritis. Treatment with parenteral B12 vitamin and folic acid reverted the symptoms, with normalization of the neuropsychological tests and reintegration to work.
Rev Med Chil. 2003 Aug;131(8):915-9.
iko
I forgot to explain how vitamin B12 deficiency could develop even on a regular diet.
Gastric atrophy leads to impaired production of a special protein (Intrinsic Factor) that binds B12 and allows its absorption in the intestine. Liver can stock large amounts of B12 enough for approx. 6 months.
So if the stomach stops making IF, after 6m on a regular diet vitamin B12 deficiency becomes evident (to somebody who can diagnose it on the spot!). Large amounts of B12 by mouth can allow the intestine to absorbe enough vitamin anyway. But in case of severe deficiency, parenteral administration for a few days is recommended.
bye
iko
-
Hello Iko,
Quote:
The real question is: why a scientific evidence found in 1988 has not been used, put into practice, for our patients' sake? It was so easy to confirm those data, arrange a meeting and send a despatch to all the pediatric-oncology departments...after that a proper study could have been started and a paper eventually published.
True, but where is the financial incentive for the research? Where is the profit to be made if cod liver oil is effective in preventing or treating ALL or any other disease? Where is the interest or even capacity to take in new information that requires changing, if not abandoning one's beliefs about the nature and progression of ALL or any other disease?
The issue you raise echos what Alred Sommer encountered while his life saving research findings regarding vitamin A were dismissed by his peers--for a decade. He expresses it eloquently in his essay, "A Bridge Too Near".
http://whale.to/v/sommer.html
A google search on ALL and cod liver oil turned up about 200 links. The Shanghai study is not totally buried, but the information is not getting out quickly.
We might get closer to finding cures for many diseases if we would view disease in terms of natural processes, not due to "outside invaders" and "forces beyond our control."
Thanks for the information and references on B12. My searching indicates deficiencies may be more widespread than generally believed in "developed" countries.
The focus of the article is on reversible myelopathies. I was diagnosed with syringhydromyelia four years ago (T6-T10). By the dearth of information, and the medical "advice" offered, it was obvious this would be a do-it-yourself-spinal cord repair job.
Within two days I had more information than could be found at the National Organization for Rare Diseases. While the official word is surgery is the only viable treatment, my searching began turning up cases that were healed with acupuncture or that resolved on their own.
Last spring I had some rather dramatic improvement in spinal cord pain and other symptoms while experimenting with large doses of B12 and folic acid for another reason. The change was so great, I did a google search on B12 and hydromyelia, then syringomyelia.
Immediately a case of hydromyelia reversed with B12 supplements turned up, and of syringomyelia as well. These were not anecdotal. Medical reports of myelopathy reversed go back a good eighty years. The search for the mysterious substance in liver that cured pernicious anemia is what led to the identification of B12 in 1948. Since it was so successful in curing spinal cord disease, why are cures like these not routine?
More searching turned up many cases in which myelopathies were reversed when the underlying nutritional disorder was identified and treated. Physicians in several countries have written on the subject and the need for all health care providers to be informed and to look for nutritional factors any time a patient develops myelopathy. I see their articles gathering dust on library shelves.
The most common nutritional causes of myelopathy turning up are B12 or copper deficiency, less often vitamin E deficiency and exposure to nitrous oxide which can induce B12 deficiency. The situations in which myelpathy may be reversible is the primary focus, with an emphasis on recognizing the need to evaluate for these possibilities even when there are no overt symptoms of deficiency.
My rant may be similar to yours. There are several nutritional causes of spinal cord degeneration. The symptoms may appear to be those of multiple sclerosis, transverse myelitis, found one case of Parkinson's, or the myelias. So why isn't anyone who develops signs of myelopathy routinely evaluated for these possible causes of their symptoms? Why isn't every health care worker in the world made aware of this important information. Well, if B12 deficiency is rare, why waste the money testing for it?
Guess we need also to keep raising our voices and looking at ways to be heard. The reason I asked you about writing on cod liver oil and ALL, was not to focus on your son, but on the issue of a possible treatment\preventive for ALL that deserves more attention.
There are lots of options on the internet to make your voice heard and generate more interest in this issue. If nothing else, post an article\essay about ALL\cod liver oil on web sites devoted to ALL, or other forums like this and direct readers to this dicussion. That may raise awareness and interest promoting further research.
Regards,
Zoey
P.s. Some links on reversible myelopathy:
http://www.ispub.com/ostia/index.php?xmlPrinter=true&xmlFilePath=journals/ijn/vol2n1/vitamin.xml
http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.com/inside.asp?AID=58&UID=
http://bioline.utsc.utoronto.ca/archive/00002888/01/ni04171.pdf
http://www.neurology.org/cgi/content/citation/65/3/E7
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Hello Iko,
Can you tell me where I can find a copy of the Shanghai Report online?
Thanks,
Zoey
-
Hi Zoey,
I think the article is too old to be available online.
I got it from the library few years ago. Surprisingly enough, in the whole text you cannot find more than in the abstract about cod liver oil and incidence of childhood ALL or AML.
Believe me, this important finding is not even in the title and is not expanded/discussed in the text.
I might scan it for you and send it by e-mail.
Let me know
Ciao!
iko
-
Hello Iko,
If you can scan it to me that will be great. If not, I will check with the scientist where I have my web page. He is a research scientist and may be interested in this too. He might be able to get a copy from his university's librarary if you cannot scan it. As soon as I am more informed, it will be possible to contribute more to this discussion. Thanks!
Later,
Zoey
-
Hi Iko,
In a Las Cruces bookstore today I picked up a copy of a book “Low-Level Radiation,” a subject that interests me. It was written by Ernest j. Sternglass, who for decades has been alerting the world about the dangers of low-level radiation; he taught Radiation Physics at the University of Pittsburg. This book is much about leukemia, changing rates since nuclear testing began. It was published in 1972 and is very well documented. I did a google search on Sternglass which turned up several hundred links, including the press release below. Maybe you are familiar with him?
And the Cod Liver Oil Connection:
A PubMed search of “cod liver oil” and “radiation” turned up the Shanghai report abstract and three others.
A Google search on “radiation sickness” and “cod liver oil” gives about 300 links [not many academic.” At PubMedCentral, there is a wealth of early research on cod liver oil, it was used as a treatment for cancer in the mid 1800s. I hope this is not a repeat for you, but this article is very interesting:
The Non-Surgical Cure of Cancer.
Nicholson D.
Can Med Assoc J. 1937 Jul; 37(1): 76-80.
PMCID: 1562281
| Summary | Page Browse | PDF-1.1M |
http://www.pubmedcentral.gov/picrender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&blobtype=pdf&artid=1562281.
Regards,
Zoey
http://www.radiation.org/spotlight/florida.html
Spotlight
Press Release
For Immediate Release
April 9, 2003, 11:00 A.M.
Contact: Lisa Palley, (305) 642-3132
Jerry Brown, Ph.D., (305) 321-5612 (cell)
Ernest Sternglass, Ph.D., (305) 321-5612
Childhood Cancer in South Florida
Study Finds Cause in Nuclear Plant Radiation Emissions -
Drinking Water Most Likely Source
Miami, Florida - A South Florida Baby Teeth and Cancer Case Study, that was officially released today, finds that infants and children are especially vulnerable to cancer caused by federally-permitted radiation releases from nuclear reactors, such as the Turkey Point and St. Lucie nuclear power plants, located in southeast Florida.
The five-year baby teeth study, also known as the "Tooth Fairy Project," found a 37% rise in the average levels of radioactive Strontium-90 (Sr-90) in southeast Florida baby teeth from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s. When compared with baby teeth collected from 18 Florida counties, the highest levels of Sr-90 were found in the six southeast Florida counties closest to the Turkey Point and St. Lucie nuclear reactors: Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Martin, St. Lucie and Indian River.
The current rise of radiation levels in baby teeth in Florida and in the U.S. as a whole reverses a long-term downward trend in Sr-90 levels since the 1960s, after President Kennedy banned aboveground testing of nuclear weapons 1963, due to concerns about increasing childhood cancer and leukemia rates from fallout.
Radioactive Sr-90 is a known carcinogen, which is only produced by fission reactions in nuclear weapons or reactors. It enters the body along with chemically similar calcium, and is stored in bone and teeth, where it can be measured years later using well-established laboratory techniques.
Significantly, the study documented that the average levels of Sr-90 found in the teeth of children diagnosed with cancer were nearly twice as high as those found in the teeth of children without cancer.
Dr. Ernest Sternglass, Professor Emeritus of Radiation Physics at the University of Pittsburgh Medical School and co-author of the study said that "although radioactive emissions can enter the air, soil and diet, the most significant source of Sr-90 in southeast Florida children's teeth is groundwater, the primary source of southeast Florida's public drinking supply. This is due to the area's high rainfall and shallow aquifer."
The study found the highest levels of radioactivity in samples of drinking water found within 20 miles of the Turkey Point (located south of Miami) and St. Lucie (located north of West Palm Beach) nuclear power plants, while levels of radioactivity were significantly lower in water samples further away from the reactors.
The rise in Sr-90 levels in both drinking water and baby teeth parallels a 32.5% rise in cancer rates in children under 10 in the southeast Florida counties, which are closest to the nuclear power plants. This compares with a average 10.8% rise in national childhood cancer rates from the early 1980s to the late 1990s.
The baby teeth study conclusions are consistent with the recent U.S. Environmental Protection Agency admission that children age 2 and younger are 10 times more susceptible than adults to the cancer causing effects of toxic chemicals and radioactivity. According to the National Cancer Institute's SEER Cancer Statistics Review, from early 1970s to late 1990s, U.S. childhood cancer overall has increased by 26%, brain cancer by 50%, leukemia by 45% and bone cancer by 40%.
"There is now substantial evidence that exposure to federally-permitted radiation releases from nuclear reactors is a significant cause of increasing childhood cancer rates in southeast Florida, as well as a risk factor for cancer in Americans of all ages," said Dr. Jerry Brown, the study's co-author and Founding Professor, Florida International University in Miami.
Dr. Brown noted that, "the recent 2003 Recommendations of the European Committee on Radiation Risk found that the world-wide health effects of very low levels of radioactivity have been vastly underestimated."
In a Statement on Baby Teeth Study, Samuel Epstein, M.D., wrote, "Given prior evidence of the relationship between childhood cancer and radioactive emissions from 103 aging nuclear power plants in the U.S., and the well established biological risks of radioactive Strontium-90, it is now critical to recognize that radioactive emissions from commercial nuclear power plants pose a grave threat to public health in southeast Florida and throughout the nation." Dr. Epstein is Professor Emeritus of Environmental and Occupational Medicine, University of Illinois at Chicago, School of Public Health, and Chairman, Cancer Prevention Coalition.
The study was conducted by the Radiation and Public Health Project (RPHP) and funded by the Health Foundation of South Florida. The Radiation and Pubic Health Project is an independent not-for-profit research organization, established by scientists and physicians to investigate the links between environmental radiation, cancer and public health.
The Health Foundation of South Florida, a not-for-profit grantmaking foundation, is dedicated to expanding access to affordable, quality health care and providing funding that directly benefits the health and well being of underserved individuals in Broward, Miami-Dade and Monroe Counties. Since its inception in 1993, the Foundation has awarded more than $42 million in grants and direct program support.
Available for Interview at Press Conference
- Dr. Ernest Sternglass, Chief Scientist, RPHP; Professor Emeritus, Radiation Physics, University of Pittsburgh Medical School; co-Principal Investigator of the Report.
- Dr. Jerry Brown, Research Associate, RPHP; Founding Professor, Florida International University; co-Principal Investigator of the Report. (English and Spanish)
- Lilyana and Bill Sager (Lilly), Miami, Florida, daughter diagnosed with cancer submitted tooth to study. Ms. Sanger will discuss why she supports the baby teeth study, her reactions to findings, and her concerns over increasing cancer in the Cutler Ridge area of South Miami-Dade County (English and Spanish)
- Lee Klein, CEO, Children's Cancer Caring Center, founder of organization that provides free medical care to needy families of children with cancer in South Florida and throughout Latin America.
- Steven Marcus, President and CEO, and Peter Wood, Chief Program Officer, Health Foundation of South Florida, an independent not for profit organization benefiting community healthcare and education. The Health Foundation funded the South Florida Baby Teeth and Cancer Case Study.
- Barbara Garrett, Senior Vice President, Applica Inc., a Miami Lakes-company that has supported the national baby teeth study.
Available for interviews by phone:
- Samuel S. Epstein, M.D., Professor Emeritus of Environmental and Occupational Medicine, University of Illinois at Chicago, School of Public Health and Chairman, Cancer Prevention Coalition. Dr. Epstein has reviewed the Research Report and provided a written Statement on Baby Teeth Study
- Dr. Hari Sharma, President, Radiological and Environmental Measurement Systems, Waterloo, Canada. Dr. Sharma is an international expert in radiological measurements and manages the independent lab that tests the baby teeth.
- Debi Santoro, mother who's infant has nerve cancer and who has submitted tooth to study and had her water tested.
- Audra Malone-Schmidt, mother of child with cancer who submitted tooth to study.
- Dava Michaelson, mother and breast cancer survivor, who has submitted daughter's tooth to the study.
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Thank you Zoey for the 1937 paper!
http://www.pubmedcentral.gov/picrender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&blobtype=pdf&artid=1562281.
I like 'historical' reports and I ignore most of them, I'm sorry about that.
I'm pretty sure that CLO wouldn't work alone as a treatment...as I am aware that it had probably been tested in unfortunate patients when nothing else was available.
The point in childhood leukemia and cod liver oil is more subtle: it could help as a nutritional support the minority of patients that do badly with standard treatments . After initial chemo, the bad cells totally disappear (remission) and patients become 'normal kids' again, suffering only from the toxicity of the following therapy (reinduction and maintenance). There should be enough time - over one year - to benefit from the protective effect found in normal children in the Shanghai report.
It is a hope supported by weak epidemiological evidence.
I do not follow much the radiation-leukemia connection. I tend to stay more on the other side, where disease is already started and talking of prevention is a bit useless...
I know that when we had Chernobyl fallout (my wife took a walk in the rain with our 2yrs old kid) my second son was an embryo of few weeks...but we had no increase of leukemia cases related to that event in the whole Europe, as far as I know.
He had a mycoplasma infection when he got sick, and certainly that was the last infectious 'hit', according to Mel Greaves's theory (by the way, why didn't he get a Nobel Prize yet?)
Mel Greaves Mycoplasma pneumoniae
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.icr.ac.uk%2Fresearch%2Fresearch_profiles%2F2875.jpg&hash=316e51b81885877a314dd31387694a41) (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwebdb.dmsc.moph.go.th%2Fifc_nih%2Fapplications%2Fpics%2FMycoplasma4.jpg&hash=b7e27f3beed01df86339d880e08c2824)
http://www.icr.ac.uk/research/research_profiles/2875.jpg
http://webdb.dmsc.moph.go.th/ifc_nih/applications/pics/Mycoplasma4.jpg
iko
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Hello Iko,
I find it useful to get a historical context on a subject that catches my interest. It helps me understand it, and think about it with a sense of how the perception has changed over time. These early studies on radiation exposure found there was a timeline for the increase in leukemia to appear, an average number of years. Initially, the studies were refuted, but later validated. When we consider how widespread radiation exposure is, we may also want to consider more subtle effects than that of leukemia. Also, do you think a child's level of vitamins A and D would affect the tendency to develop leukemia? If so, would children living in areas where deficiency in these nutrients are common might have a higher incidence of developing the disease?
Getting back onto the subject of treatment, what other nutritional factors do you think would work along with cod liver oil to overcome the negative effects of treatment?
IThis link is to Columbia University's oncology program on integrative treatment of children with cancer.They include a link to current studies that are recruiting also. http://www.integrativetherapiesprogram.org/research/studies/anti.php
Zoey
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Hey Iko,
I looked over that site at Columbia. Some of those folks may not have heard of the Shanghai report, and surely would be interested if they weren't aware of it.
Zoey
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Hi Zoey,
we're making an hypertopic here...
It's nice to quit my monologue for a change!
quote:
...
Also, do you think a child's level of vitamins A and D would affect the tendency to develop leukemia? If so, would children living in areas where deficiency in these nutrients are common might have a higher incidence of developing the disease?
Getting back onto the subject of treatment, what other nutritional factors do you think would work along with cod liver oil to overcome the negative effects of treatment?
Zoey
If we consider a multifactorial etiology in a fortunately rare disease, vitamin D and A+omega-3 may play a minor role together with all the rest. Other factors interacting make quite difficult to catch a significant difference.
In underdeveloped countries leukemias are less represented compared to lymphomas. Urban (and wealthy?) people seem to be more exposed.
We may expect that a malnourished child, affected by multiple deficiencies could die from infection way before developing a leukemia (Hypothesis!).
If you search for a connection with lower vitamin D levels...well in USA coloured children have a slightly higher incidence of this disease. This is just speculating...vitamin D levels should be tested more extensively after the Mansoura study in Egypt.
In my opinion, this would be the only way to estabilish a connection.
Other nutritional factors -mainly antioxidants- may help to overcome the negative effects of treatment.
It was summer then, and we had tons of squeezed icy lemon juice and fresh garlic bread from time to time (pure empirism)...
There are some studies about eating more healthy food and avoiding some toxic effect...
quote:
Low antioxidant vitamin intakes are associated with increases in adverse effects of chemotherapy in children witn acute lymphoblastic leukemia
...Chemotherapy leads to an increase in reactive oxygen species, which stresses the antioxidant defense system. Children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia rarely are overtly malnourished, which makes this population ideal for an investigation of the relations between dietary antioxidant consumption, plasma antioxidant concentrations, and chemotherapy-induced toxicity.
...a 6-mo observational study of 103 children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Plasma micronutrient concentrations, dietary intakes, and incidence of side effects of chemotherapy were ascertained at diagnosis and after 3 and 6 mo of therapy...
Conclusion: A large percentage of children undergoing treatment for acute lymphoblastic leukemia have inadequate intakes of antioxidants and vitamin A. Lower intakes of antioxidants are associated with increases in the adverse side effects of chemotherapy
Kennedy D et al. Am J Clin Nutr 2004;79:1029-36.
http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/79/6/1029
quote:
Antioxidant-Rich Diet Helps Fight Leukemia
As if undergoing chemotherapy isn't trying enough, kids with the most common form of childhood leukemia receiving this treatment may also experience a significant reduction in their antioxidant and micronutrient levels. This decrease could lead to severe side effects from the chemotherapy. However, there may be a ray of hope amidst this dark cloud. According to a study, children could improve antioxidant and micronutrient levels and prevent some of the adverse side effects of chemotherapy by simply incorporating more fruits and vegetables into their diets. The study, prompted by parental concern regarding children's safety in taking antioxidant supplements (such supplements might affect the high cure rate experienced with leukemia), involved more than 100 recently diagnosed children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). The children had their antioxidant levels, antioxidant capacity and oxidative damage measured during their first six months of chemotherapy treatment.
Findings
Blood levels of vitamin E decreased over time, while vitamin A and total carotenoids increased
Vitamin C and oxidative damage increased within the first few months and declined by the sixth month.
Antioxidant levels were associated with side effects of the treatment; antioxidant capacity decreased throughout the course of the study
Children with higher concentrations of vitamins A, E and total carotenoids experienced fewer poor outcomes (such as infections and toxicity)
Based on the findings, researchers emphasized the importance of eating more fruits and vegetables -- which may provide a more balanced mix of antioxidants -- in addition to working with a nutritionist to improve the child's diet.
Forbes.com December 27, 2004.
Cancerpage.com December 27, 2004
Dr. Mercola's Comment:
It is no surprise that kids can better withstand the toll of chemotherapy by eating a diet full of antioxidant-rich fruits and vegetables. However, one needs to be VERY careful about using any product, even natural ones, as the ONLY approach to treating a complex illness like cancer, as it is likely to be counterproductive. For this reason, I have pulled together a list of alternatives to fight cancer.
Healthy Alternatives to Fight Cancer
1. Avoid sugar, as it is the primary fuel for most cancers.
Eating too much sugar and too many grains -- which are converted to sugar in the body -- will cause your blood sugar levels to rise. If your blood sugar levels remain elevated, even mildly, over a period of time, your risk of developing cancer increases.
Since I am fully aware that many people struggle with this sugar/grain restriction, I highly recommend using the energy psychology tool Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) to successfully treat stresses, including food cravings such as those related to sugar and grains.
2. Optimize your vitamin D levels, as it is probably the single most important vitamin in preventing and treating cancers.
The safest way to maintain healthy vitamin D levels is through sun exposure, but many of us are not able to do that in the winter, and some of us also stay indoors in the summer. For those that don't obtain enough sun exposure, taking a high-quality cod liver oil is a reasonable alternative. Taking a high-quality cod liver oil is more important than any supplement you can take because it is not a supplement at all -- it is an essential food...
NOTE: It important to have your vitamin D levels checked, as it is possible to overdose on vitamin D.
Sunlight, which causes us to produce vitamin D, can also help lower the risk of many cancers. Sunlight might actually be helpful in treating cancers directly through some, as yet, unidentified mechanism. One of my favorite books from last year, The Healing Sun Tom place link, provides some further details about this approach.
3. Make sure you exercise, as this will help lower your insulin levels.
There is no shortage of literature documenting the major benefits exercise has in lowering the risk of cancer and improving cancer once it is diagnosed. One of the major ways exercise works is by reducing insulin levels. It is quite clear that elevated insulin levels are associated with an increased risk of cancer.
When using exercise as a drug it will be important to have a goal of at least one hour per day, every day if you have high insulin levels or signs of them, such as:
High blood pressure
High cholesterol
Overweight
Diabetes
Obviously, depending on one's current condition, one needs to work slowly up to this level. My experience is that weight-bearing exercises, such as walking, jogging, running and elliptical machines, are better than cycling and swimming. If you are already in shape then you can limit your workouts to 45 minutes three or four times per week. However, if you are already in shape; then it is likely you won't have cancer, as many studies show that people who exercise have far less cancer rates...
Dr. Joseph Mercola
http://www.mercola.com/2005/jan/12/antioxidant_leukemia.htm
...perhaps even my Granny knew that...
iko
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Thanks for the address Zoey!
I just sent an e-mail to carolann@columbia.edu
...another copy of the Shanghai report is flying over the Ocean...
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.walkerbooks.com%2Fnonfiction%2Fbooks%2Fcovers%2Fcod-l.gif&hash=d1ec68f3144d771bac3b6331dd6a14ab)
ikod
quote:
...Every summer, thousands of barrels of cod liver oil were transported on cargo vessels, the so-called "jekt"s, from Lofoten to Bergen and further on to Europe.
Fish, liver and roes, cooked together and referred to as "mølje", have always been an important and healthy part of the coastal people’s diet. Vitamins A and D and the Omega 3 unsaturated fatty acids in the cod liver oil, helped keep people healthy. It was often said that the cod liver oil makers and other people that took a lot of cod liver oil were seemingly never ill.
Medicinal Cod Liver Oil
Pharmacist Peter Møller wanted to introduce more people to the healthy effects of cod liver oil. In 1854, he built a lined cauldron, filled the space between the cauldron and its lining with water, and steamboiled the fresh cod livers. In this way he greatly improved the quality of the oil. The invention of medicinal cod liver oil was honoured with awards at many trade fairs in Norway and abroad. Later, the cod liver was steamed in conical oak barrels. In order to extract the last remaining drops of precious cod liver oil, the residue of the liver was then squeezed in a liver press before going to the manufacture of cattle feed or fertiliser.
Today, much of the old production equipment can still be seen in the cod liver oil factory at the Norwegian Fishing Village Museum in Å. Cod liver oil is still produced there in the old fashioned manner, and small bottles of it together with cod liver oil lamps are on sale as mementoes from Lofoten.
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lofoten-info.no%2FBilder%2Ftran2.jpg&hash=b6013aedc536cf7ed017bfafb4bc8b7e)
The cod liver oil Factory
from: Norwegian Fishing Village Museum
http://www.lofoten-info.no/history.htm#5
ikod
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I read much of Kurlansky's book several years ago. Interesting! I take my cod liver oil straight. Great about the request for another copy of the Shanghai Report. It will be very interesting to see what comes of it.
When searching out information on vitamin D, for an article, I came across one that is lesser known, but may have a place in this discussion. I couldn't include it in my article so didn't keep the information. I will go back and look for it again.
Regarding nutritional factors: World Watch published a report in 2000 on the issue of being overfed yet malnourished [http://www.alternet.org/story/274/]. I read that report and it raises some good issues on our assumptions about hunger. We think of malnourishment in terms of money when the cause may be cultural and having the money to buy the less nutritious delicacies.
If you look for a connection between vitamin D status and the rate of disease development you may well find the highest rates in areas where there is the least exposure to sunlight. When gathering information on this, nearly every child in numerous major cities around the world had some signs of rickets around 1900. This included, New York, London, Paris, and many other cities. So, it might be of value to see if these areas have the highest rates of leukemia. I would like to know more about how leukemia develops, whether it can be viewed as a type of degenerative process or what. I have a lot of studying to do on this.
Guess what! I just did a google search on vitamin D and leukemia and this report turned up:
Excerpt.
A Leader in Leukemia Research and Treatment
by Mark Wright
from Visions, Fall/Winter 2004
Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center teams are at the forefront of novel treatment approaches and drug discovery for treatment of leukemia. While doctors once considered leukemia a single disease, a malignancy of the blood cells, today they have identified at least a dozen varieties, allowing for highly targeted treatment approaches.
.....
Featured Article
A Leader in Leukemia Research and Treatment
by Mark Wright
from Visions, Fall/Winter 2004
Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center teams are at the forefront of novel treatment approaches and drug discovery for treatment of leukemia. While doctors once considered leukemia a single disease, a malignancy of the blood cells, today they have identified at least a dozen varieties, allowing for highly targeted treatment approaches.
In the 1980s, Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center became one of the first in the country to use high-dose cytarabine to treat relapsed leukemia, which contributed to Wake Forest’s becoming a national center for leukemia treatment.
Today more than 80 percent of the acute leukemia patients who come to Wake Forest Baptist are eligible for a clinical trial, many of which start here — facts that put this medical center among the leading leukemia research facilities in the nation.
“Our patients are participating in trials that are started here, in addition to national studies,” explained Bayard L. Powell, M.D., director of the leukemia service. “So when patients come here, they receive cutting-edge therapy.
“Leukemia is certainly one of our areas of focus and always has been, and we are active participants in the leading national trials.”
Powell, section head of hematology and oncology, also serves on the committee of the Cancer and Leukemia Group B (CALGB) that develops national leukemia trials, “so we’re very closely aligned with CALGB for studies for untreated patients.”
He said that Wake Forest Baptist currently has about 15 clinical trials underway in leukemia research, with over half of leukemia patients involved in one or more clinical research studies.
It was hardly more than 50 years ago that leukemia — a malignancy involving the blood cells — was thought to be just one disease. Now, however, hematologists and oncologists know that there are at least a dozen varieties of leukemia. They know that, as is often the case with leukemia, a drug may work very well for one patient but for others with the “same” type of leukemia the drug may not work at all or only marginally well.
If more diseases or subcategories are discovered, “it will look more complicated, but in fact it will become simpler to address, because then you will be able to really talk about a single entity,” said Istvan Molnar, M.D., an assistant professor of hematology-oncology who is experimenting with vitamin D in fighting the preleukemic condition called myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS).
---
http://www1.wfubmc.edu/articles/Leukemia+Research
Maybe you know this researcher already?
---
I will look more into antioxidants also.I hope to post more discussion on disease as a "natural process." If we think of illness in these terms we can allow ourselves to see and explore possibilities for healing we might otherwise exclude from consideration.
Regards,
Zoey
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Have you searched much on vitamin E and Leukemia?
Zoey
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=8272150&dopt=Abstract
Note: Performing your original search, "vitamin E" "leukemia", in PubMed will retrieve 138 citations.
Neoplasma. 1993;40(4):235-40. Related Articles, Links
Vitamin E--its status and role in leukemia and lymphoma.
Dasgupta J, Sanyal U, Das S.
Department of Experimental Leukemia, Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute, Calcutta, India.
A comparative study has been performed on the relationship between vitamin E and immunofunction in normal and malignant condition in human and murine systems. Further, the effects of supplemental vitamin E on tumor take, host survival and tumor growth have been studied in a transplantable lymphoma in mice. Vitamin E was assayed in serum samples from normal subjects and from patients with leukemia and lymphoma by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The murine group included Dalton's ascitic lymphoma (DL), Schwartz lymphoblastic leukemia (SVL) and Moloney lymphoblastic leukemia (MVL). Serum vitamin E was found to be lower than that of the normal controls in all cases of leukemia and lymphoma both in human and animal system. The levels of immunoglobulins (IgG and IgM) were found to be higher in mice with leukemia and lymphoma. Supplementary vitamin E administered at the initial phase of development of murine lymphomas reduced the rate of tumor growth, improved host survival and elevated serum vitamin E level. Vitamin E supplementation also activated specific mitogen induced blastogenesis of peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBL) and elevated serum IgG level. IgM remained unaltered and macrophage activity did not seem to be affected. The present findings indicated a low status of vitamin E in tumor bearing host and a beneficial effect of supplemental vitamin E on the host which was mediated by the host immune system.
PMID: 8272150 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
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Hi Zoey,
quote:
...If more diseases or subcategories are discovered, “it will look more complicated, but in fact it will become simpler to address, because then you will be able to really talk about a single entity,” said Istvan Molnar, M.D., an assistant professor of hematology-oncology who is experimenting with vitamin D in fighting the preleukemic condition called myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS).
from Zoey
Different subtypes of ALL and AML had been recognized over the years, by morphology (microscope) staining slides of bone marrow or peripheral blood over 100yrs ago, then cytochemistry to spot enzymes in different cells, then targeting specific membrane proteins by monoclonal antibodies.
Today DNA technology allows a further study of altered genes (when present), extremely precise compared to the chromosome map of the old days.
The complexity of these molecular characteristics and defects in the leukemic cells of different subtypes is not the aim of this topic. Even working quite close to this area of investigation, I am not in a position to discuss it properly.
As you perfectly know by now, I am stressing just one point:
-The real cause of a disease is still practically unknown.
-Highly toxic treatment cannot resolve it properly (>95% should be cured).
-A protective effect by a common inexpensive nutrient has been serendipitously found in 1988.
-All patients concerned should be informed as soon as possible.
-Some of them will take the nutrient for enough time to allow all the statistical calculations needed to eventually prove a benefit.
-The efficacy of our standard treatment protocols won't be altered:
it represents the best chance of survival these patients can be offered today.
A very high price in terms of years of investigation and human suffering has been payed for that.
Vitamin E is a sort of 'orphan' in this field: a real clinical disease deriving from its deficiency is still a matter of debate. I wouldn't go for it...especially now.
Vitamin D in pre-leukemia and myelodysplastic syndromes has been used since the '80s with satisfactory results. It could be one of the main pieces in this puzzle.
But we should stick to the natural mix, even if it's impossible to get a satisfactory standard product like with synthetic drugs.
We could pay a high price for not doing it: remember the Vitamin A and cancer issue.
So it should be up to patients only to decide whether or not trying this path.
Clinicians are not in a position to recommend it, for many reasons I can understand.
Unfortunately I have been unable to evoke any interest about this CLO topic so far.
I already know the skeptical reaction of collegues of mine that I had been friend with for years, so I can easily imagine angry and endless discussions with part of the scientific community.
In this context my position is definitively on the parents/patients' side.
"autoquote":
Today's patients and children's parents cannot afford to wait for a scientific confirmation, they need more hope and a little help right NOW.
ikod
Zoey, thank you so much for helping me to examine this subject in depth and burn my english dictionary!
By the way, I learned how to 'post' pictures!!!
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.datadesign.ws%2Fnfmuseum%2Fimages%2Ftranlmp.jpg&hash=ac9ff632bc2350f5d82e6fe8d65a732a)
http://www.datadesign.ws/nfmuseum/smithy.htm
COD-LIVER OIL LAMPS
Cod-liver oil lamps are manufactured in the old museum forge, along the lines of the old Nordic cod-liver oil lamps and those found in Nordland from the mid 1800's. The Nordic lamps hang from a wire (or a long hook) attached to the hook on the lamp itself. The Nordland lamps have three wick grooves and require more cod-liver oil than the other type. They can be either be hung up on the wall, or placed on the table.
The cod-liver oil is poured into the upper tray. The slope of the tray can be adjusted by moving the hook along the rail or by placing a suitable object between the table and the lamp. The wick is placed in the tray with the one end in the groove at the front, and can now be lit.
At which point we have "ignited a flame for our ancestors". They did their daily chores in the faint light of these lamps, during the long autumn and winter evenings, for thousands of years.
The flame can be adjusted by pushing or pulling the end of the wick with a stick. If the end of the wick is kept short, the lamp will not smoke or smell. Any cod-liver oil that drips down into the lower tray can be poured back by unhooking the tray.
"...ancient flames to enlight the mistery of leukemia in the new Century..."
ikod
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Considering the miracles brought about by cod liver oil, there should be a book on how the Norwegians saved civilization.
Great picture!
Zoey
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p.s. Please see my post in "my topic".
Zoey
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Iko,
Go here for some history of how cod liver oil has been used in medicine for the last 150 years.
Zoey
http://www.henriettesherbal.com/eclectic/kings/gadus_oleu.html
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Thanks Zoey,
I had seen that 'historical' piece and I really enjoyed a refreshing second glance...
I put together the best parts of it (according to me):
quote:
Action, Medical Uses, and Dosage.
Cod-liver oil is nutritive and alterative. It has long been used as a domestic remedy in chronic rheumatic and strumous diseases, especially in the northern parts of Europe, and has been in general medicinal use only since the treatise upon it by Prof. Bennett, of Edinburgh, in 1841, although employed occasionally in the profession as early as 1766. Cod-liver oil is a remedy for defective nutrition, and when tolerated can be relied upon to give good results...
When cod-liver oil "is kindly received by the stomach it increases the quantity of red corpuscles, improves the appetite and general strength, and the pulse becomes full and strong, flesh increases, and nutrition is improved" (Locke's Syllabus of Mat. Med., p. 346).
Though used for many conditions, it has been shown to do the most good in the poorly nourished, suffering from phthisis pulmonalis, tabes, rickets, chronic bronchitis, and chronic rheumatism in the scrofulous. It is not necessarily a curative agent, but in many conditions it tides the patient over while other agents exert their curative effects.
In rickets, given internally and applied locally to the spine, it is one of our best remedies.
...
It is also asserted to have been found useful in diseases of the joints and spine, lupus, obstinate constipation, worms, and incontinence of urine; and may be advantageously employed in all chronic cases, in which the disease appears to consist mainly in impaired digestion, assimilation, and nutrition.
But little advantage will be apparent from the administration of cod-liver oil, until its use has been persevered in for 5 or 6 weeks, though it often commences earlier.
The light-colored oil is the best
...
It may be given in coffee, milk, or brandy, and for consumptives in Bourbon. A pinch of salt sometimes renders it palatable, while others advise the chewing of a small portion of smoked herring.
http://www.henriettesherbal.com/eclectic/kings/gadus_oleu.html
ikod...and you?
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Ikod, daily!
Zoe
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This turned up in a search tonight. have you seen it?
Zoey
Plant derivative attacks the roots of leukemia
A daisy-like plant known as Feverfew or Bachelor's Button, found in gardens across North America, is the source of an agent that kills human leukemia stem cells like no other single therapy, scientists at the University of Rochester Medical Center's James P. Wilmot Cancer Center have discovered. Their investigation is reported in the online edition of the journal, Blood.
It will take months before a useable, pharmaceutical compound can be made from parthenolide, the main component in Feverfew. However, UR stem cell expert Craig T. Jordan, Ph.D., and Monica L. Guzman, Ph.D., lead author on the Blood paper, say their group is collaborating with University of Kentucky chemists, who have identified a water-soluble molecule that has the same properties as parthenolide.
The National Cancer Institute has accepted this work into its rapid access program, which aims to move experimental drugs from the laboratory to human clinical trials as quickly as possible.
Full report:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-02/uorm-pda022205.php
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(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.allea.com%2Fdec05-blooming%2Fimages%2Ffeverfew.jpg&hash=6020c0e74d22aaab01b1b8cfc233b1db)
Feverfew
Thanks Zoey,
I didn't know those studies.
Even curcumin does well experimentally tested 'in vitro' and the same does vitamin D + carnosic acid (rosemary)...these are few from recent spicy positive studies reported in the medical literature.
Of course it is another promising path for future research.
As you probably well know, I support much more "that" weak epidemiological evidence:
simply safe and just ready to use for today's patients.
(talking about obsessions!)
ikodmania http://www.allea.com/dec05-blooming/images/feverfew.jpg
multiple quote:
...But little advantage will be apparent from the administration of cod-liver oil, until its use has been persevered in for 5 or 6 weeks, though it often commences earlier.
from: http://www.henriettesherbal.com/eclectic/kings/gadus_oleu.html
...and when assumed for over one year it could be miraculous...
personal interpretation from: Shu XO, 1988.
"Il sole dona la vita, il sole se la riprende" M.U. Dianzani 1975.
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Hi Iko,
Can you translate the quote by Dianzani?
I have used feverfew and curcumin for years as non-drug medications.
If we had access to some of the older medical manuals and took the time to put the information into the present context, we might [re]discover some significant healing properties of many plants. Westerners err in judging earlier forms of practice by today's knowledge and assumptions. Past healers knew often more than we do now about healing. But that knowledge must be "translated" from its historical to its present context to understand it's meaning.
I spent time with Native Americans who were healers. In order to grasp their practice, it was necessary to step out of my own "reality" and into theirs. A valuable experience, but one leading me to often feel an exile in my own culture.
Some physicians or scientists may not see the potential value of cod liver oil as medicine because "food as medicine" is not part of their reality, their belief systems. And those systems of belief dictate what they see and can allow themselves to think. When you ventured off the orthodox path, you freed yourself from the tyranny of doctrine. The dogmas of western medicine are being challenged now by the movement toward "alternative" treatments. Did you ever imagine that using common sense would make you seem a radical? Are you familiar with the herbal product called essiac and the controversy surrounding its use? It was nearly adopted as a legitimate cancer cure by the Canadian parliment at one time. It is taken from a Native American medicine.
http://www.enotalone.com/article/7345.html
"Viva Ikodmania!"
Zoey
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Thank you Zoey,
for asking about my favourite quote. Well, to explain it properly, in a short 'essay' in english... it will take me more than a few minutes! But translating it is the easiest thing:
"The sun gives life, the sun takes it back"
These words concluded one of the best lectures I attended in my life. At the 3rd year of Medical school, General Pathology course, more than thirty years ago. Professor Mario Umberto Dianzani was our teacher, Dean of the Medical Faculty and a distinguished scientist, totally dedicated to his students. Later on he was Rector of the University of Turin for several years before retiring.
In those days biochemistry was 'the' thing: new cofactors and vitamins were deeply explored by medical research.
I'm sure I owe to his excellent lectures my following research interest in cofactors.
I'll leave it as a sort of final closure of this topic.
Menu: Shanghai report in original + favourite quote, conclusions, full stop. Bye bye.
I'm in a rush right now: the 4 of us are flying to London for a 4 days holiday!
Take care
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.bootsnall.com%2FChuck%2Fuploads%2F_Beautiful%2520Sunrise.jpg&hash=6f88e35b20f79540c4f9a1b4e03b90f4)
http://blogs.bootsnall.com/Chuck/uploads/_Beautiful%20Sunrise.jpg
ikod
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Hi Iko,
I hope you all enjoy your trip!
Zoey
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Hi everyone,
I enjoyed four days of wind, rain and some sunrays (I wouldn't say sunSHINE) in London. Great City. I couldn't find the well known Cod Liver Oil Museum (joke, it probably is in Oslo, Norway!), but we visited many others and walked for miles and miles.
I hope I wasn't misunderstood about 'closing' this topic that I share with
an enthusiastic cofactor researcher/supporter like Zoey.
I actually think that it is coming to an end, like it should happen naturally.
You probably got my point: there was an initial question, but the real target was diffusion, more than discussion.
There isn't much space for discussion in my message:
Cod liver oil should be recommended as a nutrient to all leukemic patients.
(Personal opinion)
Thanks to this Forum I forced myself to write it in a proper form (did I manage?). Now I should put the little bits together and let it 'surf' or better 'fly' closer and closer to sick chidren's parents: Zoe's suggestion was a great encouragement for me to do so.
Right now I might need a good editor more than a discussant.
I made up my mind, took a decision, hope it's the correct one.
Take care
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.totaltravel.com.au%2Fphotos%2Fcorreacorner%2Fgarden-large.jpg&hash=db49e030b6bd1236488472448f5caead)
http://www.totaltravel.com.au/photos/correacorner/garden-large.jpg
ikod
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Thank you Zoe,
quote:
...Are you familiar with the herbal product called essiac and the controversy surrounding its use? It was nearly adopted as a legitimate cancer cure by the Canadian parliment at one time. It is taken from a Native American medicine.
Zoey
http://www.enotalone.com/article/7345.html
I find this a very good statement:
A Natural Product Does Not Mean a Safe Product
Herbs and some plant-based products may keep medicines from doing what they are supposed to do. These medicines can be ones your doctor prescribes for you, or even ones you buy off the shelf at the store.
Sometimes people think that alternative is natural and good for you anyway (even if it costs money and doesn't have proper quality controls, chemical analysis and dosages!).
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.essiac-herbal.com%2Fherb-garden-natsu.jpg&hash=350e8785498e7b2f4136c4bace0064aa)
http://www.essiac-herbal.com/herb-garden-natsu.jpg
Essiac does not seem totally neglected by orthodox medicine (just recently). Write more informations if you have time, it sounds 'old' and traditional enough.
ikod
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Induction of remission of relapsed acute myeloid leukemia after unrelated donor cord blood transplantation by concomitant low-dose cytarabine and calcitriol in adults.
Yamada K, Mizusawa m, Harima A et al.
Low-dose cytarabine and calcitriol (LDCA + VD3) combination therapy was performed in two adult patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) that relapsed within 1 yr after unrelated donor cord blood transplantation (URD CBT) performed in a relapse or non-remission stage. Concomitant aclarubicin was also administered in one patient. Remission because of recovery of donor cord blood hematopoiesis was obtained in both patients. The treatment was low intensive, and neither adverse effects in terms of digestive symptoms nor hypercalcemia was observed. Activity of daily life was maintained. The patients were followed as outpatients after remission, and the remission duration was approximately 6 months in both patients. Although LDCA + VD3 therapy is minimally intensive chemotherapy, it may prolong the survival time of patients with relapsed AML after URD CBT
Eur J Haematol. 2006 Oct;77(4):345-8. Epub 2006 Aug 23
Leukemia came back 1 year after hyperchemio and stem cell transplant...
Simple drugs managed to control it for a while (6 months), allowing a decent quality of life.
Calcitriol is the active form vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol): here and there you find positive reports with long term use...it definitively takes time to work properly.
With very low toxicity (and little money).
One simple question: if a proper treatment with vitamin D3 (or cod liver oil) had been given streight after the hemopoietic stem cell graft...would they have relapsed later?
...a protective effect for long-term (greater than 1 year) use of cod liver oil containing vitamins A and D...
(from the "Shanghai report" published in 1988 and never confirmed)
Should cod liver oil be recommended as a nutrient for leukemic patients starting tomorrow?
ikod
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.renegadecharterfishing.com%2Ffishingreport%2Fuploaded_images%2FBeautiful_Sunrise-701549.jpg&hash=fb154b2076eef0dc8e331f5c564fbef6)
http://www.renegadecharterfishing.com/fishingreport/uploaded_images/Beautiful_Sunrise-701549.jpg
...one out of the 13200 "beautiful sunrises" from Google Images
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...From an unspecified topic in "General Science" NSforum:
Sesame seeds
sesame butter
sesaminol
sesamolin
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.grainfieldsaustralia.com%2FUS%2Fingredients%2Fgraphics%2Fsesame-seeds.gif&hash=03bd101309b60ba5dc3507972787e61c)
http://www.grainfieldsaustralia.com/US/ingredients/graphics/sesame-seeds.gif
Sesaminol from sesame seed induces apoptosis in human lymphoid leukemia Molt 4B cells.
Miyahara Y, Hibasami H, Katsuzaki H, et al.
The exposure of human lymphoid leukemia Molt 4B cells to sesaminol, a component of sesame oil led to both growth inhibition and the induction of apoptosis. Morphological change showing apoptotic bodies was observed in the cells treated with sesaminol. The fragmentation of DNA by sesaminol to oligonucleosomal-sized fragments that are characteristics of apoptosis was observed to be concentration- and time-dependent. These findings suggest that growth inhibition of Molt 4B cells by sesaminol results from the induction of apoptosis in the cells.
Int J Mol Med. 2001 May;7(5):485-8.
Now then, if in your frantic 'surfing' on the Web you found something like this:
...According to medical authorities nothing is supposed to be effective in treating leukemia -- that's cancer of the blood. We know a doctor in the Midwest who had three children who got over leukemia just by eating sesame butter. He gave them six tablespoonfuls of sesame butter a day. Brown sesame seed butter (Tahini). That's not a very glamorous treatment for a serious illness but it worked.
http://209.85.129.104/search?q=cache:GztTWKxLt78J:www.usaplaza.com/scripts/wcom_producttree.asp%3FStoreID%3D1340%26ProductID%3D48398+%22sesame+butter%22+leukemia&hl=it&gl=it&ct=clnk&cd=1
...given the initial statement that "nothing is supposed to be effective", as a medical doctor you would correctly think that's a scam, a totally unproven commercial crap, just quackery.
Nevertheless, as a parent of a leukemia 'survivor' you would easily consider giving her/him at least some sesame-seed bread (traditional Sicilian bread) and grissini (sesame bread sticks), so tasty and good for you. They make them fresh at the bakery just across the street, so it doesn't cost much to buy some once a week. They disappear quite quickly from the kitchen counter (beside the cod caps container).
ikod
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg.alibaba.com%2Fphoto%2F11081131%2FSesame_Bread_Stick.jpg&hash=ce62c55f6f89e7390c560ea3cb1ac4f3) (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pccnaturalmarkets.com%2Fhealth%2FFood_Guide%2FSesame_Seed_Butter.jpg&hash=2eb098ccdc9befb0c1a3aaabe75e6e26)
http://img.alibaba.com/photo/11081131/Sesame_Bread_Stick.jpg
http://www.pccnaturalmarkets.com/health/Food_Guide/Sesame_Seed_Butter.jpg
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We know a doctor in the Midwest who had three children who got over leukemia just by eating sesame butter. He gave them six tablespoonfuls of sesame butter a day. Brown sesame seed butter. That's not a very glamorous treatment for a serious illness but it worked.
No name of the “Doctor” or name of the place or date or anything that can prove validity of this claim!
As long as cause and mechanism of leukemia is unknown, so long any commercialized cure is just exploitation of other people’s suffering.
It is fact that most people who develop the disease have not been exposed to any risk factors at all—the direct cause of leukemia is still unknown.
Till this time, there is no any knowledge of how prevent or cure leukemia.
If anything works to cure leukemia than world will be free from this terribly disease.
At this time, any case of cure of leukemia can be attributed only to spontaneous regression.
I think that understanding case of spontaneous regression of leukemia is a key to win battle against this terrible disease.
Luka Tunjic
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Iko, I'm realativly new to the ask and answer boards. I'm wondering could you give me a bit of a "Bio" on your self since I see your name so often. Also Neilip, Whats your story?
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Thank you for participating GBSB,
of course I don't agree with you:
quote:
"At this time, any case of cure of leukemia can be attributed only to spontaneous regression."
Talking about childhood leukemia, more than half of the patients are cured thanks to the treatment protocols empirically established in the last 50 years.
These protocols are tough and highly toxic but they do work.
Most parents who tested it on their skin would agree altogether.
Spontaneous regressions are extremely rare (but they are reported -even recently- in the medical literature). Unfortunately they are temporary or incomplete in too many cases.
Studying spontaneous regressions -in my opinion- might be frustrating: they are extremely rare, you cannot recognize them because all patients get treated (fortunately) and in those very patients the 'cause' might have been removed in the meantime.
Nevertheless, studying carefully those rare and so precious reported cases you could get some good ideas, hints for further research on the multiple factors involved...then you could do new research on affected patients (Vitamin D deficiency?).
quote:
"Till this time, there is no any knowledge of how prevent or cure leukemia."
Prevention, protection from prolonged cod liver use (over one year)...
did you read the "Shanghai report" at the beginning of this topic?
The 1988 report is correct and statistically sound.
Any specific comment?
If any nutrient or foodstuff is even suspected
to help in a human ailment, it should be given
liberally to the patients for several reasons:
- Apart from grapefruit juice (!!!), nutrients in normal doses, i.e. one type of food instead of another one, do not interfere with most of the drugs.
- Scientific confirmation will take time because scientific research itself is concentrated somewhere else for obvious reasons (and in a few years it will produce results good enough to further improve today's standard treatment protocols).
- If a nutrient takes time to help your body, it will take longer observations to prove it by the current scientific research.
- Enthusiasm and resources for this type of studies are lacking:
no interest, no financial support, no authorities
like the late 2xNobel laureate Linus Pauling.
quote:
No name of the “Doctor” or name of the place or date or anything that can prove validity of this claim!
It is correct, but what a desperate parent would think about it?
You seem to have missed my point:
unfortunately..."I learned English from a book!" [;D] [:o)]
citation from: Manuel (Fawlty Towers -BBC)
Take care
ikod (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cfsan.fda.gov%2F%7Efrf%2Frfetut03.jpg&hash=c7667cbd82eb732f28f3db97f581802a)
http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~frf/rfetut03.jpg
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Iko, I'm realativly new to the ask and answer boards. I'm wondering could you give me a bit of a "Bio" on your self since I see your name so often. Also Neilep, Whats your story?
Hi jeg29!
welcome to this forum (I just started last August)
Quick "Bio" of India Kilo Oscar:
- d.b.1953 (Turin, North of Italy) high-school "classical" studies
+ interests in biology and practical electronics.
- Married with Karin, we have two boys, Marco 22 and Roby 20.
- MD in 1978 + specializing Pediatrics + Transfusion (later on).
- Postgraduate 1979-81 in leukemia research in London(UK).
Project on differentiation/growth 'in vitro' of leukemic cells.
- since 1984 full position at the Transfusion Service, Children's
Hospital in Turin.
Working on some practical aspects of stem cell grafting in
ped.patients (apheresis: collection of circulating stem cells).
...the shortest c.v. in history! Further info available on request.
iko is a nickname from Enrico (easier on keyboard) turned into ikod from "cod liver oil maniac",
the battlefield name I assume I have gained around here...
Aloha from Waikoloa Turin Torino
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Posted by iko
19/11/2006
Prevention, protection from prolonged cod liver use (over one year)...
did you read the "Shanghai report" at the beginning of this topic?
The 1988 report is correct and statistically sound.
Any comment?
I’d read every your post on this forum. I find most of your posts interesting; some of them are mind opening.
But, I was disappointed that you posted this link. http://209.85.129.104/search?q=cache:GztTWKxLt78J:www.usaplaza.com/scripts/wcom_producttree.asp%3FStoreID%3D1340%26ProductID%3D48398+%22sesame+butter%22+leukemia&hl=it&gl=it&ct=clnk&cd=1
Posted by iko
12/08/2006
…In 1988 a group of epidemiologists analyze data related to children suffering from different types of leukemia in Shanghai. Data from a similar group of healthy children are used as reference control. They surprisingly find a significantly lower incidence of leukemia in children taking cod liver oil for more than one year.
A scientific report is sent to a widely known medical journal (Cancer), peer-reviewed, accepted and published after a few weeks.
Strangely enough, a possible therapeutic effect of cod liver oil administration to leukemic children is not even mentioned by the Authors.
How significantly is it, we can’t see from this report (the “Shanghai report”).
How we do know, that if children take tablespoon of honey every day, that incidence of leukemia will be lower than if they take cod liver oil.
It is long time known that cod liver oil and sesames seed are good for human’s health. I do not have problem to accept that claim. It is proven through decade of human’s experience and observation.
I have problem to accept that cod liver oil or sesame seed alone have protective role against leukemia.
I think that diet approach in understanding cause of illnesses has reached own limit long time ago.
It is necessary to find “missing link” between nutrition and physical activity on one side and health and illnesses on the other side.
Posted by iko
09/08/2006
that multiple factors responsible for human leukemia are probably in the environment.
That is what I find interesting to discus.
Maybe it is possible to discovery some another factor (or factors) that is far more important in prevention and cure of leukemia than cod liver oil or sesame seed.
Luka Tunjic
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Hi Luka.
thanks for appreciating my efforts and for the discussion.
It helps me to explain better the point in this topic.
I'll reply shortly to your post, step by step:
quote:
I’d read every your post on this forum. I find most of your posts interesting; some of them are mind opening.
But, I was disappointed that you posted this link. http://209.85.129.104/search?q=cache:GztTWKxLt78J:www.usaplaza.com/scripts/wcom_producttree.asp%3FStoreID%3D1340%26ProductID%3D48398+%22sesame+butter%22+leukemia&hl=it&gl=it&ct=clnk&cd=1
Sorry if the sesame butter story comes out from a commercial link, I had to report it anyway...you cannot find it anywhere else. A scam? A real story? I leave it open.
I do not even remember how, but I found it years ago. It was easy to check on PubMed and find a "scoop", one recent positive 'in vitro' result for sesaminol against a leukemic lymphoblastic cell-line.
It may be a promising result, believe me.
In 1980, like other groups years before, we worked on retinoic acid versus a promyelocytic cell-line (HLA-60): the bad cells stopped dividing and became mature white cells in 5days. That miracle took 10-15 years to reach the 'real' patients. These days a vitamin A derivative (retinoid) is in the standard treatment for promyelocytic leukemia (AML-M3).
So the story of the doctor in the Midwest may be just fantasy, but the japanese report (actually there are two papers) is real and scientifically correct.
A parent usually needs more hope, and tends to take into account even those 'fantasies'...
How significantly is it, we can’t see from this report (the “Shanghai report”).
How we do know, that if children take tablespoon of honey every day, that incidence of leukemia will be lower than if they take cod liver oil.
I gave instructions to check that abstract: did you reach it? We'll do it together later on.
Sorry Luka, no honey, no ascorbic acid, no aloe whatsoever. They may work, I don't know.
I certainly know that the only scientific report on a positive effect of a nutrient, or nutritional supplement if you like, capable of reducing incidence of childhood leukemia to half or 1/3 is the 1988 paper from Shanghai published in Cancer. I've searched around, believe me...and I am not a scientist, but I've been in this field for a long time.
Distinguished journal, well-done study, statistically sound.
We really have to 'codcentrate' on one thing.
I think that diet approach in understanding cause of illnesses has reached own limit long time ago.
It is necessary to find “missing link” between nutrition and physical activity on one side and health and illnesses on the other side.
To speculate about the possible causes of leukemia is not the aim of this topic: I suggested to read Mel Greaves's hypothesis (there are several papers about it). Vitamin D deficiency may represent one of the many "missing links" (personal opinion), but still we are not in a position to do much about it.
This is no chat or fantasy.
I am concerned as a parent.
I am serious and I feel I carry a sort of responsability about it.
A bit of help (cod liver oil) together with standard treatments could improve,
starting tomorrow, the quality of life and may be (fingers crossed) even survival...
...one percent? 5 percent? I do not care much:
just one kid who feels a bit stronger and
grows up properly in spite of chemo would be enough.
I do not want to be alone in reminding one of the kids to take his 'cod'.
The discussion here should be on how to let those parents know what nobody told them before.
asap.
ikod
Post Scriptum:
Actually I don't exactly think I am the only parent reminding 'cod': the Shanghai report has been cited around, even in the "Cod liver oil - number one superfood" commercial website.
Knowing the amount of adrenalin you get in the endless months following a diagnosis of childhood leukemia,
I'm pretty sure that some other parent has grabbed this information and is probably doing the same thing.
Let's be a bit more positive about medical progress:
maybe a few open-minded consultant hematologists around the world are recommending every day 'cod' to parents of leukemic children. Following the 'Shanghai report' indications or who knows what other mysterious path or fascinating suggestion. Adopting the old fashioned "ex-adjuvantibus" criteria.
Maybe.
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fallconsortium.dfci.harvard.edu%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Flewis.jpg&hash=3585dda292ea8e9af474d287fc30ced7) (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.immunizenc.com%2Fimages%2Fped_andchild.jpg&hash=c513a100e568f0e0ac7774c732009f97) (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.flyanglersonline.com%2Flighterside%2Fdennisdickson.jpg&hash=329b1db6143a01c64577be696b56b324)
http://www.flyanglersonline.com/lighterside/dennisdickson.jpg
http://www.immunizenc.com/images/ped_andchild.jpg
http://allconsortium.dfci.harvard.edu/public/images/lewis.jpg
Did anybody search for that basic abstract in PubMed?
It doesn't take much...
Enter PubMed database clicking down here:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed
just write: leukemia and cod liver oil.
then Enter. and read.
I'll wait.
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http://www.totaltravel.com.au/photos/correacorner/garden-large.jpg
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Please find the abstract of the Shanghai report.
I cannot fit the complete article for copyright problems,
and it wouldn't add much as far as 'cod' is concerned:
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A population-based case-control study of childhood leukemia in Shanghai.
Shu XO, Gao YT, Briton LA et al.
Shanghai Cancer Institute, Epidemiology Department, People's Republic of China.
A population-based case-control interview study of 309 childhood leukemia cases and 618 healthy population control children was conducted in urban Shanghai, China. Like some studies in other countries, excess risks for both acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) and acute nonlymphocytic leukemia (ANLL) were associated with intrauterine and paternal preconception diagnostic x-ray exposure, and with maternal employment in the chemical and agricultural industries during pregnancy. ANLL was linked to maternal occupational exposure to benzene during pregnancy, whereas both ALL and ANLL were significantly associated with maternal exposure to gasoline and the patient's prior use of chloramphenicol. New findings, previously unsuspected, included an association of ANLL with younger maternal age at menarche (odds ratio [OR] = 4.3; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.3-13.9); a protective effect for long-term (greater than 1 year) use of cod liver oil containing vitamins A and D for both ALL (OR = 0.4; 95% CI = 0.2-0.9) and ANLL (OR = 0.3; 95% CI = 0.1-1.0); and excess risks of ANLL among children whose mothers were employed in metal refining and processing (OR = 4.6; 95% CI = 1.3-17.2) and of ALL associated with maternal occupational exposure to pesticides (OR = 3.5; 95% CI = 1.1-11.2). No relationships were found with late maternal age, certain congenital disorders, or familial occurrence, which have been related to childhood leukemia in other studies. In contrast with other reports, an excess of leukemia, primarily ANLL, occurred among second or later-born rather than firstborn children.
Cancer. 1988 Aug 1;62(3):635-44.
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.numoonus.com%2FBizTravel%2FShanghai%2FSkyline.jpg&hash=7ea6162d9bad579d5a74f071af0bba55)
http://www.numoonus.com/BizTravel/Shanghai/Skyline.jpg
Population of Shanghai: 1988 - 6million 2006 - 20million
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Shanghai report details from the original full-text pdf: comments and notes.
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.kohlchildrensmuseum.org%2Fimages%2Fcontent%2Fpagebuilder%2F10605.jpg&hash=bf20ffde0e51f1cfc0147ec0c13126be) (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.worldofstock.com%2Fslides%2FPCT1219.jpg&hash=94156ed3b3e2aa3b2fc547d7bfb44030)
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A population-based case-control study of childhood leukemia in Shanghai.
Shu XO, Gao YT, Briton LA et al.
Shanghai Cancer Institute, Epidemiology Department, People's Republic of China.
Cancer. 1988 Aug 1;62(3):635-44.
Results (Medications use).
...A higher proportion of controls (8%) than cases (4%) reported long-term (>1 year) usage of cod liver oil containing vitamins A and D (OR = 0.3; 95% CI = 0.2-0.7). Entended use of these vitamins was associated with reduced risk of ALL (OR = 0.4; 95% CI = 0.2-0.9) and ANLL (OR = 0.3; 95% CI = 0.1-1.0).
...
Discussion.
…
...A protective effect of cod liver oil containing vitamins A and D was suggested by the inverse relation to leukemia risk. Vitamin A and beta-carotene in fruits and vegetables appear to protect against certain epithelial cancers (30). Retinoids, a vitamin A derivative, have been shown to inhibit carcinogenesis in various model systems, including the proliferation of blast cells from human myelogenous leukemia cell lines (31).
Vitamin D is an important regulator of bone mineral metabolism in humans, and 1,25-dihydroxy vitamin D3 [1,25(OH)2D3], an active metabolite of vitamin D, enhances intestinal calcium transport and thus may protect against colorectal cancer. Recently, it was shown that 1,25(OH)2D3 also inhibits proliferation of human leukemia and lymphoma cells by inducing bone marrow stem cells to differentiate along the monocyte/macrophage pathway (32). Thus, experimental data support a protective role for vitamins A and D in leukemia, but further epidemiologic research is needed to evaluate these findings.
...
Key words:
OR = Odds Ratio
CI = Confidence interval
ALL = Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia
ANLL = Acute Non Lymphocytic Leukemia (mainly AML = Acute Myeloid Leukemia)
Comments and annotations:
...A higher proportion of controls (8%) than cases (4%) reported long-term (>1 year) usage of cod liver oil containing vitamins A and D (OR = 0.3; 95% CI = 0.2-0.7). Entended use of these vitamins was associated with reduced risk of ALL (OR = 0.4; 95% CI = 0.2-0.9) and ANLL (OR = 0.3; 95% CI = 0.1-1.0).
1) Understatement
We have a problem of result communication here: something really original and important has been serendipitously found, but it is not even reported in the title.
Peer reviewers might have done something about it, so these original findings could have been rescued by many more readers of the journal.
There is no pompous announcement like: "this is the first report in literature", no "major breakthrough" or “new weapons in our hands"...so these extraordinary data take a risk of flowing unnoticed even by the most ‘affectionate’ readers.
Surprisingly, some results in a table (not shown here) are better than the data reported in the text.
The protective effect is significant for long-term use (>1year) of cod liver oil in ALL, but in the case of ANLL it seems to be present after a shorter period. ANLL carries a far worse prognosis compared to ALL (see diagram below), so this finding might be tremendously important.
2) Therapeutic effect
Strangely enough, a possible therapeutic effect of cod liver oil administration to leukemic children is not even suggested by the Authors in the discussion.
Long term use (more than one year) to reach the protective effect would be feasible in leukemia: most treatment protocols last more than one year and in the 5 years following diagnosis the risk of disease relapse is high.
Months or years after stopping chemotherapy, when children look perfectly healthy, go back to school and seem to have a normal life again, the disease may come back, like a bolt out of the blue.
This is called leukemia RELAPSE.
There is no reason to think that once you have got a remission of leukemia by standard treatment you cannot benefit from a cod liver oil protective effect against a relapse of leukemia in the following crucial 5-7 years (see diagram below).
The etiology of the disease is still unknown, so any assumption will be speculative until put into practice and properly tested.
During the period of 'maintenance' therapy -that lasts several months- the patients are normal again, no sign of disease, normal bone marrow and so on.
In poor and underdeveloped countries, for example, where proper treatment protocols and bone marrow transplant programs seem unaffordable by most patients, an unexpensive and safe nutrient could be tested right away at very low costs.
Cod liver oil is considered a nutritional supplement, not a proper drug: non-toxic at normal dosages, it does not interfere with most of the commonly used pharmaceutical products. It should be defined 'historically safe', having been extensively used since the beginning of the last century for various ailments (rickets, tuberculosis, etc.).
...Vitamin A and beta-carotene in fruits and vegetables appear to protect against certain epithelial cancers (30). Retinoids, a vitamin A derivative, have been shown to inhibit carcinogenesis in various model systems, including the proliferation of blast cells from human myelogenous leukemia cell lines (31).
In 1988 retinoids were still experimental drugs. Developed after the extraordinary results obtained ten years before with Vitamin A and a human promyelocytic leukemia cell-line (HL-60), today they play a major role in the successful treatment of patients with promyelocytic leukemia (AML M3).
Vitamin D is an important regulator of bone mineral metabolism in humans, and 1,25-dihydroxy vitamin D3 [1,25(OH)2D3], an active metabolite of vitamin D, enhances intestinal calcium transport and thus may protect against colorectal cancer. Recently, it was shown that 1,25(OH)2D3 also inhibits proliferation of human leukemia and lymphoma cells by inducing bone marrow stem cells to differentiate along the monocyte/macrophage pathway (32).
...work in progress
from: Target Leukaemia website: The Association of British Pharmaceutical Industry
http://www.abpi.org.uk/publications/publication_details/targetLeukaemia/tl-questions.asp
Click on the Image
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Quackery...revisited in 2006!
...this is what you get crossing
"quackery" and "cod liver oil" on Google Images...
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lung.ca%2Ftb%2Fimages%2Ffull_archive%2F006_codLiverOil.jpg&hash=ab69c998b71e9d651a87d5b572202eb4)
http://www.lung.ca/tb/images/full_archive/006_codLiverOil.jpg
...Near the beginning of TB treatment in sanatoria, it became known that the sun helped to kill TB bacteria (see heliotherapy). When the Sun's UV rays hit human skin, vitamin D is produced. Naturally, when cod fish were found to be rich in vitamin D, it followed that their oil was sold as "liquid sunshine" (this was a real advertisement in the Valley Echo, March 1944). Cod Liver Oil is still used in "traditional" medicine today, and as an important dietary supplement, but no real evidence exists that it helps to cure tuberculosis.
http://www.lung.ca/tb/tbhistory/treatment/
...NO real evidence? Let's cross quickly "Tuberculosis and vitamin d" on PubMed database...
Toll-like receptor triggering of a vitamin D-mediated human antimicrobial response.
Liu PT, Stenger S, Li H et al.
In innate immune responses, activation of Toll-like receptors (TLRs) triggers direct antimicrobial activity against intracellular bacteria, which in murine, but not human, monocytes and macrophages is mediated principally by nitric oxide. We report here that TLR activation of human macrophages up-regulated expression of the vitamin D receptor and the vitamin D-1-hydroxylase genes, leading to induction of the antimicrobial peptide cathelicidin and killing of intracellular Mycobacterium tuberculosis. We also observed that sera from African-American individuals, known to have increased susceptibility to tuberculosis, had low 25-hydroxyvitamin D and were inefficient in supporting cathelicidin messenger RNA induction. These data support a link between TLRs and vitamin D-mediated innate immunity and suggest that differences in ability of human populations to produce vitamin D may contribute to susceptibility to microbial infection.
Science. 2006 Mar 24;311(5768):1770-3. Epub 2006 Feb 23.
The effect of vitamin D as supplementary treatment
in patients with moderately advanced pulmonary tuberculous lesion.
Nursyam EW, Amin Z, Rumended CM.
Dept.Int.Med.University of Indonesia-dr.Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital, Jakarta.
AIM: to compare the vitamin D group of pulmonary tuberculosis patients with a placebo group in terms of clinical improvement, nutritional status, sputum conversion, and radiological improvement. METHODS: sixty seven tuberculosis patient visiting the Pulmonary Clinic, of Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital, Jakarta, from January 1st to August 31st, 2001 were included in this study. The subjects were randomised to receive vitamin D (0.25 mg/day) or placebo in a double blind method, during the 6th initial week of Tb treatment. The rate of sputum conversion, complete blood counts, blood chemistry as well as radiologic examination were evaluated. RESULTS: there were more male patients than females (39:28), 78.7% were in the productive age group, 71.6% had low nutritional status, 62.4% with low education level, and 67.2% with low income. One hundred percent of the vitamin D group and only 76.7% of the placebo group had sputum conversion. This difference is statistically significant (p=0.002). CONCLUSION: the sputum conversion had no correlation with the hemoglobin level, blood clotting time, calcium level, lymphocyte count, age, sex, and nutritional status. There were more subjects with radiological improvement in the vitamin D group.
Acta Med Indones. 2006 Jan-Mar;38(1):3-5.
Prevalence and associations of vitamin D deficiency in foreign-born persons with tuberculosis in London.
Ustianowski A, Shaffer R, Collin S, Wilkinson RJ, Davidson RN.
Dept.Infect.Trop.Med.- Northwick Park Hospital, Harrow, Middlesex HA1 3UJ, UK. ustianowski@doctors.org.uk
OBJECTIVES: The incidence of tuberculosis (TB) is high amongst foreign-born persons resident in developed countries. Vitamin D is important in the host defence against TB in vitro and deficiency may be an acquired risk factor for this disease. We aimed to determine the incidence and associations of vitamin D deficiency in TB patients diagnosed at an infectious diseases unit in London, UK. METHODS: Case-note analysis of 210 unselected patients diagnosed with TB who had plasma vitamin D (25(OH)D3) levels routinely measured. Prevalence of 25(OH)D3 deficiency and its relationship to ethnic origin, religion, site of TB, sex, age, duration in the UK, month of 25(OH)D3 estimation and TB diagnosis were determined. RESULTS: Of 210 patients 76% were 25(OH)D3 deficient and 56% had undetectable levels. 70/82 Indian, 24/28 East African Asian, 29/34 Somali, 14/19 Pakistani and Afghani, 16/22 Sri Lankan and 2/6 other African patients were deficient (with 58, 17, 23, 9, 6 and 1 having undetectable levels, respectively). Only 0/6 white Europeans and 1/8 Chinese/South East Asians had low plasma 25(OH)D3 levels. Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs all had equivalent rates of deficiency though Hindus were more likely to have undetectable levels (odds ratio 1.87, 95% CI 1.27-2.76). There was no significant association between 25(OH)D3 level and site of TB or duration of residence in the UK. There was no apparent seasonal variation in either TB diagnosis or 25(OH)D3 level. CONCLUSIONS: 25(OH)D3 deficiency commonly associates with TB among all ethnic groups apart from white Europeans, and Chinese/South East Asians. Our data support a lack of sunlight exposure and potentially a vegetarian diet as contributors to this deficiency.
J Infect. 2005 Jun;50(5):432-7.
Those nurses and doctors should be proud and rest in peace.
They gave cod liver oil to their TB patients for years
without any controlled study or scientific evidence,
wisely adopting the old "ex-adjuvantibus" criteria.
They did just the right thing to do in those days
when treatments available were unsatisfactory
and only some patients recovered completely over the years.
Evidence is slowly coming out, more than fifty years later.
ikod
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.prolocoborno.it%2Ffoto%2Fimg%2Fsm-giallo.jpg&hash=d0ea84530a75b2cce388253fe53ffdc2)
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(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lung.ca%2Ftb%2Fimages%2Ffull_archive%2F081_sun_treatment.jpg&hash=c437f1f6d2c72006f32ec0e049f264c4)
http://www.lung.ca/tb/images/full_archive/081_sun_treatment.jpg
Before the availability of drugs that successfully cured the body of tubercular infections, a widely accepted treatment for non-pulmonary tuberculosis was sunbathing. The sun had sometimes been blamed for increased activity in tubercular infection of the lungs and was therefore not used to treat this form of tuberculosis. However, the Sun offered several curative properties to those suffering from other types of tuberculosis. Sun treatment was used in the treatment of tuberculosis of the glands, bones, joints, peritoneum, skin, eyes, genito-urinary tract, and others.
There were several reasons for the prescription of sun treatment to tuberculosis patients. First of all, the sun acts as a bactericide, killing the Tubercular bacillus organisms that cause the disease. Exposure to moderately hot temperatures for extended periods of time is sufficient to kill off these bacteria and clear up infections. Furthermore, ergosterol, present in the skin in converted by the sun’s UV rays into vitamin D, which was thought to do further damage to the TB bacilli.
Sunlamps like the ones pictured here were often used to replace natural sunlight in sun-therapy, or "heliotherapy" for tuberculosis (ca. 1925).
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lung.ca%2Ftb%2Fimages%2F061_sun_lamps.jpg&hash=28b31fd233242b7b94192cffc6d04033) (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mmaonline.net%2FPublications%2FMNMed2005%2FNovember%2FImages%2Fsun.gif&hash=844fef17c08a93edd025a83988db07bf)
http://www.lung.ca/tb/images/061_sun_lamps.jpg
http://www.mmaonline.net/Publications/MNMed2005/November/Images/sun.gif
"Il sole dona la vita, il sole se la riprende" M.U. Dianzani 1975.
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Messing with synthetic compounds
instead of the natural recipe
may lead to make wrong deductions
and to realize it many years later:
The case against ergocalciferol (vitamin D2) as a vitamin supplement.
Houghton LA, Vieth R.
School of Nutrition and Dietetics, Acadia University, Wolfville, Canada.
Supplemental vitamin D is available in 2 distinct forms: ergocalciferol (vitamin D2) and cholecalciferol (vitamin D3). Pharmacopoeias have officially regarded these 2 forms as equivalent and interchangeable, yet this presumption of equivalence is based on studies of rickets prevention in infants conducted 70 y ago. The emergence of 25-hydroxyvitamin D as a measure of vitamin D status provides an objective, quantitative measure of the biological response to vitamin D administration. As a result, vitamin D3 has proven to be the more potent form of vitamin D in all primate species, including humans. Despite an emerging body of evidence suggesting several plausible explanations for the greater bioefficacy of vitamin D3, the form of vitamin D used in major preparations of prescriptions in North America is vitamin D2. The case that vitamin D2 should no longer be considered equivalent to vitamin D3 is based on differences in their efficacy at raising serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D, diminished binding of vitamin D2 metabolites to vitamin D binding protein in plasma, and a nonphysiologic metabolism and shorter shelf life of vitamin D2. Vitamin D2, or ergocalciferol, should not be regarded as a nutrient suitable for supplementation or fortification.
Am J Clin Nutr. 2006 Oct;84(4):694-7.
Comment: (from a reknown website)
http://www.mercola.com/2006/oct/26/beware-of-most-prescription-vitamin-d-supplements.htm
...Supplemental vitamin D comes in two forms: ergocalciferol (vitamin D2) and cholecalciferol (vitamin D3).
They have generally been regarded as equivalent and interchangeable, but that notion is based on studies of rickets prevention in infants conducted seven decades ago.
Recent studies have shown that vitamin D3 is a more potent form of vitamin D. Vitamin D2 has a shorter shelf life, and its metabolites bind with protein poorly, making it less effective. One unit of cod liver oil (containing vitamin D3) has been shown to be as effective as four units of Viosterol (a medicinal preparation of vitamin D2).
However, the form of vitamin D used in prescriptions in North America is almost invariably vitamin D2.
...
from Dr. Mercola's notes:
Basically there are two types of oral vitamin D supplements. The natural ones are D3, and they contain the same vitamin D your body makes when exposed to sunshine. The synthetic ones are vitamin D2, which are sometimes called ergocalciferol.
Once either form of the vitamin is in your body, it needs to be converted to a more active form. Vitamin D3 is converted 500 percent faster than vitamin D2. Interestingly, it was previously thought that the kidney exclusively performed this function, as least that is what I was taught in med school.
However, in 1998 Dr. Michael Hollick, the person who discovered activated vitamin D, showed that many other cells in your body can make this conversion, but they use it themselves, and it is only the kidney that makes enough to distribute to the rest of your body.
While there have been no clinical trials to date demonstrating conclusively that D2 prevents fractures, every clinical trial of D3 has shown it does.
However, nearly all the prescription-based supplements contain synthetic vitamin D2, which was first produced in the 1920s through ultraviolet exposure of foods. The process was patented and licensed to drug companies for use in prescription vitamins. In case you didn't know, the vitamin D that is added to milk is NOT D3 but the highly inferior vitamin D2.
The study linked above concluded that "vitamin D2 should no longer be regarded as a nutrient appropriate for supplementation or fortification of foods."
That being said, optimizing your sun exposure and levels of vitamin D3 may, indeed, be one of the most important physical steps you can take in support of your long-term health. Conventional medicine is finally beginning to get on board the vitamin-D3 bandwagon, using the natural power of sunshine to treat type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis during a woman's pregnancy and even tuberculosis.
It is important to understand that the ideal and STRONGLY preferred method of increasing your vitamin D3 level is through appropriate sun exposure. I really do not advise oral supplements, not even cod liver oil now, UNLESS you can have your blood levels regularly monitored.
It just is too risky. I have seen too many potentially dangerous elevations of vitamin D levels, including my own, from those that are taking oral supplements.
But when you get your vitamin D from appropriate sun exposure your body can indeed self-regulate and greatly reduce vitamin D production if you don't need it, which makes it very difficult to overdose on vitamin D from sun exposure.
Even taking for granted that omega-3 and retinol were not needed together with vitamin D, the alternative to cod liver oil for leukemic children would be driving them for a hike in the sunshine at least three times a week...for at least 5-7 years after diagnosis.
I'd need a big school-bus and sunny days most of the year. I wouldn't be able to retire right now, and they couldn't miss their classes.
Mission Impossible from my point of view (ask Tom Cruise).
These little patients are tough: they could certainly take a risk of a slight vitamin D intoxication...most of the current treatment protocols are far more toxic.
Moderate use of cod liver oil is harmless, actually good for anybody.
It has always been like that.
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.taverneriocitta.it%2Fpulmino.jpg&hash=c6e41419b021d1d787b3345e871b2d16) (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.enempo.com%2Fpics%2FCod%2520Liver%2520Oil.jpg&hash=2f59d413bf4f4a87b35e8df79a5f85b5)
http://www.taverneriocitta.it/pulmino.jpg
http://www.enempo.com/pics/Cod%20Liver%20Oil.jpg
ikod
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...little bits from http://www.vitamindcouncil.com
just a 'basic' website for this topic!
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http://www.nature.com/news/2002/020107/images/oldwive_160.jpg
Bits Of Wisdom: Those 'old wives' might be on to something
For many years, the "old wives" have been ridiculed as superstitious know-nothings.
Now science seems about to vindicate them.
The old wives maintained that a dose of cod-liver oil would do a body good.
Many children dreaded it because it tasted so awful. But come the dark days of winter, mothers and grandmothers insisted that all family members should hold their noses and swallow a spoonful of cod-liver oil.
During the past 20 years, this practice has gone the way of the manual typewriter.
Few children get cod-liver oil these days.
Doctors don't recommend it because it seems like such an unscientific relic of the past.
The vitamin D that is abundant in cod-liver oil has numerous health benefits though, especially in the winter. That's because levels of vitamin D frequently drop when people are not exposing their skin to the sun.
Cold, dreary weather and diminished sunlight can create borderline vitamin D deficiency in a surprising number of people. In Boston, 42 percent of people studied had too little vitamin D in winter. In Calgary, Canada, almost no one maintains adequate vitamin D in the winter.
In 2005, a psychiatrist who treated his patients for vitamin D deficiency noticed something odd. Influenza hit hard at the Atascadero State Hospital, a maximum-security psychiatric hospital. His ward was spared, with not a single person catching the flu, even though they had been exposed to the virus just like everyone else. The psychiatrist wondered whether the vitamin D he had prescribed had anything to do with their immunity.
This question led to an interesting review of research and a credible hypothesis.
Studies in the past 70 years hint at a connection between vitamin D and overall immunity.
The active form of vitamin D greatly increases the body's production of a natural infection-fighting chemical called cathelicidin. Cathelicidin seems to help fight off illnesses caused by bacteria, fungi and viruses, including influenza.
This might help explain why people are more susceptible to colds and flu in the winter. If their vitamin D levels drop, so does their production of cathelicidin and their overall resistance to infection.
Vitamin D also appears to have anti-cancer activity. People who get regular sun exposure are less susceptible to common cancers that affect the colon, breast, prostate, ovaries and lungs. Even conditions like multiple sclerosis, arthritis and Type 2 diabetes are less common in people with ample vitamin D levels.
Vitamin D has long been associated with stronger bones, but there is also research showing that it contributes to stronger muscles and fewer falls in the elderly.
The old wives did not have sophisticated scientific tools or methods, but they were skilled observers.
It's fascinating when the scientists supply the explanation behind their wisdom.
...
from: Winston-Salem Journal, Tuesday, November 28, 2006.
http://www.journalnow.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=WSJ%2FMGArticle%2FWSJ_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1149191909636&path=!living&s=1037645509005
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Vitamin D As Treatment
How much vitamin D should one take if they have cancer? We don't know as the research is far from complete. Although vitamin D may help, it should only be taken in addition to standard cancer treatment. It should not be considered a first, or only, treatment but used in addition to regular chemotherapy or surgery. Oncologists and surgeons work miracles every day. Remember, vitamin D may be toxic in overdose, although one expert recently said, "worrying about vitamin D toxicity is like worrying about drowning when you are dying of thirst". That said, many people think "if a little is good then a lot is better". This is definitely not true about vitamin D.
http://www.vitamindcouncil.com/cancerMain.shtml
...in the meantime, waiting for scientific confirmation, a little bit of 'cod' every day should work just fine. [;)]
Take care
ikod
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Enrico Incarbone MD
(Lucky father of an ALL survivor)
ALL: Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (common type: 65-75% alive after 5 years)
To support this one I started a special
"Cod Liver Oil" topic in Complementary Medicine.
You are kindly invited to read and discuss both topics.
iko
Key words: leukemia nutrition vitamin cod liver oil
IKO...I just want to congratulate you on this wonderful thread you have going
here also my heart felt wishes and joy sent to you for the success of your childs
survival....may I ask....son ?......daughter ?
Being a daddy of four I can only imagine what you, your child, your family have been through.
We all take cod liver oil every day...and garlic oil too...I think it does me good !!
What is your opinion on the other fish oils ?..salmon ?...mackerel ?
Hugs the IKO..YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY !!
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Ahi, Ahi, Ahi, Neilepus! (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.kohlchildrensmuseum.org%2Fimages%2Fcontent%2Fpagebuilder%2F10605.jpg&hash=bf20ffde0e51f1cfc0147ec0c13126be)
http://www.kohlchildrensmuseum.org/images/content/pagebuilder/10605.jpg
You missed my 'story' through hundreds of lines...
I would suggest to clean your scanner lenses!
Here we go:
My problem is that - sitting here in front of my PC - I am not able to give 'cod' every day to all the leukemic children in the world. I can only manage to remind my 'little' boy (actually he grew up much taller than his older brother) to take his cod in the evening.
More than seven years have past for our family, and eighteen years from the Shanghai report:
it's just about time to move and tell people around.
Thanks to search engines and this www (what-women-want?).
Anyway, I'm not too pessimistic about it.
I think I can make it, and I will succeed in the end.
Roby was 13 in '99, now he is a mature young adult
and studies at the Polytechnic to become an aircraft
engineer and move to Los Angeles...he likes it there!
He grew up taller than his older brother Marco: our
nurses and doctors here at Children's Hospital were
just fantastic.
Thanks for appreciating my efforts and for your support,
but...what do you think about the comparison 'doctors
versus engineers' at the very beginning of the topic,
my novel-essay entitled "The Shanghai report"?
ikodcentrate again!
Take your time...I'll keep in touch.
Thank EWe Iko Sir..(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.religiousforums.com%2Fforum%2Fimages%2Fsmilies%2FBow.gif&hash=e482421b150bbc62645cda76cb723d1a)
I will need to take time to read and hopefully understand
your thread of cod liver luff !!
In the mean time...lets hope some passing cod liver specialists
dive in and post some comments too..YAYYYYYYYYYY !!
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I meant to discuss about Evidence Based Medicine or Patient Centered Decisions...with some engineer!
It's about whether to strongly and officially recommend a nontoxic nutrient when data to prove its efficacy are still unconfirmed.
In the case of a disease of unknown cause and poor treatment results (2/3)...unsatisfactory results, or 'suboptimal' if you prefer.
It's Philosophy of Science and practical medicine altogether
ikod [^] (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.religiousforums.com%2Fforum%2Fimages%2Fsmilies%2FBow.gif&hash=e482421b150bbc62645cda76cb723d1a)
We should ask him...
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cesil.com%2Fcesil99%2F1maln1.jpg&hash=3a2609d999a2f155ffd9db46e794983e)
Hyppocrates
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(...a previous post about an alternative treatment for human leukemia has been removed by the Author.) [???]
Pure Healing.
It may sound fascinating, but it's just 2words.
Here we are looking for scientific evidence to help
improving today's standard treatments for leukemia.
This topic addresses the use of cod liver oil as a
nutritional supplement, based on weak evidence from
an old (Shanghai-1988) positive epidemiological report.
We are not in a position to suggest any 'new' alternative
and empirical treatment replacing what we have today.
No way. You can find other details reading our previous posts.
I read your website: I must say that the 2 testimonials
concerning leukemia aren't impressive or special cases
(previously treated by orthodox medicine, neither spontaneous
remissions of leukemia would fit).
Over the years positive alternative treatment results have been
reported in medical literature by western doctors.
A recent study concerns green tea in leukemia/lymphoma patients
(Mayo Clin. Rochester).
Regards,
iko
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In the mean time...lets hope some passing cod liver specialists
dive in and post some comments too..YAYYYYYYYYYY !!
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.whitesharktrust.org%2Fassistant%2Fmedia%2Fgalleryimages%2F2005%2Fdec2005%2Fcodfather.jpg&hash=947bf1f21578a8c0e738416fc8f338c2)
http://www.whitesharktrust.org/assistant/media/galleryimages/2005/dec2005/codfather.jpg
I'm afraid that 'codfathers'
(are they still alive anywhere?)
don't seem to hang around this
NKS Forum!
ikod
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This discussion should not meet the same fate as the Shanghai Report.
Zoey
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Reading an 'ancient' paper
from Zoey (thanks!)... I found
one of the best cod-citations:
"Cod liver oil is in the forefront of children's remedies.
For long it has been struggling against the scepticism of exact science"
Rosenstern: Berl. klin. Wchuschr. 47;822, 1910.
from: "The history of cod liver oil as a remedy"
Ruth A. Guy M.D.
Dept. of Pediatrics, Yale University School of Medicine
Am. J. of diseases of children 26; 112-116, 1923.
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That's a great quote. I will put it on the wall beneath the picture of my codfather!
Zoey
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THE CODFATHER
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2F%5Battachment%3D212%5D%5B%2Fattachment%5D&hash=a4c598cd31d86aaf15bd047cc6a04c53)
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Historical notes from the same
'ancient' paper (Zoey's copy):
...The introduction of cod liver oil into France, which came a few years later than in Germany, is described by Trousseau (10):
The manner in which M. Bretonneau, of Tours, was induced to give the oil in this disease deserves notice.
He had treated the rachitic child of a rich Dutch merchant with preparations of iodine and other means, for some time, without success.
He was then told by the father that the elder children had previously suffered under the same malady, and had been cured by the cod liver oil, which, in Holland, was a popular remedy.
Bretonneau gave the same substance to his young patient, and was much struck with the very rapid and successful result which followed.
He commenced making researches with it on other patients, and it was only then that he learnt for the first time what had been written by the German authors on this subject.
He has since given it extensively in rachitis, with the happiest results.
This fact was communicated to the Societe de Medicine de Paris, in 1837, by M. Roche.
10. Trousseau: Clinical Medicine, Philadelphia 2: 734, 1882.
from: "The history of cod liver oil as a remedy"
Ruth A. Guy M.D.
Dept. of Pediatrics, Yale University School of Medicine
Am. J. of diseases of children 26; 112-116, 1923.
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Obviously, it would not be just "vitamin A" or just "vitamin D" or any single component of cod liver oil, but how they were working together to give the results seen in the Shanghai Report. So where can you direct me to look for more information that will be relevant to this discussion? What questions should I be asking, where should I be looking? If there was a report little noticed in Shanghai, there may well be one elsewhere of a similar nature. There are a few places that come to mind for searching.
Zoey
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Obviously, it would not be just "vitamin A" or just "vitamin D" or any single component of cod liver oil, but how they were working together to give the results seen in the Shanghai Report. So where can you direct me to look for more information that will be relevant to this discussion? What questions should I be asking, where should I be looking? If there was a report little noticed in Shanghai, there may well be one elsewhere of a similar nature. There are a few places that come to mind for searching.
Zoey
I assumed that the 1988 findings are pretty unique.
I was lucky to spot them in a bulk of scientific mess.
It would be exciting to snag a case report with 'cod' in leukemia (I have an unpublished one) but still...
it would not be statistically significant. Practically useless.
I would like to discuss the most effective way to communicate the 'CLO in leukemia' message to parents and patients, to make 'weak evidence' less neglected, stressing the point of a safe and 'historically tested' nutrient.
Western medicine seems unfortunately stuck in a sort of endless loop between the lack of interest in the natural product and the crucial need to organize long and expensive controlled clinical trials.
A double-blind controlled clinical trial for 'cod' would not be ethical, in my personal opinion.
The 'Placebo Kids' could sue for malpractice, and they could be hundreds.
It would be stupid, basically.
Over the years, properly informed patients will make themselves possible statistical analysis by following or not this recommendation,
just like aircrafts owners did with red or blue fluid for the hydraulic system.
Following this path, we would be 'only' twenty years late.
In the meantime, thanks to your contribution, we could add little pieces to the puzzle,
just to keep this agonizing topic alive.
Scared parents will find enough information, I hope.
We'll never solve this problem in our libraries.
I really did appreciate the 1923 article and I want to report other bits in this topic.
It gives you a clear picture of the ups and downs of popular remedies in medical literature (and knowledge).
I have to report of another 'missing link': vitamin D deficiency and myelofibrosis (a pre-leukemia condition).
Just for the fun of it.
ikod
Look at this young researcher on the right...
his nephew is gonna solve the mystery.
Maybe.
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.uwosh.edu%2Fscience_outreach%2Fkid%2520microscope.jpg&hash=4e8c1ca73b3083ac084ddfb3163dd6ca)
http://www.uwosh.edu/science_outreach/kid%20microscope.jpg
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But wait! Have you checked all the medical libraries in the world? There may be other "Shanhai Reports" on the shelves and maybe others interested in this topic.
There is one who came to mind who may well be interested. That is Dr. Matti Tolonen in Finland. I read one of his books on vitamns a few years ago. He was an advisor to the WHO. He turned his focus to nutritional medicine in the 1980s so may not have seen the report. I think he might be interested in it though. I have thought about contacting him because of some of his writing on B12. Here's a link to a page about him. My sense is he would be interested in COL and leukemia.
Zoey
http://www.biovita.fi/english/tolonen.html
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Thank you Zoey,
There is one who came to mind who may well be interested. That is Dr. Matti Tolonen in Finland. I read one of his books on vitamns a few years ago. He was an advisor to the WHO. He turned his focus to nutritional medicine in the 1980s so may not have seen the report.
Good idea.
Many nutrition experts may have missed the Shanghai report.
It was hidden in a widely known journal of oncology, but
hematologists have their specialized leukemia journals.
Cod liver oil was not even cited in the title...and last
but not least, reporting the text-string:
"containing Vitamins A and D" and never "vitamin D" in the
abstract...they made it unreachable by a simple research
through PubMed with "leukemia and vitamin D".
What a shame.
Even the great TT. Timonen missed it (1999 pers.comm.)
I'll write to Matti Tolonen.
Thanks for your suggestion
Take care
ikod
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Joke or not,
one by one may be the most effective way to proceed. Are you going to contact him? Maybe I should be searching on who is doing research in vitamin COL. It is difficult to search "research" "cod liver oil" as it returns the many sites that quote the word "research" to sell their nutritonal products which include "cod liver oil."
"I would like to discuss the most effective way to communicate the 'CLO in leukemia' message to parents and patients, to make 'weak evidence' less neglected, stressing the point of a safe and 'historically tested' nutrient.
Western medicine seems unfortunately stuck in a sort of endless loop between the lack of interest in the natural product and the crucial need to organize long and expensive controlled clinical trials."
Discuss the first statement. What are possibilities [and they do exisit] to "communicate the 'CLO in leukemia' message to parents and patients" ?
Why not an article that describes why the Shanghai Report is significant? Most of the information is here already in your posts?
Another possibility is to contact some of the larger producers of COL and encourage more research [they may have the funds to do this].
A researcher is turning up in my google travels tonight. The name is S Halabi and I'm trying to locate this person who has done clinical studies on the use of fish oil in cancer\leukemia. It is certainly possible this scientist never saw the Shanghai Report and would be very interested in it. This is the report from my search:
2004 -- Pubmed # 15241836 -- Burns CP, Halabi S, Clamon G, Kaplan E, Hohl RJ, Atkins JN, Schwartz MA, Wagner BA, Paskett E. Phase II study of high-dose fish oil capsules for patients with cancer-related cachexia. Cancer. 2004 Jul 15;101(2):370-8.
Looking up one of these researchers led to this link:
http://biostat.duke.edu/modules/dukefaculty/viewDetails.php?d=halab001&t=1
Another possible interested researcher?
Zoey
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If she isn't interested, she may know who would have an interet in this.
Zoey
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A researcher is turning up in my google travels tonight. The name is S Halabi and I'm trying to locate this person who has done clinical studies on the use of fish oil in cancer\leukemia. It is certainly possible this scientist never saw the Shanghai Report and would be very interested in it. This is the report from my search:
2004 -- Pubmed # 15241836 -- Burns CP, Halabi S, Clamon G, Kaplan E, Hohl RJ, Atkins JN, Schwartz MA, Wagner BA, Paskett E. Phase II study of high-dose fish oil capsules for patients with cancer-related cachexia. Cancer. 2004 Jul 15;101(2):370-8.
Looking up one of these researchers led to this link:
http://biostat.duke.edu/modules/dukefaculty/viewDetails.php?d=halab001&t=1
I would leave this direction: it's a bit out of the way.
No vitamin D, just concentrated omega-3. Old story.
I would use it in any cancer patient as anti-cachexia.
I fortunately (for me) do not have patients like those.
I'll give Finland a second chance as you suggested.
Dr. Timonen was not impressed in 1999...he actually
wished me all the best for my little boy, and was
very busy in other studies, I assume.
Let's try Dr. Matti Tolonen.
I realized that you give a totally different 'weight'
to the Shanghai report statistical data whether you
have a sick relative or not.
ikod
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"Good wishes" are not what is needed. There needs to be some open debate and inquirey on the subject of using COL in ALL, prevention or during treatment. One other physician\researcher comes to mind as well. I have mentioned her before but will recheck before posting anything on her. I may look up the addresses for the major COL suppliers and to ask who is doing, or interested in doing research on COL. More people who can act on this issue need to be drawn into this discussion. Perhaps we should rent a plane that can pull a banner displaying the codfather and his message. If that fails, maybe a message in an empty [cod liver oil] bottle will get some attention to this subject. There are other options, but we can only pull one trick out of our magic hats at one time.
Zoey
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"Good wishes" are not what is needed. There needs to be some open debate and inquirey on the subject of using COL in ALL, prevention or during treatment. One other physician\researcher comes to mind as well. I have mentioned her before but will recheck before posting anything on her. I may look up the addresses for the major COL suppliers and to ask who is doing, or interested in doing research on COL. More people who can act on this issue need to be drawn into this discussion. Perhaps we should rent a plane that can pull a banner displaying the codfather and his message. If that fails, maybe a message in an empty [cod liver oil] bottle will get some attention to this subject. There are other options, but we can only pull one trick out of our magic hats at one time.
Zoey
Wow! I like the plane pulling the banner: "Cod 4Kids!"
Seriously, no prevention for now, but HELP in a standard treatment that is actually stalling at 75% survival rate in the last 5-10 years. I think we have to start from here.
Did you check the survival diagram? Unfortunately I'm not able to stick the complete image, but just the link.
I still have to finish the final conclusions (work on progress) and hypothesis for the future (results).
While I complete this, please take any bit & piece you want, put them in any form and send them anywhere if you have an idea. I feel there are few people interested in this topic.
ikod
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.inmagine.com%2F168nwm%2Fphotodisc%2Fpdil034%2Fpdil034040.jpg&hash=9cc96c99e5eb7027554253edf0b3291e)
http://images.inmagine.com/168nwm/photodisc/pdil034/pdil034040.jpg
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I'll throw out a metaphorical line and see if we can reel in a good catch! Can you send any secrets on how to successfully load photos to this forum? I failed in my other attempt.
Zoey
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I'll throw out a metaphorical line and see if we can reel in a good catch! Can you send any secrets on how to successfully load photos to this forum? I failed in my other attempt.
Zoey
I had the same problem zoey...the general advice i was given was to create an account at photobucket and upload your pictures there. on your photobucket page are you pictures with http links to each individual picture. you then click the inserct image icon in this forums post reply/new topic page.
it is above the "smilies" and directly beneath the B for bold text. and you get the text img and /img in brackets in your post. between the two sets of brackets is where you put the http link for your photo.
another good way to find out how others do it, is to find a post with a picture in it and hit the quote button not the reply button. this will show you what their "code" looked like when they put their picture up..hope that makes sense.
Paul
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Thanks Paul,
I'll try it "tomorrow"
:)
Zoey
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zoey, also read this post by neil
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=2893.0
Paul
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Thanks Paul,
I'll try it "tomorrow"
:)
Zoey
your my kind of gal
:-)
Paul
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Thanks Paul,
I'll go and read Niel's post.
Zoey
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The banner for the plane isn't finished yet but we may have a catch here. I'm so glad the codfather invented Google searches. Dr. Christian A Devron is at the University of Oslo's Institute for Nutrition Research. Below is information about his work and contact information. His homepage with contact information:
http://folk.uio.no/christia/index.htm
Clin C;12 (11):3525-31 16740779 A bioactively modified Fatty Acid improves survival and impairs metastasis in preclinical models of acute leukemia. [My paper] Per O Iversen , Dag R Sørensen , Karl J Tronstad , Oddrun A Gudbrandsen , Arild C Rustan , Rolf K Berge , Christian A Drevon PURPOSE: Polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) and the sulfur-substituted fatty acid tetradecylthioacetic acid (TTA) inhibit proliferation and induce apoptosis in lymphoma and leukemic cell lines, but it is unknown if they can modify leukemogenesis in the intact organism. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN: We now examined the effects of PUFA and TTA in rats transplanted with either acute promyelocytic leukemia or acute T-cell leukemia. The rats were randomized to isoenergetic diets containing either lard (control), omega3 (n-3) PUFA, or TTA. RESULTS: Whereas TTA prolonged survival (P < 0.05) in both types of rat leukemia, n-3 PUFA had no significant effect compared with controls. Only TTA inhibited (P < 0.05) leukemic infiltration in the bone marrow and spleen, probably due to apoptosis of the leukemic cells. Plasma metalloproteinase activity, a marker of metastatic activity, was significantly reduced in TTA-fed rats only. CONCLUSIONS: Dietary intake of TTA, but not of n-3 PUFA, in rats with acute leukemia, prolonged their survival. TTA intake was also associated with reduced leukemic cell burden as well as diminished extramedullar dissemination. TTA represents a modified fatty acid that exerts unique effects on malignant hematopoietic cells, and the present study indicates that TTA may have a therapeutic potential in patients with acute leukemias. ancer Res. 2006 Jun 1
Current Opinion in Clinical Nutrition and Metabolic Care ...
Heimli H, Finstad HS, Drevon CA. Necrosis and apoptosis in lymphoma cell lines exposed to ... A long-term seal- and cod-liver-oil supplementation in ...
www.co-clinicalnutrition.com/pt/re/conutrition/fulltext.00075197-200203000-00014.htm;jsessionid=GlVKLTmgN
Clin C;12 (11):3525-31 16740779 A bioactively modified Fatty Acid improves survival and impairs metastasis in preclinical models of acute leukemia. [My paper] Per O Iversen , Dag R Sørensen , Karl J Tronstad , Oddrun A Gudbrandsen , Arild C Rustan , Rolf K Berge , Christian A Drevon PURPOSE: Polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) and the sulfur-substituted fatty acid tetradecylthioacetic acid (TTA) inhibit proliferation and induce apoptosis in lymphoma and leukemic cell lines, but it is unknown if they can modify leukemogenesis in the intact organism. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN: We now examined the effects of PUFA and TTA in rats transplanted with either acute promyelocytic leukemia or acute T-cell leukemia. The rats were randomized to isoenergetic diets containing either lard (control), omega3 (n-3) PUFA, or TTA. RESULTS: Whereas TTA prolonged survival (P < 0.05) in both types of rat leukemia, n-3 PUFA had no significant effect compared with controls. Only TTA inhibited (P < 0.05) leukemic infiltration in the bone marrow and spleen, probably due to apoptosis of the leukemic cells. Plasma metalloproteinase activity, a marker of metastatic activity, was significantly reduced in TTA-fed rats only. CONCLUSIONS: Dietary intake of TTA, but not of n-3 PUFA, in rats with acute leukemia, prolonged their survival. TTA intake was also associated with reduced leukemic cell burden as well as diminished extramedullar dissemination. TTA represents a modified fatty acid that exerts unique effects on malignant hematopoietic cells, and the present study indicates that TTA may have a therapeutic potential in patients with acute leukemias. ancer Res. 2006 Jun 1
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We don't do a lot of cod fishing in New Mexico, so am doing a test photo posting of my neighborhood.
This is a picture overlooking the Gila River Valley.
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi178.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fw268%2FZoey51%2F004_4.jpg&hash=4f545b244e097c2995ef417ed96fa19f)
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We don't do a lot of cod fishing in New Mexico, so am doing a test photo posting of my neighborhood.
This is a picture overlooking the Gila River Valley.
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi178.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fw268%2FZoey51%2F004_4.jpg&hash=4f545b244e097c2995ef417ed96fa19f)
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Well, and this is the river Po valley in Turin, North of Italy.
A lot of birds, fishes...but NO cods!
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fd2993411.u58.surftown.nu%2Fimages%2FAalesund2.jpg&hash=174d855ac2ffcf882ab22ebcbe4a34f1)
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mortiboy.co.uk%2Fpics%2Fturin%2Fturin9.JPG&hash=c5413a06584394436bd3fc88f62bf192) (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fpoloalfieril2.scuole.piemonte.it%2Ffrancese%2Fimages%2Ftorino%2Fpanorama.jpg&hash=bf86c1a991186c9233e00545507cb9ff)
http://www.mortiboy.co.uk/pics/turin/turin9.JPG
http://poloalfieril2.scuole.piemonte.it/francese/images/torino/panorama.jpg
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How did the cod deficiency affect the evolution of the culture?
Zoey
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How did the cod deficiency affect the evolution of the culture?
Zoey
Good question, I'd like to know history better than I actually do.
To simplify your difficult question I would start like this:
Cod liver oil is certainly very good stuff for the undernurished, but its components can be found in other nutrients.
Vitamin A for sure, omega-3 in some seed-plant (different type, similar effects).
And vitamin D...here we are: vitamin D can be assembled by the skin itself through sunlight exposure.
That is tricky, so northern countries have a problem and somebody in certain areas found the solution for rickets and osteomalacia using cod.
As with other cofactors, some people eventually need more to counteract their congenital (invisible) metabolic defects, others do just fine with a minimal dose here and there.
We have probably been selected over generations to be 'cod' independent.
Difficult to find, it works after weeks, so the cause/effect link is easily missed.
It is definitely dedicated to our sick children.
To help their growth, brains and strenghten their immune system.
A bit of help from the ocean where we all came from.
Am I corny enough?
ikod
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fevolution.berkeley.edu%2Fevolibrary%2Fimages%2Fevo%2Fhydrothermal-vent.jpg&hash=6aad2669fd1749076fead7b7ff00b86e)
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/images/evo/hydrothermal-vent.jpg
...and -repetita juvant- the ancient quote from Zoey's collection!
"Cod liver oil is in the forefront of children's remedies.
For long it has been struggling against the scepticism of exact science"
Rosenstern: Berl. klin. Wchuschr. 47;822, 1910.
from: "The history of cod liver oil as a remedy"
Ruth A. Guy M.D.
Dept. of Pediatrics, Yale University School of Medicine
Am. J. of diseases of children 26; 112-116, 1923.
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Yes, you are corny enough. I thought you may be drinking fermented COL.
Zoey
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Will discussing some of the aspects of nutritional factors that may make a person more vulnerable to developing cancer [as other illnesses] lead back to COL? This study cited below found children newly diagnosed with ALL had decreased levels of zinc and increased concentrations of copper:
=======================
Sao Paulo Med. J. vol.117 n.1 São Paulo Jan. 1999
Nutritional assessment and serum zinc and copper concentration in leukemic children
Pediatric Section, Hospital das Clínicas, Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto,
Ribeirão Preto, Brazil
INTRODUTION
Malnutrition is one of the major problems in cancer patients. Athough not prevalent in all pediatric cancers, malnutrition in childhood cancer is a common, serious problem.1 Cancer patients usually have inadequate energy and protein intakes, increased metabolic rate and abnormalities in energy, carbohydrate, lipid and protein metabolism.2 Cancer therapy with chemotherapy and radiation therapy is also potentially damaging to nutritional status.3"
"Trace Elements vs. Cancer
This study demonstrated altered serum zinc and copper levels in patients with newly diagnosed leukemia.
The blood serum levels of zinc and copper in malignant diseases have been the subject of a multitude of investigations, and their possible involvement has been well-recognized in many cancerous conditions. Altered zinc and copper concentrations in the plasma or serum have been previously reported in cancer patients.21,24,25
The general trend towards slightly decreased zinc concentrations in malignant diseases supports the experimental results obtained by Brown et al26 suggesting that zinc deficiency is associated with the etiology of cancer.
Several studies27,28 show that serum Cu levels in malignant disease increase in relation to disease activity. Remission is usually associated with the return of Cu levels to normal ranges. Serum Cu is suggested as a useful index for the extent of leukemia and malignant lymphoma, and may predict response to chemotherapy .
Recent studies suggest that the use of blood zinc and copper concentration and the copper/zinc ratio (Cu/Zn) may be useful parameters for estimating the presence and prognosis of malignant tumors.6,9,29
A far more comprehensive study of the basic mechanism for alteration of serum copper and zinc and its significance in all malignancies is needed."
http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S1516-31801999000100003&script=sci_arttext
==================
The study focused on dietary intake, of copper and zinc. It did not look at whether there might be a metabolic process that might account for the altered concentrations of zinc and copper.
Zinc is thought necessary for the proper metabolism of vitamin A. The research on this looks mighty small, most not recent. There is some information available:
"Zinc deficiency is thought to interfere with vitamin A metabolism in several ways: 1) Zinc deficiency results in decreased synthesis of retinol binding protein (RBP), which transports retinol through the circulation to tissues (e.g., the retina). 2) Zinc deficiency results in decreased activity of the enzyme that releases retinol from its storage form, retinyl palmitate, in the liver. 3) Zinc is required for the enzyme that converts retinol into retinal (8, 9). At present, the health consequences of zinc deficiency on vitamin A nutritional status in humans are unclear "
"Disease Prevention
Cancer
Studies in cell culture and animal models have documented the capacity for natural and synthetic retinoids to reduce carcinogenesis significantly in skin, breast, liver, colon, prostate, and other sites (2). However, the results of human studies examining the relationship between the consumption of preformed vitamin A and cancer are less clear.
http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/infocenter/vitamins/vitaminA/
=============
"Synergistic effect of zinc and vitamin A on the biochemical indexes of vitamin A nutrition in children
Zinc deficiency limits the bioavailability of vitamin A. Because zinc and vitamin A deficiency often coexist in malnourished children, simultaneous zinc and vitamin A supplementation may improve the vitamin A deficiency in these children."
http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/75/1/92
=============
I saw references but did not yet find, articles on how vitamin A deficiency might influence zinc metabolism and concentrations. Could it be that the cod liver oil use noted in the Shanghai Report was helping to correct unrecognized deficiencies in those children?
Zoey
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Yes Zoey,
malnutrition is reported in children diagnosed ALL-AML.
Zinc deficiency and increased copper had been described and eventually considered 'epiphenomena', sort of shades of what is happening in the body: infection? An overidden immune response?
Overall the massive expansion and invasion of a bulk of immature cells (blasts) in the bone, liver, spleen and lymphatic glands.
Vitamin A deficiency could aggravate zinc deficiency as well: cod liver oil might prevent this effect ameliorating an endless list of metabolic reactions and modifying an abnormal immune response to a 'common pathogen'(Mel Greaves' theory!).
At the very beginning of treatment of ALL this problem is dramatically solved.
These patients are given such a massive dose of steroids that makes them constantly hungry.
High dose steroid treatment has the capability of killing the lymphoblasts and inducing a remission of disease in a few weeks.
These children crave for salty foodstuff. You may find your kid in the kitchen at 6am, frantically cooking two scrambled eggs...
Egg yolks have tons of zinc and vitamin A as well.
Giving large amounts of zinc (e.g. for acne) you may decrease copper adsorption and even induce severe copper deficiency. But I wouldn't play with these mechanisms not knowing what is really happening around!
ikod
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Note:
Zinc and vitamin A seem to work together
helping malnourished children to survive.
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.who.int%2Fconsultation-child-adolescent%2Fimages%2FPhotos%2FChildren%2FSmall%2Fimg012_small.jpg&hash=be25e9a4ed2902989f34564a98b2985f)
http://www.who.int/consultation-child-adolescent/images/Photos/Children/Small/img012_small.jpg
Simultaneous zinc and vitamin A supplementation in Bangladeshi children:
randomised double blind controlled trial.
Rahman MM, Vermund SH, Wahed MA, Fuchs GJ, Baqui AH, Alvarez JO.
International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Dhaka 1000, Bangladesh. mujib_99@yahoo.com
OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effect of simultaneous zinc and vitamin A supplementation on diarrhoea and acute lower respiratory infections in children.
STUDY DESIGN: Randomised double blind placebo controlled trial.
SETTING: Urban slums of Dhaka, Bangladesh.
PARTICIPANTS AND METHODS: 800 children aged 12-35 months were randomly assigned to one of four intervention groups: 20 mg zinc once daily for 14 days; 200 000 IU vitamin A, single dose on day 14; both zinc and vitamin A; placebo. The children were followed up once a week for six months, and morbidity information was collected.
RESULTS: The incidence and prevalence of diarrhoea were lower in the zinc and vitamin A groups than in the placebo group. Zinc and vitamin A interaction had a rate ratio (95% confidence interval) of 0.79 (0.66 to 0.94) for the prevalence of persistent diarrhoea and 0.80 (0.67 to 0.95) for dysentery. Incidence (1.62; 1.16 to 2.25) and prevalence (2.07; 1.76 to 2.44) of acute lower respiratory infection were significantly higher in the zinc group than in the placebo group. The interaction term had rate ratios of 0.75 (0.46 to 1.20) for incidence and 0.58 (0.46 to 0.73) for prevalence of acute lower respiratory infection.
CONCLUSIONS: Combined zinc and vitamin A synergistically reduced the prevalence of persistent diarrhoea and dysentery. Zinc was associated with a significant increase in acute lower respiratory infection, but this adverse effect was reduced by the interaction between zinc and vitamin A.
BMJ. 2001 Aug 11;323(7308):314-8
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Talking of sending a message about cod liver oil for sick children...
...let's borrow these lines from the "Nutrition and Disease" topic:
Note from: Philip R. Evans
Infantile scurvy: the centenary of Barlow's disease.
Br Med J (Clin Res Ed). 1983 Dec 17;287(6408):1862-3.
James Lind served as a surgeon's mate in the Royal Navy. He saw many cases of scurvy during his nine years at sea, and after leaving the service and graduating as a MD in Edinburgh he published his "Treatise on scurvy"(1753).
This proposed that in people predisposed to scurvy "an additional, and extremely powerful cause observed at sea was...the want of fresh vegetables and greens." He showed that the juice of oranges or lemons was both curative and preventive, and strongly recommended that this should be given routinely to all sailors. Despite his intensive campaign the Admiralty did not take up his suggestions until a year after his death in 1794, when lemon juice was added to sailor's rations.
1753-1794...40 years lost in useless discussions and hyper-egoes fights? The correct answer was already there! For a disease which killed a million seamen between 1600 and 1800.
ikod
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Feducation.vetmed.vt.edu%2FCurriculum%2FVM8054%2FLabs%2FLab5%2FIMAGES%2FCURING%2520SCURVY.JPG&hash=826ed8cd30f9cfc436a77f35fd3819a2)
http://education.vetmed.vt.edu/Curriculum/VM8054/Labs/Lab5/IMAGES/CURING%20SCURVY.JPG
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Are we not seeing this same sort of historical scene repeating itself now, on other health issues as well as regarding the usefulness of cod liver oil? Failure to recognize the role of nutrition in illness is not much improved over the last century when vitamins were first identified.
As for COL, one answer may be to follow strategies used by foundations for various diseases and disorders. They often carry out 'education' and 'awareness' campaigns. It may well be that many cod liver oil manufacturers are not aware of the Shanghai Report. They may well have an interest in having their marketing professionals organize an 'awareness campaign on this issue as it would surely increase sales and interest in their product. This is the same strategy used when drug companies fund awareness campaigns about conditions, like osteoporosis, which serve to promote the companies' drugs for this condition.
My suggestions:
1. Form a core group, a small foundation and set up a web page listing a clear statement of purpose; to get the word out on the benefits of cod liver oil in ALL and to promote research in this area.
2. Post information and articles on COL and the Shanghai Report on the web page emphasizing that many may be suffering for lack of information on how COL may be beneficial. Also emphasize the need for more research and education of the public about this potential miracle treatment that is being overlooked.
3. Establish a research fund.
4. If possible, enlist the support of one well known public figure who will promote the foundation's work and solicit support.
5. Organize a scientific discussion forum on the topic, such as "Cod Liver Oil as a Preventive for ALL: The Shanghai Report Reconsidered". It doesn't need to be a large forum, but having a few well known scientists participate will make it newsworthy to larger media outlets.
6. Organize a public forum on the issue, perhaps within a month or so after the scientific one, aimed at parents who are concerned about nutrition and the prevention of childhood Leukaemia.
7. Once the content of the forums is developed and in written form, make it available to as many COL producers and distributors as possible. Solicit their interest in funding and promoting the campaigns as well as having representatives present at the forums.
8. Develop extensive public relations campaigns for each of the forums. Press releases and newspaper articles which can be distributed world wide via the net. There should also be press releases and promotional articles directed to scientific oriented media. If the foundation has succeeded in getting support from some of the manufacturers, they should be able to assist or even take over this task.
9. Write an account in a small book, Such as "The Shanghai Report Reconsidered: How Cod Liver Oil May Reduce the Risk of Developing Childhood Leukaemia". Time it's release to coincide with the forums and the public awareness campaigns. Press releases reviewing this "remarkable" book should also be made to library, academic, and health oriented media at this time.
10. Solicit the assistance of any of the COL manufacturers' public Relations Departments to help the foundation promote the cause [and increase COL sales].
Do you think this simple plan has potential, merit? I am already getting a list ofcontact information for manufacturers\producers organized. It would surprise me if they were not interested in the Shanghai Report and perhaps taking an active interest in this issue. Maybe we should just draft a proposal for the above, and send it to various COL companies asking for support and advice in putting the proposal into action.
Zoey
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Good news! The first COL producer that came up in the search advertises its role in "research and education".
Zoey
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The second company explored also is involved in research also.
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Hi Zoey,
I don't want to slow down your enthusiasm but...
did you check the recent post about vitamins
and antioxidants by George (another_someone)?
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=6661.0
This is a really tough and delicate issue.
ikod
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No, I hadn't read it, but thanks. Will do! What about your enthusiasm?
Zoey
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I read the report and posted a reply. If you get a copy of the report can you post some of it here? I would like to read it also.
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Some conflicting reports from a search on cod liver oil and cancer. It appears there is interest in researching this issue, but it needs to be cultivated.
The bad news first. This one shows a potential negative link between cod liver oil use and risk of developing cutaneous malignant melanoma. Some concerns about the results are noted in the abstract.
2: Int J Cancer. 1997 May 16;71(4):600-4.
Diet and risk of cutaneous malignant melanoma: a prospective study of 50,757
Norwegian men and women.
Veierod MB, Thelle DS, Laake P.
Section of Medical Statistics, University of Oslo, Norway.
marit.veierod@basalmed.uio.no
The relationship between dietary habits and subsequent risk of cutaneous
malignant melanoma (CMM) was studied in 25,708 men and 25,049 women aged 16-56
years attending a Norwegian health screening in 1977-1983. Linkage to the Cancer
Registry of Norway and the Central Bureau of Statistics of Norway ensured a
complete follow-up until December 31, 1992. Diet was recorded through a
semi-quantitative food-frequency questionnaire at the time of screening, and 108
cases of CMM were identified during follow-up. Use of cod liver oil
supplementation and intake of polyunsaturated fat were associated with
significant increased risk and drinking coffee with significant decreased risk
of CMM in women. Adjusting for height, body mass index, body surface area,
education, smoking or occupational or recreational physical activity did not
change the results. No significant association was found between the incidence
of CMM and any of the dietary factors in men. Important aspects are residual
confounding by sun exposure and social class, as well as concern with multiple
comparisons.
Publication Types:
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
PMID: 9178814 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
-------------------------------------------------
Now, something looking a little more positive.
This review speaks mostly of vitamin D in relation to development of prostate cancer. However, the author also notes growing interest in the potential role of vitamin D in other cancers as well. The entire review is available at PubMed Central. The link to it follows this quote.
Clin Biochem Rev. 2005 February; 26(1): 21–32.
Copyright © 2005 The Australasian Association of Clinical Biochemists Inc.
Vitamin D: A Hormone for All Seasons - How much is enough? Understanding the New Pressures
Howard A Morris*
Hanson Institute, Box 14 Rundle Mall Post Office, Adelaide, SA 5000, Australia
Corresponding author.
For correspondence: Professor Howard Morris e-mail: howard.morris@imvs.sa.gov.a
*(Professor Morris was the AACB Roman Lecturer for 2004.)
"
An area of particular interest for novel vitamin D activities is the regulation of cell growth and differentiation. It has been recognised for over 20 years that the addition of 1,25(OH)2D to culture media for cancer cell lines produced a strong inhibition of growth. Initially studies included breast cancer and other solid tumour cells lines.37 Particular progress has been made with the study of human prostate cancer cell lines as well as normal prostate epithelial tissue and primary prostate cancer cell cultures. The prostate functions as a vitamin D-target organ in that normal epithelial cells express the VDR and display regulation of numerous genes by 1,25(OH)2D. A recent complementary DNA microarray analysis of primary human prostatic epithelial cells revealed that 1,25(OH)2D up-regulated at least 38 genes and 9 were significantly down-regulated.38 The highest induction of expression was the gene for the vitamin D catabolic enzyme CYP24. The expression of similar but not identical genes was observed in primary prostate cancer cultures. Some of these genes modulate the mitogen-activated kinase (MAPK) pathways associated with growth factor signally while others induce apoptosis or reduce cell cycling activity necessary for cell division and replication.
A study of the effect of 1,25(OH)2D on growth of a number of human prostate cancer cell lines indicated varied responses to 1,25(OH)2D with the LNCaP line being most sensitive while the DU145 cell line was unresponsive39 (Figure 5). Further studies on the expression of the genes that determine vitamin D activity in these cell lines as well as normal prostate epithelial cells and benign prostate hyperplastic cells indicate a gradation of decreasing CYP27B1 activity as prostate epithelial cells move from normal epithelium with the highest activity through benign prostate hyperplastic epithelium with moderate activity to cancer cells with markedly repressed activity (Table 4). Neither the expression of VDR or CYP24 demonstrates such a relationship with the development of cancer. It is interesting that when the DU145 cancer cell, which is unresponsive to 1,25(OH)2D was treated with an inhibitor of CYP24 activity, the growth inhibition by 1,25(OH)2D was demonstrated.43 A recent immunohistochemical study of a human prostate cancer series indicated that the CYP27B1 protein was present in a significant number of these specimens. Their data suggest that the increased expression of CYP24 or some inactivation of the CYP27B1 enzyme may be important mechanisms for reducing 1,25(OH)2D activity in many clinical prostate cancers.44
These findings all suggest that modulation of vitamin D activity through disruption of vitamin D metabolism within prostate cells may play a permissive role in the development of prostate cancer. There is considerable epidemiological evidence that either decreased sunlight exposure or decreased vitamin D status is associated with increased risk of many cancers including prostate. In the USA rates of cancer mortality vary inversely with exposure to sunlight (reviewed45). A study in Finland demonstrated that men with an initial low vitamin D status were at greater risk for earlier onset prostate cancer and tumours were generally more aggressive suggesting vitamin D status may be critical during the earlier stages of prostate cancer development. These observations have been confirmed in the United Kingdom. Thus if a low vitamin D status is confirmed to increase the risk of prostate or any cancers, the maintenance of an adequate vitamin D status and assessment of vitamin D levels are very simple procedures that could be adopted at the population level. Thus clinical laboratory vitamin D testing would further markedly increase. Such a public health policy will require the identification of the level of vitamin D required to reduce the risk of cancer."
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=1240026
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Some conflicting reports from a search on cod liver oil and cancer. It appears there is interest in researching this issue, but it needs to be cultivated.
The bad news first. This one shows a potential negative link between cod liver oil use and risk of developing cutaneous malignant melanoma. Some concerns about the results are noted in the abstract.
2: Int J Cancer. 1997 May 16;71(4):600-4.
Diet and risk of cutaneous malignant melanoma: a prospective study of 50,757
Norwegian men and women.
Veierod MB, Thelle DS, Laake P.
Hi Zoey,
I couldn't check the full-text. Reading the abstract I could not find the sun-exposure history that now seems to be crucial in making the difference: people that experienced several 'burns' - instead of a proper suntan achieved gradually - take a much higher risk of developing a melanoma in the following decades.
Epidemiological studies seem to have a problem when cod liver oil is concerned.
As a matter of fact, things are much more complex when you get closer...
Here there is an example.
Predictors for cod-liver oil supplement use--the Norwegian Women and Cancer Study.
Brustad M,Braaten T, Lund E.
Institute of Community Medicine, University of Tromso, Norway. magritt.brustad@ism.uit.no
OBJECTIVE: To assess the use of cod-liver oil supplements among Norwegian women and to examine dietary, lifestyle, demographic, and health factors associated with use of this supplement.
DESIGN: Cross-sectional study.
SETTING AND SUBJECTS: The study is based on data from a food frequency questionnaire from 1998 answered by 37,226 women aged 41-55 y, who in 1991/1992 participated in the Norwegian component of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC). The Norwegian EPIC cohort was based on a random nation-wide sample of Norwegian women.
RESULTS: Cod-liver oil supplement use was reported by 44.7% of the participating women. Subjects with higher education, high physical activity level, and body mass index (BMI) in the normal range were more likely to use cod-liver oil supplements. Consumption did also increase with increased age as well as with increased reported consumption of fruits, vegetables, fatty fish, lean fish, and vitamin D (excluding the vitamin D contribution from cod-liver oil). Energy intake was higher among cod-liver oil users than nonusers. Whole-year daily users of cod-liver oil were also more likely to take other dietary supplements (OR=2.45, 95% CI: 2.28-2.62). Never smokers were more likely to use cod-liver oil supplements than current smokers.
CONCLUSION: Use of cod-liver oil is associated with several sociodemographic factors, self-reported health issues, and intake of fish, fruit, and vegetables. When assessing the relationship between cod-liver oil use and occurrence of chronic diseases potential confounders need to be considered. Cod-liver oil use seemed not to be matched with vitamin D needs. Thus, emphasis on assessing vitamin D status by measuring levels in blood should be investigated further, in particular, among people living in northern latitudes.
Eur J Clin Nutr. 2004 Jan;58(1):128-36.
Air view of Tromso, Norway
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.galenfrysinger.com%2FPhotos%2Fnorway29.jpg&hash=93ecec2bf996ce7ae9f960443b8114e2)
http://www.galenfrysinger.com/Photos/norway29.jpg
more views from: http://www.galenfrysinger.com/tromso,_norway.htm
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Considering the view, I wonder if I could find a sponsor to send me there to search for information?
Wouldn't any study need to consider if the subjects take cod liver oil, vitamin D supplements, as well as determine any participant's vitamin D level?
I did a quick search on vitamin D deficiency in Norway and it looks like many studies focus on deficiency in immigrant groups, so even that information is taking time to locate. How could study problems related to taking cod liver oil be overcome?
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Considering the view, I wonder if I could find a sponsor to send me there to search for information?
Wouldn't any study need to consider if the subjects take cod liver oil, vitamin D supplements, as well as determine any participant's vitamin D level?
I did a quick search on vitamin D deficiency in Norway and it looks like many studies focus on deficiency in immigrant groups, so even that information is taking time to locate. How could study problems related to taking cod liver oil be overcome?
It is a bit funny to focus on deficiency in immigrant groups and 'discover' vitamin D deficiency...
They are dark skinned, wear traditional clothes designed to protect you from tropical sunlight, and I am afraid they do not take cod liver oil as nutritional supplement.
We now understand why most people from northern countries are white skinned blondies!
Their skin is probably able to make vitamin D even under moonlight...
ikod
now a bit of light for this topic from "A-Z Anything in Science..."
Phototherapy
from neonatal jaundice to psoriasis,
cutaneous GVHD and vitamin D deficiency...
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww-english.tamu.edu%2Fpers%2Ffac%2Fmyers%2Fphototherapy.jpg&hash=551fc2af901dd2a61d75cb316f61761c) (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.npl.co.uk%2Fpublications%2Fnews%2Fopticalrm%2Fissue16%2Fnew_high_dose_uva1_therapy_system..jpg&hash=e5c90f13c511ebb5264b9c5e23c0b522) (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fnews.bbc.co.uk%2Fmedia%2Fimages%2F38157000%2Fjpg%2F_38157237_300beach.jpg&hash=4994eeae9cfdaa8af8b083385315aeb2)
http://www-english.tamu.edu/pers/fac/myers/phototherapy.jpg
http://www.npl.co.uk/publications/news/opticalrm/issue16/new_high_dose_uva1_therapy_system..jpg
http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/38157000/jpg/_38157237_300beach.jpg
ikod [^]
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I'm glad you put some light on the subject, too much yet remains in the shadows.
I've been watching vitamin D reports for several years and am skeptical of some of what we are seeing in the media on this subject. The common theme is that migration from an area of adequate sunlight, Asia, Africa, especially, to Europe and North American Countries leads to development of D deficiency. This because dark skinned people require more time in the sunlight to produce adequate levels of D, and they are relocating to areas where they get less exposure or useful exposure than in their native countries.
I'm wondering if there are other factors here that are not as well recognized or are not recieving as much press coverage. From the volume of headlines the last few years one would have to wonder how any population could have developed and thrived in the tropical climates. One would have to wonder too, how any population ever developed in Europe.
If a focus of the studies is on a population likely to have high percentages of deficiency it makes good news as a 'major public health problem."
Because there would be more extensive news coverage, more of the reading public would become "aware" of deficiency and its symptoms. Their increased level of awareness may prompt them to go to the health food store and purchase vitamin D, whether or not they belong to the group making the news.
Other deficiencies may also be affecting vitamin D levels, but are not being heavily 'marketed' at this time. These abstracts from PubMed, may shed another ray of light on the subject.
Zoey
1: Am J Clin Nutr. 1992 Sep;56(3):533-6.
Effect of iron on serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D and 24,25-dihydroxyvitamin D
concentrations.
Heldenberg D, Tenenbaum G, Weisman Y.
Department of Pediatrics, Hillel-Yaffe Memorial Hospital, Hadera, Israel.
In 13 of 17 infants (aged 10.5 +/- 4.3; mean +/- SD mo) with iron-deficiency
anemia, the serum 24,25-dihydroxyvitamin D concentration was below the normal
range and in 9 of these 13 the serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentration was below
the normal range despite the fact that these infants received 10 micrograms
vitamin D/d from the age of 1 mo. The infants were treated with intramuscular
iron dextran (Imferon). The iron-dextran treatment increased the hemoglobin and
serum iron concentrations as well as 25-hydroxyvitamin D and
24,25-dihydroxyvitamin D concentrations. It is known that iron deficiency
impairs fat and vitamin A intestinal absorption. Therefore, it is suggested that
absorption of vitamin D may also be impaired. This may contribute to the
development of vitamin D deficiency. Iron supplementation may have improved the
absorption of vitamin D in the small intestine and hence increased the vitamin D
concentration in the plasma.
PMID: 1503065 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
: Am J Clin Nutr. 2004 Dec;80(6 Suppl):1725S-9S. Links
Nutritional rickets: deficiency of vitamin D, calcium, or both?Pettifor JM.
Medical Research Council Mineral Metabolism Research Unit, Department of Paediatrics, Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital and the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. pettiforjm@medicine.wits.ac.za
Nutritional rickets remains a public health problem in many countries, despite dramatic declines in the prevalence of the condition in many developed countries since the discoveries of vitamin D and the role of ultraviolet light in prevention. The disease continues to be problematic among infants in many communities, especially among infants who are exclusively breast-fed, infants and children of dark-skinned immigrants living in temperate climates, infants and their mothers in the Middle East, and infants and children in many developing countries in the tropics and subtropics, such as Nigeria, Ethiopia, Yemen, and Bangladesh. Vitamin D deficiency remains the major cause of rickets among young infants in most countries, because breast milk is low in vitamin D and its metabolites and social and religious customs and/or climatic conditions often prevent adequate ultraviolet light exposure. In sunny countries such as Nigeria, South Africa, and Bangladesh, such factors do not apply. Studies indicated that the disease occurs among older toddlers and children and probably is attributable to low dietary calcium intakes, which are characteristic of cereal-based diets with limited variety and little access to dairy products. In such situations, calcium supplements alone result in healing of the bone disease. Studies among Asian children and African American toddlers suggested that low dietary calcium intakes result in increased catabolism of vitamin D and the development of vitamin D deficiency and rickets. Dietary calcium deficiency and vitamin D deficiency represent 2 ends of the spectrum for the pathogenesis of nutritional rickets, with a combination of the 2 in the middle.
PMID: 15585795 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
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Iko,
I guess the next obvious step is to look up iron and calcium deficiency among the same immigrant populations showing vitamin D deficiency.
Zoey
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Because there would be more extensive news coverage, more of the reading public would become "aware" of deficiency and its symptoms. Their increased level of awareness may prompt them to go to the health food store and purchase vitamin D, whether or not they belong to the group making the news.
I don't think these news come out for commercial reasons.
Vitamins are cheap and immigrants are poor:
as usual these facts are ignored by the most...
Did you get this from cod liver oil topic?
A neat study from Switzerland:
Bone and muscle pain in vitamin D deficiency
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amnesty.org%2Fimages%2Fhomepage%2Fsrilanka_june06.jpg&hash=a583b2b85c98ef871209a5660856ca91)
http://www.amnesty.org/images/homepage/srilanka_june06.jpg
Short summary from:
G de Torrenté de la Jara, A Pécoud, and B Favrat
Female asylum seekers with musculoskeletal pain:
the importance of diagnosis and treatment of hypovitaminosis D.
Hypovitaminosis D is well known in different populations, but may be underdiagnosed in certain populations. We aim to determine the first diagnosis considered, the duration and resolution of symptoms, and the predictors of response to treatment in female asylum seekers suffering from hypovitaminosis D.
In a network comprising an academic primary care centre and nurse practitioners, in 33 female asylum seekers with complaints compatible with osteomalacia, hypovitaminosis D (serum 25-(OH) vitamin D <21 nmol/l) was diagnosed.
The patients received either two doses of 300,000 IU intramuscular cholecalciferol as well as 800 IU of cholecalciferol with 1000 mg of calcium orally, or the oral treatment only.
We recorded the first diagnosis made by the physicians before the correct diagnosis of hypovitaminosis D, the duration of symptoms before diagnosis, the responders and non-responders to treatment, the duration of symptoms after treatment, and the number of medical visits and analgesic drugs prescribed 6 months before and 6 months after diagnosis.
Prior to the discovery of hypovitaminosis D, diagnoses related to somatisation were evoked in 30 patients (90.9%). The mean duration of symptoms before diagnosis was 2.53 years. Twenty-two patients (66.7%) responded completely to treatment; the remaining patients were considered to be non-responders.
After treatment was initiated, the responders' symptoms disappeared completely after 2.84 months. The mean number of emergency medical visits fell from 0.88 six months before diagnosis to 0.39 after. The mean number of analgesic drugs that were prescribed also decreased from 1.67 to 0.85.
Conclusion
Hypovitaminosis D in female asylum seekers may remain undiagnosed, with a prolonged duration of chronic symptoms.
The potential pitfall is a diagnosis of somatisation.
Treatment leads to a rapid resolution of symptoms, a reduction in the use of medical services, and the prescription of analgesic drugs in this vulnerable population.
BMC Fam Pract. 2006 Jan 23;7:4.
Comment:
Cod liver oil instead of vitamin D3 would have sorted the same effect.
It is impressive how much time it takes (1.4-2.8 months) to reach complete resolution of the symptoms: not even all patient responded, but all of them where vitamin D deficient. One patient required seven months of treatment to be free from symptoms.
Intriguing questions:
- How many times is a vitamin D deficiency suspected in an adult complaining bone and muscle pain?
- How many doctors would refer their patients' improvement to a drug injected or prescribed several months before?
- How many patients would take a drug for such a long time in spite of lack of results?
ikod
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1: Am J Clin Nutr. 1992 Sep;56(3):533-6.
Effect of iron on serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D and 24,25-dihydroxyvitamin D
concentrations.
Heldenberg D, Tenenbaum G, Weisman Y.
Department of Pediatrics, Hillel-Yaffe Memorial Hospital, Hadera, Israel.
In 13 of 17 infants (aged 10.5 +/- 4.3; mean +/- SD mo) with iron-deficiency
anemia, the serum 24,25-dihydroxyvitamin D concentration was below the normal
range and in 9 of these 13 the serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentration was below
the normal range despite the fact that these infants received 10 micrograms
vitamin D/d from the age of 1 mo. The infants were treated with intramuscular
iron dextran (Imferon). The iron-dextran treatment increased the hemoglobin and
serum iron concentrations as well as 25-hydroxyvitamin D and
24,25-dihydroxyvitamin D concentrations. It is known that iron deficiency
impairs fat and vitamin A intestinal absorption. Therefore, it is suggested that
absorption of vitamin D may also be impaired. This may contribute to the
development of vitamin D deficiency. Iron supplementation may have improved the
absorption of vitamin D in the small intestine and hence increased the vitamin D
concentration in the plasma.
Thanks dear Zoey!
I think I missed this one in the pile of vitamin D papers.
Restricted to patients who are actually taking supplements
and have a profund iron deficiency at the same time.
It's not the case of leukemia, of course, but it is quite
important in many other conditions...
ikod
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(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fdistantpeak.com%2Fimages%2Fzoom%2FWIACZN%2F111_1164.JPG&hash=8fc42d9d661040db613c0016ae6d7b29)
http://distantpeak.com/images/zoom/WIACZN/111_1164.JPG
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Ffarm1.static.flickr.com%2F134%2F326391073_f9909d1557_m.jpg&hash=498d874ce0ddc17d6f39d8d7afbe6597) (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Ffarm1.static.flickr.com%2F144%2F326390395_e2d00f2105_m.jpg&hash=3b826312277dc533241e897a3e8f6ab4)
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/134/326391073_f9909d1557_m.jpg
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/144/326390395_e2d00f2105_m.jpg
from: Climbing Gran Paradiso (4061m) in Italy
Written by Lyngve Skrede Friday, 23 July 2004
http://distantpeak.com/web/mountains/europe/gran_paradiso
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Hey Iko,
Those are awesome pictures! When you return, there is one question for this topic.
A while back I mentioned having seen a map indicating in which areas of the planet the soil is zinc depleted. As I recall some of the areas were the same in which a high incindence of vitamin A deficiency and childhood blindness also were documented. At the time I was looking up information on a possible relationship between zinc deficiency and vitamin A deficiency. It seems to me that the map was from an international group monitoring nutrient deficiencies around the world. Do you have any ideas on how I might find this information-and map? It has been several moves and computers since I had this information and my reference is lost. If we can find it, it may add another [thin] thread to this discussion.
Zoey
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If an area providing food is zinc deficient, a seemingly 'good diet' may be less than adequate. From the searching tonight, could there be a link between zinc deficiency, vitamin A, and the development of leukemia?
At the time I had the map showing areas of soil that was zinc depleted, I was getting a lot of information on Vitamin A from the Sight and Life Organization, which was involved in WHO campaigns to eradicate childhood blindness attributed to vitamin A deficiency. I had seen maps showing areas of the planet where vitamin A deficiency and childhood blindness were common. When the map on zinc deficient soil came up it seemed there might well be a correspondence, between areas of high vitamin A and zinc deficiencies.
If we locate the map, should we look to see if there is also a correspondence between the rates of leukemia, and the areas where the soil is zinc depleted?
Zoey
Vitamin A: Zinc deficiency is thought to interfere with vitamin A metabolism in several ways: 1) Zinc deficiency results in decreased synthesis of retinol binding ...
http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/infocenter/vitamins/vitaminA/
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-01/ef-rfc010906.php
Public release date: 9-Jan-2006
[ Print Article | E-mail Article | Close Window ]
Contact: Garazi Andonegi
garazi@elhuyar.com
34-943-363-040
Elhuyar Fundazioa
Retinol for combating leukemia cells
This press release is also available in Spanish.
Vitamin A, also known as retinol, is present in milk, liver, egg yolk, butter and other foodstuffs and as carotene in vegetables that have a yellow-orange colour, such as carrots and pumpkins.
This vitamin is accumulated in the liver where it is transformed into retinoid. Given that vitamin A, as such, has no effect on our organism, it is the retinoids that are responsible for the physiological activity of the vitamin.
Retinoids take part in three processes: in cell death, in cell differentiation and in cell proliferation.
Some ten years ago the Department of Cell Biology and Histology at the University of the Basque Country initiated research into how cell death was boosted by means of retinoids. It was thought that this potential could be used in the fight against cancer cells.
Clean and programmed death
Two types of death occur in cells: necrosis and apoptosis. Necrosis defines a pathological death, i.e. a death caused by a lack or deficit within the cell such as lack of oxygen or food.
On the other hand, apoptosis is the pre-programmed death of a cell. A number of cells have to die in order that our organism function correctly: for example, when the feet of a foetus are developed in the womb of a mother, at first the fingers are united by a membrane. This membrane has to disappear and, so, the cells thereof have to die off so that the hands may develop correctly. This cellular death is programmed in the embryo genes and has a concrete function. This is apoptosis.
All cells, in fact, have the necessary information to be able to undergo apoptosis but, of course, not all cells have to die. Both internal and external stimuli are what initiate this mechanism in those cases where it is necessary. Various modulating substances are involved amongst which are the retinoids.
Boosting apoptosis
Amongst these retinoids, researchers from the University of the Basque Country chose retinamide for their investigations. Retinamide is a synthetic retinoid, i.e. our body does not produce this substance naturally.
Natural retinoids are used to treat various diseases (e.g. those of the skin) but they turn out to be quite poisonous in the doses required – they are not well tolerated. This is why synthetic retinoids are created.
Specifically, the University research team analysed the effect of retinamide in certain types of leukemia - lymphoblastic leukemias. Nowadays, samples from the Hospital de Cruces in Bilbao are used in order to get these types of leukemia cells.
Lymphoblastic leukemias are, as their name indicates, a type of leukemia that affects lymphoblasts. Lymphoblasts are large cells, precursors of lymphocytes. Malign lymphoblasts are constantly dividing and they accumulate in the bone marrow impeding the formation of blood cells. In the analyses undertaken in the laboratory, it was seen that 95 % of these malign lymphoblasts died after application of retinamide. But what is the mechanism that really triggers this death?
To explain the process, the researchers analysed the action mechanism of the retinamide at a molecular level. From the analyses it was observed that the retinamide accelerated the oxidative stress within the malign cells and that this stress triggered the mechanisms leading to apoptosis. This death is normally clean and programmed death, and, to this end, a group of enzymes cut the protein inside the cell at certain sites, leading to the death of the cell in question. The death has no effect on healthy adjacent cells, does not result in swelling and the side effects are minimal.
Thus, according to what has been shown, retinamide has great potential to eliminate the lymphoblastic cells without affecting healthy lymphocytes nor the rest of the normal cells.
Made-to-measure treatment
With the molecular action mechanism understood, researchers investigated why retinamide did not affect healthy cells and they discovered other factors to explain the phenomena. So, apart from molecular mechanisms, other factors that affect the efficacy of retinamide could be clearly seen. These and others should be taken into account if a pharmaceutical to combat leukemias based on retinamide is to be marketed.
Moreover, according to the researchers, future treatment will be patient-specific. As is well known, not all patients suffering from the same illness respond in the same way to the same treatment. This is why lines of medical and pharmaceutical research increasingly mention the need to know the genetic characteristics of each patient in order to specify suitable treatment. In the case of retinamide, treatment will also be similarly specific but, before this, the trigger mechanism of the retinamide in the cells has to be known and this research will provide key data to this end.
###
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Hi Zoey,
thanks for the vitamin A informations (I put them in my alternative-Favourites files).
Even Zinc deficiency in leukemia is interesting and I remember it has been reported long time ago: 16 citations in PubMed since the early eighties, most impressive data from Turkish docs...
I'll study a bit more this quite complicated thing. It is a REAL puzzle even for docs.
As I told you before, in the case of ALL patients eat so frantically salty foods that any zinc deficiency is probably cured in a few days!
Vitamin A and E combined had been given in the past to leukids even in my hospital (late eighties) and no positive results were reported.
Here we go again: indirect data need confirmation and long term studies if anybody in the field is vaguely interested, but the weak epidemiological evidence from the 'Shanghai report' is there, ready to be used by all of us, scared parents of a leukemia survivor. It is ready to be applied with no risk and maybe no result, we cannot know.
Later on carnosic acid (rosemary) + vitamin D and vitamin D analogues will come, and maybe sesame seeds flavonoids (sesamin, sesamolin...did you read my posts about it?)
It is late and I have to reply to your Helicobacter connection post!
Take care
ikod
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I will go back to read those posts you mention, rosemary, etc. Then we need to look at writing press releases, and letters seeking research contributions for the COL and Leukemia Awareness Campaign.
Zoey
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Why do you write COL instead of CLO?
It's another mystery to me! [;D]
ikod
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To realize where we are and what could be done,
this cut & paste from Complementary Med. (CLO topic)
may help...vitamindcouncil should be our lighthouse!
We might arrange to join them pretty soon.
For skeptical people searching for 'gold standard' treatments
here is reported a precious annotation by Dr. Cannell from the
http://www.vitamindcouncil.com
Vitamin D Newsletter
This is a periodic newsletter from the Vitamin D Council, a non-profit trying to end the epidemic of vitamin D deficiency. If you don't want to get the newsletter, please hit reply and let us know. We don't copyright this newsletter.
Please reproduce it and post it on Internet sites.
Remember, we are a non-profit and rely on donations to publish our newsletter and maintain our website. Our pathetic finances are open to public inspections. Send your tax-deductible contributions to:
The Vitamin D Council
9100 San Gregorio Road
Atascadero, CA 93422
Supplement
Some of you didn't get the last newsletter. Here's a link.
http://www.vitamindcouncil.com/newsletter/2007-mar.shtml
Why is athletic performance medically important? If you think for a minute, you'd realize that athletic performance is the same as physical performance. What happens when physical performance is impaired? People fall and break their hips, resulting in death, disability, or nursing home admission. Many people don't realize how fatal falls can be in the elderly. In 2003, the CDC reported 13,700 persons over 65 in the USA died from their falls, and 1.8 million ended up in emergency rooms for treatment of nonfatal injuries from falls. Falls cause the majority of hip fractures, which - if they don't result in death - often result in admission to a nursing home. That's 13,700 deaths, hundreds of thousands of surgeries, countless nursing home admissions, and tens of billions in health care costs every year from impaired athletic performance. That's why it matters.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Fatalities and injuries from falls among older adults--United States, 1993-2003 and 2001-2005. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2006 Nov 17;55(45):1221-4. Link:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=17108890&query_hl=9&itool=pubmed_DocSum
The scientific evidence that vitamin D reduces falls in the elderly is quite strong. Some physicians say they must wait for randomized, placebo controlled, interventional trials, saying they need such "gold standard" evidence before they will act to prevent falls. Here are four such "gold standard" studies:
Bischoff HA, et al. Effects of vitamin D and calcium supplementation on falls: a randomized controlled trial. J Bone Miner Res. 2003 Feb;18(2):343-51.
Dhesi JK, et al. Vitamin D supplementation improves neuromuscular function in older people who fall. Age Ageing. 2004 Nov;33(6):589-95.
Flicker L, et al. Should older people in residential care receive vitamin D to prevent falls? Results of a randomized trial. J Am Geriatr Soc. 2005 Nov;53(11):1881-8.
Harwood RH, et al. A randomised, controlled comparison of different calcium and vitamin D supplementation regimens in elderly women after hip fracture: The Nottingham Neck of Femur (NONOF) Study. Age Ageing. 2004 Jan;33(1):45-51.
Some say they require a meta-analysis of such "gold standard" studies, from a top-flight university, published in a respected journal, proving vitamin D reduces falls. Here's a meta-analysis from Harvard, published is the Journal of the American Medical Association, showing vitamin D reduces falls:
Bischoff-Ferrari HA, Dawson-Hughes B, Willett WC, Staehelin HB, Bazemore MG, Zee RY, Wong JB. Effect of Vitamin D on falls: a meta-analysis. JAMA. 2004 Apr 28;291(16):1999-2006.
Will these "gold standard" studies prompt physicians to act? Will older patients finally get a vitamin D blood level and appropriate treatment of their vitamin D deficiency? No, most will not. I wish physicians acted on scientific studies but they do not, no matter how many people are dying. Vitamin D scientists conducting such trials are in for a rude surprise.
No matter how good their studies, no matter how well designed or meticulously conducted, no matter how good the journal, practicing physicians will continue to ignore such studies. Practicing physicians do what they learned in medical school, do what their colleagues do, and do what the drug company salespersons say. Very few keep abreast of medical research, unless a drug company representative puts that research under their nose.
That's why I wrote about athletic performance. If you think about it for a minute, you'll realize that falling is a failure of athletic performance. Anything that improves athletic performance will reduce deaths from falls.
As far as athletic performance in younger people goes, I certainly got some interesting letters. One guy from Tennessee agreed to list his phone number in case the press wanted to call or come by and watch him do chin-ups.
...
John Jacob Cannell MD
Executive Director
now a more personal note:
...sometimes pets and captive animals get more vitamin D 'attention' than humans!
ikod
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.greenigsociety.org%2Fjpg%2FJoseAndBaby.jpg&hash=d0339336dfcbd62b9c2073b0c8508a5f)
http://www.greenigsociety.org/jpg/JoseAndBaby.jpg
The Green Iguana Society
Lighting: Iguanas must have a source of UVA and UVB light! UVA stimulates natural behaviors by providing a component of natural sunlight. UVB is important to iguanas for another reason. Without it, their bodies cannot manufacture vitamin D3 or properly metabolize calcium. Iguanas that are deprived of proper UV lighting suffer from a disease called Metabolic Bone Disease (MBD) which is unfortunately very common in captive iguanas. MBD causes weak bones, jaw and bone deformities and early death.
The absolute best source of UV light is the sun. Allowing your iguana to bask in the sun on a regular basis will provide it with large amounts of natural UV light. The general rule of thumb is - the more real sun your iguana has access to, the better. One thing to be aware of is that glass and plastic filter out the UV components of sunlight. It is for this reason that you cannot just set your iguana in front of a closed window in the sun. The window glass filters out most of the UV light, so your iguana will not benefit from such sunbathing in terms of vitamin D3 production (although he might enjoy this (in)activity immensely).
An additional source of UV light is special fluorescent UV bulbs available in pet stores that sell reptile supplies. Some people feel that if daily doses of real, unfiltered sunlight can be obtained on most days, then the use of artificial UV light bulbs in the iguana's enclosure is not necessary. However, The Green Iguana Society strongly recommends the use of artificial UV in addition to as much basking time in the sun as possible, to ensure that your iguana gets adequate amounts of UV. The effectiveness of real sunlight to stimulate iguanas to produce vitamin D3 varies with the time of year and latitude of your location. Therefore, the additional use of artificial UV lights acts as a safety net - especially in cool, cloudy and/or northern climates. See the Heating, Lighting and Humidity section for specific information on the proper use of UV bulbs in your iguana's enclosure.
from: http://www.greenigsociety.org/habitatbasics.htm
...What about captive humans?
Vitamin D3
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.axxora.com%2Ffiles%2Fformula%2FLKT-C2956.gif&hash=04267daf9ae6202da7f555604f7d00b1) (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.photomed.de%2Fuploads%2Fpics%2Fvitamin_d3_01.jpg&hash=46814f512589b45efe42af167847c3e0)
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mmaonline.net%2FPublications%2FMNMed2005%2FNovember%2FImages%2Fsun.gif&hash=844fef17c08a93edd025a83988db07bf) (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.teridanielsbooks.com%2FStates%2FFlorida%2Fchildren%2C%2520beach%2C%2520sand%2C.jpg&hash=a22b5a748731d3e8b1f9785bea7f3cbb)
http://www.axxora.com/files/formula/LKT-C0145.gif
http://www.photomed.de/uploads/pics/vitamin_d3_01.jpg
http://www.mmaonline.net/Publications/MNMed2005/November/Images/sun.gif
http://www.teridanielsbooks.com/States/Florida/children,%20beach,%20sand,.jpg
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I must have been having a dyslexic moment, typing COL :)
Next it is time to reread your posts on this topic and pull the most salient points into an article or proposal when contacting possible supporters for mounting a public awareness campaign and\or initiating further research.
Zoey
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These are two of the companies that turned up in looking for who carries out research on COL. There is more searching to do, but do either or both of these look promising?
Zoey
Seven Seas:
Alternativeley, please email info@sseas.com or write to Seven Seas Ltd, Hedon Road, Hull, HU9 5NJ, England with any queries or feedback you may have regarding the Seven Seas Cod Liver Oil range.
Over the past seven decades Seven Seas has invested heavily in scientific research, health education and the most modern manufacturing processes. Today Seven Seas is the leading health supplement brand not only in the UK and Ireland but in the Middle East, Africa, Caribbean and the Far East.
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Lysi: Iceland
http://www.lysi.is/is/english/about%5Fus/
The Company
Lysi Ltd. was established in 1938 by Tryggvi Olafsson and his brother Thordur. General need for vitamins A and D triggered the founding of the company.
Following, Lysi Ltd. became the biggest producer of cod liver oil fulfilling demands from USA. In the years from 1938 - 1950 Lysi Ltd. exported large quantities of it's production to "Up-John Ltd." were vitamins
A and D where extracted from the oil.
Over the past 15 years Lysi Ltd. has held the leadership among companies in the area of research and product development in marine lipids.
The firm collaborates with the University of Iceland and the Icelandic Fisheries Laboratories on a continuous basis.
The link between leadership in research and development on one side and leadership in marketing and sales on the other is an obvious one to the management and owners of Lysi Ltd.
The R&D facilities benefit substantially from a massive reorganization dating back to 1980, when the laboratory and it's function where completely redesigned and a new emphasis was placed on research and development.
Based on this unique setup and the close cooperation with leading international pharmaceutical firms and research organizations, Lysi Ltd. is commonly regarded as one of the world leading know-how centers in the field of marine oils and their utilization.
http://www.lysi.is/is/english/about%5Fus/contacts/
Arnar Halldórsson Research and Development Manager arnar@lysi.is
--------------------
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Here is George's reply about engineers and doctors,
the initial comparison/question of this topic:
information spread, despatches, communication of results
in aircraft and medical environments:
George seems too much worried to umbalance a natural condition, but I insist in saying that at the recommended doses it might be only a waste of money at worst.
BTW George, I am still waiting for your comments on the 'Shanghai report' and the engineers versus docs issue...where everything started from, last August.
When you get bored of vitamin intoxication issues, of course.
ikod
That was a long while back – had to search for it – did not even remember whether I had read it at the time or not (may have done, but just forgotten about it).
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=4987.0
It covers a number of issues, but if you want to start with the comparison between the engineering issue and the medical one. I was going to list all of the differences between the medical profession and the engineering profession that might explain those apparent differences, but then realised that actually, in this context, there is not that much difference between the way the medical profession and the engineering profession react. The difference rather arises from the nature of the two incidents you report.
The flight safety issue is a negative issue (the engineers are warning what not to do, they are not saying what should be done). If you look at the usage of drugs today, it is much more difficult to introduce a new drug to the market than it is to have a drug withdrawn from the market as soon as there are any negative side effects found amongst the users of the drug (this is even true for those drugs that have many users who are totally happy with the drug – but fear of litigation from the minority will rapidly cause the drug to be removed from the market).
The aircraft industry is somewhat smaller than the medical industry, so things can happen more rapidly in the aircraft industry than in the medical industry, but it is still the case that getting a new component for an aircraft accepted takes much longer than getting one banned from use.
With regard to the Shanghai report itself (I have only seen the abstract, not the actual report), it provides a wide list of correlations, but as I have often pointed out, correlation does not equate to a causal link (I am not trying to argue against a link between vitamin D and leukaemia, it is merely that the report does not appear to be looking for specific causative agents, only to interesting correlations that would provide directions for future research). It seems that the report found quite a spectrum of correlations, but the mere breadth of that spectrum would mean that any one single correlation would only be one amongst many.
Clearly, given your own particular interest, the report speaks to you in a particular way; but such a wide (and apparently shallow) report could easily give very different messages to somebody looking for another message to read from it.
Why did the authors not shout louder about the cod liver oil aspect of their report? It seems to me they were more concerned with looking for environmental risk factors rather than protective factors, and in that context, a protective factor was merely a distraction (although it does seem strange why they even recording something that they were not interested in, unless they were simply trying to discount for it so that they effect did not distort their other results).
One serious problem with cod liver oil is the total collapse of the cod sticks and the cod fishing industry – it is in no position to try to satisfy new and expanding markets for its products. This, if nothing else, demands that in the long run only a synthetic substitute for cod liver oil could be sustainably sold to an expanding marketplace.
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Thank you so much for your reply!
I think I'm going to copy into the topic,
for the next weeks 'viewers'
Thank you for copying the message here (I should probably have replied here originally, but since I was responding to a post there, I placed the reply there – so I shall now continue the thread here).
One serious problem with cod liver oil is the total collapse of the cod sticks and the cod fishing industry – it is in no position to try to satisfy new and expanding markets for its products. This, if nothing else, demands that in the long run only a synthetic substitute for cod liver oil could be sustainably sold to an expanding marketplace.
George
There should be no major problem in the next few years.
Supplying leukemic patients won't do a great change in that market...I wouldn't talk of an expanding market.
Cod liver oil is too cheap and we need small doses: many people are busy trying to prove it is potentially toxic and packed with any pollutant you can imagine.
My doubts about synthetic compounds come from the fact that the so called 'evidence' is for the natural mixture and only an epidemiological one.
Different substances and their complex interactions may be involved.
I hope that some parent finds it through the web. We'll see.
Thanks to this forum.
I understand your concerns that a synthetic product will have to undergo substantial testing for both efficacy and safety, whereas the natural product already has a substantial history we can work with. The only issue is to what extent will availability of the natural product remain.
Insofar as it is used merely as a treatment, then I would agree that usage will be slight. I was not clear if you were looking to use it only for treatment, or also as a preventative measure.
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Insofar as it is used merely as a treatment, then I would agree that usage will be slight. I was not clear if you were looking to use it only for treatment, or also as a preventative measure.
George
No preventive measure.
It would not make much sense: the weak unconfirmed evidence would not be enough to support a decision like that and, as you pointed out, maybe there wouldn't be enough cods in the Ocean!
For leukemic patients is different: no precise cause for their disease, just vague hypotheses and lots of the usual 'genetics'. Of course there are strange genes when some cells seem to go mad, but in selected cases the cause could be 'outside', external, infectious (see the Helicobacter connection).
So there is no apparent cause, and treatment (highly toxic) is 'frozen' in specific protocols that had been empirically established in the last 20years and do work in more than half of the patients (children, for adults it is much tougher).
In this context cod liver oil should be recommended.
Even if you found that kids having orange juice in the morning have a reduced risk of leukemia, and all your data were statistically correct, a dispatch should be immediately sent to all the people concerned, parents, families, even doctors (don't tell them that there is no controlled trial available!). It is a sort of emergency, almost one third of patients have a relapse in the crucial 2-5 years after diagnosis. A relapsed leukemia does NOT respond to further standard treatments, so a more toxic intervention is required.
In relapsed lymphoblastic leukemia you may have a resistant disease even after radiation therapy plus bone marrow transplantation in 50% of patients.
In conclusion, anything simple, nontoxic and inexpensive, that is even only suspected to help a minority of children, should be quite welcome in this field.
I was quite scared eight years ago, when our second son started chemo and I found the 1988 report.
I knew of a vague 'miracle' story with cod liver oil in my family (grandpa) and all the good things that vitamins do. Nevertheless that wasn't enough to feel safe: antivitamins like antifolic drugs (methotrexate) are the mainstay of these protocols, it was not a joke.
We began with 1 (one!) capsule a day together with all the other pills. It seemed just nothing...still they were over 700caps in 2 years!. I was afraid to unbalance a therapy, just like you pointed out here above, mentioning the unpredictable effects of an excess of vitamins in the body.
Finally, after maintenance treatment stop (24months) 2-4caps were just fine. In the meantime I had got in touch with T.Timonen from Finland, he had missed the Chinese report; the vitamin D hypothesis was quite fascinating, and so I took more courage. In 2005 the Egyptian study, the only one about vitD3 abnormally low levels in leukemia (diagnosis, 3mts, 12mts) gave me the certainty that this is a neglected area of investigation.
I actually found the Mansoura report in 2006 (talking about relaxation!) and it shocked me.
It was just time to move and do something. Then I discovered this forum and instantly felt much better, knowing that now a parent like me may have instant access to this kind of information.
I shall work on key words and test it with different search engines: I can imagine what parents look for after a diagnosis of childhood leukemia. Why? They don't understand why all this is happening to them, if it's their fault or not. There is no known cause and just a treatment schedule to follow. That's it. So much for Science.
Our 'little boy' is a young healthy adult right now, grew up 7-8cm taller than his older brother, swims like a fish (!!), he does not look like a 'survivor' at all. His 'path' (call it treatment schedule/protocol) has been almost a picnic compared with what other kids have to go through. Nurses and doctors were very nice and professional, may be 'cod' has been good for him. I hope that everyday 'cod' is helping in mitigating the invisible damage left by chemotherapy.
We'll never know.
ikod
...uhm, 8 months, 124 replies, most of them auto-replies.
I think this topic is really coming to an end!
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Yes, you are corny enough. I thought you may be drinking fermented cod liver oil.
Zoey
Where the hell is Zoey?
This CLO-fanatics-club-jazz-band needs her sense of humour!
We're almost reaching the 6000 viewers!
I do not exactly know what it means: they seem lots and lots to me.
But they might open this topic and close it in seconds (Woooah! cancer in children!) or go through hundreds of posts and meditate and discuss it with friends.
Who knows.
I'm pretty sure that the Shanghai report had fewer readers in 1988, almost twenty years ago.
ikod
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sapere.it%2Ftc%2Fimg%2Fscuola%2Fscuola_medioevo%2Famanue.jpg&hash=762d0767b771936bdf158a803f8588c0) (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fare-web.it%2Fcms%2Fimages%2F53.jpg&hash=cf7da4f6c6ced3e069cef0a7c19de34f)
http://www.sapere.it/tc/img/scuola/scuola_medioevo/amanue.jpg
http://www.fare-web.it/cms/images/53.jpg
Yes, we are almost making 6000viewers.
Pinched between "Thunderclap headache during orgasm"
with 9909 and "The female orgasm" with 4645 viewers...
Isn't this amazing?
We are gonna make it for sure.
ikodgasm
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi143.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fr133%2Flindsayjemerson%2Fpingouin.gif&hash=07319bd4bc956ed1bd0b885ae4602584)
http://i143.photobucket.com/albums/r133/lindsayjemerson/pingouin.gif
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My main regret is not having the knowledge to upload pictures. Maybe you should have taken up painting.
It is definitely time to take all this jazz about cod liver oil seriously, by teaspoonful, and earful:Listen to Cod Liver Oil and Orange Juice by Hamish Imlach for free on Rhapsody.
http://play.rhapsody.com/album/thetransatlanticstory/codliveroilandorangejuice
And from Folk Music Tradition:
Cod Liver Oil
Lyrics:
I'm a young married man that is tired of life
Ten years I've been wed to a miserable wife
She does nothing all day but sit down and cry
And prays up to Heaven that soon she will die
Chorus:
Doctor, o doctor, o dear Doctor John
Your cod liver oil is so pure and so strong
I'm afraid of me life, I'll go down in the soil
If me wife keeps on drinking your cod liver oil
Well a friend of my own came to see me one day
He told my darlin' was pining away
He afterwards told me that she would get strong
If only I'd get a bottle from dear Doctor John
Chorus
It was then that I purchased a bottle to try
The way that she drank it you'd think she would die
I bought her another it vanished the same
O me wife she's got cod liver oil on the brain
Chorus
That me wife loves cod liver there isn't a doubt
And a few thousand gallons has made her quite stout
And now that she's stout it's made her quite strong
And now I'm jealous of dear Doctor John
Chorus
My house it resembles a medicine shop
It's covered with bottles from bottom to top
But then in the mornin' the kettle do boil
O you're sure it's singin' of cod liver oil
Chorus
Numerous Folk songs about the mighty cod that have been recorded. A partial list here:http://www.ibiblio.org/keefer/c08.htm
I am taking the words and musical scores to several of the major cod liver oil researchers. That should bring more participants to this discussion.
Zoey
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(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Ffunnypics.free.fr%2Fexplorer%2Fpublic%2Fgifs%2Fanimation.gif&hash=456637cdda0c0f37eae4959da4a5e207)
http://funnypics.free.fr/explorer/public/gifs/animation.gif
My main regret is not having the knowledge to upload pictures. Maybe you should have taken up painting.
It is definitely time to take all this jazz about cod liver oil seriously, by teaspoonful, and earful:Listen to Cod Liver Oil and Orange Juice by Hamish Imlach for free on Rhapsody.
Welcome back Zoey,
uploading pictures is the easiest thing even for docs:
when you are editing your text and want to stick a pic,
just click on the image symbol. Then go to your nice
image wherever it is, click on it (right button of the
rat mouse) select Properties and copy the address
(URL) that should look familiar: http:// such and such.
Go back to the image symbol that should look like this:
[ img ][ /img ]. Then click in the middle of the two imgs
then right button and Paste...voilà.
When you save your text you should see your image ok,
otherwise edit again and see where the trouble is.
It may take ages, but if you are fishing readers for
your topics, it's a nice way to spend your free time...
It is quite an easy game as you see, good for kids up to
8-11yrs...who cares, I have great fun cutting & pasting.
I hope there is no major copyright problem, but if you
take some pics available for free from the web and
stick them into a forum...It should be all right.
Take care
ikod
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In this context cod liver oil should be recommended.
Even if you found that kids having orange juice in the morning have a reduced risk of leukemia, and all your data were statistically correct, a dispatch should be immediately sent to all the people concerned, parents, families, even doctors (don't tell them that there is no controlled trial available!). It is a sort of emergency, almost one third of patients have a relapse in the crucial 2-5 years after diagnosis. A relapsed leukemia does NOT respond to further standard treatments, so a more toxic intervention is required.
In relapsed lymphoblastic leukemia you may have a resistant disease even after radiation therapy plus bone marrow transplantation in 50% of patients.
In conclusion, anything simple, nontoxic and inexpensive, that is even only suspected to help a minority of children, should be quite welcome in this field.
iko
Yes, a self-citation,
not to show off, but to add bits and pieces that come to my mind and I forgot to put in the puzzle.
First sign of cod-dementia? Maybe. Actually this topic is a sort of notebook for me: it might help in a final edition of a proper article.
I forgot to say that -in my personal opinion- our medicine could easily miss, in particular circumstances of 'mysterious diseases', pharmacological effects that come after weeks or months of treatment.
This could be the case of vitamin D3 (see the asylum seekers abstract from Switzerland, previous page) or the regression of MALTomas after Helicobacter pylori eradication. Some 'fastidious' pathogens take ages to be eradicated (e.g. whipple disease).
When a substance takes time to work and we do not have a test to prove that something is positively changing, and/or we do not have a clue about the origin of a disease, everything gets more and more difficult.
I also forgot to mention (but many of us know it) that the treatment for peptic ulcer in the '60-'70s was surgical, half of the stomach (where ulcers develop) had to be removed. Cimetidine came in 1975 and for surgical routine in any hospital of the world was a real earthquake: ulcers were healing on cimetidine but recurred after stopping treatment.
No stomach transplant was performed in these patients (fortunately) and now we know that ulcers would obviously have recurred in the grafted organ.
Helicobacter pylori eradication successfully solves the problem in the vast majority of patients.
Finally in the late '70s fiberoptics became available even for gastroenterologists (from aerospace technology), making everything simpler for diagnosis and therapy.
When you really 'see' what is happening, everything becomes easier.
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg.search.com%2F2%2F2f%2FStomach2.gif&hash=3bf7ec82b82640818191a10e28d88485) (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fthenightwriterblog.powerblogs.com%2Ffiles%2Fhelicobacter.jpg&hash=c218fba86add4ed0474898fd9c7c66d0)
http://img.search.com/2/2f/Stomach2.gif
http://thenightwriterblog.powerblogs.com/files/helicobacter.jpg
Diagram of the stomach, showing the different regions.
A gastrectomy is a partial or full surgical removal of the stomach.
The first successful gastrectomy was performed by Theodor Billroth in 1881 for cancer of the stomach. Gastrectomies are performed to treat cancer, severe cases of peptic ulcer disease, and perforations of the stomach wall. This procedure is becoming less common as peptic ulcers are now often treated with antibiotics for Helicobacter pylori or by endoscopy.
In severe duodenal ulcers it may be necessary to remove the lower portion of the stomach called the pylorus and the upper portion of the small intestine called the duodenum. If there is a sufficient portion of the upper duodenum remaining a Billroth I procedure is performed, where the remaining portion of the stomach is reattached to the duodenum before the bile duct and the duct of the pancreas. If the stomach cannot be reattached to the duodenum a Billroth II is performed, where the remaining portion of the duodenum is sealed off, a hole is cut into the next section of the small intestine called the jejunum and the stomach is reattached at this hole. As the pylorus is used to grind food and slowly release the food into the small intestine, removal of the pylorus can cause food to move into the small intestine faster than normal, leading to gastric dumping syndrome.
In the past a gastrectomy for peptic ulcer disease was often accompanied by a vagotomy, where the vagus nerve is cut to reduce acid production in the stomach. Nowadays, this problem is managed with proton pump inhibitors.
from: http://www.search.com/reference/Gastrectomy
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I'm new to the forum and topic. My 3-y-old son was Dx last month (ALL-Pre-B, Low Risk with TEL-AML1 translocation) Lots of things I want to share and ask, but manly, my son has been taking cod liver oil (Carlson's Lab.) since 6-months-old. We follow a very healthy and mostly organic diet. Nos that he has been diagnosed with ALL, I started doubting the power of nutrition and organic products (as well as cod liver oil) Nonetheless, I still give him CLO with his smoothies and to my 10-months-old daughter with her solids. Hopefully, all the good "stuff" will help him somehow through his treatment. Is there any online site I can buy the purest and best CLO without the adding flavor of Carlson's?
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Welcome to this discussion! I cannot recommend any particular brand or company for the COL. However, a search on Google will turn up links to online sources for COL. I did a search on "vitamins" "online" "pure cod liver oil." I usually get mine at GNC or the local health food store. You shouldn't have a problem finding it.
Have you ever read anything by the chemist, Roger Williams? { http://bioinst.cm.utexas.edu/williams/ }He is credited with making some of the most significant discoveries about nutrition over the last century. In his research he came to see that in all illness there is change in nutritional status on a cellular level. But this is more complicated than just having deficiencies. The doubt you feel about the role of nutrition may be a catalyst for you to put your understanding in a different perspective.
While our level of health can make us less likely to get various illnesses, it won't make us immune to every disease. It just reduces our risks of getting some disorder or another. Some of the more recent studies on the role of vitamin A in disease highlights this point; childen with good levels of vitamin A are less likely to get measles when exposed to it. However, if they do get measles, the odds are good that they will not get seriously ill and die or go blind [measles is a very common cause of childhood blindness].
I logged on with a question for Iko on this topic tonight. I'd like to know what changes are taking place on a cellular level when a child develops ALL? This information may give some insight on how to best proceed in terms of diet and nutrition when ALL develops. Certainly, your son's nutrition is going to be important to his ability to recover from ALL and do as well as possible with his treatment. Are you doing a lot of research on diet and ALL? The dietician at the hospital may have information for you too. I'll do more checking on the internet.
Zoey
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Hi dqfry,
welcome to this topic. Your story gives us the confirmation that cod liver oil in childhood leukemia could only give a 'protective' effect, certainly not total immunity. The results in the 1988 Chinese report were showing exactly this.
Your son should have a very good prognosis with standard treatment (less aggressive than in other types) for age and type of ALL...and he is taking 'cod' already!
Chances should be over 80% for your little boy and I wish you find splendid dedicated nurses and doctors like we did in 1999. I think you are not exactly in the middle, but in a good point of this path: it will go downhill in a short while.
Your two little devils will keep you so busy that in the next few years the memory of these days will only be like a bad dream. You started the same path we did several years ago and found this topic on the way: how did you manage to reach us? I'd like to know some details of your search.
Let's keep in touch.
ikod
P.S. Sorry, but I cannot help in finding a particular type of cod liver oil.
Brands with reported quality controls are obviously recommended.
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I’ve met with a register dietitian at the hospital, but unfortunately the meeting was very frustrating. Therefore, I met with a local nutritionist that emphasized the importance of CLO and Probiotics among other things. We discuss cellular repair through nutrition and how certain micronutrients deficiency can cause DNA damage associated with leukemia. I’ll continue working with her and hoping we’re making the right choices.
On a side note, following is something open for discussion. I’m really interested to hear iko’s input on this:
Full term baby boy born on February 17, 2004 at 8 pounds 7 ounces. Enlarged lymph node on left side of neck and left groin noticed 2 months after birth. Pediatrician didn’t show concern. Identified mild torticollis at 3 months followed by physical therapy until he was 1-year-old. Significant lymph node enlargement (groin and neck left side only) after MMR vaccine at 12-months-old. Presence of petechiae in the lower abdomen and legs. Complete CBC didn’t show abnormalities. Pediatrician consider Lymphs and petechiae a reaction caused by MMR vaccine. Symptoms never desapeared completely. New petechiae sites appeared and lymph nodes didn’t go back to normal size (when compared to nodes on the right side). No colds or infections until December 1006 (2-years-old) diagnosed with a simple ear infection. Symptoms subsided after 10 days in Amoxicillin. Minor upper respiratory infections follow, predictable due to attendance to Pre School. Fever and persistant cough that didn’t respond to antibiotics in January 2007. Diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia Pre-B February 2007.
Considering the events and the fact that my son has been taking CLO on and off since he was 6-months-old, is it possible that the first set of symptoms (enlarged lymph nodes plus petechiae at 12-months) was a pre-leukemia event or even the presence of leukemia that resolved itself?
Mel Greaves’s hypothesis: “the final hit may be infectious”
How does that relate to non-isolated relapses? Considering that the genetic pre disposition was already present and that chemotherapy doesn’t fix DNA/gene lesion the same line of events/infection(s) has to take place again for a relapse? Or, non-isolated relapses are a mere product of clones or residual leukemic cells?
Cheers
DQ
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I’ve met with a register dietitian at the hospital, but unfortunately the meeting was very frustrating. Therefore, I met with a local nutritionist that emphasized the importance of CLO and Probiotics among other things. We discuss cellular repair through nutrition and how certain micronutrients deficiency can cause DNA damage associated with leukemia. I’ll continue working with her and hoping we’re making the right choices.
I think you are doing fine, concentrating in the few things we can work on as parents. Diet is obviously an important one. You should trust your doctors 100% to relax a bit on the other issues that could be impossible to manage all on our own. Parents must take care of important things like CVC maintenance, to cite one.
Considering the events and the fact that my son has been taking CLO on and off since he was 6-months-old, is it possible that the first set of symptoms (enlarged lymph nodes plus petechiae at 12-months) was a pre-leukemia event or even the presence of leukemia that resolved itself?
Mel Greaves’s hypothesis: “the final hit may be infectious”
How does that relate to non-isolated relapses? Considering that the genetic pre disposition was already present and that chemotherapy doesn’t fix DNA/gene lesion the same line of events/infection(s) has to take place again for a relapse? Or, non-isolated relapses are a mere product of clones or residual leukemic cells?
Here I can offer a personal opinion only. It is possible that those signs were predicting a leukemia, but you find them quite commonly in infants that don't develop ALL. So many times a similar condition may reverse by itself.
Difficult to answer your second question. I'll tell you what I know (and it's not much).
A genetic predisposition might be switched on by an external factor, but steroid treatment and all the rest is hitting hard on the expanded clone that disappears quite quickly. It should be a sort of immunological reset that probably works for life, considering the results observed in years.
Children of 2-4 years have the top expansion of lymphoid cells that prepare their immune system to fight viruses and bacteria. So a clone escaping control is more common at this age. Be prepared to accept the idea that the bad clone is already off and will never come back, and your kids will be as clever as George (another_someone, moderator in this forum, who was given 'cod' as a child). May be more! [;D]
Take care
ikod
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Iko,
What are some resources, with links, for folks on nutrition considerations during treatment for ALL?
Zoey
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fec1.images-amazon.com%2Fimages%2FP%2F1556705824.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_AA240_.jpg&hash=7471ab4f6cace6790efd6b6e469e20a3)
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Hi Zoey,
you seem to do fine with cut&paste pictures!
I thought you read this in page 2 of this topic.
I left it intentionally there 'unexpanded' to avoid an anti-cod 'generalizing effect'.
The discussion about diet and cancer would lead us too far away from the subject and the aim of this topic.
It could be the title of a new topic and I wouldn't be in the number.
I already have my troubles to be 'scientifically correct' here and in the cod liver oil topic!
Too many nutrients have been proposed in the last few years, but their efficacy seems still unsubstantiated in most of the cases, and practical demonstrations too vague or totally absent.
It is NOT the purpose of this topic.
We have to stick to 'cod' and a vague 1988 article, especially now that dqfry joined us.
She gave us in a few words a clear and dramatic picture of the limits of this issue.
Cod liver oil used during standard treatment of leukemia, probably could just 'help' leukemic patients, perhaps counteracting a vitamin D3 deficiency that still has to be confirmed.
This positive effect has to be demonstrated in practice, and only for lack of toxicity and costs this use could be recommended before improbable officially conducted clinical trials.
We do not have detailed data from the Shanghai report as I told you: there were 'buried' in 5" diskettes so it is impossible to find out whether the 'protective' effect had been found lower or what in toddlers compared to growning-up 8-12yrs children (this was one of my questions to Dr. Shu in 1999).
Hi Zoey,
we're making an hypertopic here...
It's nice to quit my monologue for a change!
Also, do you think a child's level of vitamins A and D would affect the tendency to develop leukemia? If so, would children living in areas where deficiency in these nutrients are common might have a higher incidence of developing the disease?
Getting back onto the subject of treatment, what other nutritional factors do you think would work along with cod liver oil to overcome the negative effects of treatment?
Zoey
If we consider a multifactorial etiology in a fortunately rare disease, vitamin D and A+omega-3 may play a minor role together with all the rest. Other factors interacting make quite difficult to catch a significant difference.
In underdeveloped countries leukemias are less represented compared to lymphomas. Urban (and wealthy?) people seem to be more exposed.
We may expect that a malnourished child, affected by multiple deficiencies could die from infection way before developing a leukemia (Hypothesis!).
If you search for a connection with lower vitamin D levels...well in USA coloured children have a slightly higher incidence of this disease. This is just speculating...vitamin D levels should be tested more extensively after the Mansoura study in Egypt.
In my opinion, this would be the only way to estabilish a connection.
Other nutritional factors -mainly antioxidants- may help to overcome the negative effects of treatment.
It was summer then, and we had tons of squeezed icy lemon juice and fresh garlic bread from time to time (pure empirism)...
There are some studies about eating more healthy food and avoiding some toxic effect...
Low antioxidant vitamin intakes are associated with increases in adverse effects of chemotherapy in children witn acute lymphoblastic leukemia
...Chemotherapy leads to an increase in reactive oxygen species, which stresses the antioxidant defense system. Children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia rarely are overtly malnourished, which makes this population ideal for an investigation of the relations between dietary antioxidant consumption, plasma antioxidant concentrations, and chemotherapy-induced toxicity.
...a 6-mo observational study of 103 children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Plasma micronutrient concentrations, dietary intakes, and incidence of side effects of chemotherapy were ascertained at diagnosis and after 3 and 6 mo of therapy...
Conclusion: A large percentage of children undergoing treatment for acute lymphoblastic leukemia have inadequate intakes of antioxidants and vitamin A. Lower intakes of antioxidants are associated with increases in the adverse side effects of chemotherapy
Kennedy D et al. Am J Clin Nutr 2004;79:1029-36.
http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/79/6/1029
Antioxidant-Rich Diet Helps Fight Leukemia
As if undergoing chemotherapy isn't trying enough, kids with the most common form of childhood leukemia receiving this treatment may also experience a significant reduction in their antioxidant and micronutrient levels. This decrease could lead to severe side effects from the chemotherapy. However, there may be a ray of hope amidst this dark cloud. According to a study, children could improve antioxidant and micronutrient levels and prevent some of the adverse side effects of chemotherapy by simply incorporating more fruits and vegetables into their diets. The study, prompted by parental concern regarding children's safety in taking antioxidant supplements (such supplements might affect the high cure rate experienced with leukemia), involved more than 100 recently diagnosed children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). The children had their antioxidant levels, antioxidant capacity and oxidative damage measured during their first six months of chemotherapy treatment.
Findings
Blood levels of vitamin E decreased over time, while vitamin A and total carotenoids increased
Vitamin C and oxidative damage increased within the first few months and declined by the sixth month.
Antioxidant levels were associated with side effects of the treatment; antioxidant capacity decreased throughout the course of the study
Children with higher concentrations of vitamins A, E and total carotenoids experienced fewer poor outcomes (such as infections and toxicity)
Based on the findings, researchers emphasized the importance of eating more fruits and vegetables -- which may provide a more balanced mix of antioxidants -- in addition to working with a nutritionist to improve the child's diet.
Forbes.com December 27, 2004.
Cancerpage.com December 27, 2004
Dr. Mercola's Comment:
It is no surprise that kids can better withstand the toll of chemotherapy by eating a diet full of antioxidant-rich fruits and vegetables. However, one needs to be VERY careful about using any product, even natural ones, as the ONLY approach to treating a complex illness like cancer, as it is likely to be counterproductive. For this reason, I have pulled together a list of alternatives to fight cancer.
Healthy Alternatives to Fight Cancer
1. Avoid sugar, as it is the primary fuel for most cancers.
Eating too much sugar and too many grains -- which are converted to sugar in the body -- will cause your blood sugar levels to rise. If your blood sugar levels remain elevated, even mildly, over a period of time, your risk of developing cancer increases.
Since I am fully aware that many people struggle with this sugar/grain restriction, I highly recommend using the energy psychology tool Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) to successfully treat stresses, including food cravings such as those related to sugar and grains.
2. Optimize your vitamin D levels, as it is probably the single most important vitamin in preventing and treating cancers.
The safest way to maintain healthy vitamin D levels is through sun exposure, but many of us are not able to do that in the winter, and some of us also stay indoors in the summer. For those that don't obtain enough sun exposure, taking a high-quality cod liver oil is a reasonable alternative. Taking a high-quality cod liver oil is more important than any supplement you can take because it is not a supplement at all -- it is an essential food...
NOTE: It important to have your vitamin D levels checked, as it is possible to overdose on vitamin D.
Sunlight, which causes us to produce vitamin D, can also help lower the risk of many cancers. Sunlight might actually be helpful in treating cancers directly through some, as yet, unidentified mechanism. One of my favorite books from last year, The Healing Sun Tom place link, provides some further details about this approach.
3. Make sure you exercise, as this will help lower your insulin levels.
There is no shortage of literature documenting the major benefits exercise has in lowering the risk of cancer and improving cancer once it is diagnosed. One of the major ways exercise works is by reducing insulin levels. It is quite clear that elevated insulin levels are associated with an increased risk of cancer.
When using exercise as a drug it will be important to have a goal of at least one hour per day, every day if you have high insulin levels or signs of them, such as:
High blood pressure
High cholesterol
Overweight
Diabetes
Obviously, depending on one's current condition, one needs to work slowly up to this level. My experience is that weight-bearing exercises, such as walking, jogging, running and elliptical machines, are better than cycling and swimming. If you are already in shape then you can limit your workouts to 45 minutes three or four times per week. However, if you are already in shape; then it is likely you won't have cancer, as many studies show that people who exercise have far less cancer rates...
Dr. Joseph Mercola
http://www.mercola.com/2005/jan/12/antioxidant_leukemia.htm
...perhaps even my Granny knew that...
iko
Idea.
While we look at the future of dqfry's child getting better and better thanks to the present 'gold standard' therapy that is probably close to 90% of success all over the world (he is on a LOW-risk treatment schedule, sorry to be pessimistic and always refer to 'my' medium-risk experience), and we hopefully watch his mother getting out of a nightmare mostly bound to a word: leukemia.
It reminds me what I told my little boy in the first days of treatment: you don't have a 'real' leukemia, it should not be called like that anymore, because this type is so mild that they're going to cure it completely.
My wife and I kept bad feelings and shaking legs for ourselves.
While some other parents are eventually finding this information and consider giving 'cod' to their sick children.
Let's turn backwards again for a while.
The 'ancient' paper about cod liver oil you found weeks ago should not be the only one.
More 'vintage' information might help us a lot now.
ikod
...let's go on from here, 4 example:
Iko,
Go here for some history of how cod liver oil has been used in medicine for the last 150 years.
Zoey
http://www.henriettesherbal.com/eclectic/kings/gadus_oleu.html
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Zoey,
i can't find the topic about the plague! so i thought i would post this here, somewhere i knew you would read it.
Sorry Iko if this is not relevant to the subject
Zoey, last night i was reading some old copies of New Scientist (2004) and found some info that you may be interested in, about Nicholas Culpeper
here are a few links you may find interesting:
http://www.mayflowerfamilies.com/enquirer/nicholas_culpeper.htm
http://www.med.yale.edu/library/historical/culpeper/culpeper.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Culpeper
Paul
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Hi Paul,
I am afraid that Zoey had a typical topic-who-nobody-cares-of annihilating crisis a while ago!
She'll make it resuscitate, I hope!
Naughty Zoey [;)]
ikod
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Hi Paul,
I am afraid that Zoey had a typical topic-who-nobody-caresof annihilating crisis a while ago!
She'll make it resuscitate, I hope!
Naughty Zoey [;)]
ikod
ah, that explains it. the topic was still rather interesting though. any way sorry for the little hijack, Iko.
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Hi Paul,
I am afraid that Zoey had a typical topic-who-nobody-cares-of annihilating crisis a while ago!
She'll make it resuscitate, I hope!
Naughty Zoey [;)]
ikod
ah, that explains it. the topic was still rather interesting though. any way sorry for the little hijack, Iko.
No problem Paul,
there is plenty of space left in this hyperspecific topic.
To be honest, leukemia could be one of the mysterious 'plagues' left in overdeveloped countries!
Zoey's late topic (what a shame to kill a newborn topic!)
was 100% medicine and nutrition, so be our guest, please. [^]
ikod
P.S :
me checked your links.
How fascinating this Nicky Culpeper (1616-1654)...just few minutes ago (approx. 2.1x10E8)!
Garlic and Rosemary were partiiccccularrrly appreciated by meiko!
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Playing like dumb babies with Neil and Karen is not that bad...
from General Science: A-Z of Anything/Anyone...
Carnosic acid
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.axxora.com%2Ffiles%2Fformula%2F270-264.gif&hash=43b3e09d9b4d129b4d4b48d089434071) (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gardenguides.com%2Fseedcatalog%2Fpackets%2Frosemary.jpg&hash=6daa3fff81e9ec22c0b1223b2963e83b) (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mdidea.com%2Fproducts%2Fherbextract%2Frosemary%2Frosemary_extract_carnosic_acid01Compress.jpg&hash=5181b1e8cbf94e0c3b70e03e47cd7081)
http://www.axxora.com/files/formula/270-264.gif
http://www.gardenguides.com/seedcatalog/packets/rosemary.jpg
http://www.mdidea.com/products/herbextract/rosemary/rosemary_extract_carnosic_acid01Compress.jpg
Cooperative antitumor effects of vitamin D3 derivatives
and rosemary preparations in a mouse model of myeloid leukemia.
Sharabani H, Izumchenko E, Wang Q, Kreinin R, Steiner M, Barvish Z, Kafka M, Sharoni Y, Levy J, Uskokovic M, Studzinski GP, Danilenko M.
Department of Clinical Biochemistry, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel.
1alpha,25-dihydroxyvitamin D(3) (1,25D(3)) is a powerful differentiation agent, which has potential for treatment of myeloid leukemias and other types of cancer, but the calcemia produced by pharmacologically active doses precludes the use of this agent in the clinic. We have shown that carnosic acid, the major rosemary polyphenol, enhances the differentiating and antiproliferative effects of low concentrations of 1,25D(3) in human myeloid leukemia cell lines (HL60, U937). Here we translated these findings to in vivo conditions using a syngeneic mouse leukemia tumor model. To this end, we first demonstrated that as in HL60 cells, differentiation of WEHI-3B D(-) murine myelomonocytic leukemia cells induced by 1 nM 1,25D(3) or its low-calcemic analog, 1,25-dihydroxy-16-ene-5,6-trans-cholecalciferol (Ro25-4020), can be synergistically potentiated by carnosic acid (10 microM) or the carnosic acid-rich ethanolic extract of rosemary leaves. This effect was accompanied by cell cycle arrest in G0 + G1 phase and a marked inhibition of cell growth. In the in vivo studies, i.p. injections of 2 microg Ro25-4020 in Balb/c mice bearing WEHI-3B D(-) tumors produced a significant delay in tumor appearance and reduction in tumor size, without significant toxicity. Another analog, 1,25-dihydroxy-16,23Z-diene-20-epi-26,27-hexafluoro-19-nor-cholecalciferol (Ro26-3884) administered at the same dose was less effective than Ro25-4020 and profoundly toxic. Importantly, combined treatment with 1% dry rosemary extract (mixed with food) and 1 microg Ro25-4020 resulted in a strong cooperative antitumor effect, without inducing hypercalcemia. These results indicate for the first time that a plant polyphenolic preparation and a vitamin D derivative can cooperate not only in inducing leukemia cell differentiation in vitro, but also in the antileukemic activity in vivo. These data may suggest novel protocols for chemoprevention or differentiation therapy of myeloid leukemia. Copyright 2006 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
Int J Cancer. 2006 Jun 15;118(12):3012-21.
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Excuse me Iko,
I too, digress for a moment.
Paul,
Thanks for the links. I nixed the topic as no one was addressing the question, how the herbs and spices used medicinally in that time worked as antibiotics so I could better explain it to readers when writing an article on the subject.
The difficulty and misunderstanding we encountered there is all too common. As the chemist, Roger Williams, wrote, "When science becomes doctrine, it ceases to be science."
What I started as a science topic was immediately met with religous doctrine, attacking beliefs, positions, I did not hold. Any opportunities to discuss the subject with open mind were lost at the outset. The science and prospects of discovering anything new were pre-empted by the "peer pressure" to restrict my perceptions and statements to those fitting their doctrines.
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Ironically, my own searching found much evidence to suggest that crowding and filth held a greater influence on the spread of the plague than did any medicines-not so different than today, is it?
When a subject threatens the listener's world view, especially that of a fundamentalist, it will be rejected, and fundamentalists do shoot the messengers. The need is very great for some to have reality limited to finite terms and possibilities. Untold numbers of physicians, and scientists, still hold the view that disease is caused by " foreign invaders" and cannot be a "natural" process. A current example is herpes, varieties of which infect much of the world's population. In order for the herpes virus to replicate, it requires an increased supply of the amino acid arginine in relation to another amino acid, lysine. Unless this need is met the virus cannot thrive in its host.
"Chemotherapy. 1981;27(3):209-13. Links
Relation of arginine-lysine antagonism to herpes simplex growth in tissue culture.Griffith RS, DeLong DC, Nelson JD.
In the studies conducted, arginine deficiency suppressed herpes simplex virus replication in tissue culture. Lysine, an analog of arginine, as an antimetabolite, antagonized the viral growth-promoting action of arginine. The in vitro data may be the basis for the observation that patients prone to herpetic lesions and other related viral infections, particularly during periods of stress, should abstain from arginine excess and may also require supplemental lysine in their diet.
PMID: 6262023 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]"
Peer pressure limiting discussions is true with Iko's CLO for leukaemia prevention; those who do not acknowledge the role of nutrition in the development of disease, will reject the possible role of CLO as a preventive because it violates the underlying assumptions about how leukaemia develops.
A very good example of this is the opposition the scientist Alfred Sommer met in his work on the relationship between vitamin A deficiency, childhood blindness, and mortality. He saw a decade of research ignored before some of his colleagues could accept that vitamin A deficiency leads impaired immune function in healthy as well as malnourished children, as well as blindness. He writes eloquently of his experience:
[Top of Report] - [Top of Section] - [Next Page] - [Previous Page]
A bridge too near
By Alfred Sommer
Dr. Alfred Sommer is Professor and Dean at the School of Hygiene and Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. He has been in the forefront of research into vitamin A deficiency for almost 20 years, and led the two major Indonesian studies described in this article.
For almost a decade, medical science ignored or rejected the evidence that vitamin A could reduce child deaths by between a quarter and a third in many countries of the developing world.
Today, the scepticism of the 1980s has been swept away by an avalanche of data. And as the tables on the following pages show, most nations are now moving to make this most cost-effective of all health interventions available to their children.
If this effort succeeds, then we can expect to bring about a fall in child deaths of somewhere between 1 million and 3 million per annum.
Discovered in 1913, vitamin A has taken almost a century to come into its own. It has long been known that the lack of this particular vitamin could cause stunting, infection, and blindness in animals. But it was 1974 before the first report was published (by WHO) on vitamin A deficiency as a major cause of blindness among the children of the developing world.
Missing the point
In that same year, a research project was launched in Indonesia to find out more about vitamin A deficiency, and particularly about what levels of deficiency were associated with xerophthalmia (the inflammation and drying of the eye that can result in permanent blindness). Over a period of a year and a half, 4,000 children were examined at three-month intervals.
By 1981 much useful information had been gleaned. But in looking only for what we expected to see, we had missed what the data itself had revealed. Unlooked-for and unseen amid the mass of figures was a much more dramatic message.
One December evening almost a year later, while a particular set of figures was being cross-tabulated, it became apparent that many xerophthalmic children were missing from later cross-tabulations. Running the computer analysis in the reverse direction revealed what the data had been waiting to tell us all along: children with even mild xerophthalmia were dying at a far greater rate.
Any suggestion that the higher death rate was caused by malnutrition, of which the lack of vitamin A was merely a symptom, was quickly dispelled. Malnutrition clearly increases the risk of child death, but so does vitamin A deficiency - even among adequately nourished children. In fact the Indonesian study showed that malnourished children with adequate vitamin A were less likely to die than well-nourished children who were deficient in vitamin A.
Preliminary calculations, soon to be revised upwards, showed that if xerophthalmia could be prevented, then the death rate among children aged one to six would fall by approximately 20%. Analysis also showed that the risk of death was directly related to the degree of deficiency.
To test these extraordinary conclusions, a second Indonesian study was launched. This time, vitamin A capsules were given every six months to approximately 20,000 young children in 450 randomly chosen villages. The result was a one-third reduction in death rates, compared with villages where there had been no intervention.
These findings were published in The Lancet and other medical journals. The response was the long silence of disbelief.
With its vision fixed on the high-tech and high-cost frontiers of modern medical care, the medical and research establishment found it difficult to accept that something as simple and cheap as a 2-cent capsule of vitamin A could represent such a break-through for human life and health. Perhaps in some quarters, also, there was an innate and ideological dislike of `magic bullet' solutions to health problems which do not directly address the underlying problems of poverty.
Whatever the reason, a discovery that seemed to promise so much had caused barely a ripple on the surface of medical interest.
It was at this point that a wise colleague pointed out that this was the normal first reaction to any unexpected research finding. The next stage, he advised, was to "bury them in data."
Knowing that measles often leads to vitamin A loss, we had begun to wonder if Africa's high death rates from measles might also be connected with vitamin A deficiency. To test this, children hospitalized with measles in Tanzania were given vitamin A capsules. The measles death rate fell by half. It was at this point that we discovered, to our astonishment, that a similar experiment had been conducted 50 years earlier in a London hospital - with the same results: medicine too has doors it did not enter, paths it did not take.
WHO and UNICEF now acted quickly to make vitamin A supplementation a routine part of measles treatment. More broadly, the elimination of the deficiency became one of the goals adopted by the World Summit for Children held at UNICEF's instigation in the fall of 1990. The progress being made towards that goal is shown in the following tables.
By 1992, the results were in from several large, community-based investigations into vitamin A deficiency. Ghana, India, Indonesia, and Nepal all yielded results in line with the one-third reduction in mortality rates revealed by the original research in Indonesia.
At this point, the medical community accepted our conclusions as unanimously as it had dismissed them a decade earlier. A colleague who had earlier written a leader in The New England Journal of Medicine titled `Too good to be true', now published a paper under the heading `Too good not to be true'.
With the scientific community in full agreement, ministries of health across the world have now given the green light to vitamin A supplementation. Unfortunately, official recommendations usually stress vitamin A supplementation only where there is evidence of severe deficiency, whereas the evidence suggests that supplementation can significantly reduce mortality even among populations with mild vitamin A deficiency. Further studies are now needed to quantify this effect.
Three ways
Increasing vitamin A intake can be achieved by three main methods - improving diets, fortifying common foods, and distributing vitamin A capsules.
The politically correct method is dietary improvement through the addition of green leafy vegetables or carrots. Of course diets should be improved. But this is a slow and uncertain process, and there are doubts about whether it can provide sufficient vitamin A even where dietary change is indeed achieved. Certainly, more work is needed on the most effective dietary ways of beating vitamin A deficiency.
Some countries, particularly in Central America, have fortified sugar with vitamin A (the problem was solved in the industrialized world by adding vitamin A to common foods such as milk, bread, and margarine). But in the developing world as a whole, food fortification is only beginning to be explored.
In the meantime, at least two children are dying every minute for the lack of the protection that vitamin A can bring.
The 2-cent capsules are therefore an essential weapon for the defence of children. And the outreach systems which have been built or strengthened by the immunization effort of the last decade have now made it possible to deliver that protection to the great majority of children at risk.
There can be no excuse for further delay.
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http://www.unicef.org/pon95/nutr0002.html
This is not history, it is current events. Sommer and his work are more recognized now, yet there continue to be many physicians and scientists who fail to "get it" in terms of understanding the science of disease development in terms of nutritional factors. How can the alteration of the aberrant cells in leukaemia be studied and understood without recognizing the substances [nutrients] of which those cells are comprised? With CLO as an ALL preventive, there is much too learn which may well be bypassed because current doctrines restrict what some scientists are permitted to see, or express openly.
Iko,
I agree, let's all of us start plying the stacks in the libraries searching for clues not yet known. Your posts are so many, I must dedicate a few days to studying them to keep up in this discussion and write the press releases. Thanks for the reposts. Now that you put your foot in the door, Paul, you may want to do some of the research for this topic too.
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I'm grateful for the advance cancer therapy available to us - specially being from a 3rd world country where resources are limited. I'm certain that we're not to far from target therapy and even more vaccines for certain cancers (including Leukemias)
Why did my "super baby" who was breastfed for 12-months and only receive the best and most natural nutrition available is fighting such a nasty disease? Although my initial reaction was to give up the CLO, acai (Brazilian berry loaded with antioxidants), organics, and everything else I was raised on, I couldn't!
So, today is a great day because my son is still with us and he had his spoon of CLO this morning with breakfast (sometimes is virtually impossible get that spoon of CLO go down)
Lastly, I'll take the blame for Zoey's "topic-who-nobody-caresof annihilating crisis". Maybe my initial post got her excited!!!!!
Cheers
DQfry
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Hi DQ,
There's a misunderstanding about the "no care" references; a week or so ago I started a different topic. There were some misunderstandings and bad feelings so I erased the entire discussion [Sometimes when I get upset I hold my breath until I look really awful too!]. It had nothing to do with your posts at all.
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Why did my "super baby" who was breastfed for 12-months and only receive the best and most natural nutrition available is fighting such a nasty disease? Although my initial reaction was to give up the CLO, acai (Brazilian berry loaded with antioxidants), organics, and everything else I was raised on, I couldn't!
-----------------------------------
You are raising important questions. So how do we start with finding answers? One thing comes to mind. When gathering information on vitamin D deficiency and seizures in children, I read that breast milk does not contain sufficient amounts to meet the needs for infants.:
"PEDIATRICS Vol. 111 No. 4 April 2003, pp. 908-910
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CLINICAL REPORT
Prevention of Rickets and Vitamin D Deficiency: New Guidelines for Vitamin D Intake
Lawrence M. Gartner, MD, Frank R. Greer, MD, Section on Breastfeeding and Committee on Nutrition
ABSTRACT
Rickets in infants attributable to inadequate vitamin D intake and decreased exposure to sunlight continues to be reported in the United States. It is recommended that all infants, including those who are exclusively breastfed, have a minimum intake of 200 IU of vitamin D per day beginning during the first 2 months of life. In addition, it is recommended that an intake of 200 IU of vitamin D per day be continued throughout childhood and adolescence, because adequate sunlight exposure is not easily determined for a given individual. These new vitamin D intake guidelines for healthy infants and children are based on the recommendations of the National Academy of Sciences."
http://aappolicy.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/pediatrics;111/4/908
The focus here is on rickets prevention and it appears there is no consideration in this and similar studies to the effects of Vitamin D deficiency on suseptibility to diseases such as cancer.
Also, the other major vitamin in CLO, vitamin A, can also be in short supply in breast milk. Just to make this more complex, zinc deficiency via breast feeding may also pose a problem with development and resistence to disease.
"European Journal of Clinical Nutrition:December 1998, Volume 52, Number 12, Pages 884-890
Moderate zinc and vitamin A deficiency in breast milk of mothers from East-Jakarta
...Conclusions: Multi-micronutrient intervention should be considered to provide a sufficient supply of zinc and vitamin A for growth of exclusively breast-fed infants"
http://www.nature.com/ejcn/journal/v52/n12/abs/1600660a.html
Some earlier posts in this discussion have information on vitamin A and zinc deficiencies and how this may affect suseptibility to developing leukemia as well.
I'm glad you had a good day and hope you will be having many of them as you see your son recover.
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Now that you put your foot in the door, Paul, you may want to do some of the research for this topic too.
i only tested the water with my toes, not yet ready to go for a swim.
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Iko,
My foot is firmly in my mouth! I missed the points you made above regarding the limits of this topic. So sorry and will be extra cautious now.
Zoey
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Too many nutrients have been proposed in the last few years, but their efficacy seems still unsubstantiated in most of the cases, and practical demonstrations too vague or totally absent.
It is NOT the purpose of this topic.
We have to stick to 'cod' and a vague 1988 article, especially now that dqfry joined us.
She gave us in a few words a clear and dramatic picture of the limits of this issue.
Cod liver oil used during standard treatment of leukemia, probably could just 'help' leukemic patients, perhaps counteracting a vitamin D3 deficiency that still has to be confirmed.
This positive effect has to be demonstrated in practice, and only for lack of toxicity and costs this use could be recommended before improbable officially conducted clinical trials.
We do not have detailed data from the Shanghai report as I told you: there were 'buried' in 5" diskettes so it is impossible to find out whether the 'protective' effect had been found lower or what in toddlers compared to growning-up 8-12yrs children (this was one of my questions to Dr. Shu in 1999).
iko 09/04/2007
We're free to open various topics and keep this one ultraspecific to avoid generalizations and dispersion of the few evidences I think we have.
Dqfry surely thinks that 'cod' is not so much effective, and we'd think the same thing, being in her shoes. So I have to remind my question about age correlations with the protective' effect. I'll try to explain my thoughts.
The infectious hypothesis, bound to an hypothetical overridden immune reaction to a common pathogen and abnormal expansion of a specific clone of lymphocytes may concern older kids, not infants and toddlers, who show lymphocyte hyperactivity even in normal conditions. A difference bound simply to age and immunological 'activity' may be present. Concentration of the disease within the bones, with typical bone aches and very few lymphnodes enlarged and rarely fever is more common in older children.
We'll never know whether in the 1988 Shanghai study a protective effect (actually stronger in myeloid leukemia) had been found dispersed or concentrated in a particular age group.
Nevertheless, as clearly shown in those 'ancient' tables, 8% cod in controls versus 4% cod in leukemic children is significant all right, but does not mean total immunity.
My speculation is: could most of the patients benefit of a protective effect in the long run, or only patients doing already fine with standard treatments?
In this second hypothesis no adjunctive therapeutic effect could be observed.
After all this mess.
ikod
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.electric-fields.bris.ac.uk%2FAetiology.jpg&hash=8c014990938535a588a0c26e66a05681)
click here for a proper view: http://www.electric-fields.bris.ac.uk/Aetiology.jpg
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I just did a search on press releases from the American Academy for the Advancement of Science-not one single research report for this year is listed.
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iko 09/04/2007
[/quote]
My speculation is: could most of the patients benefit of a protective effect in the long run, or only patients doing already fine with standard treatments?
In this second hypothesis no adjunctive therapeutic effect could be observed.
After all this mess.
ikod
http://www.electric-fields.bris.ac.uk/Aetiology.jpg[/center]
[/quote]
Should we be looking at population studies and comparing rates of recovery?
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Should we be looking at population studies and comparing rates of recovery?
Yap!
you mean finding out survival results related to...what, age?
It's a real jungle, even different from one study to another!
...this one is from Denmark:
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.danmedbul.dk%2FDmb_2006%2F0106%2F0106-artikler%2FDMB3783-4.jpg&hash=e095bba9da6a00973ac146c6b1b2499d)
http://www.danmedbul.dk/Dmb_2006/0106/0106-artikler/DMB3783-4.jpg
ikod
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Hi friendos,
Cod liver oil in childhood leukemia
...and the vitamin D3 connection.
The discussion is open, waiting for a real
scientist who explains to this bunch of loonies
the difference between a 'coincidence' and real
heavy and thick scientific evidence! [;D]
ikod
Season and ethnicity are determinants of serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentrations
in New Zealand children aged 5-14 y.
Rockell JE, Green TJ, Skeaff CM, Whiting SJ, Taylor RW, Williams SM, Parnell WR, Scragg R, Wilson N, Schaaf D, Fitzgerald ED, Wohlers MW.
Department of Human Nutrition, Preventive and Social Medicine, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand.
New Zealand children, particularly those of Maori and Pacific ethnicity, may be at risk for low vitamin D status because of low vitamin D intakes, the country's latitude (35-46 degrees S), and skin color. The aim of this study was to determine 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentrations and their determinants in a national sample of New Zealand children aged 5-14 y. The 2002 National Children's Nutrition Survey was designed to survey New Zealand children, including oversampling of Maori and Pacific children to allow ethnic-specific analyses. A 2-stage recruitment process occurred using a random selection of schools, and children within each school. Serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentration [mean (99% CI) nmol/L] in Maori children (n = 456) was 43 (38,49), in Pacific (n = 646) 36 (31,42), and in New Zealand European and Others (NZEO) (n = 483) 53 (47,59). Among Maori, Pacific, and NZEO, the prevalence (%, 99% CI) of serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D deficiency (<17.5 nmol/L) was 5 (2,12), 8 (5,14), and 3 (1,7), respectively. The prevalence of insufficiency (<37.5 nmol/L) was 41 (29,53), 59 (42,75), and 25 (15,35), respectively. Multiple regression analysis found that 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentrations were lower in winter than summer [adjusted mean difference (99% CI) nmol/L; 15 (8,22)], lower in girls than boys [5 (1,10)], and lower in obese children than in those of "normal" weight [6 (1,11)]. Relative to NZEO, 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentrations were lower in Maori [9 (3,15)] and Pacific children [16 (10,22)]. Ethnicity and season are major determinants of serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D. There is a high prevalence of vitamin D insufficiency in New Zealand children, which may or may not contribute to increased risk of osteoporosis and other chronic disease. There is a pressing need for more convincing evidence concerning the health risks associated with the low vitamin D status in New Zealand children.
J Nutr. 2005 Nov;135(11):2602-8.
Comparison of cancer mortality and incidence in New Zealand and Australia.
Skegg DC, McCredie MR.
Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, University of Otago, Dunedin.
AIMS: To compare cancer mortality and incidence data from New Zealand and Australia, in order to gauge the potential for reducing deaths from cancer in New Zealand. METHODS: For 1996 and 1997, numbers of deaths from cancer, numbers of new cases, and population data were stratified in 5-year age-groups. Numbers observed in New Zealand were compared with numbers expected from Australian rates. Age-standardized mortality and incidence rates for each sex were analysed.
RESULTS: New Zealanders of both sexes experienced more deaths from cancer than expected in every age group. If Australian rates had applied, there would have been 215 fewer cancer deaths per year in New Zealand males, and 616 fewer in females. The largest differences related to breast cancer and lung cancer in women, and colorectal cancer in both sexes. The overall incidence of cancer was higher in New Zealand, but mortality/incidence ratios were also higher for many sites--suggesting that survival after treatment has been poorer in New Zealand than in Australia. CONCLUSIONS: Considerable scope exists for reducing cancer mortality in New Zealand. For a national cancer control strategy, it will be essential to clarify reasons for the high incidence of cancer and to study survival following treatment.
N Z Med J. 2002 May 10;115(1153):205-8.
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.emiratesteamnz.com%2Fnewzealand%2Fimages%2F061212_01%2FNewZealandFloraLR.jpg&hash=20d3e10610cf47d66d5cee93c7596177) (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mmaonline.net%2FPublications%2FMNMed2005%2FNovember%2FImages%2Fsun.gif&hash=844fef17c08a93edd025a83988db07bf)
http://www.emiratesteamnz.com/newzealand/images/061212_01/NewZealandFloraLR.jpg
http://www.mmaonline.net/Publications/MNMed2005/November/Images/sun.gif
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Quick search for vitamin D deficiency in New Zealand:
Vitamin D deficiency in pregnant New Zealand women.
Judkins A, Eagleton C.
Department of Endocrinology, Wellington Hospital, Private Bag 7902, Wellington. carl.eagleton@ccdhb.org.nz
AIM: This aim of this study was to identify the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency in pregnant women of a Wellington general practice where 10 cases of childhood rickets had been diagnosed over the past 3 years. METHODS: Ninety pregnant women were screened for vitamin D deficiency by measuring 25-hydroxy vitamin D by DiaSorin radioimmunoassay. Recruitment into the study was over a 12-month period. A second appointment was arranged for clinical review and drawing of blood for parathyroid hormone, adjusted calcium, and alkaline phosphatase. RESULTS: 100% of women presenting to the general practice for antenatal care consented to the study.
87% of women had 25-hydroxy vitamin D levels below 50 nmol/L.
61.2% of women had a vitamin D level below 25 nmol/L consistent with severe vitamin D deficiency. 10 women had an elevated parathyroid hormone consistent with secondary hyperparathyroidism. Only 22% of our patients were veiled, and included a diverse ethnic population, including African, Maori, European, Middle Eastern, and Polynesian women. CONCLUSIONS: Vitamin D deficiency is common in young pregnant women in this general practice, and it was not only confined to veiled women or women with dark skin. This highlights the magnitude of vitamin D deficiency in the pregnant population in a New Zealand setting; this vitamin D deficiency is responsible for the re-emergence of childhood rickets.
N Z Med J. 2006 Sep 8;119(1241):U2144.
Rickets in alpacas (Lama pacos) in New Zealand.
Hill FI, Thompson KG, Grace ND.
AgResearch, Flock House Agricultural Centre, Private Bag 1900, Bulls 5242, New Zealand.
Rickets was diagnosed in two weaner alpacas from a flock showing ill thrift and lameness during the winter of 1992. Both animals had abnormally shaped ribs with occasional healing fractures, irregular thickening of growth plates and metaphyseal haemorrhages. The mean serum phosphorus concentrations of the alpacas fell during June and July, even though lambs grazing the same pasture had normal serum phosphorus concentrations and the phosphorus concentration of the pasture was considered adequate. Vitamin D deficiency may also have contributed to the osteodystrophy. The alpacas had a thick fleece during the winter, and diurnal Vitamin D, synthesis resulting from solar irradiation is likely to have been minimal, especially considering the reduced sunshine hours recorded during the 1992 winter. Surviving alpacas recovered after treatment with monosodium phosphate and an oral Vitamin D supplement. It is possible alpacas are more susceptible to deficiencies of phosphorus and Vitamin D than other grazing animals in New Zealand.
N Z Vet J. 1994 Dec;42(6):229-32.
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.alpacasnz.co.nz%2Fimages%2Faobacoverarticles.JPG&hash=7b10b658bfc08d51a7e3c0ce92cd6fef)
http://www.alpacasnz.co.nz/images/aobacoverarticles.JPG
VITAMIN D
By Nic Cooper, Southern Alpacas Stud
In the early days of alpacas in New Zealand, the industry saw many cases of carpal valgus (bent or bowed front legs) in alpacas. These ranged from minor to the extreme. The higher concentration appeared to be amongst the darker coloured animals, and it appeared in youngsters, particularly when autumn born, during winter. At Southern Alpacas Stud one of your first cria born, in 1990, developed extreme rickets.
The effect was quickly traced, by researchers, to a vitamin D or phosphorous deficiency, and led to a lot of breeders sprinkling di-calcium phosphate on nuts, and adding other such supplements to nut mixes.
Research in the mid 1990's (ex USA) then indicated that treatment with vitamin D alone would alleviate the clinical signs, and (ex Australia) that di-calcium phosphate was actually bad for your alpacas. But read on for 2005 information ......
Vitamin D (particularly vitamin D3 – chalecalciferol) is necessary to the alpaca to allow it to absorb calcium and phosphorous from the intestinal tract.
Calcium is the most abundant mineral in the body, phosphorous is the second most abundant. These minerals are required for proper bone development. Many enzymes and B vitamins are activated only in the presence of Phosphorous.
Phosphate is the naturally occurring form of the element phosphorus. Phosphate deficiency is what is measured in the bloods, and we treat with a phosphorus compound.
The natural Calcium/Phosphorous ratio in bones and teeth in 2:1, (although 1.5:1 in alpaca is closer to the ideal), and vitamin D is essential for maintaining this balance correctly.
Adequate vitamin D levels also minimise the loss of these two minerals through the kidneys (in excreta).
Vitamin D3 is produced through synthesis in the alpacas skin, from the action of ultraviolet light (sunlight) on cholesterol derivatives. In New Zealand the lower latitudes, and lower altitudes reduce this production, especially in winter, especially in darker pigmented animals, and especially in animals with denser fleeces.
Vitamin D also comes from consumption of sun cured dried foods, such as hay (which has vitamin D2). A lush grass diet in NZ also therefore limits the production of vitamin D in the alpaca.
In addition, on lush pastures, high concentrations of carotenes can tie up vitamin D making less available to the body.
...
updated November 2005.
complete article: http://www.alpacasnz.co.nz/articles-vitamind.htm (http://www.alpacasnz.co.nz/articles-vitamind.htm)
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There are lots of old libraries to search, something will turn up in the archives somewhere!
Oldest Library in Mexico
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mexperience.com%2Fgallery%2Fsm%2F273PUE2003_0331BH.JPG&hash=9454695f021f0158658940cf50e1ed7b)
Oldest Library in New York
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.andrewcusack.com%2Fsoclib1.jpg&hash=334d903ba84629d090fb197bc58fa282)
Bodleian Library, One of the Oldest in Europe
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fupload.wikimedia.org%2Fwikipedia%2Fcommons%2Fthumb%2F7%2F78%2FOxfordBuilding.JPG%2F180px-&hash=08c1bd4c58baf1886d62680a87d5890e)
My Friend, El Gato offered to help in the search.
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.milibrary.org%2Fimages%2Fbessie.GIF&hash=07aa279996c1c8c26c450c232e10bf2f)
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My Friend, El Gato offered to help in the search.
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.milibrary.org%2Fimages%2Fbessie.GIF&hash=07aa279996c1c8c26c450c232e10bf2f)
...our two b/white cats, Winnie and Socky
would love to join El Gato in the search!
Cheers
ikod
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After meditating on the hypothesis that the reported higher cancer incidence (childhood leukemia included, I suppose) in New Zealand might be somehow partially due to a measured vitamin D deficiency, let's go back to an historical issue like the 'unproven' efficacy of cod liver oil for TB...
This paper focussed on vitamin A and zinc: the vitamin D 'tsunami' still had to come in 2002.
Vitamin A itself increases zinc absorption from a normal diet. So with cod liver oil we actually give vitamin A that increases zinc absorption, plus vitamin D, vitamin E, omega-3 fatty acids and who knows what other 'therapic acids'. Just wonderful.
A double-blind, placebo-controlled study of vitamin A and zinc supplementation in persons
with tuberculosis in Indonesia: effects on clinical response and nutritional status.
Karyadi E, West CE, Schultink W, Nelwan RH, Gross R, Amin Z, Dolmans WM, Schlebusch H, van der Meer JW.
SEAMEO-TROPMED Regional Center for Community Nutrition, University of Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia.
BACKGROUND: The results of cross-sectional studies indicate that micronutrient deficiencies are common in patients with tuberculosis. No published data exist on the effect of vitamin A and zinc supplementation on antituberculosis treatment.
OBJECTIVE: Our goal was to investigate whether vitamin A and zinc supplementation increases the efficacy of antituberculosis treatment with respect to clinical response and nutritional status.
DESIGN: In this double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, patients with newly diagnosed tuberculosis were divided into 2 groups. One group (n = 40) received 1500 retinol equivalents (5000 IU) vitamin A (as retinyl acetate) and 15 mg Zn (as zinc sulfate) daily for 6 mo (micronutrient group). The second group (n = 40) received a placebo. Both groups received the same antituberculosis treatment recommended by the World Health Organization. Clinical examinations, assessments of micronutrient status, and anthropometric measurements were carried out before and after 2 and 6 mo of antituberculosis treatment.
RESULTS: At baseline, 64% of patients had a body mass index (in kg/m(2)) < 18.5, 32% had plasma retinol concentrations < 0.70 micromol/L, and 30% had plasma zinc concentrations < 10.7 micromol/L. After antituberculosis treatment, plasma zinc concentrations were not significantly different between groups. Plasma retinol concentrations were significantly higher in the micronutrient group than in the placebo group after 6 mo (P < 0.05). Sputum conversion (P < 0.05) and resolution of X-ray lesion area (P < 0.01) occurred earlier in the micronutrient group.
CONCLUSION: Vitamin A and zinc supplementation improves the effect of tuberculosis medication after 2 mo of antituberculosis treatment and results in earlier sputum smear conversion.
Am J Clin Nutr. 2002 Apr;75(4):720-7.
from the introduction of the article:
...
In our case-control study, the proportions of tuberculosis patients and control subjects with plasma retinol concentrations < 0.70 µmol/L were 33% and 13%, respectively (4). A study from Rwanda reported vitamin A deficiency among adults with tuberculosis (5). Vitamin A deficiency increases bacterial adherence to respiratory epithelial cells (6). It has been known since the1940s that vitamin A is excreted in the urine in patients with fever (7), and this has since been confirmed in subjects with acute infections, including pneumonia (8). In addition, the requirement for vitamin A during infection is raised by its increased rate of excretion and metabolism (8). Studies have shown that vitamin A has an immunoprotective role against human tuberculosis. This finding has a historical basis in that cod liver oil, which is rich in vitamins A and D, was used regularly for the treatment of tuberculosis before the introduction of modern chemotherapy (9). In addition, vitamin A supplementation results in a modulation of the immune response in patients with tuberculosis (10).
free reading of the full-text article: http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/75/4/720
The Fisheries Museum - Aalesund, Norway
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Faalesunds.museum.no%2F06_fiskeri%2Fbua_750x749.jpg&hash=36af10f3ef0b08f72255529db24d034b)
http://aalesunds.museum.no/06_fiskeri/bua_750x749.jpg
from: http://aalesunds.museum.no/21_utland/engelsk_fisheries.htm
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Hi Iko,
This is interesting. There must be more research like this buried in the stacks. My exploration tonight was not successful. There are more libraries yet to visit. Maybe I'll go to Toronto's library.
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.torontopubliclibrary.ca%2Fimages%2Fcarnegie_libraries%2Fabo_his_yorkville2_1907_big.jpg&hash=6fa1f33b4fff06ba2bdae7eaa5e2bafa)
Yorkville Branch Library opened on June 13, 1907, in what was then the city’s north end. It was the first of four libraries constructed with a $350,000 grant made by Andrew Carnegie to the Toronto Public Library in 1903. Designed by Robert McCallum, City Architect, Yorkville’s classical, Beaux Arts style is similar to libraries in many smaller Ontario communities. It features two pairs of columns, a projected portico, Doric capitals, a bracketed cornice, and stone quoins, band courses and keystones. Yorkville is now the Toronto Public Library’s oldest library.
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It would be worth flying to Rhode Island and check the oldest library in America (North, South and Central?). The answer might be right there, piled up with thousands of 'vintage' papers.
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.projo.com%2Fextra%2F2006%2Fslavery%2Fday1%2Fimages%2Fday1-redwoodlibrary.jpg&hash=f6f86b1e67590c83335e98eebe50a90f)
http://www.projo.com/extra/2006/slavery/day1/images/day1-redwoodlibrary.jpg
Journal photo / Frieda Squires
The oldest library in America in its original building, Newport's Redwood Library and Athenaeum on Bellevue Avenue, has been in continuous use since 1750. Quaker philanthropist and slave trader Abraham Redwood Jr. purchased more than 1,300 books to help establish the library. The statue at the front of the building is George Washington, who never stepped inside the library.
from: http://www.projo.com/extra/2006/slavery/day1/side1.htm
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Talking of 'revisiting' and looking backwards,
allow me a cut&paste from Complementary Medicine
(Cod Liver Oil topic) and final comment from the
discussion in "Epidemic influenza and vitamin D"
J.J. Cannell et al. 2006.
Revisiting Vitamin D in humans.
just a few clever minds got this point
first, several years ago...
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.seeli.com%2FDaniel%2Fleisure%2Ftravel%2FFinland%2Flandscape5.jpg&hash=24d611ea7965f02fdc9bb18c92e03c21)
http://www.seeli.com/Daniel/leisure/travel/Finland/landscape5.jpg
A hypothesis concerning deficiency of sunlight,
cold temperature, and influenza epidemics associated with
the onset of acute lymphoblastic leukemia in northern Finland.
Timonen TT.
University of Oulu, Department of Internal Medicine, Kajaanintie 50, FIN-90220 Oulu, Finland.
Research to detect new factors contributing to the etiology of acute leukemia (AL) is urgently needed. Located between latitudes 65 degrees and 70 degrees north, the population in northern Finland is exposed to extreme seasonal alterations of ultraviolet-B light and temperature. There is also a seasonal variation of both the 25(OH)- and 1,25(OH)2-D3 vitamin serum concentrations. In the present work, the frequencies of different types and age-groups at diagnosis of AL were compared during the dark and light months of the year, to uncover seasonality. Between January 1972 and December 1986, 300 consecutive patients aged >/=16 years and diagnosed as having AL were enrolled. The observed mean monthly global solar radiation, temperature measurements, and influenza epidemics were compared with the monthly occurrence of AL. Both acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) (p=0.006) and total AL (p=0.015) were diagnosed excessively in the dark and cold compared with light and warm period of the year. There was a tendency for de novo leukemia to increase also in the dark and cold, but for acute myeloid leukemia (AML) patients the excess was not significant. Age >/=65 was strongly associated with the dark and cold season (p=0.003). Significantly more ALL (p=0.005) and de novo leukemias (p=0.029) were observed during influenza epidemics than during nonepidemic periods. However, a seasonality, i. e., the fluctuation of numbers of AL cases, was not determined, either monthly or during different photo- and temperature periods or influenza epidemics; this might be due to the small numbers of patients studied. Nevertheless, it is hypothesized that sunlight deprivation in the arctic winter can lead to a deficiency of the 1, 25(OH)2D3 vitamin, which might stimulate leukemic cell proliferation and block cell differentiation through dysregulation of growth factors in the bone marrow stromal cells, causing one mutation and an overt ALL in progenitor cells damaged during the current or the previous winter by influenza virus, the other mutation.
Ann Hematol. 1999 Sep;78(9):408-14.
Epidemic influenza and vitamin D.
Cannell JJ, Vieth R, Umhau JC, Holick MF, Grant WB, Madronich S, Garland CF, Giovannucci E.
Atascadero State Hospital, 10333 El Camino Real, Atascadero, CA 93422, USA. jcannell@dmhash.state.ca.us
In 1981, R. Edgar Hope-Simpson proposed that a 'seasonal stimulus' intimately associated with solar radiation explained the remarkable seasonality of epidemic influenza. Solar radiation triggers robust seasonal vitamin D production in the skin; vitamin D deficiency is common in the winter, and activated vitamin D, 1,25(OH)2D, a steroid hormone, has profound effects on human immunity. 1,25(OH)2D acts as an immune system modulator, preventing excessive expression of inflammatory cytokines and increasing the 'oxidative burst' potential of macrophages. Perhaps most importantly, it dramatically stimulates the expression of potent anti-microbial peptides, which exist in neutrophils, monocytes, natural killer cells, and in epithelial cells lining the respiratory tract where they play a major role in protecting the lung from infection. Volunteers inoculated with live attenuated influenza virus are more likely to develop fever and serological evidence of an immune response in the winter. Vitamin D deficiency predisposes children to respiratory infections. Ultraviolet radiation (either from artificial sources or from sunlight) reduces the incidence of viral respiratory infections, as does cod liver oil (which contains vitamin D). An interventional study showed that vitamin D reduces the incidence of respiratory infections in children. We conclude that vitamin D, or lack of it, may be Hope-Simpson's 'seasonal stimulus'.
Epidemiol Infect. 2006 Dec;134(6):1129-40. Epub 2006 Sep 7.
...from the final conclusion in the full-text:
Today, in a rush from multiplex reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reactions that rapidly subtype influenza viruses to complex mathematical formulas that explain infectivity, many of us have forgotten Hope-Simpson's simple 'seasonal stimulus' theory for the lethal crop of influenza that sprouts around the winter solstice. The faith and humility that characterized his life and his writings insulated him from despairing that his 'seasonal stimulus' would not be sought. Among his last published words was the suggestion that 'it might be rewarding if persons, who are in a position to do so, will look more closely at the operative mechanisms that are causing such seasonal behaviour' [3,p.241].
Dr Edgar Hope-Simpson (1908-2003)
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.makingthemodernworld.org.uk%2Flearning_modules%2Fgeography%2F05.TU.01%2Fimg%2FIM.1376_zp.jpg&hash=c85dfbfcafb9fa01a7e576a60482ca5f) (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.astrobiology.cf.ac.uk%2Fimage15.gif&hash=faf645bffaed6da424039cb373aa2b5e)
http://www.makingthemodernworld.org.uk/learning_modules/geography/05.TU.01/?section=6
http://www.astrobiology.cf.ac.uk/image15.gif
A Gloucestershire GP carefully recorded the incidence of influenza in his practice over a period of nearly 30 years. Dr Hope-Simpson obtained a picture of the timing and intensity of these cases from 1946 to 1974.
Is it possible to compare Kilbourne’s chronological model of the spread of influenza with this data?
Such a comparison indicates that there should be evidence of the following factors influencing the final picture:
- A distinct seasonal pattern, with the highest incidence in winter.
- A series of decreases in the size of epidemic waves as the population becomes immune to one particular strain of the virus.
- The appearance of a new strain with changed antigens, meaning that the body’s defence mechanism does not recognise it. The whole process of infection should then begin again.
- The presence of more than one strain of influenza in the population at any one time.
- Newly introduced strains from other parts of the world, which can be especially virulent.
for more reading click here: http://www.makingthemodernworld.org.uk/learning_modules/geography/05.TU.01/?section=6
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I liked Rhode Island, wish I could afford to live there for a while and use the library. Have patterns in the development of leukemia been noted like that in Finland? In general, are more cases of leukemia diagnosed at one time of year or another?
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I liked Rhode Island, wish I could afford to live there for a while and use the library. Have patterns in the development of leukemia been noted like that in Finland? In general, are more cases of leukemia diagnosed at one time of year or another?
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Hi Zoey,
I should re-check piles of papers, but I am afraid that a proper seasonality has never been reported for leukemias.
In the past, spots of lymphoma and leukemia cases called 'clusters' had been reported now and then to propose an infectious etiology for these diseases: nothing scientifically 'heavy' I must say.
Leukemia is fortunately rare enough and progression probably variable from one patient to the other, so even if you had a common infectious switch during epidemics, symptoms would follow weeks or months later. So much for trying to understand anything! [???]
Take care
ikod
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You mean "understand" as finding patterns, rhyme and reason. I found reports of the "clusters" too. The problem in the reporting was the immediate assumption was that if there are a lot of cases in one area, it must be enviromental, excluding nutritional enviroments. Maybe that's why there are not more Shanghai Reports.
Regards,
Zoey
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You mean "understand" as finding patterns, rhyme and reason. I found reports of the "clusters" too. The problem in the reporting was the immediate assumption was that if there are a lot of cases in one area, it must be enviromental, excluding nutritional enviroments. Maybe that's why there are not more Shanghai Reports.
Regards,
Zoey
...wait, but the chain of events:
1) epidemic - immune response - normal response - neutralizing antibody - healing
2) epidemic - immune response - overridden reaction - CLONE expansion - organ invasion
should leave plenty of space to environmental AND nutritional factors
don't you think?
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Despite my non existent medical or scientific background I can give this much input...Infection/virus did play a role on Nathan's ALL and there were at least 2 more cases of early diagnosis in our hospital at the same time. One of the nurses (15 years at pediatrics hem/oc) said "they come in clusters". I still don't understand why don't we have a national cancer registry where you could go online and answer a questionarie related specifically to the diagnosed cancer (specially with childhood cancer) Here is a thought...4,000 Leukemia cases a year in USA and there are 4 kids that I've known of in our neighborhood (Redondo Beach, small bay city outside Los Angeles)with the same diagnose. Not exactly a "cluster" but definetely something to be better analyzed.
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Welcome back dqfry,
Cluster, cluster...I have been reading those reports for years and counting consecutive cases at work.
In my opinion (!) this wouldn't take us anywhere: difficult to rule out 'coincidence' on one side and to find anything interesting on the other.
Cancer Registries are not public (so far) and their compilation is up to the health care operators. All over the world epidemiologists analyse them and report increase-decrease and clustering in a short while. Over the years this type of study is more and more accurate, but results are poor. Actually it is frustrating, if you think of the bulk of work involved.
In multifactor phenomena like these, time required for developing a disease may be quite different in different patients.
Even seasonal-effects, bound to vitamin D deficiency, may be masked by other factors.
Persistent infections are invisible and may last weeks and months after the contact (epidemics) before switching on the now famous 'overridden' immune response.
I understand your point: we should concentrate on the cause first.
Engineers, physicists, even biologists would insist on searching a cause.
Unfortunately, most people in this field seem to have given up on that, after years and years of 'no result'.
It is commonly accepted that once the disease started, knowing its origin wouldn't affect treatment results. It was like this in the case of gastroduodenal ulcers.
And this is wrong.
ikod
P.S.
Searching for specific infectious agents by the current sophisticated technologies (PCR, etc.) is one way to look for the etiology, the cause. It should be done extensively for a long list of 'germs', as many as possible, in every single patient.
Unfortunately, so far only single agents have been studied by single groups. An interesting report is about parvovirus B19 and leukemia, followed by many others: we still cannot say if B19 might be one of the 'wanted' agents bastards!
Br J Haematol. 2003 Jan;120(1):168-9
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=12492595&query_hl=54&itool=pubmed_docsum (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=12492595&query_hl=54&itool=pubmed_docsum)
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HI dqfy,
Welcome back! I have no "scientific" background either, just a bad case of terminal curiosity and easy access to the internet. There may be a pattern if more cases of leukemia turn up where there is also a greater number of some infection, influenza being one that's been studied.
It isn't a scientific study, but have you spoken to the parents in Redondo Beach whose kids developed leukemia? Maybe if you all look at each child's medical history you will see a possible common thread, to study further.
My current searching is turning up some older studies done on seasonal patterns in development of leukemia and am trying to get a full copy of one article now. They go back about to the sixties, before the value of vitamin D was so well understood. But if the studies show that more cases are reported in some areas during winter months [when vitamin D deificiency is more common] it may point to a pattern involving vitamin D. We could then check and see what studies have been done on Vitamin D deficiency in those areas to see if there may be a correspondence.
Quote from Iko:
...wait, but the chain of events:
1) epidemic - immune response - normal response - neutralizing antibody - healing
2) epidemic - immune response - overridden reaction - CLONE expansion - organ invasion
leave plenty of space to environmental AND nutritional factors
don't you think?
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Is there anything you have noticed that suggests any kind of pattern to you on what may have led to your child developing the disorder?
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Hi Zoey,
I should re-check piles of papers, but I am afraid that a proper seasonality as never been reported for leukemias.
In the past, spots of lymphoma and leukemia cases called 'clusters' had been reported now and then to propose an infectious etiology for these diseases: nothing scientifically 'heavy' I must say.
ikod
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Greetings ,
The search on seasonal variations in development of leukemia is bearing fruit-- perhaps for vitamin D deficiency and infection as predisposing factors? Some studies were done long before vitamin D's importance was recognized. One name keeps turning up, FR Fekety, but I've not succeeded yet in finding who or where this person may be, if still around. A lot of this person's publications are in the Maryland Medical Journal so maybe this is where to find out more about this researcher.
1: Md State Med J. 1969 Nov;18(11):73-7 passim. Links
Season and the onset of acute childhood leukemia.Fekety FR Jr, Carey JJ.
PMID: 5352399 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]{I am getting a copy of this article}
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The Niavaran branch of the National Library of Iran offers a pleasant environment for its users.
The population of Iran is about 68,000,000. I couldn't tell from the more recent article below how signifigant the numbers of cases of childhood leukemia are in relation to other counties. I didn't find how many cases are diagnosed yearly countrywide.
2.Review Article
Seasonal variations in the onset of childhood leukemia/lymphoma: April 1996 to March 2000, Shiraz, Iran
Mehran Karimi, Hooman Yarmohammadi *
Hematolgy Research Center, Department of Pediatrics, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran
email: Hooman Yarmohammadi (yarmohml@sums.ac.ir)
*Correspondence to Hooman Yarmohammadi, Hematology Research Center, Nemazee Hospital, PO Box 71935-1311, Shiraz, Iran.
Keywords
seasonal variations • leukemia and lymphoma in childhood • infection
Abstract
Infection has long been suspected as a possible factor in the aetiology of leukemia and lymphoma, one of the most common malignancies in children. Since most viral infections have seasonal variations of onset, if seasonal trends in 1 month of diagnosis of leukemia and lymphoma could be proved, this would be supportive evidence for an infectious aetiology. A total of 367 cases in the Hospitals of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, from April 1996 through March 2000, who were diagnosed as having acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL), acute myeloblastic leukemia (AML), Burkitt's lymphoma (BL) chronic myeloblastic lymphoma (CML), Hodgkin's disease (HD) or non-Burkitt's type non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NBNHL) were analysed. The month of appearance of the first symptom and the date of diagnosis were recorded. ALL demonstrated statistically significant monthly variation in the date of appearance of the first symptom (p < 0.05; peak in October) and the date of diagnosis (p < 0.05; peak in November). Seasonal variation was demonstrated in the date of the first appearance of symptoms in BL (p < 0.042), and in the date of diagnosis in AML (p < 0.049). There was no statistically significant seasonal variation in the month of diagnosis for other groups. Analysis based on the date of the first symptoms and the date of diagnosis for ALL patients, using summer-winter ratios, also showed a significant winter excess (p < 0.001). Our data provide modest support for an autumn-winter peak in the diagnosis of childhood ALL, underlying mechanisms that account for these patterns are likely to be complex and need more definitive studies. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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Do the cases of rickets described below not suggest a problem with vitamin D deficiency in this same region?
Evaluation of patients with different types of rickets in Fars Province
H. Karamifar
Department of Pediatrics, Division of Pediatric Endocrinology, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz-IRAN
There are different causes for rickets. Vitamin D deficiency, disorder in vitamin D metabolism and action, familial X-linked
hypophosphatemia, renal failure, hepatic disease & oncogenous rickets are some of the major causes of rickets. In this research we had the opportunity to study 50 cases of rickets during one year period in Shiraz University of Medical Sciences hospitals. The diagnosis of rickets was besed on clinical, biochemical and radiological evidence. The results showed that vitamin D deficiency was the most common form of rickets. 36 cases (72%) had vitamin D deficiency rickets, 3 cases (6%) had vitamin dependent rickets and 11 cases (22%) had vitamin D resistant rickets. The sex distribution was 26 (52%) females and 24 (48%) males. There was not a significant difference in female to male ratio in this study. We found that 71.4% of patients had used breast milk during infancy and they had not used vitamin D supplement. Almost all of them were from cold climate regions of Fars Province. Sixteen (32%) of vitamin D dificiency cases were under one year age and they were cared at home. Radiological finding in wrist X-Ray was present in all patients. The most important symptoms of patients that were comming to hospital or office were convulsion and infections especially pneumonia, respectively. These results indicate that although several factors are concerned in the development of rickets, the main cause is lack of vit D in Fars Province. There is less sun in the winter months when it is cold, children are kept indoors for most of the first year of life and when they go out in the winter they are well wrapped up. This suggests that lack of sun light in the absence of adequate dietary intake of Vit D is the main causal factor.
http://erc.ac.ir/iced/5/oral/Evaluation%20of%20patients%20with%20different%20types%20of%20rickets%20in%20Fars%20Province.htm
There is a problem with vitamin D deficiency in Iran as this excerpt describes:
Vitamin D status in mothers and their newborns in Iran
Zhila Maghbooli,1 Arash Hossein-Nezhad,1 Ali Reza Shafaei,1 Farzaneh Karimi,1 Farzaneh Sadat Madani,1 and Bagher Larijani1
1Endocrinology and Metabolism Research Center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, 5th Floor, Shariati Hospital, North Kargar Avenue, Tehran 14114, Iran
Corresponding author.
Zhila Maghbooli: zhilayas@yahoo.com ; Arash Hossein-Nezhad: ahosseinnezhad@sina.tums.ac.ir ; Ali Reza Shafaei: emrc@sina.tums.ac.ir ; Farzaneh Karimi: emrc@sina.tums.ac.ir ; Farzaneh Sadat Madani: emrc@sina.tums.ac.ir ; Bagher Larijani: emrc@sina.tums.ac.ir
Received July 13, 2006; Accepted February 12, 2007.
Discussion:
Our findings reveal a high prevalence of vitamin D deficiency among pregnant women and newborns. Almost two in three mothers had vitamin D deficiency (VDD), while one in ten newborns had normal vitamin D. Vitamin D deficiency in pregnant women and newborns has been reported in several studies [18,26-28]. This prevalence is reported based on an old definition of vitamin D deficiency, and many investigators now define deficiency as <80 nM (32 ng/mL) circulating 25(OH)D/L [29,30]. Based on this cut-off, only 4% of pregnancies in our study had normal serum vitamin D concentrations. It seems most studies define the cut-off point for vitamin D and calcium intake based on serum vitamin D and calcium concentrations. Thus new cut off point definition based on outcomes may be more suitable [12,23,31-34]
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The full article is available online:
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1808477
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Thank you Zoey,
other pieces in the vitamin D puzzle.
I printed that paper from Iran...it's really neat.
Wow, we started from 1988 Shanghai, went through Finland to Egypt!
Paradoxycally Norwegian people have the highest levels of vitamin D all over the year (thanks to their diet + cod liver oil) compared to the rest of Europe and countries with a lot of sunshine like Iran.
Human societies with their traditions and religion can really make the difference.
I would not expect a significant difference in leukemia incidence based ONLY on the difference in vitamin D levels between different countries:
- incidence figure for leukemia is 4 to 5 new cases a year per 100,000 people,
truly tiny, regardless of where you live in relation to sun exposure.
- vitamin D deficiency may be only one of the environmental causes, bound to diet (cod)
and individual 'solar' attitudes ("drink your milk and GO PLAY OUTSIDE!").
- The supposed 'protective effect' given by cod liver oil supplement should take time to
work (3-12 months?) -over 1 year in the 1988 report- and vitamin D levels are quite
different in seasons.
Everything gets trickier and more confusing, as you see.
Nevertheless we do need these pieces for the puzzle.
I personally discovered so many fascinating things I totally ignored before exploring this vitamin D issue, mostly thanks to http://www.vitamindcouncil.com/ (ftp://http://www.vitamindcouncil.com/) by Dr.J.J.Cannell from Atascadero State Hospital in California.
You may have read one of Michael Holick's basic papers, I think you mentioned it many weeks ago and I had just received a preprint copy of it. Now it is free full-text on the web: what a treat!
http://www.jci.org/cgi/reprint/116/8/2062.pdf
Every time I read it and check its references I find something new that deserves to be reported in this topic.
We all know that malnutrition in a pregnant woman and/or in a breast-feeding mother later, can heavily affect the future health of the foetus-newborn-infant in terms of brain development mostly, but even growth and immune strenght.
Surprisingly, just one cofactor deficiency (vitamin D) might increase the risk of specific diseases years, even decades later in the previously malnourished or sun-deprived child.
I hope prof. Holick won't mind if I report his conclusion in full-text, from:
"Resurrection of vitamin D deficiency and rickets" published in 2006.
These things should 'invade' the media instead of being confined in the narrow scientific circuit of information.
Conclusion
Vitamin D–deficiency rickets is a sunlight deficiency disease. The inability to appreciate the beneficial effect of sunlight for health had devastating consequences for both children and adults for more than 300 years. When it was finally realized that exposure to sunlight could prevent and treat rickets, this led to the recommendation that all children be exposed to sensible sunlight to maximize bone health. The fortification of milk with vitamin D eradicated rickets as a major health problem, and, therefore, it was thought to have been conquered.
Rickets has, however, made an unfortunate comeback (120). The major cause of rickets in the United States is a lack of appreciation that human milk contains very little if any vitamin D to satisfy the infant’s requirement. African American women are often vitamin D deficient, and women who always wear sun protection and only take a prenatal multivitamin are also at a high risk of vitamin D insufficiency. If they provide breast milk to their infant as the sole source of nutrition, the infant will become vitamin D deficient. If the infant is not exposed to sunlight or does not receive a vitamin D supplement, the infant will inevitably develop rickets.
However, the skeletal manifestations of rickets represent only the tip of the vitamin D deficiency iceberg. Vitamin D deficiency in utero and during the first year of life has devastating consequences and may imprint on the child’s life chronic diseases that will shorten his/her life span (24, 57). In utero, vitamin D deficiency results in reduced intrauterine long bone growth and slightly shorter gestation (121). This has been linked to increased risk of osteoporosis and fractures later in life (24, 60, 61, 82, 122). Children born and raised at latitudes below 35° for the first 10 years have a 50% reduced risk of developing multiple sclerosis later in life (103, 104). Neonates who are vitamin D deficient during the first year of life are 2.4-fold more likely to develop type 1 diabetes compared with children who received 2,000 IU of vitamin D3/day (105). It has been suggested that the increased risk of developing schizophrenia may be initiated in utero and during childhood due to vitamin D deficiency (102). Muscle function, innate immunity, cellular growth and maturation, immunomodulation, insulin secretion, as well as regulation of calcium, phosphorus, and bone metabolism are all affected or controlled by vitamin D. Thus, ensuring that women during pregnancy are vitamin D sufficient and that newborns either be immediately evaluated for their vitamin D status by measuring 25(OH)D levels in cord blood or given vitamin D prophylactically should be a high priority. Vitamin D deficiency should be immediately treated with at least 1,000 IU of vitamin D2 or vitamin D3/day for the first week of life. Alternatively, a single dose of 200,000 IU of vitamin D should suffice for the first few months of life.
There has been a great fear about causing vitamin D intoxication in neonates. This resulted from the poorly described outbreak of neonatal hypercalcemia in the 1950s in Great Britain (123), which led to the enactment of laws in Europe forbidding the fortification of dairy products as well as all other products with vitamin D. In 1997 the Institute of Medicine recommended that the AI for infants and children of all ages be 200 IU/d. The same recommendation was made for pregnant and lactating women. The safe upper limit for infants ages 0–12 months was 1,000 IU/d and for children older than 1 year of age, 2,000 IU/d. However, it is now obvious based on the historical literature (14–16) as well as the recent literature (23, 24, 30, 36, 81, 86, 87) that these recommendations are inadequate without sensible sun exposure. It is well documented that neonates and children can tolerate a single dose of 200,000 IU of vitamin D2 or vitamin D3 or doses of vitamin D up to 3,000 IU/d without any untoward side effects. Indeed 400–1,000 IU/d to maintain serum 25(OH)D levels between 30–50 ng/ml should be the goal, just as it is in adults. Infants and children have routinely received 400–2,000 IU vitamin D2 or vitamin D3/day for the first years of life without any reports of toxicity (23, 80, 105, 107). Typically, doses of more than 50,000 IU/d of vitamin D2 were found to cause toxicity (12–14).
In Canada, it is recommended that all infants receive 400 IU/d from birth. This recommendation has been successfully implemented and has not resulted in any reported cases of vitamin D intoxication or hypercalcemia. I believe that the 200 IU of vitamin D that is recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics is suboptimal (124). This dose may prevent overt rickets but will not prevent vitamin D deficiency.
Hopefully, history will not repeat itself. The widespread concern about any direct sun exposure increasing the risk of the relatively benign and nonlethal squamous and basal cell cancers needs to be put into perspective. It is chronic excessive exposure to sunlight and sunburning experiences during childhood that increases risk of nonmelanoma skin cancer (125). Melanoma, one of the most feared cancers because of its ability to rapidly metastasize before it is obvious to either the patient or physician, has been branded as a sun-induced skin cancer. However, most melanomas occur on the least sun-exposed areas, and it has been reported that occupational exposure to sunlight decreases risk of melanoma (125).
The 30-year campaign to recommend abstinence from sun exposure has not stemmed the increase in skin cancer incidence (125). It is curious that in the 1930s and 1940s, when children were encouraged to be exposed to sunlight and artificial UV radiation to treat rickets, the incidence of skin cancer did not increase. Thus, there needs to be a reevaluation of the beneficial effect of sensible exposure to sunlight as noted by the Australian College of Dermatologists and the Cancer Council Australia, which recommend a balance between avoiding an increase risk of skin cancer and achieving enough UV radiation to maintain adequate vitamin D levels.
Holick MF.
Resurrection of vitamin D deficiency and rickets
J Clin Invest. 2006 Aug;116(8):2062-72.
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Von Jacksch-Luzet syndrome.
Another piece of the puzzle? Maybe.
Perhaps it will only increase the level of confusion and number of things that we should know by now, but we don't. Complexity is actually the rule in this area: imagine that it is now recognized that activated vitamin D3 helps control the expression of more than 200 genes.
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Von Jacksch-Luzet syndrome may be another piece, certainly not the 'missing link'.
It is an hematologic disorder observed in common rickets, somehow similar to acute myeloid leukemia or its precursor, a severe form of anemia called myelofibrosis.
Bone metabolism is heavily compromised in severe vitamin D deficiency, so even hematopoietic cells hosted there are affected, cannot proliferate properly and go to other organs like spleen, liver and lymphnodes.
It is not true leukemia, but it seems very similar. Cured by vitamin D treatment in weeks, it practically disappeared in developed countries together with rickets.
So there might be a correlation between these phenomena, difficult enough to understand. Giving vitamin D3 to patients with only myelofibrosis but no rickets seems to improve their anemia in some cases; it has been done since 1980, without extraordinary results, I'm afraid.
Vitamin D3 works in myeloid leukemic cells 'in vitro', but the dose would be too toxic for patients, so vitamin D3 analogues are under study. A researcher from Israel is studying the synergistic effect of carnosic acid (rosemary) that would allow positive effects with non-toxic dosages of vitamin D3 in leukemic patients.
The effect of vitamin D3 on CD34 progenitor cells in vitamin D deficiency rickets
Sevgi Yetgin, S Songül Yalçın
Vitamin D metabolites have multiple functions not only in calcium homeostasis, but also in hematopoiesis. To detect the effect of vitamin D on hematopoiesis with a surface glycoprotein marker, the proportions of the CD34+ cells were measured in bone marrow, peripheral blood and spleen prior to and after vitamin D3 treatment in an infant with severe rickets, myelofibrosis and myeloid metaplasia. CD34+ cells measured 0.4% in bone marrow, 8.0% in peripheral blood and 8.7% in splenic aspirate. The detection of a high and comparable level of CD34+ cells in both peripheral blood and splenic aspirate on admission and the decline in the level of CD34+ cells (2%) following treatment support that CD34+ cells were from extramedullary hematopoiesis in spleen. The improvement of rickets and hematological findings with treatment at the same time raises the possibility of vitamin D3 acting directly upon the same target or upon different targets at the same time or of the presence of interaction between two targets. Our findings may also show a relation between vitamin D3 and its metabolites to bone marrow stem cells.
Turk.J.Ped. 2004 46(2),164-166.
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Tahini (Sesame butter) recent findings
You probably remember the note about sesame seeds butter and childhood leukemia a few posts ago: a scam, commercial crap, pure quackery? I leave it open for the discussion, reporting the new text-string -just found 'fishing' on Google- together with the already posted recent article about sesame and leukemia.
Now we even know the name of the mysterious doctor: he was one of Dr. Lee's colleagues! Neat uh?
We just emphasized the need to stick to just one subject (cod liver oil), but I made this exception before with tahini in a discussion with GBSB that actually could summarize the whole childhood leukemia topic.
Hope that dear Zoey won't mind too much, we'll go back to 'cod' in a minute.
"...Sesame seeds are rich in a substance Lee called "vitamin T." (The other major sources of this nutrient are termites and mealworms. :p ) Among other things, vitamin T helps to build red blood cells. Lee personally knew a doctor who had helped several children to recover from leukemia, just by having their parents feed them lots of tahini and sesame oil. Another excellent feature of sesame is that the oil is very resistant to oxidation. Lee was very concerned about the health hazards of rancid oils, and believed that nut butters needed to be made fresh each day, as they spoiled very quickly, even in the fridge. In his opinion, tahini was the only such product that was okay to buy in a jar."
http://209.85.129.104/search?q=cache:Ef6aex9vo0IJ:www.mothering.com/discussions/archive/index.php/t-529959.html+%22tahini%22+leukemia&hl=it&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=it
...From an unspecified topic in "General Science" NSforum:
Sesame seeds
sesame butter
sesaminol
sesamolin
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Sesaminol from sesame seed induces apoptosis in human lymphoid leukemia Molt 4B cells.
Miyahara Y, Hibasami H, Katsuzaki H, et al.
The exposure of human lymphoid leukemia Molt 4B cells to sesaminol, a component of sesame oil led to both growth inhibition and the induction of apoptosis. Morphological change showing apoptotic bodies was observed in the cells treated with sesaminol. The fragmentation of DNA by sesaminol to oligonucleosomal-sized fragments that are characteristics of apoptosis was observed to be concentration- and time-dependent. These findings suggest that growth inhibition of Molt 4B cells by sesaminol results from the induction of apoptosis in the cells.
Int J Mol Med. 2001 May;7(5):485-8.
Now then, if in your frantic 'surfing' on the Web you found something like this:
...According to medical authorities nothing is supposed to be effective in treating leukemia -- that's cancer of the blood. We know a doctor in the Midwest who had three children who got over leukemia just by eating sesame butter. He gave them six tablespoonfuls of sesame butter a day. Brown sesame seed butter (Tahini). That's not a very glamorous treatment for a serious illness but it worked.
http://209.85.129.104/search?q=cache:GztTWKxLt78J:www.usaplaza.com/scripts/wcom_producttree.asp%3FStoreID%3D1340%26ProductID%3D48398+%22sesame+butter%22+leukemia&hl=it&gl=it&ct=clnk&cd=1
...given the initial statement that "nothing is supposed to be effective", as a medical doctor you would correctly think that's a scam, a totally unproven commercial crap, just quackery.
Nevertheless, as a parent of a leukemia 'survivor' you would easily consider giving her/him at least some sesame-seed bread (traditional Sicilian bread) and grissini (sesame bread sticks), so tasty and good for you. They make them fresh at the bakery just across the street, so it doesn't cost much to buy some once a week. They disappear quite quickly from the kitchen counter (beside the cod caps container).
ikod
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Hi Luka.
thanks for appreciating my efforts and for the discussion.
It helps me to explain better the point in this topic.
I'll reply shortly to your post, step by step:
quote
I’d read every your post on this forum. I find most of your posts interesting; some of them are mind opening.
But, I was disappointed that you posted this link. http://209.85.129.104/search?q=cache:GztTWKxLt78J:www.usaplaza.com/scripts/wcom_producttree.asp%3FStoreID%3D1340%26ProductID%3D48398+%22sesame+butter%22+leukemia&hl=it&gl=it&ct=clnk&cd=1
Sorry if the sesame butter story comes out from a commercial link, I had to report it anyway...you cannot find it anywhere else. A scam? A real story? I leave it open.
I do not even remember how, but I found it years ago. It was easy to check on PubMed and find a "scoop", one recent positive 'in vitro' result for sesaminol against a leukemic lymphoblastic cell-line.
It may be a promising result, believe me.
In 1980, like other groups years before, we worked on retinoic acid versus a promyelocytic cell-line (HL-60): the bad cells stopped dividing and became mature white cells within 5days. That miracle took 10-15 years to reach the 'real' patients. These days a vitamin A derivative (retinoid) is in the standard treatment for promyelocytic leukemia (AML-M3).
So the story of the doctor in the Midwest may be just fantasy, but the japanese report (actually there are two papers) is real and scientifically correct.A parent usually needs more hope, and tends to take into account even those 'fantasies'...
quote
How significantly is it, we can’t see from this report (the “Shanghai report”).
How we do know, that if children take tablespoon of honey every day, that incidence of leukemia will be lower than if they take cod liver oil.
I gave instructions to check that abstract: did you reach it? We'll do it together later on.
Sorry Luka, no honey, no ascorbic acid, no aloe whatsoever. They may work, I don't know.
I certainly know that the only scientific report on a positive effect of a nutrient, or nutritional supplement if you like, capable of reducing incidence of childhood leukemia to half or 1/3 is the 1988 paper from Shanghai published in Cancer. I've searched around, believe me...and I am not a scientist, but I've been in this field for a long time.
Distinguished journal, well-done study, statistically sound.
We really have to 'codcentrate' on one thing.
quote
I think that diet approach in understanding cause of illnesses has reached own limit long time ago.
It is necessary to find “missing link” between nutrition and physical activity on one side and health and illnesses on the other side.
To speculate about the possible causes of leukemia is not the aim of this topic: I suggested to read Mel Greaves's hypothesis (there are several papers about it). Vitamin D deficiency may represent one of the many "missing links" (personal opinion), but still we are not in a position to do much about it.
This is no chat or fantasy.
I am concerned as a parent.
I am serious and I feel I carry a sort of responsability about it.
A bit of help (cod liver oil) together with standard treatments could improve,
starting tomorrow, the quality of life and may be (fingers crossed) even survival...
...one percent? 5 percent? I do not care much:
just one kid who feels a bit stronger and
grows up properly in spite of chemo would do.
I do not want to be alone in reminding one of the kids to take his 'cod'.
The discussion here should be on how to let those parents know what nobody told them before.
asap.
ikod
Post Scriptum:
Actually I don't exactly think I am the only parent reminding 'cod': the Shanghai report has been cited around, even in the "Cod liver oil - number one superfood" commercial website.
Knowing the amount of adrenaline you get in the endless months following a diagnosis of childhood leukemia,
I'm pretty sure that some other parent has snagged this information and is probably doing the same thing.
Let's be a bit more positive about medical progress:
maybe a few open-minded consultant hematologists around the world are recommending every day 'cod' to parents of leukemic children. Following the 'Shanghai report' indications or who knows what other mysterious path or fascinating suggestion. Adopting the old fashioned "ex-adjuvantibus" criteria.
Maybe.
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fallconsortium.dfci.harvard.edu%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Flewis.jpg&hash=3585dda292ea8e9af474d287fc30ced7) (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.immunizenc.com%2Fimages%2Fped_andchild.jpg&hash=c513a100e568f0e0ac7774c732009f97) (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.flyanglersonline.com%2Flighterside%2Fdennisdickson.jpg&hash=329b1db6143a01c64577be696b56b324)
http://www.flyanglersonline.com/lighterside/dennisdickson.jpg
http://www.immunizenc.com/images/ped_andchild.jpg
http://allconsortium.dfci.harvard.edu/public/images/lewis.jpg
Yes. Better keep 'tahini' recipe in our minds. A last resort, like a parachute.
Sort of a dream, maybe just fantasy: we need these things, we're humans.
When parachute doesn't work you just die in a second,
but in the end of a wonderful, happy jump in the sky.
Good night,
ikod [^]
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dc-skydivers.com%2FSunsetTandem.jpg&hash=a96113696100e2db8d87b366e47f5b01)
http://www.dc-skydivers.com/SunsetTandem.jpg
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Addendum from Myke's Weblog, February 28, 2005 in Food and Drink, Health, Science | Permalink:
Sesame: Consider the Source
I received a comment from John Grey about my post on Eat More Sesame. Based on the link he provided, I'll be eating less tahini and more freshly ground sesame seeds. The information below is from RawVeg.info.
Tahini is a refined food, don't use it. It's made from ground peeled sesame seeds, the bran is missing. Sesame butter is made from ground whole brown sesame seeds. It's a whole food, but not freshly made. Make your own sesame spread, fresh, by blending whole raw sesame seeds with water. If you do use sesame butter, be sure not to get the toasted kind. Sesame oil is a refined food, don't use it. Beneficial substances are lost when oil is made: fiber, minerals, IP-6, etc. Chinese sesame oil is a refined food made from toasted sesame seeds, don't use it. Use uncooked fresh whole foods.
Buying sesame seeds.
There are three types of sesame seeds: Brown, black and white.
White sesame seed is a refined food, similar to white rice. It starts out as whole brown sesame, then the outer bran layer is removed. Don't use it.
Brown sesame seed has a milder flavor and less antioxidants than the black seeds.
Black sesame seed has more antioxidants and a richer flavor. Black sesame has a reputation in both the Ayurveda and Chinese traditions as an anti-aging food.
Find a natural food store or co-op that sells black or brown sesame seeds in bulk. Buying from the bulk bins saves you money, and reduces consumption of throwaway plastic packaging. The black seeds are best, brown is next best.
Using sesame seeds.
Grind the seeds fresh shortly before using them. You can dry grind them in a blender, on the 'Pulse' setting. It only takes a few seconds. If you hold the 'Pulse' button down for too long, the ground seeds will cake together. If you put too many seeds in at once, they may cake together.
You can use a coffee grinder (but not one that's been used for coffee, the taste will get in the food).
Hand-operated spice grinders are similar to a pepper grinder, but with a small glass jar on top.
Mortar and pestle is a traditional low-tech tool for grinding and blending.
Sprinkle the ground seeds over cereals, vegetable dishes, or fruit.
http://www.mykesweblog.com/2005/02/sesame_consider.html#more (http://www.mykesweblog.com/2005/02/sesame_consider.html#more)
12. Tahini and sesame butter (just like peanut butter but from sesame) and sesame seeds. Sesame products are eaten in some cultures in place of dairy products because of their high calcium content (calcium from sesame seeds is more easily used by our bodies than calcium from milk and a higher percentage of the calcium contained actually works for us). Eaten for thousands of years, sesame seeds were believed to possess magical properties, and they contain sesamol, which fights rancidity. Another quick easy breakfast is apple slices dipped into tahini or tahini with banana or tahini on toast. Use tahini to replace peanut butter in cookies.
DEBRA STARK
Concord
http://debrastark.com/portfolio_twelve.html
As the magic words, “Open, sesame!” indicate, many excellent
properties are hidden in the tiny sesame seed and these have
become clear by the studies described above. Sesame seed will
contribute much to the health and prosperity of people throughout
the entire world.
from: Nutraceutical Functions of Sesame: A Review
MITSUO NAMIKI Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan
Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition, 47:651–673 (2007)
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all?content=10.1080/10408390600919114
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One of the CLL groups did post a long newsletter, much like you, Iko, suggesting the use of CLO in leukemia. They asked it not be reproduced so am trying to contact them about it. As per your recent posts, the focus will shift back to how to alert parents of ALL children.
Zoey
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Hi Zoey and Iko, just a quick 'hello' and a note of appreciation for all the posts. It's definitely fascinating how many people (parents) and doctors disregard any kind of supportive or alternative treatment to ALL. We continue doing our daily CLO (the whole family) and hoping that it's making a difference on my son's treatment outcome. On a side note, I was raised on CLO on its most fishy taste and that was not pleasant at all (lots of tears with each spoon)...my son, in the other hand, will not drink his orange juice unless I add his "yummy lemon taste CLO" to it.
Cheers,
DQ
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One of the CLL groups did post a long newsletter, much like you, Iko, suggesting the use of CLO in leukemia. They asked it not be reproduced so am trying to contact them about it. As per your recent posts, the focus will shift back to how to alert parents of ALL children.
Zoey
Hi Zoey,
Thanks for the good news. I hope the CLL group is claiming a 'little help' from CLO, instead of an alternative, miracle cure and all that bla bla bla!
We have to be careful not to give any opportunity of criticism by the skeptical party.
They seem to be too many.
In this context, if anything improved 5 years survival of 5% it would be a great achievement indeed, but you would't even notice it, because -fortunately- survival rate is already high (>65%). It would only come out much later, analyzing all the data again and again. How boring.
Take care
ikod
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It's definitely fascinating how many people (parents) and doctors disregard any kind of supportive or alternative treatment to ALL.
Hi Dqfry!
Well, for doctors it is correct: they should be busy on what they know for sure, with no distraction, without 'improvising' anything, yes, like robots. It is much better to concentrate on proper dosages of chemo all the time, and prevent/treat side effects. You have specific protocols to follow strictly and carefully: guidelines that have been discussed and shared with thousands of specialists, nationwide and worldwide.
No time for jokes.
It is really hard to go from a BMsampling to a couple of SPs in small kids plus all the rest. I personally couldn't make it (I tried many years ago). It is a sort of combat, a war against the invisible enemy.
Tough, really hard.
Dieticians might be more inclined to go for 'anti-oxidants', following a sort of present fashion.
Parents should be more interested: diet is one of their duties, and they might feel guilty for not having given the "right things". May be some 'remove' these thoughts. And that's much better.
You take care of orange juice and cod liver oil because it's "your" family tradition, education, and for many other reasons; other people don't.
That's all right anyway.
Cheers,
ikod
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Below is the newsletter from the CLL group. I wasn't able to get a response about posting, but think it is ok to do so.
---------------
Thttp://www.clltopics.org/Alert/direct_display_alert.php?reqnum=47
Topics Alert Archive
Alert Number 47
Those Pesky Aches and Pains
Date: October 5, 2004
One of the common mistakes we (and our doctors!) make is attributing everything that goes wrong to CLL. If you are tired, you hurt all over, your muscles ache, heck you can feel the pain in your very bones, and nothing works, not even fistfulls of NSAIDs, why, it must be the dreaded CLL acting up, right?
Not so fast, you could be dead wrong laying this at the door of the 'dragon'. You could be suffering from something that can be very easily corrected, a real cheap fix. Not only does it not cost a lot, it is not even toxic (isn't that a welcome change from the usual caveats with chemo drugs?), and it might even help you fight the CLL. What is this drug? It is called vitamin D3. I have discussed this topic before on Topics (Vitamin D3 Essential for Health) but I think it bears repeating. Below are direct quotes from a very recent paper in the prestigious Mayo Proceedings, December of 2003. You can read the whole article for free, as well as the editorial that accompanied it. I have provided the links below.
There are two reason for my visiting the issue of vitamin D3 deficiency again. First, it is all too easy to dismiss the symptoms of vitamin D3 deficiency, especially when we are dealing with a bunch of cancer patients. Doctors expect us to complain of aches and pains, what else is new? If they take us seriously at all, they may consider something like fibromyalgia, in addition to the catch-all of CLL. Most often, you are expected to grin and bear it, with the not-so-subtle sub-text: stop whining. The other reason is that I still see "miraculous" claims made for "coral" calcium, with no understanding of calcium homeostasis and how calcium is used in our bodies. Calcium absorption needs adequate vitamin D3, otherwise it just goes for the ride, in one end and out the other. Trust me, your toilet does not need any more calcium. "Coral" calcium is no better than regular calcium you get at the drug store, or even antacids like Tums, it just costs more. It is also significantly worse in one important respect, the presence of high levels of very toxic heavy metals such as mercury. Coral has had a long time to accumulate the heavy metal toxins we have been putting out into the oceans. You worry about eating fish that have lived for a few years, about the level of heavy metals they may have accumulated over that time. Folks, coral has been around a lot longer, and was busy accumulating all the mercury and other heavy metals we were pumping into the oceans in the bad old days, before environmentalism became 'cool'.
Here is what the Mayo Clinic had to say on the subject of vitamin D3, calcium, mysterious aches and pains. They specifically talk about potential misdiagnosis of fibromyalgia, when the problem could well be vitamin D3 deficiency - something that can be easily tested for, and fixed. The quotes are from Mayo, but I did the highlighting to identify points of interest.
Overall, 93% of the 150 children and adults in the study, which included 6 broad categories of ethnic groups, were vitamin D-deficient. Is this unexpected? No. Is this newsworthy? Yes.
(The authors) evaluated both children and adults who reported persistent musculoskeletal pain that did not meet the strict criteria for fibromyalgia defined by the American College of Rheumatology. The association between nonspecific musculoskeletal pain and vitamin D deficiency was suspected because of a higher prevalence of these symptoms during winter than summer.
Vitamin D is essential for the efficient utilization of dietary calcium. In a vitamin D-deficient state, the amount of calcium absorbed is inadequate to satisfy the body's calcium requirement, This results in osteopenia and osteoporosis. This is the likely explanation of why patients with osteomalacia often experience a dull unrelenting aching sensation in their bones. These symptoms are either dismissed or misdiagnosed as fibromyalgia by many physicians.
Vitamin D deficiency causes muscle weakness and muscle aches and pains in both children and adults.
It has been estimated that 90% or more of our required vitamin D comes from exposure to sunlight. Anything that interferes with the penetration of solar ultraviolet radiation into the skin, such as increased melanin pigmentation and sunscreen use, will diminish the cutaneous production of vitamin D3.
People who live at higher latitudes and who are more prone to vitamin D deficiency are at increased risk of developing prostate, colon, breast, and other solid tumors; autoimmune diseases including multiple sclerosis and type 1 diabetes; hypertension; and cardiovascular heart disease.
When patients with nonspecific skeletomuscular pain are evaluated, their serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels should be obtained. Physicians should disregard the laboratory-reported lower limit of the normal range. A serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D level of at least 20 ng/mL is necessary to minimally satisfy the body's vitamin D requirement. Maintenance of a serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D level of 30 to 50 ng/mL is preferred.
Patients should have their vitamin D status, ie, serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels, tested once a year, preferably at the end of the fall season, to ensure that they do not become vitamin D-deficient before winter.
http://www.mayo.edu/proceedings/2003/dec/7812e1.pdf
http://www.mayo.edu/proceedings/2003/dec/7812a1.pdf
I thought you folks might also like to see the two abstracts below. The first one talks about calcitriol (another name for Vitamin D), in clinical trials at Roswell Park Cancer Institute for its anti-cancer activity. The second one talks about a vitamin D3 analog that seems to be effective in CLL. Why the vitamin D3 analog? Why not just use the cheap and available vitamin D3? That is an important question. If you overdose on vitamin D3, it can lead to something very dangerous, called hypercalcemia, which means too much calcium in your blood. Hypercalcemia can be fatal, if it is not immediately detected and treated. The reason for developing the vitamin D3 analog is to see if we can keep the anti-cancer effects, while avoiding the problems with hypercalcemia. Good concept: we need to keep an eye on this initiative, see how far it goes.
In the meantime, please do discuss your vitamin D3 status with your doctor. You may want to revisit our review article "Vitamin D3: Essential for your health" on our website, to get your arms around the arguments you may need to make, to bring your doctor on board. In my opinion, it surely pays to be pro-active on this front. Do remember, unlike the general Joe Shmoe basking on the beach, as CLL patients you have significantly higher (ten times higher!) risk of skin cancer, so getting all the vitamin D3 you need from sun-bathing is not a really good option for you (Do read the article Dying to Get a Tan?. Stay in the shade, pop your doctor's recommended dose of vitamin D3 supplement with a nice cup of freshly brewed green tea (or a good glass of pinot noir!) - that should do it right by you. And get yourself some over-the-counter calcium tablets. Stop wasting good money and destroying coral reefs, while you poison yourself with mercury and other heavy metals.
Be well,
Chaya
__________
Abstracts:
J Steroid Biochem Mol Biol. 2004 May;89-90(1-5):519-26.
Anti-tumor activity of calcitriol: pre-clinical and clinical studies.
Trump DL, Hershberger PA, Bernardi RJ, Ahmed S, Muindi J, Fakih M, Yu WD, Johnson CS.
Department of Medicine, Roswell Park Cancer Institute, Buffalo, NY 14263, USA.
1,25-Dihydroxycholecalciferol (calcitriol) is recognized widely for its effects on bone and mineral metabolism. Epidemiological data suggest that low Vitamin D levels may play a role in the genesis of prostate cancer and perhaps other tumors. Calcitriol is a potent anti-proliferative agent in a wide variety of malignant cell types. In prostate, breast, colorectal, head/neck and lung cancer as well as lymphoma, leukemia and myeloma model systems calcitriol has significant anti-tumor activity in vitro and in vivo. Calcitriol effects are associated with an increase in G0/G1 arrest, induction of apoptosis and differentiation, modulation of expression of growth factor receptors. Glucocorticoids potentiate the anti-tumor effect of calcitriol and decrease calcitriol-induced hypercalcemia. Calcitriol potentiates the antitumor effects of many cytotoxic agents and inhibits motility and invasiveness of tumor cells and formation of new blood vessels. Phase I and II trials of calcitriol either alone or in combination with carboplatin, taxanes or dexamethasone have been initiated in patients with androgen dependent and independent prostate cancer and advanced cancer. Data indicate that high-dose calcitriol is feasible on an intermittent schedule, no dose-limiting toxicity has been encountered and optimal dose and schedule are being delineated. Clinical responses have been seen with the combination of high dose calcitriol+dexamethasone in androgen independent prostate cancer (AIPC) and apparent potentiation of the antitumor effects of docetaxel have been seen in AIPC. These results demonstrate that high intermittent doses of calcitriol can be administered to patients without toxicity, that the MTD is yet to be determined and that calcitriol has potential as an anti-cancer agent.
PMID: 15225831
_____________
http://www.bloodjournal.org/cgi/content/full/bloodjournal;101/7/2454
Blood. 2003 Apr 1;101(7):2454-60. Epub 2002 Nov 21.
The vitamin D3 analog EB1089 induces apoptosis via a p53-independent mechanism involving p38 MAP kinase activation and suppression of ERK activity in B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia cells in vitro.
Pepper C, Thomas A, Hoy T, Milligan D, Bentley P, Fegan C.
Department of Haematology, Llandough Hospital, Penarth, Vale of Glamorgan, United Kingdom.
EB1089, a novel vitamin D3 analog, has been shown to have cytotoxic and antiproliferative properties in a variety of malignant cells. However, its potential as a treatment for B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia (B-CLL) has not been evaluated. EB1089 induced apoptosis in all of the 102 B-CLL samples tested with a mean LD(50) (the concentration of EB1089 required to kill 50% of cells) value (+/- SD) of 2.1 x 10(-8) M (+/- 1.4 x 10(-8) M). Furthermore, no significant difference was found in the cytotoxicity of EB1089 in B-CLL samples from previously treated and untreated patients (P =.1637). Induction of apoptosis was associated with a reduction in Bcl-2 and Mcl-1 protein expression, but this was evident only in the apoptotic cells. In contrast, the expression of Bax, p21, and p53 was not altered in the viable or apoptotic cells from either B- or T-lymphocyte lineages. EB1089-induced apoptosis was preceded by activation of p38 mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase and suppression of extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) activity, and this was associated with downstream activation of caspase-3. The pancaspase inhibitor (Z-VAD-FMK) and the caspase-9 inhibitor (Z-LEHD-FMK) were able to partially abrogate the apoptotic effects of EB1089 but did not affect the phosphorylation of p38 MAP kinase or the suppression of ERK. The B-CLL cells in the study were shown to highly express vitamin D receptor, but an additional receptor-independent mechanism of cell killing cannot be ruled out at this stage. These findings show that EB1089 is a potent apoptosis-inducing agent in B-CLL cells and may be useful in the treatment of B-CLL patients, particularly those with p53 mutations or drug-resistant disease.
PMID: 12446453
_____________
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Topics Alert Archive
Alert Number 47
Those Pesky Aches and Pains
Date: October 5, 2004
One of the common mistakes we (and our doctors!) make is attributing everything that goes wrong to CLL. If you are tired, you hurt all over, your muscles ache, heck you can feel the pain in your very bones, and nothing works, not even fistfulls of NSAIDs, why, it must be the dreaded CLL acting up, right?
Not so fast, you could be dead wrong laying this at the door of the 'dragon'. You could be suffering from something that can be very easily corrected, a real cheap fix. Not only does it not cost a lot, it is not even toxic (isn't that a welcome change from the usual caveats with chemo drugs?), and it might even help you fight the CLL. What is this drug? It is called vitamin D3. I have discussed this topic before on Topics (Vitamin D3 Essential for Health) but I think it bears repeating. Below are direct quotes from a very recent paper in the prestigious Mayo Proceedings, December of 2003. You can read the whole article for free, as well as the editorial that accompanied it. I have provided the links below.
...
In the meantime, please do discuss your vitamin D3 status with your doctor. You may want to revisit our review article "Vitamin D3: Essential for your health" on our website, to get your arms around the arguments you may need to make, to bring your doctor on board. In my opinion, it surely pays to be pro-active on this front. Do remember, unlike the general Joe Shmoe basking on the beach, as CLL patients you have significantly higher (ten times higher!) risk of skin cancer, so getting all the vitamin D3 you need from sun-bathing is not a really good option for you (Do read the article Dying to Get a Tan?. Stay in the shade, pop your doctor's recommended dose of vitamin D3 supplement with a nice cup of freshly brewed green tea (or a good glass of pinot noir!) - that should do it right by you. And get yourself some over-the-counter calcium tablets. Stop wasting good money and destroying coral reefs, while you poison yourself with mercury and other heavy metals.
Be well,
Chaya
http://www.clltopics.org/Alert/direct_display_alert.php?reqnum=47
Thanks for your contribution Zoey!
I'll copy it somewhere in the cod liver oil topic.
Vitamin D3 'tsunami' was starting in 2004 and you see its consequences right here.
Green tea for CLL still is a question mark: research is in progress at Mayo (1) and may be somewhere else.
I hope we'll have a nice surprise in the next few years!
Take care
ikod
1) http://www.clltopics.org/Phyto/LatestonGreenTea.htm
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There are rare observations that seem to suggest an external cause for leukemia.
Not just an expanding bad clone of genetically abnormal lymphoid or myeloid cells...
In some rare cases, leukemia has been reported coming back (relapse) after bone marrow transplantation in the very same hematopoietic cells derived from a normal donor... [???]
Recurrence of acute leukemia in donor cells after bone marrow transplantation:
documentation by in situ DNA hybridization.
Mouratidou M, Sotiropoulos D, Deremitzaki K, Spathas DH, Hoffbrand AV, Prentice HG, Papanastasiou K, Tsakanikas S, Tsaftaridis P, Stamatelou M, et al.
Hematology Division, Greek Anticancer Institute Athens.
Donor cell leukemia after BMT has been documented in a small number of cases mainly by cytogenetic studies. We describe a case of leukemia relapse in a 16-year-old girl 1 year after BMT from her histocompatible brother. Relapse in donor cells was initially suspected on the basis of cytogenetic analysis and confirmed by DNA in situ hybridization in blast cells using a Y chromosome-specific probe.
Bone Marrow Transplant. 1993 Jul;12(1):77-80.
-
- Parents of leukemic children will consider to give their kid some cod liver oil, instead of getting confused between hundreds of alternative and unproven nutritional supplements.
...and they (the parents) will immediately start feeling better...and less terrified.
Why are these parents so scared?
Just because they are told that their child's disease will be effectively cured in a certain percentage of cases after a series of cycles of highly toxic drugs. But in a consistent number of cases (25-30%) the disease will come back, resistent to further treatment.
When this happens, more toxic cycles of chemo will be required, and may be RADIATION TREATMENT and a bone marrow transplantation. In some patients the disease comes back even after a graft, in one case out of two...
After chemo and during maintenance therapy there is no official recommendation for parents:
going down to the seaside or up to the mountains, to the pool or living sealed at home, staying in the shade or in the sunshine, eating this food and avoiding that...nothing.
There is no confirmed evidence about these factors (are we sure?).
So do what you want, but please follow your regular checkups every two weeks and then every month.
In the meantime...we all wait and see if and when IT strikes again.
When IT strikes again it's a real tragedy for patients and parents.
They suddenly realize why doctors were never totally relaxed during their regular checkups, even months and years from stop-therapy. The invisible enemy is back and nobody seems to know why, as it was at the very beginning of their illness. Girls and boys have grown up and forgotten about those awful days, such a long time has past, wasted without anything specific to do or even try, to avoid all this mess coming back again.
Something should be done for these people. Quick.
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IT strikes back? What's IT?
As I try to understand the "leukemia monster", from cytogenitics to possible causes, I always come to the same conclusion. Chemotherapy treatment is only treating the disease. It doesn't fix a possible gene lesion or DNA. So, if a certain gene translocation is present within the Leukemia cells and it's known as a pre-leukemic event (predisposition) and a second or even third event starts the Leukemia, It's possible that even after treatment the same sequence of "hits" could start the Leukemia again since the cytogenetic event/predisposition is still present.
Does a BMTransplant change the individual's DNA? There was a recent discussion on this site about that. Unfortunately,I did not pay much attention to it.
I still believe that viruses (like Epstein Barr and common Flu) play a major role in the Leukemia process (specially ALL) and vaccines will be the way to prevent the disease.
Meanwhile, we keep hoping for a cure or prevention.
Cheers,
-
IT strikes back? What's IT?
As I try to understand the "leukemia monster", from cytogenitics to possible causes, I always come to the same conclusion. Chemotherapy treatment is only treating the disease. It doesn't fix a possible gene lesion or DNA. So, if a certain gene translocation is present within the Leukemia cells and it's known as a pre-leukemic event (predisposition) and a second or even third event starts the Leukemia, It's possible that even after treatment the same sequence of "hits" could start the Leukemia again since the cytogenetic event/predisposition is still present.
Does a BMTransplant change the individual's DNA? There was a recent discussion on this site about that. Unfortunately,I did not pay much attention to it.
I still believe that viruses (like Epstein Barr and common Flu) play a major role in the Leukemia process (specially ALL) and vaccines will be the way to prevent the disease.
Meanwhile, we keep hoping for a cure or prevention.
Cheers,
Hi dqfry,
I have my ups and downs like everybody, and what I see at work doesn't help to be positive sometimes.
I apologize for that. Finding another job is not easy either, I should go back and fix radio and TVsets [;D].
Trying to fix leukemia is obviously too much for me!
With my limited knowledge of this issue, I'll try to answer your questions shortly.
"Chemotherapy treatment is only treating the disease"...It fortunately does it in the majority of patients, and most of the bad cells die, giving the immune system a chance to control a minimized abnormal clone identical to tiny clones that many of us harbour here and there.
"same sequence of "hits" could start the Leukemia again since the cytogenetic event/predisposition is still present".
Clever dqfry, you know this stuff as much as I do after years of reading and studying! Yes, it could happen, but we still have to prove it.
We still have to demonstrate the chain of events suggested by Mel Greaves and give a name to the agents and factors responsible for the onset of this disease.
But if we are lucky, the same sequence of events will never combine again in the whole life: a certain germ will find a specific defence that wasn't ready before, macrophages will work properly because of vitamin D3 and other factors previously missing, the whole immune system will 'calm down' after the first decade of life. It may sound just fantasy but something must happen and change in the body, to justify spontaneous remissions (very rare) on one side, and the presence of tiny genetically abnormal 'clones' in normal people (not so rare, just recently reported), on the other side.
More than EBV, HHV6 (HumanHerpesVirus6) is being investigated by Robert Gallo's research team and others.
Parvovirus B19 has been found 'together' with ALL several times.
Surely it cannot be just one beast. It would have been spotted by now. It could be a series of pathogens, a restricted group, each one giving to different children the same disease.
If a specific virus is bothering a certain patient, incapable of setting up a proper immune response, we have powerful antiviral drugs these days, wonderful agents that were a dream just few years ago. Same with bacteria and protozoa.
Over twenty years of AIDS research lead to a dramatic improvement in the treatment of persistent infectious diseases.
"Does a BMTransplant change the individual's DNA?"
By BMT most of the marrow blood cells are replaced by donor's cells with their own DNA of course. In a few weeks, donor's blood type replaces the recipient's old one.
Very few donor's cells had been found around transformed into liver cells, vessels and so on. Most of them replace the previous bone marrow that has been eliminated by chemo and/or radiotherapy, hoping to kill most of the leukemic cells as well. But the immune reaction of the donor's T-lymphocytes against a new and different environment (the recipient's body) seems to be of vital importance in keeping residual abnormal cells under control. GVHD is a long story, better to stop here for now.
Take care (how is your little boy doing?)
ikod
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I still believe that viruses (like Epstein Barr and common Flu) play a major role in the Leukemia process (specially ALL) and vaccines will be the way to prevent the disease.
Meanwhile, we keep hoping for a cure or prevention.
Cheers,
Sorry, I missed 3 points:
- Vaccines: we couldn't find the beast yet...in cats there is just one virus (FeLV) found over 30 years ago. Now there is a vaccine (I don't know much about it).
- Cure: we, you have the cure dqfry. Ask your doctors and be positive about it (Low risk!).
- Prevention: no cause, no prevention. (joke, I know you meant vaccines![;D] )
seeyousoon,
ikod
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I know this is not about cod liver oil.
Allow me a cut&paste from 'Garlic miracle'
topic in Complementary Medicine...
To keep THIS topic alive!
ikod
Iko...would you like me to move the original garlic thread here ?
Thanks me friendos,
I just moved reports and abstracts here,
leaving the entertaining "bagna cauda"
sort of thing down there in Guest Book.
I meant to keep it more scientific here.
ikod
Ajoene (natural garlic compound): a new anti-leukaemia agent for AML therapy.
Hassan HT.
The reputation of garlic (Allium sativum) as an effective remedy for tumours extends back to the Egyptian Codex Ebers of 1550 b.c. Several garlic compounds including allicin and its corresponding sulfide inhibit the proliferation and induce apoptosis of several human non-leukaemia malignant cells including breast, bladder, colorectal, hepatic, prostate cancer, lymphoma and skin tumour cell lines. Ajoene (4,5,9-trithiadodeca-1,6,11-triene-9-oxide) is a garlic-derived compound produced most efficiently from pure allicin and has the advantage of a greater chemical stability than allicin. Several clinical trials and in vitro studies of ajoene have demonstrated its best-known anti-thrombosis, anti-microbial and cholesterol lowering activities. Recently, topic application of ajoene has produced significant clinical response in patients with skin basal cell carcinoma. Ajoene was shown to inhibit proliferation and induce apoptosis of several human leukaemia CD34-negative cells including HL-60, U937, HEL and OCIM-1. Also, ajoene induces 30% apoptosis in myeloblasts from chronic myeloid leukaemia patient in blast crisis. More significantly, ajoene profoundly enhanced the apoptotic effect of the two chemotherapeutic drugs: cytarabine and fludarabine in human CD34-positive resistant myeloid leukaemia cells through enhancing their bcl-2 inhibitory and caspase-3 activation activities. The two key anti-leukaemia biological actions of ajoene were the inhibition of proliferation and the induction of apoptosis. Studies have shown the anti-proliferation activity of ajoene to be associated with a block in the G2/M phase of cell cycle in human myeloid leukaemia cells. The apoptosis inducing activity of ajoene is via the mitochondria-dependent caspase cascade through a significant reduction of the anti-apoptotic bcl-2 that results in release of cytochrome c and the activation of caspase-3. Since acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) is a heterogeneous malignant disease in which disease progression at the level of CD34-positive cells has a major impact on resistance to chemotherapy and relapse and the inability to undergo apoptosis is a crucial mechanism of multi-drug resistance in AML patients. The recent findings of the potent enhancing activity of ajoene on chemotherapy-induced apoptosis in CD34-positive resistant human myeloid leukaemia cells suggest a novel promising role for the treatment of refractory and/or relapsed AML patients as well as elderly AML patients. Further studies are warranted to evaluate similar enhancing effect for ajoene in blast cells from AML patients in primary cultures before its introduction in pilot clinical study.
Leuk Res. 2004 Jul;28(7):667-71.
Here we are dealing with treatment-resistant myelogenous leukemia.
And it's NOT a joke.
-
This is NOT about childhood leukemia
specifically and not about cod liver oil either.
Please allow me a cut&paste from 'Toxoplasmosis'
topic here in Physiology and Medicine.
Helicobacter pylori is the main suspect here.
At least in one case leukemia pulled back gently,
all by itself: a Lecture from Mother Nature to
young, smart and open-minded scientists in this world.
So another factor is needed to justify the expansion of the mutated clone.
Toxoplasma could be one of a restricted group of germs capable of jamming some crucial point of the complex immune reaction (involving T-cells, macrophages, complex cytokine interactions) evoked by protozoa and other 'fastidious' germs.
Helicobacter pylori and mycoplasmas might be in the number.
Another 'coincidence' buried in a prestigious
journal like the New England J. of Medicine
ten years ago. Everybody laugh when I say
that the real title should actually be:
"A Mother Nature's Lecture on CML"
Spontaneous remission in a patient with chronic myelogenous leukemia.
Musashi M, Abe S, Yamada T, Tanaka J, Gotohda Y, Maeda S, Sato Y, Morioka M, Sakurada K, Minagawa T, Asaka M, Miyazaki T.
Third Department of Internal Medicine, Sapporo, Japan.
N Engl J Med. 1997 Jan 30;336(5):337-9.
Unfortunately there is no abstract and full-text is not free, but as a
NEJMed subscriber I think I am allowed to write a short summary for you:
Case Report
A 45-year-old man was referred to our hospital for evaluation of leukocytosis in January 1985. Three months previously, he had reported tarry stools.
A peptic ulcer was diagnosed and treated with intravenous cimetidine. At that time, leukocytosis, thrombocytosis, and anemia were detected. A bone marrow aspirate showed marked myeloid hyperplasia. Cytogenetic analysis revealed Ph-positive cells in the bone marrow, and a diagnosis of CML was made. During the next month the leukocyte count decreased to 14,400 per cubic millimeter, but it subsequently gradually increased to 31,800 per cubic millimeter before admission to our hospital.
Physical examination on admission revealed anemia and mild hepatosplenomegaly. A complete blood count again showed leukocytosis and thrombocytosis. The neutrophil alkaline phosphatase score was 94 (normal range, 170 to 335). Plasma histamine and prostaglandin E concentrations were within the normal range.
An endoscopic examination revealed an ulcer scar in the duodenal bulb.
Regular follow-up, without chemotherapy, was planned for the patient. In February 1985, the hepatosplenomegaly disappeared. The leukocyte count and platelet count returned to normal in April 1985. As of January 30, 1996, the patient had been well, without any signs of recurrence, for 11 years. Blood counts since June 30, 1994, have been normal.
...
In 1984 the 'infectious theory' of peptic ulcer was still a matter of debate (1).
Consequently the word helicobacter cannot be found through the whole text (but it's a 1997 paper!).
Intravenous cimetidine had been available for several years, and found quite useful for healing peptic ulcers, and probably making life difficult to H. pylori as well.
In the past, cimetidine had been reported to have also an immunomodulating activity.
Something surely happened in that patient during the following weeks and months, and chronic myeloid leukemia (confirmed by more sophisticated tests over the following years) pulled back gently.
Average survival rate for CML was about <5 years then, with 1/3chance to find a donor for BMT.
In 2000 STI571-Gleevec-Imatinib (2pills/day - no BMT) finally came and life became much easier for CML patients. According to some distiguished scientists, this new drug actually represents, in oncology, the most important achievement in the last two decades.
Thanks to Dr. Brian Druker and his colleagues from Oregon.
In 2000 that japanese man just turned 60, hopefully healthy and CML free.
ikod [^]
1) click down here for "Helicobacter connection"
CML Treatment
Treatment options and outcome from treatment have improved significantly over the years.
Year Treatment Survival (months)
1920-1950 Splenic irradiation 28
1950-1960 Busulfan 35-45
1960-1970 Hydroxyurea 48-67
1970-1980 1st Allogeneic Stem Cell Transplant for CML
50-60% CURE
1980-1990 IFNa (Interferon alpha) 55-89
1990-2001 IFNa + Cytosine arabinoside (Ara-C)
Recent studies showing significant improvement over IFNa alone
1995-2001 STI-571 >90% 5yrs survival (2007)
Table 1. Treatment options and survival. (JAMA, August 22/29 p. 896)
modified from: http://intmedweb.wfubmc.edu/grand_rounds/2001/myeloid.html
Paradox
Spontaneous remissions in acute leukemia are so rare and short-lasting to be considered paradoxical events.
Consequently, they are too often ignored and disregarded by the scientific community.
"Paradoxical results are not uncommon in studies of carcinogenesis. Ignoring these paradoxes is tantamount to saying the prevailing theory holds in all instances except the paradoxycal cases. However ignoring "outliers" in data analysis is not satisfying; it should be the last refuge when all else fails. But more importantly, ignoring paradoxycal results means missing potentially exciting news avenues for research. Rather than relegate the paradoxycal results to the periphery of investigations, they should be the centerpiece of a paradox-driven research portfolio."
Summary in:
"Paradoxes in carcinogenesis: New opportunities fo research directions."
Stuart G Baker and Barnett S Kramer
BMC Cancer 2007, 7:151
this article is available from: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2407/7/151
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At the end of this exhausting mega-thread,
do you still remember the 'protective effect'
from daily cod liver oil (over 1 year) against
childhood leukemia reported in 1988?
Well, another protective effect has recently
been found studying multiple sclerosis in Norway.
Almost 20 years later.
Outdoor activities and diet in childhood and adolescence
relate to MS risk above the Arctic Circle.
Kampman MT, Wilsgaard T, Mellgren SI.
Dept. of Neurology, University Hospital of North Norway, P.O. Box 33, 9038, Tromsø, Norway.
BACKGROUND : A relationship between the latitude-related distribution of multiple sclerosis (MS) and exposure to sunlight has long been considered. Higher sun exposure during early life has been associated with decreased risk of MS.
OBJECTIVE : Since Norway is an exception to the latitude gradient of MS prevalence, we tested here whether sunlight exposure or vitamin D-related dietary factors in childhood and adolescence are associated with the risk of MS.
METHODS : Retrospective recall questionnaire data from 152 MS patients and 402 population controls born at and living at latitudes 66-71 degrees N were analysed by means of conditional logistic regression analysis accounting for the matching variables age, sex, and place of birth.
RESULTS : Increased outdoor activities during summer in early life were associated with a decreased risk of MS, most pronounced at ages 16-20 years (odds ratio (OR) 0.55, 95% CI 0.39-0.78, p = 0.001, adjusted for intake of fish and cod-liver oil).
A protective effect of supplementation with cod-liver oil was suggested in the subgroup that reported low summer outdoor activities (OR 0.57, 95% CI 0.31-1.05, p = 0.072).
Consumption of fish three or more times a week was also associated with reduced risk of MS (OR 0.55, 95% CI 0.33-0.93, p = 0.024).
CONCLUSION : Summer outdoor activities in childhood and adolescence are associated with a reduced risk of MS even north of the Arctic Circle. Supplemental cod-liver oil may be protective when sun exposure is less, suggesting that both climate and diet may interact to influence MS risk at a population level.
J Neurol. 2007 Apr;254(4):471-7. Epub 2007 Mar 21.
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http://www.v1biz.com.au/totaladventures/pics/picsforpages/kids.jpg
...found searching for 'outdoor activities' on Google Images
...and now kids, drink your milk and go play outside!
Old-wives' motto.
Practically it stands for: "Get your calcium plus vitamin D3!"
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...from 1923 to 2007, a jump into the new century millennium!
CodPics...
Vitamin D3
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An estimate of cancer mortality rate reductions in Europe and the US
with 1,000 IU of oral vitamin D per day.
Grant WB, Garland CF, Gorham ED.
Sunlight, Nutrition and Health Research Center, San Francisco, CA 94109-2510, USA.
Solar ultraviolet B (UVB) irradiance and/or vitamin D have been found inversely correlated with incidence, mortality, and/or survival rates for breast, colorectal, ovarian, and prostate cancer and Hodgkin's and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Evidence is emerging that more than 17 different types of cancer are likely to be vitamin D-sensitive. A recent meta-analysis concluded that 1,000 IU of oral vitamin D per day is associated with a 50% reduction in colorectal cancer incidence. Using this value, as well as the findings in a multifactorial ecologic study of cancer mortality rates in the US, estimates for reductions in risk of vitamin D-sensitive cancer mortality rates were made for 1,000 IU/day. These estimates, along with annual average serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels, were used to estimate the reduction in cancer mortality rates in several Western European and North American countries that would result from intake of 1,000 IU/day of vitamin D. It was estimated that reductions could be 7% for males and 9% for females in the US and 14% for males and 20% for females in Western European countries below 59 degrees. It is proposed that increased fortification of food and increased availability of supplements could help increase vitamin D intake and could augment small increases in production of vitamin D from solar UVB irradiance. Providing 1,000 IU of vitamin D per day for all adult Americans would cost about $1 billion; the expected benefits for cancer would be in the range of $16-25 billion in addition to other health benefits of vitamin D.
Recent Results Cancer Res. 2007;174:225-34.
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Some friend enjoyed this page from 'New Theories', so I thought to resuscitate it into 'Physiol.& Med.' for the fun of our Newbies and medical students.
The discussion is open:
are there other forms of cancer switched on by 'innocent' infectious agents?
All cancers are fungus related" is a blanket statement that is just incorrect. Perhaps some cancers are caused by certain fungal infections I just don't know. I do know however that all of them are not.
Mjhavok
Shortly, we should be careful not to generalize so much talking about cancer. We fortunately live in a new century and scientific research has done something about it. At least we should talk about different forms of tumors, leukemias and lymphomas. In some particular case scientists finally managed to find a cause and design effective and specific treatments (without toxicity, compared to chemotherapy).
A type of slow growing gastrointestinal lymphomas called MALTomas (Mucosa Associated Lymphoid Tissue) had been treated by standard chemotherapy (CHOP protocol...what a name for a chemo!) until the end of the last century.
There was no suggestion about the origin of this clonal expansion of lymphoid cells in the gut. So the following action had to be blind and toxic.
But in the middle of the '80s two smart researchers from Australia, Barry J. Marshall and J. Robin Warren (Nobel Prize 2005) started their battle: they tried to demonstrate that a common bacteria, Helicobacter pylori, was the major cause of gastroduodenal ulcers in humans.
A standard antibiotic treatment was able to eradicate the bacteria, allowing the ulcers (wounds in the mucosa) to heal spontaneously.
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They initially got veggies and bananas at medical meetings, nevertheless they went on collecting more and more evidence to prove the "infectious theory" of peptic ulcer.
It had to be tough. Medicine is highly conservative for various reasons, and for a long time infectious diseases had been strictly defined: one bacteria, one disease. Helicobacter pylori is very common in humans...but just few of us develop ulcers. That was just enough to keep stalling any bright theory for years.
Finally H.p. eradication became the standard treatment.
Now there is growing evidence that persistent Helicobacter infection and continuous release of toxic substances for years, could be one of the causes of stomach cancer.
"...tumors: wounds that never healed..."
"...leukemia&lymphoma: infections never resolved..."
Shortly after it was found that the majority of the patients with MALT lymphomas were carrying H.p. and that eradication therapy alone was able to induce a spontaneous regression of the tumors.
It was obviously too good to be true, so over the years some patients were found to be resistant to antibiotic treatment (2-3 weeks, no chemo!) and their lymphomas where identified as more advanced, with more chromosomal damage, unable to stop growing even when the bacterial stimuli were removed by eradication treatment.
Here we have a model for cancer treatment:
SPOT the cause (if there is any, but never stop searching), remove it as fast as you can. Some clone of cells will STOP proliferating and gradually disappear.
In advanced cases, most cells have been damaged so much and their DNA heavily deranged, that they cannot stop dividing (even in cell cultures). Trying to block these resistant cells, scientists are now assemblying properly designed molecules, non-toxic "magic bullets" that should take advantage of the great differences at molecular level showed by some tumor cells (abnormal receptors, defective enzymes, etc.). Time runs fast for everybody, patients and scientists.
ikod
H. pylori in a gastric pit
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Robert M. Genta, M.D.
David Y. Graham, M.D.
Veterans Affairs Medical Center
Houston, TX 77030
N.Engl.J.Med. 1996;335:250 Jul 25, 1996. Images in Clinical Medicine
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Iko,
You always post such interesting and useful information. The distinction you draw between the various disorders, "tumors, lymphomas, leukemias," is much needed to minimize confusion from grouping them into a single heading, as creates major confusion in figuring out how to deal with other disorders such as seizures.
Of course, this discussion would not be well rounded without turning to how helicobacter pylori might be affected by cod liver oil. A search on the net returned me to one of your posts... not at all surprising.
:)
Zoey
Thank you for appreciating my efforts to tell (in English!) the H.pylori story.
It is a crucial example of a slow medical research achievement due to...multiple factors! Bacteria were found much before, but the Koch's criteria for infectious disease were not satisfied, so it couldn't be an infectious problem.
As I wrote above, it HAD to be tough.
Now again for leukemia: sometimes you find active infections or a recent common pathogen's 'visit' before diagnosis, but patients are immune suppressed by the leukemia itself, then by the treatment, so those are 'opportunistic' infections. It could be the opposite at least in a few cases, an infection switching an overidden immune response and boosting an overgrowth of white cells (clones). In some case it might be possible to stop the process by eradicating the offending germ (bacteria, viruses, protozoa?) and reverse the cell proliferation.
It really is a PERSONAL opinion only.
Very few spontaneous remissions of acute leuk had been reported after heavy antibiotic treatment at diagnosis for fever and septic presentation, even quite recently, but this is obviously not enough. If I get leuk tomorrow, please put me a drip of at least 3 types of intravenous antibiotics for 2-3 weeks, after that I'll consider chemo (I feel too old for that!).
If any of the previous hypotheses were real, most of the investigation work should still have to be started from the very beginning. And all this could take ages.
I'd feel quite better knowing that I'm perfectly and totally wrong.
Cod liver oil. In all this mess of hypotheses and mechanisms to be proven, CLO stands with its serendipitously-found-epidemiological-2decades-old-evidence ready to be used, but still far away from demonstrating anything or shedding any light on this mystery.
This is not the H.pylori case. There you have a very well known germ, you see it and kill it 99% by 2-3 weeks of specific non-toxic treatment. And that's it.
Even some naughty MALTomas, intestinal lymphomas, regress and disappear: how beautiful!
It wouldn't make sense to look for an alternative treatment there; actually this has been done before. Garlic had been reported to 'prevent' stomach cancer, and now it has been tested against H.p., but it eradicates it in less than 30%...and so does Vitamin C. Nobody would choose this type of performance now that we know the whole story and fortunately have a 99% efficacy.
I am so glad that those two nice guys got their well deserved Nobel Prize in 2005!
I hope I explained my point in a proper way.
Cheers,
ikod
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...what was that story about lost keys and lampposts?
The look-under-the-lamppost principle:
"We say the analogy is like looking under the lamppost for your lost keys. You know, why do you look under the lamppost? It's because that's where you can see."
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/genome/deco_venter.html
"It is like your typical story, you lose your dime in the dark, and where do you look, under the lamppost. It is elsewhere, it is probably inside cells..."
http://www.lymediseaseaction.org.uk/conference/t_2004_4_2.htm
"If you lose your wallet in a dark street start by looking under the lamppost.
The wallet might not be there, but you will not waste much time on the search."
http://blog.plover.com/oops/who-farted.html
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INFLUENCING NUTRITION POLICY AND PROGRAMS WORLDWIDE
Professor Jean-Pierre Habicht
...
Habicht has helped launch groundbreaking nutrition programs in numerous developing countries. He credits his success in the international arena to the multidisciplinary nature of his work. For him, developing sensible international nutrition policies goes well beyond the issue of what's served for dinner. Having colleagues with expertise in other disciplines has been crucial.
"When you lose your key on a dark street, where do you look?" Habicht raises the hypothetical question to make his point. "If you work only within a single discipline, you look under the lamppost. Where should you look? Where you dropped the key."
He recalls an instance 10 years ago when he and two other Cornell professors addressed the effects of malnutrition on illness. For a long time scientists had thought that people who were malnourished would suffer illnesses more often.
But Habicht, in collaboration with nutrition associate professors Edward Frongillo, a statistician, and David Pelletier, an expert in nutrition policy, discovered that, in fact, malnourished people don't have more frequent illnesses, they have more severe illnesses. The distinction, according to Habicht, makes all the difference. Previous to this discovery, less than 5 percent of child deaths were ascribed to malnutrition.
"Now we know that 50 percent of all deaths of young children in the world are due to malnutrition," Habicht says. "It's also because of illness, but if they were nourished, they would have survived. Looking at it that way makes a big difference in how you allocate resources."
click here for the complete article: http://www.nutrition.cornell.edu/news/s00/habicht0500.html
The Code of Life. Interview with Dr. Craig Venter
...
Venter: Let me deal with your basic premise, because it's wrong.
Krulwich: Okay.
Venter: But it's what most of the scientific community has believed for the last decade or so: that we know these genetic changes in specific genes, and we know which diseases they cause. And this has been-- We say the analogy is like looking under the lamppost for your lost keys. You know, why do you look under the lamppost? It's because that's where you can see. So if you measure the genetic changes in people with diseases, you say, "Ah! There's this absolute correlation if you have these changes, you'll have the disease."
But that's not measuring the whole rest of the population. When you measure the rest of the population, you find that many people have those same exact genetic changes, but they don't have cystic fibrosis. Some of those people with those same changes get chronic lung disease. Some get chronic pancreatitis. Some just get male sterility with the same changes. Some get asthma, and the latest paper that was published just late last year was that some people get chronic sinusitis. Again with genetic changes in the same gene. And more disturbing to a lot of people is that a number of molecules have no disease whatsoever.
Krulwich: And still have the same...
Venter: And still have the same changes.
Krulwich: I call them "mistakes." You call them "changes."
...
click here for the complete article: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/genome/deco_venter.html
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IF, IF, IF...
If in the near future one of the causes
of leukemia in some patient is found
to be an occult infectious pathogen and its
eradication can ameliorate treatment, lower
relapse rate and improve survival over the years
...it will be absolutely nothing new under the sun.
We had just been searching where the 'light' was:
studying leukemic cells morphology, phenotype and
genetic markers. Cells were just there, plenty
of them, ready to be deeply examined.
Infectious pathogens had been extensively searched
in the past, but they were in the 'dark', and today's
highly sensitive tests like PCR were not available yet.
Indirect studies of specific antibodies and viral or
bacterial cultures were insufficient to spot hidden
'invisible enemies' in patients with leukemia.
New technologies are available now, and come directly
from the extraordinary studies of the cells themselves.
One of these days I'll know whether the young patient
I saw a few years ago, diagnosed with chronic myeloid
leukemia and showing signs of a recent acute infection
with toxoplasma, was just a coincidence.
ikod
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"Dans les champs de l'observation, le hazard ne favorise que les esprits préparés [emphasis added]"
Louis Pasteur
...
From Walpole's coinage of serendipity, we need to fast-forward almost exactly 100 years, to December 7, 1854. On that day, in his inaugural lecture as professor and dean of the faculty of science at the University of Lille, Louis Pasteur (Figure 3) told his audience, "Dans les champs de l'observation, le hazard ne favorise que les esprits préparés [emphasis added]," which means, "In the fields of observation, chance favors only prepared minds" (9). In other words, Pasteur was encouraging scientists to prepare their minds well to be ready for those random lucky events that crop up from time to time.
...
click here for full-text: http://ajrccm.atsjournals.org/cgi/content/full/172/4/423
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"You must by skill make good what has fallen by chance"
"Così è la vita degli uomini, come quando si gioca a dadi.
Se non viene il colpo di cui si avrebbe bisogno, occorre correggere
con abilità quello che è venuto per caso"
Terence
Roman dramatist
2nd-century B.C.
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Terence
Publius Terentius Afer, better known as Terence, was a comic playwright of the Roman Republic. His date of birth is disputed; Aelius Donatus, in his incomplete Commentum Terenti, considers the year 185 BC to be the year Terentius was born[1]; Fenestella, on the other hand, states that he was born ten years earlier, in 195 BC.[2] He was born in Carthage, but he was not Carthaginian as his name states; the Romans used the ethnonym Afer to refer to people born in Africa, but they exclusively used Punicus for the Carthaginians[3]. Probably Terence was of Libyan descent[4]. His comedies were performed for the first time ca. 170-160 BC, and he died young probably in 159 BC, in Greece or on his way back to Rome. He wrote six plays, all of which have survived (by comparison, his predecessor Plautus wrote twenty-one extant plays).
One famous quote by Terence reads: "Homo sum, humani nil a me alienum puto", or "I am human, nothing that is human is alien to me." This appeared in his play Heauton Timorumenos. As a joke, this quote was "improved" by the American anthropologist Earnest Albert Hooton in this way: "Primas sum, primatum nil a me alienum puto", or "I am a primate; nothing about primates is outside of my bailiwick."
...
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence#Biography
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from an Occasional Essay:
Voltaire, Walpole, and Pasteur:
Variations on the Theme of Discovery
John F. Murray
University of California–San Francisco, San Francisco, California.
Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2005 Aug 15;172(4):423-6.
Serendipity
...
This discovery, indeed, is almost of that kind which I call Serendipity, a very expressive word, which, as I have nothing better to tell you, I shall endeavour to explain to you: you will understand it better by the derivation than by the definition. I once read a silly fairy tale, called the three Princes of Serendip: as their Highnesses travelled, they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of.
Walpole's "silly fairy tale" had a real name: The Travels and Adventures of Three Princes of Sarendip, who were the sons of Jafer, the philosopher-king of Sarendip (or Serendib), ancient names for what is now Sri Lanka. According to the exhaustive analysis of Robert Merton and Elinor Barber (3), the princes had many adventures and made astounding discoveries as they went on their journeys, through their "careful observations and subtle inferences." There is a Zadig-like episode in which the princes meet a camel driver who has lost one of his animals, which they are able to describe precisely from clues they had spotted earlier as they rode along. Voltaire is believed to have read the tale about the three princes and, indeed, was accused of having plagiarized the camel story; clearly, he used a similar description-in-absentia event to illustrate Zadig's exceptional powers of observation and deduction, but that kind of metaphor, in various guises, was already well known and no one took the charge seriously.
After Walpole died, his word-child languished in his copy of the letter to Mann in which it was first composed; "serendipity" remained concealed from the world until 1833, when the Mann correspondence was published in London. Though Walpole's expressive coinage was placed before the public and may have been used in private discourse, it didn't appear in print by another writer until 1857, when it became an increasing part of the vocabulary of book collectors and readers (4). "Serendipity" made it into the Oxford English Dictionary in 1913....
Full-text available!: http://ajrccm.atsjournals.org/cgi/content/full/172/4/423
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pbs.org%2Fmerrow%2Ftv%2Fyoung_scientists%2Fimages%2Fposter.jpg&hash=449af0131590d9bb533e40d4be3fdba6) (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fpress.princeton.edu%2Fimages%2Fk7576.gif&hash=02479636d42252610775bb52b1eac248)
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The Travels and Adventures of Serendipity:
A Study in Sociological Semantics and the Sociology of Science
Robert K. Merton and Elinor Barber
With an introduction by James L. Shulman
http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s7576.html
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The "Vitamin D Tsunami" is definitely coming,
spinning out of the restricted scientific circuit.
Finally prof. Michael Holick is in the New England
Journal of Medicine...
and -as usual- lay press will follow pretty soon!
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"...rickets can be considered the tip of the vitamin D-deficiency iceberg. In fact, vitamin D deficiency remains common in children and adults."
Michael F. Holick "Vitamin D Deficiency" N Eng J Med 2007;357:266-81.
July 19, 2007 splendid review article in 'Medical Progress'
Unfortunately this one is not available in free full-text...you may go to last year paper published in J Clin Invest for similar refreshing good news:
http://www.jci.org/cgi/content/full/116/8/2062
As far as this topic is concerned, one thing should be noticed: the 'Shanghai Report' is not mentioned, probably because of its unconfirmed data and weak evidence. But decreased lymphoma incidence (40% reduced risk) due to proper sunlight exposure is reported, and a specific reference quoted:
Family history of hematopoietic malignancy and risk of lymphoma.
Chang ET, Smedby KE, Hjalgrim H, Porwit-MacDonald A, Roos G, Glimelius B, Adami HO.
Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden. ellen.chang@meb.ki.se
BACKGROUND: A family history of hematopoietic malignancy is associated with an increased risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) and Hodgkin lymphoma (HL), although the magnitude of the relative risk is unclear. We estimated the association between familial hematopoietic cancer and risk of lymphoma using validated, registry-based family data, and we also investigated whether associations between some environmental exposures and risk of lymphoma vary between individuals with and without such a family history. METHODS: In a population-based case-control study of malignant lymphoma, 1506 case patients and 1229 control subjects were linked to the Swedish Multi-Generation Register and then to the Swedish Cancer Register to ascertain history of cancer in first-degree relatives of patients with malignant lymphoma. Multiple logistic regression was used to estimate odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for associations with the risk of lymphoma.
RESULTS: A history of hematopoietic malignancy in any first-degree relative was associated with an increased risk of all NHL (OR = 1.8, 95% CI = 1.2 to 2.5), common B-cell NHL subtypes, and HL. Relative risks were generally stronger in association with sibling hematopoietic cancer (OR for all NHL = 3.2, 95% CI = 1.3 to 7.6) than with parental hematopoietic cancer (OR = 1.6, 95% CI = 1.1 to 2.3). A family history of NHL or chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) was associated with an increased risk of several NHL subtypes and HL, whereas familial multiple myeloma was associated with a higher risk of follicular lymphoma. There was no statistically significant heterogeneity in NHL risk associations with environmental factors between individuals with and without familial hematopoietic malignancy.
CONCLUSIONS: The increased risk of NHL and HL among individuals with a family history of hematopoietic malignancy was approximately twofold for both lymphoma types. There was no evidence that etiologic associations varied between familial NHL and nonfamilial NHL.
J Natl Cancer Inst. 2005 Oct 5;97(19):1466-74.
Ultraviolet radiation exposure and risk of malignant lymphomas.
Smedby KE, Hjalgrim H, Melbye M, Torrång A, Rostgaard K, Munksgaard L, Adami J, Hansen M, Porwit-MacDonald A, Jensen BA, Roos G, Pedersen BB, Sundström C, Glimelius B, Adami HO.
Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Box 281, SE-171 77 Stockholm, Sweden. karin.ekstrom@meb.ki.se
BACKGROUND: The incidence of malignant lymphomas has been increasing rapidly, but the causes of these malignancies remain poorly understood. One hypothesis holds that exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation increases lymphoma risk. We tested this hypothesis in a population-based case-control study in Denmark and Sweden.
METHODS: A total of 3740 patients diagnosed between October 1, 1999, and August 30, 2002, with incident malignant lymphomas, including non-Hodgkin lymphoma, chronic lymphocytic leukemia, and Hodgkin lymphoma, and 3187 population controls provided detailed information on history of UV exposure and skin cancer and information on other possible risk factors for lymphomas. Odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated by logistic regression. Statistical tests were two-sided.
RESULTS: Multivariable-adjusted analyses revealed consistent, statistically significant negative associations between various measures of UV light exposure and risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. A high frequency of sun bathing and sunburns at age 20 years and 5-10 years before the interview and sun vacations abroad were associated with 30%-40% reduced risks of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (e.g., for sunbathing four times a week or more at age 20 versus never sunbathing, OR = 0.7, 95% CI = 0.6 to 0.9; for two or more sunburns a year at age 20 versus no sunburns, OR = 0.6, 95% CI = 0.5 to 0.8). These inverse associations increased in strength with increasing levels of exposure (all P(trend)< or =.01). Similar, albeit weaker, associations were observed for Hodgkin lymphoma. There were no clear differences among non-Hodgkin lymphoma subtypes, although associations were stronger for B-cell than for T-cell lymphomas. A history of skin cancer was associated with a doubling in risks of both non-Hodgkin and Hodgkin lymphoma.
CONCLUSIONS: A history of high UV exposure was associated with reduced risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The positive association between skin cancer and malignant lymphomas is, therefore, unlikely to be mediated by UV exposure.
J Natl Cancer Inst. 2005 Feb 2;97(3):199-209.
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Ultraviolet radiation exposure and risk of malignant lymphomas.
Smedby KE, Hjalgrim H, Melbye M, Torrång A, Rostgaard K, Munksgaard L, Adami J, Hansen M, Porwit-MacDonald A, Jensen BA, Roos G, Pedersen BB, Sundström C, Glimelius B, Adami HO.
Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Box 281, SE-171 77 Stockholm, Sweden. karin.ekstrom@meb.ki.se
BACKGROUND: The incidence of malignant lymphomas has been increasing rapidly, but the causes of these malignancies remain poorly understood. One hypothesis holds that exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation increases lymphoma risk. We tested this hypothesis in a population-based case-control study in Denmark and Sweden.
METHODS: A total of 3740 patients diagnosed between October 1, 1999, and August 30, 2002, with incident malignant lymphomas, including non-Hodgkin lymphoma, chronic lymphocytic leukemia, and Hodgkin lymphoma, and 3187 population controls provided detailed information on history of UV exposure and skin cancer and information on other possible risk factors for lymphomas. Odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated by logistic regression. Statistical tests were two-sided.
RESULTS: Multivariable-adjusted analyses revealed consistent, statistically significant negative associations between various measures of UV light exposure and risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. A high frequency of sun bathing and sunburns at age 20 years and 5-10 years before the interview and sun vacations abroad were associated with 30%-40% reduced risks of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (e.g., for sunbathing four times a week or more at age 20 versus never sunbathing, OR = 0.7, 95% CI = 0.6 to 0.9; for two or more sunburns a year at age 20 versus no sunburns, OR = 0.6, 95% CI = 0.5 to 0.8). These inverse associations increased in strength with increasing levels of exposure (all P(trend)< or =.01). Similar, albeit weaker, associations were observed for Hodgkin lymphoma. There were no clear differences among non-Hodgkin lymphoma subtypes, although associations were stronger for B-cell than for T-cell lymphomas. A history of skin cancer was associated with a doubling in risks of both non-Hodgkin and Hodgkin lymphoma.
CONCLUSIONS: A history of high UV exposure was associated with reduced risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The positive association between skin cancer and malignant lymphomas is, therefore, unlikely to be mediated by UV exposure.
J Natl Cancer Inst. 2005 Feb 2;97(3):199-209.
One thing about this report should be pointed out:
initially the aim of the research was to look for
a possible INCREASE of lymphoma risk after longer
exposure to UV light...
...but the exact opposite effect has been found!
Talking about serendipity.
Instead of the predicted chain of events:
UV light -- DNA damage -- mutagenic effect -- abnormal clone -- LYMPHOMA
Surprisingly, fewer lymphomas were found in people more exposed to sunlight.
Consequently you may easily hypothesize:
UV light -- higher production of vitamin D -- immunomodulation
-- enhanced anti-infectious plus anti-mutagenic effect -- fewer lymphomas.
Neat!
ikod [^]
"Il sole dona la vita, il sole se la riprende" M.U. Dianzani, 1975.
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Just a quick 'Hello' from this part of the world. We finally getting close to Maintenance and I think I see a light at the end of the tunnel. It'll only take 3 years to get there!
Meanwhile, we keep reading and learning more about the "ALL monster" and hoping that soon we'll find a simple path to the cure or prevention.
Cheers,
DQ
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Just a quick 'Hello' from this part of the world. We finally getting close to Maintenance and I think I see a light at the end of the tunnel. It'll only take 3 years to get there!
Meanwhile, we keep reading and learning more about the "ALL monster" and hoping that soon we'll find a simple path to the cure or prevention.
Cheers,
DQ
Hi dqfry!
you ARE at the end of the tunnel practically.
Maintenance therapy is easy and 'friendly'
compared with your previous experience!
Well done and...our best wishes to your
son and the whole family.
Take care
ikod
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The end of the tunnel for dqfry.
The end of this thread for the lot of us.
Thanks for the discussion and contribution.
Take care.
ikod
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I can't tell you how many times I've came back to this topic and read postings over and over. I still haven't read it all yet! I can only thank you for being here and for sharing your knowledge and thoughts.
"A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle."
Kahlil Gibran:
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I can't tell you how many times I've came back to this topic and read postings over and over. I still haven't read it all yet! I can only thank you for being here and for sharing your knowledge and thoughts.
"A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle."
Kahlil Gibran:
Thank you dqfry!
This thread started with a question for young scientists and open-minded medical students*:
Is vitamin D deficiency in childhood leukaemia an underestimated reality?
Could cod liver oil - the old remedy, a relic from the past - help in the
empirically arranged but clinically effective today's treatment protocols?
The aim was to make some smart girl/boy cross "cod liver oil" and "leukemia" on PubMed database and find the old 1988 "Shanghai report".
Then we would have discussed the opportunity to give some "cod" to leukemic patients.
Your totally unexpected, dramatic, precious contribution fixed the limits of this issue, proving, at the same time, that our message is reachable by parents and patients.
They are -in the end- the real target of this topic.
ikod
*a young scientist!
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From January 2008 VitaminD Newsletter:
...
All of the epidemiological and animal studies in the literature suggest cancer patients will prolong their lives if they take vitamin D. I can't find any studies that indicate otherwise. However, none of the suggestive studies are randomized controlled interventional trials; they are all epidemiological or animal studies, or, in the case of Vieth's, an open human study. However, if you have cancer, or your child does, do you want to wait the decades it will take for the American Cancer Society to fund randomized controlled trials using the proper dose of vitamin D? Chances are you, or your child, will not be around to see the results.
John Cannell, MDhttp://www.vitamindcouncil.com/
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lung.ca%2Ftb%2Fimages%2Ffull_archive%2F006_codLiverOil.jpg&hash=ab69c998b71e9d651a87d5b572202eb4) (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.geocities.com%2FResearchTriangle%2FForum%2F7787%2FFlinderssunset.jpg&hash=6b4186302693df07eef9e7dcfecde1fb)
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It's never too late (sometimes)...
If you followed this thread so far,
you deserve to watch this free video:
"The Vitamin D Pandemic and its Health Consequences"
Presented by Michael Holick, PhD, MD, Professor of medicine, physiology and biophysics
and director of the General Clinical Research Center at Boston University Medical Center
Keynote address at the opening ceremony of the 34th European Symposium on Calcified Tissues, Copenhagen 5 May, 2007
http://www.uvadvantage.org/portals/0/pres/
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.uvadvantage.org%2Fportals%2F0%2Fpres%2Fvideo%2Fvideo%2Fslides%2Fslide413.jpg&hash=40b964c806c888175e1bbe2d84d92825) (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.uvadvantage.org%2Fportals%2F0%2Fpres%2Fvideo%2Fvideo%2Fslides%2Fslide414.jpg&hash=d05795914097bc88a7dd8dab1dfc1734)
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Run on vitamin D after study
Dr. Michael Pollak, an oncologist and director of the cancer-prevention centre at Montreal's Jewish General Hospital and McGill University, interviewed by Andy Riga for the Montreal Gazette, CanWest News Service.
Monday, June 18, 2007
...
"No one is naive," he said. "Vitamin D optimization won't eliminate cancer by any stretch of the imagination, but if it has no downsides and it cuts cancer incidence, it could be worthwhile. Nobody wants to overlook a clue here. This is what everybody wants - a simple pill that reduces cancer risk."
http://www.canada.com/topics/bodyandhealth/story.html?id=ed68aefc-50e4-45f8-b84f-2bd434a6f3d6&k=91024&p=1
"Mother was right about cod liver oil"
Griffing GT.
Medscape J Med. 2008 Jan 11;10(1):8.
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=18324318
There are many stories of mothers forcing their children to take cod liver oil.
Centuries ago, northern Europeans used cod liver oil to protect them from the cold. It was made from the livers of Gadus morhua and other species of cod. Cod liver oil was said to relieve such complaints as rheumatism, aching joints, and stiff muscles.
At the beginning of the 20th century, scientists established that cod liver oil was antirachitic, and it became commonplace for mothers to give it to their children.[1,2]
It turns out cod liver oil contains large amounts of vitamins A, D, and omega-3 fatty acids, and the health benefits may go beyond rheumatism and rickets.[3]
...
>25000 viewers!
Let's celebrate this old thread with an ancient quote:
"Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion,
follow humbly wherever and whatever abysses nature leads, or you will learn nothing."
Thomas Henry Huxley
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WOW! Ikod,
I am stunned. I like you have a connection to leukemia and children. Don't give up keep pushing someone will listen... I am listening. I want to talk to you about this very fascinating area on COD Liver Oil.
I am a Pedi Oncologist in USA... we don't often talk about alternative medical practice/methods...but I agree with you. We cannot be satisfied with the stalemate of the last several years.
Best wishes.
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WOW! Ikod,
I am stunned. I like you have a connection to leukemia and children. Don't give up keep pushing someone will listen... I am listening. I want to talk to you about this very fascinating area on COD Liver Oil.
I am a Pedi Oncologist in USA... we don't often talk about alternative medical practice/methods...but I agree with you. We cannot be satisfied with the stalemate of the last several years.
Best wishes.
Hi Cod 4 ALL,
welcome to this forum.
I must thank you and congratulate you for your nickname.
(But keep in mind that AML should be more cod-responding!)
Wish you a connection to leukemia not so tight as mine.
I think this matter is not alternative at all,
but pure, crystal-clear and neglected Science!
Enjoy bits and pieces around here
ikoD [^]
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Ikod,
I am slowly working my way through this fascinating thread- a clear demonstration of your open thought and ability to define the critical question that plague families of children with cancer.
WHY MY CHILD?
I want to offer a few points to ponder, I don't know the answers myself but perhaps someone can add to the thought as we work through this monster.
1. Genetic changes seen in patients with leukemia have been demonstrated clonal changes among WBC's in the so called "Guthrie cards" now routinely collected at birth to "screen" for treatable genetic diseases. This work has been widely reported and thought to support the Knudson "two-hit" theory of cancer development - meaning it takes two separate but cooperating events to cause cancer.
my point and questions this... could these "clonal changes" and Vitamin D deficiency cooperate to PUSH and individual toward leukemia. The obvious argument against this is that not all patients have demonstrated "clonal" changes. But could this be a CLUE?
2. If you consider the simple CBC differential as a person ages... there is a predicted "switch" that occurs in children between the ages of 2-4 where the number or relative percentage of lymphocytes goes from a dominate position of say 50-60% of the total WBC's to a much lower 30-40%. This may not be related and I certainly don't know the answer why this happens - but it has always "bothered" me as there must be a logical if not scientific reason... the deeper question here is ...
Most children develop leukemia during this same time period...the thought I have had for years is what is the connection....if any.
3. If we accept that Vitamin D deficiency is only the tip of the problem, I think it has been stated that overall vitamin D plays many roles but roughly divided you can say one is BONE development and two roughly lumped together "CELL SIGNALING" mechanisms. This brings me to my question about the possible association of Vitamin D and OSTEOSARCOMA.
Is it possible that during the adolescent growth spurt the relative amount of vitamin D available for "CELL SIGNALING" events is decreased - thereby creating a "deficiency state" that promotes bone tumor formation?
I will stop here... for now. Thanks for listening.
Best wishes
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IkoD,
Thanks for the welcome. I must say when I created my "nickname" I did not intend to put "all" in CAPS - guess it happened for a reason. I understand why AML would be more likely to be a COD responding condition based on what is known about the VDR.
Do we know what the level of 25(OH)D is among patients newly diagnosed? For that matter do we know how or if 25(OH)D3 influences lymphocyte populations. The reason I ask is I have been reading quite a bit lately about using the ABSOLUTE LYMPHOCYTE COUNT during induction chemotherapy as a way to identify patients at "risk" of relapse and survival.
It would seem if we could "modify" the ALC when low using (MYSTERY AGENT) we may be able to "stimulate" ones natural anticancer defenses. I cannot help myself to think there is some way to link this to your interest - I just don't have the knowledge. Of course it would help if we knew what the target was? What do you think NK cells? TH2, TH1?
Below is an excerpt from the abstract. This should be easy to find with the info provided.
CONCLUSIONS:
"ALC is a simple, statistically powerful measurement for patients with de novo AML and ALL. The results, when combined with previous studies, demonstrate that ALC is a powerful new prognostic factor for a range of malignancies. These findings suggest a need for further exploration of postchemotherapy immune status and immune-modulating cancer therapies. Cancer 2008. © 2007 American Cancer Society."
Cancer Volume 112, Issue 2 , Pages 407 - 415
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Interesting point Cod 4 ALL,
and crossing "vitamin D deficiency" and lymphopenia on PubMed database gives just ONE citation, 18yrs old russian paper: good for a start, isn't it?
[Development of vitamin D deficiency and immunologic disorders in children with glomerulonephritis]
[Article in Russian]
Sergeev IN, Pletsityĭ KD, Rusnak FI, Spirichev VB.
Biochemical symptoms of vitamin D deficiency and a sharp reduction in the number of T-lymphocytes in the peripheral blood were recorded in children suffering from glomerulonephritis. During the combined therapy using the compound "oksidevit " (1-hydroxyvitamin D3) the parameters characterizing D-vitamin providing became normal, and the number of T-lymphocytes in the peripheral blood was recovered.
Vopr Pitan. 1990 Jul-Aug;(4):28-31.
I'm used to cosidering hypothetical COD-related effects as combined by omega-3, vitamin D3 and vitamin A plus a strong placebo effect. Yes, a placebo for parents and patients that feel lost against the mysterious enemy but have this old remedy, a relic from the past (number one superfood?), a precious nutrient useful to recover over the months and years.
We had all the scheduled pills over the hours...but 'COD' was our particular thing, that had been so good to our family in the past. A special care.
At the end of maintenance, when all drugs are suspended and you just follow regular check-ups, 'cod' is always there, to help and defend you...just in case.
Focusing too much on vitamin D effects might lead to the same negative results observed with vitamin A in the eighties...
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Ffilaman.ifm-geomar.de%2Fimages%2Fspecies%2FGamor_u7.jpg&hash=340b7cd55459d2b0a90b943f9a52ff9e)
Speaking of why giving stinky "cod" instead of specific synthetic substances, let's borrow this note from the anti-oxidant topic of the Forum:
quote:
A quote from the article is "Just because a food with a certain compound in it is beneficial to health, it does not mean a pill with the same compound in is"
That's exactly right. A pill sometimes works better than the original food and viceversa.
Scientists versus Mother Nature and her tricks
In the late '70s researchers opened their enormous freezers where thousands of serum samples from blood donors had been stocked since over 10yrs before. They wanted to test vitamin A concentration (knowing that it is well preserved in frozen samples) and look for a correlation with cancer incidence in those individuals. Experimental data in animals had demonstrated a positive effect of retinoic acid on precancerous lesions.
They found a strong inverse relation between vitamin A concentration and risk of tumor. All the media started recommending vitamin A to prevent or even fight cancer.
Few years later a proper RCT (randomized clinical trial) was started: a group of nurses and doctors took either a certain dose of vitamin A or a placebo every day for years. The conclusion of the study was disappointing: no difference in cancer incidence with or without vitamin A.
Some clever mind offered an explanation for this: vitamin A had been found increased in blood donors who had lower risk of cancer because it had been eaten together with some other more effective anticancer compounds.
Here we go with all the broccoli, cabbage, cauliflowers and so on...they are rich of vitamin A and probably have other mysterious anticancer factors.
iko
Addendum:
Vitamin A instead of cod liver oil would play the same trick...if you gave vit.A to patients because the ones taking 'cod' had higher levels of retinoic acid in their blood and were doing better (hypothesis!), you could get poor results because you are not giving together Vit.D and a bit of omega-3 fatty acids, the original recipe.
:mudneddA
Vitamin D instead of cod liver oil would play the same trick...if you gave vit.D to patients because the ones taking 'cod' had higher levels of vitamin D3 in their blood and were doing better (hypothesis!), you could get poor results because you are not giving together Vit.A and a bit of omega-3 fatty acids, the original recipe.
Do we know what the level of 25(OH)D is among patients newly diagnosed? For that matter do we know how or if 25(OH)D3 influences lymphocyte populations. The reason I ask is I have been reading quite a bit lately about using the ABSOLUTE LYMPHOCYTE COUNT during induction chemotherapy as a way to identify patients at "risk" of relapse and survival.
Good question, unfortunately the 2005 Mansoura study from Egypt is the only one showing a profund vitamin D deficiency in every leukemic child at diagnosis, 3mts and 1 year.
Low turnover bone disease in Egyptian children with acute leukemia.
El-Ziny MA, Al-Tonbary YA, Salama OS, Bakr AA, Al-Marsafawy H, Elsharkawy AA.
Endocrinology Unit, Pediatric Department, Faculty of Medicine, Mansoura University, Mansoura, Egypt.
The aim of this work was to study bone turnover markers, calcium homeostasis and bone mineral density (BMD) in children with acute leukemia at diagnosis, after induction chemotherapy, and during maintenance therapy to delineate abnormalities present. After evaluation of L2-L4 BMD using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry in patients with acute myeloid and lymphoid leukemia at presentation and after treatment, the results were compared to 352 healthy age- and sex-matched Egyptian controls. Calcium homeostasis parameters and bone turnover biochemical markers (serum osteocalcin and urinary deoxypyridinoline) were also assayed and the results were compared to 12 healthy age- and sex-matched controls. Osteopenia was observed at diagnosis and during treatment in patients with acute leukemia. At diagnosis osteopenia was observed in 27 patients (62.8%): 10 (23.3%) had non severe osteopenia and 17 (39.5%) had severe osteopenia. This low BMD persisted in those who were followed up. Parathyroid hormone (PTH) (pg/ml) levels demonstrated non significant differences between children with acute leukemia at different stages of therapy and controls, while, 25 (OH) D3 (ng/ml) was significantly lower in acute leukemia patients at different stages of therapy compared to controls (p<0.001). Osteocalcin (ng/ml) is significantly lower in patients at different stages of the disease compared to controls (p<0.001) but there was no significant difference between patients at different stages of therapy. Deoxy-pyridoline cross links showed non-significant difference between the different types of acute leukemia and with controls. Osteopenia is a significant problem in children with acute leukemia at presentation and after chemotherapy. Osteopenia in acute leukemia appears to be of the low turnover type (decreased osteoblastic activity and decreased bone mineralization).
Hematology. 2005 Aug;10(4):327-33.
You should see the table with vitD serum levels!
I wrote an e-mail to this Author in 2006, citing the Shanghai report.
No reply. Then I was lucky to find this forum.
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BTW, vitD3 is good for HIV-related lymphopenia as well! [;D]
A potential role for vitamin D on HIV infection?
Villamor E.
Department of Nutrition, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. evillamo@hsph.harvard.edu
Despite advances in the knowledge of vitamin D's potent immunomodulatory activity, its role on HIV disease progression is unknown. Decreased concentrations of 1alpha,25-hydroxyvitamin D3, or 1,25(OH)2D, the active form of vitamin D, have been reported among HIV-infected people and attributed to defects in renal hydroxylation and increased utilization. A few studies also described low levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D3, 25(OH)D, the vitamin obtained from solar synthesis and diet. An inverse association between 1,25(OH)2D concentrations and mortality has been reported from a small cohort of HIV-infected adults, and some cross-sectional studies have indicated positive correlations between 1,25(OH)2D and CD4+ cell counts. Additional observational studies are needed to confirm the associations between vitamin D status and HIV disease progression. These investigations would provide useful insights on the potential role of vitamin D supplementation to HIV-infected persons and the planning of intervention trials.
Nutr Rev. 2006 May;64(5 Pt 1):226-33.
P.S.
I'll do my best to reply point 1-3 from your previous post.
Deep questions need more thinking...
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fdowhatnow.typepad.com%2Fdo_what_now%2Fimages%2F2007%2F09%2F04%2Fcodliver_oil.jpg&hash=96a79a165196511ccb1afa7cb58ae6a3) (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nlm.nih.gov%2Fexhibition%2Fephemera%2Fimages%2Fchild29.jpg&hash=eb7da139682d80db7dbab8a2b49e2d93)
http://dowhatnow.typepad.com/do_what_now/images/2007/09/04/codliver_oil.jpg
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/ephemera/images/child29.jpg
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Do we know what the level of 25(OH)D is among patients newly diagnosed? For that matter do we know how or if 25(OH)D3 influences lymphocyte populations. The reason I ask is I have been reading quite a bit lately about using the ABSOLUTE LYMPHOCYTE COUNT during induction chemotherapy as a way to identify patients at "risk" of relapse and survival.
CONCLUSIONS:
"ALC is a simple, statistically powerful measurement for patients with de novo AML and ALL. The results, when combined with previous studies, demonstrate that ALC is a powerful new prognostic factor for a range of malignancies. These findings suggest a need for further exploration of postchemotherapy immune status and immune-modulating cancer therapies. Cancer 2008. © 2007 American Cancer Society."
Cancer Volume 112, Issue 2 , Pages 407 - 415
It's not your fault, I know it, but this makes me feel old and useless.
Almost thirty years have past, studying kinetics and differentiation of the bad 'clones', ignoring the initial causes, testing any remedy... and here we are, counting total circulating lymphocytes to predict an early death. Where is Science?
I apologize, tomorrow it will be much better.
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IkoD,
I agree with you... but this is hard to ignore, there are other papers citing the effect among solid tumors in children. I should add the original evidence was found in adults following stem cell transplant.
The Mansoura, Egypt data will require more analysis on my part. It is clearly interesting that they show Vit D deficiency at diagnosis... I think they were looking at this as a clue to the BMD problems seen with ALL therapy. But before I make wrong assumptions I will need to review the full manuscript and data tables.
This "ALC" effect is real. But what does it mean? Is it yet another clue? Your reply is like others that I have discussed this with. Everyone cannot believe how we missed this.
Kind of feels like COD and the LOST but not forgotten Shanghai report. Thanks for the reminder to not FOCUS too much on VIT D3. I will be in touch.
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...A massive vitamin D 'tsunami' is coming closer,
spinning out of the scientific literature circuit:
will flu vaccination campaigns be the first casualties?
Epidemic influenza and vitamin D.
Cannell JJ, Vieth R, Umhau JC, Holick MF, Grant WB, Madronich S, Garland CF, Giovannucci E.
Atascadero State Hospital, 10333 El Camino Real, Atascadero, CA 93422, USA.
In 1981, R. Edgar Hope-Simpson proposed that a 'seasonal stimulus' intimately associated with solar radiation explained the remarkable seasonality of epidemic influenza. Solar radiation triggers robust seasonal vitamin D production in the skin; vitamin D deficiency is common in the winter, and activated vitamin D, 1,25(OH)2D, a steroid hormone, has profound effects on human immunity. 1,25(OH)2D acts as an immune system modulator, preventing excessive expression of inflammatory cytokines and increasing the 'oxidative burst' potential of macrophages. Perhaps most importantly, it dramatically stimulates the expression of potent anti-microbial peptides, which exist in neutrophils, monocytes, natural killer cells, and in epithelial cells lining the respiratory tract where they play a major role in protecting the lung from infection. Volunteers inoculated with live attenuated influenza virus are more likely to develop fever and serological evidence of an immune response in the winter. Vitamin D deficiency predisposes children to respiratory infections. Ultraviolet radiation (either from artificial sources or from sunlight) reduces the incidence of viral respiratory infections, as does cod liver oil (which contains vitamin D). An interventional study showed that vitamin D reduces the incidence of respiratory infections in children. We conclude that vitamin D, or lack of it, may be Hope-Simpson's 'seasonal stimulus'.
Epidemiol Infect. 2006 Dec;134(6):1129-40. Epub 2006 Sep 7.
Note: ... Vitamin D deficiency predisposes children to respiratory infections .
from: Rickets Today - Children Still Need Milk and Sunshine
Nicholas Bishop,M.D. University of Sheffield
...
Rickets may have severe consequences. It is strongly associated with pneumonia in young children in developing countries. In a case–control study at the Ethio-Swedish Children's Hospital in Addis Ababa,3 Muhe and colleagues demonstrated an incidence of rickets among children with pneumonia that was 13 times as high as that among control children, after adjustment for family size, birth order, crowding, and months of exclusive breast-feeding. The relative risk of death for the children with rickets as compared with the children without rickets was 1.7. Furthermore, bony deformity of the pelvis in women leads to obstructed labor and increased perinatal morbidity and mortality.
...
Children in developed countries need calcium, too. There is clear evidence from prospective studies of dietary supplementation that increased calcium intake during childhood results in increased calcium retention and increased bone mass.8 Young adults with a history of greater milk consumption have a higher total-body bone mass than those with lower intake after the influence of body size is taken into account.9 Calcium, vitamin D, and phosphate are essential nutrients for the growing skeleton. Wherever children live, they should follow Grandma's advice: "Drink up your milk, and go play outside."
N.Engl.J.Med. 1999 341(8): 602-604.
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.goworldtravel.com%2Fjune06%2Fleadouterbankshangglide.jpg&hash=0c3c7cbda3e2c26df5f27ef8228f0afb)
http://www.goworldtravel.com/ex/aspx/articleGuid.c009fecc-3cc7-4134-b9d5-d203d0111eb3/xe/article.htm
Connection vitD&low lymphs: Infantile rickets reduces lymphocyte survival
http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=18348812
I might spend $19 for this full-text about VitD+ASA! http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18414055?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum
Infantile rickets reduces lymphocyte survival
EL HODHOD Moustafa A., NASSAR May Fouad, IBRAHIM Abla Y.
Department of Pediatric, Faculty of Medicine, Ain Shams University, Cairo 11566, EGYPTE
Department of Clinical Pathology, Faculty of Medicine, Ain Shams University Specialized Hospital, Cairo, EGYPTE
Increased incidence of infections had long been recognized in rachitic patients who were also described to have impaired lymphocytic functions.
This study was designed to assess different apoptotic changes in peripheral lymphocytes in patients with infantile rickets in its various stages and to correlate these findings with the frequency of infection in this disease. The study included 24 rachitic patients with a mean age of 17.88 ± 7.65 months compared with 16 healthy matching controls. There were 7 rachitic patients who were in the active stage, 11 in the healing stage, and 6 in the healed stage. The enrolled cases were subjected to a full history and clinical examination. X-ray of extremities was performed, in addition to the laboratory tests including serum calcium, phosphorus, and alkaline phosphatase as well as direct immunofluorescence using flow cytometry with dual staining technique to check for apoptotic changes in peripheral lymphocytes. The results of the present study showed that the early apoptotic cells percent (EAC%), the late apoptotic and/or necrotic cells percent (LA and/or NC%), the NC%, and the total abnormal cells (%) of the lymphocytes were higher in the rachitic patients compared with healthy controls; although only the latter showed statistical significance. The EAC% of lymphocytes showed a trend to increase accompanied by a simultaneous decrease in the LA and/or NC% with the progression toward the healed rickets stage. The current study also showed a trend of the EAC% and LA and/or NC% of the lymphocytes to decrease with the doses of vitamin D shock therapy given to the rachitic patients. A significant positive correlation was demonstrated between the EAC% and the total abnormal cells (%) of the peripheral lymphocytes and the rate of chest infection in the rachitic cases in the 3 months previous to the study.
In conclusion, rickets does not increase the rate of infection through local causes or immune cell dysfunction only, but it entails disturbed lymphocyte survival. The increased apoptotic tendency of peripheral lymphocytes in rickets is reversed with vitamin D therapy, which further emphasizes the importance of early prevention and proper treatment of such a disease.
Nutrition research 2006, 26 (11), 561-566.
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Putting Cod 4 ALL questions in the right order...to reply properly asap.
1. Genetic changes seen in patients with leukemia have been demonstrated clonal changes among WBC's in the so called "Guthrie cards" now routinely collected at birth to "screen" for treatable genetic diseases. This work has been widely reported and thought to support the Knudson "two-hit" theory of cancer development - meaning it takes two separate but cooperating events to cause cancer.
my point and questions this... could these "clonal changes" and Vitamin D deficiency cooperate to PUSH and individual toward leukemia. The obvious argument against this is that not all patients have demonstrated "clonal" changes. But could this be a CLUE?
Not every leukemia shows clonal changes, as far as I know.
If plenty of immature white cells don't stop dividing, seem unable to differentiate and manage to reach circulating blood from the bone marrow, invading other organs...
well something must be definitely wrong, and it shouldn't matter so much whether they came from one or more 'clones' out of control.
Timo Timonen's hypothesis shows exactly this: vitamin D deficiency in some patients might contribute to let some precursor cells, damaged by a previous infection (viral flu, mycoplasma?) escape from control and start the disease.
In some patients, of course.
We know from the 'Shanghai report' that daily doses of vitamins A and D (actually cod liver oil!) -taken for at least one year- could be able to reduce leukemia incidence to half or 1/3.
It's not much, but we (parents) should give it a chance and offer this protection to our sick children, to avert relapse risk.
2. If you consider the simple CBC differential as a person ages... there is a predicted "switch" that occurs in children between the ages of 2-4 where the number or relative percentage of lymphocytes goes from a dominate position of say 50-60% of the total WBC's to a much lower 30-40%. This may not be related and I certainly don't know the answer why this happens - but it has always "bothered" me as there must be a logical if not scientific reason... the deeper question here is ...
Most children develop leukemia during this same time period...the thought I have had for years is what is the connection....if any.
I'm not your expert for this. I simply thought that lymphocyte pool is expanded during the first 3-5 years of life for physiological reasons (proper immunological setting under thymus-nodes-spleen control, Ig genes rearrangement etc.), so this state of hyperactivity may more easily get in trouble if something (a reaction to a common pathogen) goes wrong.
Vitamin D deficiency may play a role.
3. If we accept that Vitamin D deficiency is only the tip of the problem, I think it has been stated that overall vitamin D plays many roles but roughly divided you can say one is BONE development and two roughly lumped together "CELL SIGNALING" mechanisms. This brings me to my question about the possible association of Vitamin D and OSTEOSARCOMA.
Is it possible that during the adolescent growth spurt the relative amount of vitamin D available for "CELL SIGNALING" events is decreased - thereby creating a "deficiency state" that promotes bone tumor formation?
Why not?
Some time ago I couldn't find any study about VitD levels in patients with osteosarcoma.
At least we HAVE 2-3 papers about VitD deficiency in leukemia!
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We know from the 'Shanghai report' that daily doses of vitamins A and D (actually cod liver oil!) -taken for at least one year- could be able to reduce leukemia incidence to half or 1/3.
It's not much, but we (parents) should give it a chance and offer this protection to our sick children, to avert relapse risk.
Yes, an autoquote.
Waiting for cod4ALL and his comments on the 'Mansoura report' and those striking data about vitamin D deficiency at 0-3-12 months after a diagnosis of childhood leukemia (47 cases: further studies are obviously needed...in the next 2-3 decades).
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.uvadvantage.org%2Fportals%2F0%2Fpres%2Fvideo%2Fvideo%2Fslides%2Fslide100.jpg&hash=aeaa43813fdd6535e5109ad3ec245646)
http://www.uvadvantage.org/portals/0/pres/video/video/slides/slide100.jpg
for at least one year
Why such a long lag-phase of cod-therapy is needed before achieving a significant anti-leukemia effect? Could this be bound mainly to a vitamin D action?
Well, simple minds can only give simple answers:
If proper levels of vitamin D are needed to counteract leukemia onset, a deficient child (and most humans seem to be vitamin D deficient these days!) gets a relatively small amount of the sunshine vitamin from daily doses of cod liver oil. Maybe vitamin A helps, together with omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin E, but daily vitamin D through 'cod' is about 400 I.U.
Not much to treat deficiency, so it could take longer to reach adequate concentrations and work properly.
Maybe vitamin A helps
This is a recent medical hypothesis: vitamin A could prevent toxicity of vitamin D and cooperate with vitamin K too...most of the fat-soluble vitamins together!
Isn't it wonderful? [;)]
Vitamin D toxicity redefined: vitamin K and the molecular mechanism.
Masterjohn C.
Weston A. Price Foundation, 4200 Wisconsin Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20016, United States. ChrisMasterjohn@gmail.com
The dose of vitamin D that some researchers recommend as optimally therapeutic exceeds that officially recognized as safe by a factor of two; it is therefore important to determine the precise mechanism by which excessive doses of vitamin D exert toxicity so that physicians and other health care practitioners may understand how to use optimally therapeutic doses of this vitamin without the risk of adverse effects. Although the toxicity of vitamin D has conventionally been attributed to its induction of hypercalcemia, animal studies show that the toxic endpoints observed in response to hypervitaminosis D such as anorexia, lethargy, growth retardation, bone resorption, soft tissue calcification, and death can be dissociated from the hypercalcemia that usually accompanies them, demanding that an alternative explanation for the mechanism of vitamin D toxicity be developed.
The hypothesis presented in this paper proposes the novel understanding that vitamin D exerts toxicity by inducing a deficiency of vitamin K. According to this model, vitamin D increases the expression of proteins whose activation depends on vitamin K-mediated carboxylation; as the demand for carboxylation increases, the pool of vitamin K is depleted. Since vitamin K is essential to the nervous system and plays important roles in protecting against bone loss and calcification of the peripheral soft tissues, its deficiency results in the symptoms associated with hypervitaminosis D. This hypothesis is circumstantially supported by the observation that animals deficient in vitamin K or vitamin K-dependent proteins exhibit remarkable similarities to animals fed toxic doses of vitamin D, and the observation that vitamin D and the vitamin K-inhibitor Warfarin have similar toxicity profiles and exert toxicity synergistically when combined.
The hypothesis further proposes that vitamin A protects against the toxicity of vitamin D by decreasing the expression of vitamin K-dependent proteins and thereby exerting a vitamin K-sparing effect. If animal experiments can confirm this hypothesis, the models by which the maximum safe dose is determined would need to be revised. Physicians and other health care practitioners would be able to treat patients with doses of vitamin D that possess greater therapeutic value than those currently being used while avoiding the risk of adverse effects by administering vitamin D together with vitamins A and K.
Med Hypotheses. 2007;68(5):1026-34.
Masterjohn's hypothesis about cooperation between these three fat-soluble vitamins is just fascinating.
If proper levels of vitamin A were required to avoid vitamin D toxicity, or to optimize its effects, giving cod liver oil containing Vitamins A and D (text-string from the Shanghai report!) would be much better and safer than recommending vitamin D supplementation alone.
Ancient studies first suggested this protective effect, and they are properly cited in the article:
11) Thoenes F. Uber die Korrelation von vitamin A and D.
Deutsch Med Woch 1935;61:2079.
12) Morgan AF, Kimmel l, Hawkins NC. A comparison of the hypervitaminoses induced by irradiated ergosterol and fish liver oil concentrates.
J Biol Chem 1937;120(1):85-102.
13) Clark I, Basset CAL. The amelioration of hypervitaminosis D in rats with vitamin A.
J Exp Med 1962;115:147-56.
New recipe
"Physicians and other health care practitioners would be able to treat patients with doses of vitamin D that possess greater therapeutic value than those currently being used while avoiding the risk of adverse effects by administering vitamin D together with vitamins A and K."
Med Hypotheses. 2007;68(5):1026-34.
And here we go with cod liver oil (containing vitamins A and D) plus spinaches, cabbage, cauliflower, and other green leafy vegetables (rich of vitamin K)!
We might even give rosemary (carnosic acid) and sesamolin a chance.
And never forget orange juice! (but that's another story) [;D]
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I am a little busy right now I will properly reply as I have more time to compile my thoughts. Sorry - not lack of interest just time.
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I am a little busy right now I will properly reply as I have more time to compile my thoughts. Sorry - not lack of interest just time.
Take your time cod4ALL,
I'll wait. I've been around here for almost 2 years! [;D]
I hope you had enough time to check this out:
Connection vitD&low lymphs: Infantile rickets reduces lymphocyte survival
http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=18348812
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Could by any chance the old remedy, a relic from the past,
an inexpensive nutrient containing vitamins A and D,
help leukemic patients in the long run, AFTER treatment?
According to this recent study, the answer is yes.
Differentiation-inducing liposoluble vitamin deficiency may explain
frequent secondary solid tumors after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation
Minireview.
Gedikoglu G, Altinoz MA.
Secondary cancers are among the most threatening long-term health problems of hematopoetic stem cell- transplant (HSCT) patients. There are several lines of evidence indicating the possibility of a prolonged Vitamin A deficiency for solid tumor-type secondary cancers: I- Solid tumors such as oral cavity, head/neck region squamous carcinomas, skin cancers and melanomas, where lowered Vitamin A concentrations and chemo-preventing activity of its derivatives (retinoids) are most explicitly proven, arise much more frequently than others. II- Early monitorings: A significant retinol deficiency in HSCT patients is detectable along with a severity of mucositis and the vulnerability to infection. III- Monitoring of other liposoluble vitamins: Vitamin D, a differentiation-inducing vitamin like Vitamin A, showed a sustained decrease. Another similarity of these two vitamins is that they also depend on intestinal absorption and are decreased due to bowel injury by conditioning agents and chronic graft-versus-host disease. IV- Peroxidative reactions and inflammation can directly exhaust retinol levels despite sufficient intake. Considering the similar inhibitory role of Vitamin D analogs (deltanoids) on squamous carcinomas, skin tumors and melanomas, we propose that animal studies and extended vitamin surveillance studies in HSCT patients may unfold a preventive strategy against long-term complications.
Neoplasma. 2008;55(1):1-9.
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Some news come out crossing "Vitamin D" and "leukemia" on PubMed database.
A study from Valparaiso, Chile, published in January 2008:
Vitamin D administration to leukemic children for 1 year!!!
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.a-i-a.com%2Fpuyuhuapi%2Fimages%2Fvalparaiso.jpg&hash=1a3db5e4aeb0116deb361ede340db47a)
http://www.a-i-a.com/puyuhuapi/images/valparaiso.jpg
Effect of 1,25(OH)2-vitamin D on bone mass in children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
Díaz PR, Neira LC, Fischer SG, Teresa Torres MC, Milinarsky AT, Giadrosich VR, Arriagada MM, Arinoviche RS, Casanova DM.
Pediatric Hemato-Oncology Department, Viña del Mar School of Medicine, University of Valparaíso, Chile.
BACKGROUND: Calcitriol deficit has been described in patients with acute lymphoblast leukemia (ALL). The aim of this randomized case-control trial is to investigate the effectiveness of calcitriol administration during the first year of treatment to protect bone mass. Sixteen children recently diagnosed with ALL, aged 1.7 to 11.5 years, average 5.5, completed the study. Anthropometrical measurements, food intake record, physical activity, and bone pain were registered. Dual energy x-ray absorptiometry was performed at the completion of remission induction chemotherapy (after 1 mo) to measure bone mineral density (BMD) at hip, lumbar spine and whole body, and total bone mineral content and 1 year after. Half of them were randomly assigned to receive calcitriol during 1 year.
STATISTICAL: Kruskal-Wallis, Wilcoxon, Mann-Whitney, and Spearman.
RESULTS: Both groups had similar anthropometric measurements and bone densitometric variables increments. Spine BMD significantly increased in calcitriol supplemented children with lower baseline BMD (r=-0.78 and P<0.05).
CONCLUSIONS: One-year calcitriol administered to recently diagnosed ALL children did not show impact on bone mass. Greater increment in lumbar spine bone mass was observed in patients who received calcitriol and had lower baseline BMD.
J Pediatr Hematol Oncol. 2008 Jan;30(1):15-9.
Never mind. A 'near-miss' for cod liver oil maniacs and vitamin D fanatics.
The 'Shanghai report' and the 'Mansoura study' are not even mentioned.
Neither this thread in the Naked Scientists Forum is cited! [;D]
Plasma levels of vitamin D before and after treatment were not measured and the Authors apologize for that.
Unfortunately only calcitriol, the active form of vitamin D has been given to these children, not vitamin D3 or ultraviolet exposure.
Far away from suspecting a vit D deficiency, measuring it and providing proper treatment:
...
Treatment of vitamin D deficiency with 1,25(OH2)D (calcitriol) or analogues of 1,25(OH2)D (paricalcitol, doxercalciferol)
are inappropriate, ineffective, dangerous and contraindicated.
JJ Cannell et al. 2008 excellent and concise review available full-text online!
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/PDFs/diagnosis-vitdd.pdf
Diagnosis and treatment of vitamin D deficiency.
Cannell JJ, Hollis BW, Zasloff M, Heaney RP.
Atascadero State Hospital, 10333 El Camino Real, Atascadero, California 93422, USA. jcannell@ash.dmh.ca.gov
The recent discovery--in a randomised, controlled trial--that daily ingestion of 1100 IU of colecalciferol (vitamin D) over a 4-year period dramatically reduced the incidence of non-skin cancers makes it difficult to overstate the potential medical, social and economic implications of treating vitamin D deficiency. Not only are such deficiencies common, probably the rule, vitamin D deficiency stands implicated in a host of diseases other than cancer. The metabolic product of vitamin D is a potent, pleiotropic, repair and maintenance, secosteroid hormone that targets > 200 human genes in a wide variety of tissues, meaning it has as many mechanisms of action as genes it targets. A common misconception is that government agencies designed present intake recommendations to prevent or treat vitamin D deficiency. They did not. Instead, they are guidelines to prevent particular metabolic bone diseases. Official recommendations were never designed and are not effective in preventing or treating vitamin D deficiency and in no way limit the freedom of the physician--or responsibility--to do so. At this time, assessing serum 25-hydroxy-vitamin D is the only way to make the diagnosis and to assure that treatment is adequate and safe. The authors believe that treatment should be sufficient to maintain levels found in humans living naturally in a sun-rich environment, that is, > 40 ng/ml, year around. Three treatment modalities exist: sunlight, artificial ultraviolet B radiation or supplementation. All treatment modalities have their potential risks and benefits. Benefits of all treatment modalities outweigh potential risks and greatly outweigh the risk of no treatment. As a prolonged 'vitamin D winter', centred on the winter solstice, occurs at many temperate latitudes, < or = 5000 IU (125 microg) of vitamin D/day may be required in obese, aged and/or dark-skinned patients to maintain adequate levels during the winter, a dose that makes many physicians uncomfortable.
Expert Opin Pharmacother. 2008 Jan;9(1):107-18.
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Diagnosis and treatment of vitamin D deficiency.
Cannell JJ, Hollis BW, Zasloff M, Heaney RP.
Atascadero State Hospital, 10333 El Camino Real, Atascadero, California 93422, USA. jcannell@ash.dmh.ca.gov
The recent discovery--in a randomised, controlled trial--that daily ingestion of 1100 IU of colecalciferol (vitamin D) over a 4-year period dramatically reduced the incidence of non-skin cancers makes it difficult to overstate the potential medical, social and economic implications of treating vitamin D deficiency. Not only are such deficiencies common, probably the rule, vitamin D deficiency stands implicated in a host of diseases other than cancer. The metabolic product of vitamin D is a potent, pleiotropic, repair and maintenance, secosteroid hormone that targets > 200 human genes in a wide variety of tissues, meaning it has as many mechanisms of action as genes it targets. A common misconception is that government agencies designed present intake recommendations to prevent or treat vitamin D deficiency. They did not. Instead, they are guidelines to prevent particular metabolic bone diseases. Official recommendations were never designed and are not effective in preventing or treating vitamin D deficiency and in no way limit the freedom of the physician--or responsibility--to do so. At this time, assessing serum 25-hydroxy-vitamin D is the only way to make the diagnosis and to assure that treatment is adequate and safe. The authors believe that treatment should be sufficient to maintain levels found in humans living naturally in a sun-rich environment, that is, > 40 ng/ml, year around. Three treatment modalities exist: sunlight, artificial ultraviolet B radiation or supplementation. All treatment modalities have their potential risks and benefits. Benefits of all treatment modalities outweigh potential risks and greatly outweigh the risk of no treatment. As a prolonged 'vitamin D winter', centred on the winter solstice, occurs at many temperate latitudes, < or = 5000 IU (125 microg) of vitamin D/day may be required in obese, aged and/or dark-skinned patients to maintain adequate levels during the winter, a dose that makes many physicians uncomfortable.
Expert Opin Pharmacother. 2008 Jan;9(1):107-18.
I know you cannot read it and I'm perfectly aware that most people aren't interested in Dr. Cannell's crusade on vitamindcouncil.com as well.
These days people read messages like these:
"Keep away from the sun to avoid cancer"
"multivitamin pills shorten your life"
Something must be wrong around here.
So, before we hear the usual folks blaming vitamin D supporters for huge profits from celebrity and vitamin pills plus UV lamps market, let me report the final words of this superb review by John Cannell and his colleagues.
Please do read the complete article: if you had enough time to read this crap page, you MUST find a few minutes for real Science!
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/PDFs/diagnosis-vitdd.pdf
...
To the authors' knowledge, plaintiffs' attorneys are not yet involved in the vitamin D debate. After the findings of Lappe et al. (1), it may only be a matter of time until lawsuits against physicians begin to appear, claiming that physicians dispensed sun-avoidance advice, but negligently failed to diagnose and treat the consequent vitamin D deficiency, leading to fatal cancers. Unless the future literature fails to support the present, such medical malpractice suits may become commonplace.
Finally, physicians and policy-makers should understand that much of the future of vitamin D is out of their hands. Inexpensive high-dose supplements are now widely available to the American public over-the-counter and to the world via the Internet. Sunlight remains free. A Google search for 'vitamin D' reveals several million hits. After the Canadian Cancer Society recently recommended 1000 IU/day for all Canadian adults in the wintertime, vitamin D disappeared off the shelves, causing a shortage during the summer.
The pleiotropic actions and unique pharmacology of vitamin D mean educated patients, on their own, can entirely control their own tissue levels of this steroid, through either UVB exposure or over-the-counter supplementation. Given the attitudes that some in mainstream medicine have about any substance with the word 'vitamin' in it (105), the public and not the medical profession may be the first to enter the vitamin D era.
reference 105:
Battling quackery: attitudes about micronutrient supplements in American academic medicine.
Goodwin JS, Tangum MR.
Center on Aging, The University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston 77555-0460, USA.
...sorry, $15 to read even the only abstract!!! [>:(]
Arch Intern Med. 1998 Nov 9;158(20):2187-91.
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WOW! Folks, I'm stunned too...
so much time has passed, the "resurrection of vitamin D" is going fast and many scientific reports are invading the medical literature.
Still, Googling this particular text-string: " vitamin D deficiency in leukemia "...you find absolutely no result. It will be a long way.
ikoD
BTW, today, typing: "vitamin D deficiency in " gives you a 120,000 round figure.
"vitamin C deficiency in " gives you 18,100 citations.
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.greenhealthspot.com%2Fimages%2F2007%2F11%2F09%2Fsunshine.jpg&hash=9dde038ba69f0a4b578ba3bdc9bc159e)
http://www.greenhealthspot.com/images/2007/11/09/sunshine.jpg
...it's just about time to change the title of this "ancient" thread:
from "Cod Liver Oil and Childhood Leukemia" to a more intriguing "Vitamin D deficiency in Leukemia?"
From now on, this highly specific text-string "works" on Google!
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September 1999...November 2007:
"Play it again Timo!"
Are sunlight deprivation and influenza epidemics associated with the onset of acute leukemia?
Timonen T, Näyhä S, Koskela T, Pukkala E.
Department of Internal Medicine, Oulu University Hospital, Oulu, Finland.
Month of diagnosis of 7,423 cases of acute leukemia (AL) in Finland during 1964-2003 were linked with data on influenza and solar radiation.
Acute myeloblastic leukemia (AML) showed the highest risk in the dark season. During the light season, the incidence decreased by 58% (95% confidence interval, 16-79%) per 1,000 kJ/m(2)/d increase of solar radiation. Independent of solar radiation, AML increased by 9% (95% confidence interval, 0-19%) during influenza epidemics. Reoccurring at the same time annually, darkness-related vitamin D deficiency and influenza could cause successive and co-operative mutations leading to AL with a short latency.
Haematologica. 2007 Nov;92(11):1553-6.
Free full-text available on line:
http://www.haematologica.org/cgi/reprint/92/11/1553?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=1&andorexacttitle=and&andorexacttitleabs=and&andorexactfulltext=and&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec=relevance&volume=92&firstpage=1553&resourcetype=HWCIT
...Surprisingly enough, the "Shanghai report" is not mentioned in the whole article.
Nobody is perfect. [:D]
...
Getting close
…In late 1999 a team of Finnish pediatricians investigate bone turn over in children suffering from cancer (40% leukemias) at completion of therapy. They find abnormal data related to calcium and bone metabolism that explain the high incidence of osteoporosis and pathological fractures observed in these patients. Together with calcium, vitamin D is found significantly lower (P<0.0001). These alterations are referred to bone invasion by cancer initially, but most of all to chemotherapy damage later. These Authors suggest to consider a controlled clinical trial to evaluate the possibility of vitamin D and calcium supplementation.
Click down here to see the abstract:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=10531569&query_hl=2&itool=pubmed_docsum
Suprisingly, in 1999, writing from the very same country (Finland) the bright hematologist T.T.Timonen gets published in Ann.Hematol. "A hypothesis concerning deficiency of sunlight, cold temperature, and influenza epidemics associated with the onset of acute lymphoblastic leukemia in northern Finland." In the end of the summary: "is hypothesized that sunlight deprivation in the arctic winter can lead to a deficiency of the 1, 25(OH)2D3 vitamin, which might stimulate leukemic cell proliferation and block cell differentiation through dysregulation of growth factors in the bone marrow stromal cells, causing one mutation and an overt ALL in progenitor cells damaged during the current or the previous winter by influenza virus, the other mutation."
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.yukonhelmut.de%2FWinter%2FArtic1.jpg&hash=ce21c541dc48912ce9779e77cabc10bf)
http://www.yukonhelmut.de/Winter/Artic1.jpg
"A hypothesis concerning deficiency of sunlight, cold temperature, and influenza epidemics associated with the onset of acute lymphoblastic leukemia in northern Finland." by T.T. Timonen, 1999.
Click down here to see the abstract:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=10525828&query_hl=6&itool=pubmed_docsum
...but all this is just supporting Mel Greaves’s hypothesis: “the final hit may be infectious”.
Dr. Timo Timonen actually introduces the concept that vitamin D3 deficiency itself might cause leukemia in some patients.
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corecharacter.com%2Fuploads%2Feinstein3-thumb.jpg&hash=9b8ce1ed14784aa1d1aaf71ff0cde89e)
http://www.corecharacter.com/uploads/einstein3-thumb.jpg
"The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking."
Albert Einstein
...
The pleiotropic actions and unique pharmacology of vitamin D mean educated patients, on their own, can entirely control their own tissue levels of this steroid, through either UVB exposure or over-the-counter supplementation. Given the attitudes that some in mainstream medicine have about any substance with the word 'vitamin' in it, the public and not the medical profession may be the first to enter the vitamin D era.
John Jacob Cannell
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/PDFs/diagnosis-vitdd.pdf
..."educated patients" doesn't necessarily mean that they had read up on vitamin D.
In some cases personal experience helped to solve this problem from the very start.
Many years ago, at the camping ground near the seaside where I went with my family, I noticed four elderly men around a table, playing cards.
One of the group was 'reeeally' tanned, almost black, much darker than the others. Another friend passed by and started chatting.
After having said to the overtanned fellow: "You surely took a lot of sun this summer!",
he got this quick reply, probably the same given every day to others, over and over:
"Well, when I don't do this, I get aches and pains in the winter"
That wise old man had found out something important for his health all by himself.
He actually tested it "on his own skin"... year after year, then he drew his conclusions.
No 1988 Shanghai report, no 1999 Timo Timonen's hypothesis, and much before the "resurrection of vitamin D" (2007).
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.equilibriarte.org%2Fupload%2Fforum%2F070805145950-238.jpg&hash=8abe4304ccead20c721a9504872013de)
http://www.equilibriarte.org/upload/forum/070805145950-238.jpg
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Cut and paste from another thread:
Neilep, our dearest moderator, asked: "Why are colds, sore throats, colds etc so much more common in winter ?"
Easy question Neilepus amicissimus,
the answer MIGHT be right here:
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=529704
Enjoy
ikod
AWESOME !!!..Vitamin D Rules !!...If only I knew a good source of Vitamin D !! [;)] [;)]
Hi Neilepus rapidofastissimus thread-makerus!
Cod liver oil is no good for 'boosting' your vitamin D: plenty of vitamin A and omega-3 fatty acids plus 'some' vitamin D.
It probably works in the long run as far as vitamin D3 is concerned (approx. 400 I.U./day).
So dear old 'cod' is still used daily in northern Europe, during months with the 'R': from September to April.
Short 'flashes' (30min.) of sushine between 10a.m. to 2p.m. at a proper latitude (no clouds please) really boost your skin production of vitamin D3 (>20,000 I.U.)
Sorry you cannot read the complete paper previously cited by ikus.
You would be impressed by a 1918 study about flu reported in the article.
Shortly, in 1918, trying to find out how influenza viruses managed to infect people and to verify relative incubation times (2-3 days), proper experiments were set up using human volunteers. Forget the details [xx(]...but secretions from infected patients were carefully collected, mixed up and flushed through the nostrils of brave volunteers. [:o]
Surprisingly enough, nothing happened afterwards, so the experiment was considered a 'fiasco'.
Only now, 90 years later, a crystal-clear explanation is ready for this.
Anti-infective properties of vitamin D were proved only 4-5 years ago, when the cathelicidin pathway was described.
Those volunteers were healthy men from the Navy.
Probably well-tanned all year round, perfectly healthy, they had been selected for not having had a flu in the previous months, to avoid an 'immunization' bias.
Maybe a good level of vitamin D helped them to block the influenza viruses quickly.
For the same reason, somewhere in 2005, most (maybe all) vitamin D supplemented patients in Dr J.Cannell department, Atascadero CA, went through a big influenza epidemic perfectly healthy.
John Cannell was the 'prepared mind', times were changing, so the vitamindcouncil.com crusade started.
One hypothesis out of many is that flu viruses do circulate all year round in humans, but give troubles in some people only in the cold season, i.e. when vitamin D levels are low.
So much for the anti-flu vaccination campaigns.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enB6BuOjXY8
P.S.
The reason why Chris is not commenting on these issues is simple: he is a virology expert and knows much better than others the other side of the coin.
Everybody is waiting for final scientific proofs about vitamin D and flu, but most of all about vitamin D benefits in other dreadful diseases.
Wonderful hypotheses need extended and accurate studies to become Science. It takes so much time.
I'm sure Chris will never have to decide from trembling hypotheses whether to give 'cod' to one of his kids or NOT.
It happened to me, after years of serious searches and rigorous evidence-based training.
That's life.
ikod
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fd2993411.u58.surftown.nu%2Fimages%2FAalesund2.jpg&hash=174d855ac2ffcf882ab22ebcbe4a34f1)
Hypothesis--ultraviolet-B irradiance and vitamin D reduce the risk of viral infections and thus their sequelae, including autoimmune diseases and some cancers.
Grant WB.
Sunlight, Nutrition, and Health Research Center, San Francisco, CA, USA. wgrant@infionline.net
Many viral infections reach clinical significance in winter, when it is cold, relative humidity is lowest and vitamin D production from solar ultraviolet-B irradiation is at its nadir. Several autoimmune diseases, such as multiple sclerosis, type 1 diabetes mellitus and asthma, are linked to viral infections. Vitamin D, through induction of cathelicidin, which effectively combats both bacterial and viral infections, may reduce the risk of several autoimmune diseases and cancers by reducing the development of viral infections. Some types of cancer are also linked to viral infections. The cancers with seemingly important risk from viral infections important in winter, based on correlations with increasing latitude in the United States, an index of wintertime solar ultraviolet-B dose and vitamin D, are bladder, prostate, testicular and thyroid cancer, Hodgkin's and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and, perhaps, gastric cancer. The evidence examined includes the role of viruses in the etiology of these diseases, the geographic and seasonal variation of these diseases, and the time of life when vitamin D is effective in reducing the risk of disease. In general, the evidence supports the hypothesis. However, further work is required to evaluate this hypothesis.
Photochem Photobiol. 2008 Mar-Apr;84(2):356-65. Epub 2008 Jan 7.
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Fifty-five years ago...
"Look, Johnnie, over there is a little spot of sunshine,
go over and play in and get your vitamin D."
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.uvadvantage.org%2Fportals%2F0%2Fpres%2Fvideo%2Fvideo%2Fslides%2Fslide375.jpg&hash=020100e7f54da1fc5f5d3c39939fc6d0)
http://www.uvadvantage.org/portals/0/pres/video/video/slides/slide375.jpg
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Good NEWS on D-vitamin!!!
M. A. Helou, G. Massey, G. Francis, K. Godder, J. Laver
Abstract:
Background: Survivors of childhood cancer are at increased risk for osteoporosis. Contributing factors include direct effects of chemotherapy and radiation therapy on bone, secondary hormone deficiencies, and chronic illness. However, vitamin D insufficiency could be a major risk factor during and after cancer therapy. Vitamin D insufficiency is common in healthy school aged children (median 25-hydroxy vitamin D [25(OH)D] = 28 ng/mL, 55% <30 ng/mL, 5% < 10 ng/mL.) Based on this data, we hypothesize that vitamin D insufficiency would be common among children with cancer. If vitamin D insufficiency is prevalent, correction may contribute to better bone health and immune responses in children with cancer. Methods: We determined the serum levels of 25(OH)D, PTH, calcium, and phosphorus for 40 children with leukemia or lymphoma currently on therapy (group 1), 34 children with leukemia or lymphoma off therapy (group 2), 16 children with solid tumors currently on therapy (group 3), and 10 children with solid tumors off therapy (group 4.) Prevalence of 25(OH)D insufficiency ( <32 ng/mL) and severe deficiency (<10 ng/mL) was compared by Chi square test to the healthy reference population (established by Weng, et al.)
Results: For the majority of patients, calcium and phosphorus levels were within normal limits. Conclusions: Vitamin D insufficiency was very common in all groups, especially in children with solid tumors on therapy (Group 3.) 25(OH)D levels did improve off therapy, but for Group 2, still remained significantly less than normal reference population (p=0.0001.)
The data suggests that vitamin D status should be determined for all children at diagnosis of malignancy with a strong recommendation to consider vitamin D supplementation during treatment and follow up.
J Clin Oncol 26: 2008 (May 20 suppl; abstr 10023)
http://www.asco.org/ASCO/Abstracts+&+Virtual+Meeting/Abstracts?&vmview=abst_detail_view&confID=55&abstractID=35975
Something is finally "moving" on the clinical research side...
I hope(dream) that many parents -on the other side- are giving 'cod for more than one year'!
Unfortunately, if vitamin D is needed mainly, and too much vitamin A is either toxic or counteracting "D" wonderful effects (J.Cannell et al. Nov.2008), we would need a special cod liver oil formula:
a moderate amount of vitamin A, plenty of D-vitamin and lots of omega-3!
This probably WAS the original cod liver oil, before they started removing D-vitamin, erroneously thinking that it was too close to toxic amounts.
Two thousands I.U. per day of vitamin D3 was considered almost toxic for humans.
What a shame: we seem to have destroyed the original formula.
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fd2993411.u58.surftown.nu%2Fimages%2FAalesund2.jpg&hash=174d855ac2ffcf882ab22ebcbe4a34f1)(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg234.echo.cx%2Fimg234%2F659%2F25917wa.gif&hash=6b2de9175724042bf5dd85010ab9bab9)
From January 2008 VitaminD Newsletter:
...
All of the epidemiological and animal studies in the literature suggest cancer patients will prolong their lives if they take vitamin D. I can't find any studies that indicate otherwise. However, none of the suggestive studies are randomized controlled interventional trials; they are all epidemiological or animal studies, or, in the case of Vieth's, an open human study. However, if you have cancer, or your child does, do you want to wait the decades it will take for the American Cancer Society to fund randomized controlled trials using the proper dose of vitamin D? Chances are you, or your child, will not be around to see the results.
John Cannell, MD
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fcontent.ll-0.com%2Fvitalchoiceseafood%2FCannell.John.140.jpg&hash=ea2c3336cdd9c44efeb267349752411a)
http://content.ll-0.com/vitalchoiceseafood/Cannell.John.140.jpg
http://www.vitamindcouncil.com/
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lung.ca%2Ftb%2Fimages%2Ffull_archive%2F006_codLiverOil.jpg&hash=ab69c998b71e9d651a87d5b572202eb4)
http://www.lung.ca/tb/images/full_archive/006_codLiverOil.jpg
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fkarmadaze.com%2Fsunrise.jpg&hash=b85650c51d2f531f47b433ebc83e1126)
http://karmadaze.com/sunrise.jpg
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Closer and closer...
...
Nutrition
Only fish is naturally rich in vitamin D, so much vitamin D intake in the industrialized world is from fortified products including milk, soy milk and breakfast cereals or supplements.[1]
A blood calcidiol (25-hydroxy-vitamin D) level is the accepted way to determine vitamin D nutritional status. The optimal level of serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D is 35–55 ng/mL; with some debate among medical scientists for the slightly higher value. Supplementation of 100 IU (2.5 mcg) vitamin D3 raises circulating 25(OH)D by 2.5 nmol/l (1 ng/ml).[17]
The 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend that older adults, people with dark skin, and those exposed to insufficient ultraviolet radiation (i.e., sunlight) consume extra vitamin D from vitamin D-fortified foods and/or supplements. Individuals in these high-risk groups should consume 25 μg (1000 IU) of vitamin D daily to maintain adequate blood concentrations of 25-hydroxyvitamin D, the biomarker for vitamin D status.
Milk and cereal grains are often fortified with vitamin D.
The Canadian Pediatric Society recommends 2,000 IU daily for pregnant and breastfeeding women.[18]
from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_D
wiki wiki wiki wiki wiki wiki wiki wiki wiki wiki wiki!!!
http://www.cps.ca/english/statements/ii/fnim07-01.htm
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2F28330.vws.magma.ca%2Fen%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2008%2F02%2Fvitamindspot.jpg&hash=f1850a5fc164d6e65e665942f26adde9)
http://28330.vws.magma.ca/en/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/vitamindspot.jpg
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News, news, news... (https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg234.echo.cx%2Fimg234%2F659%2F25917wa.gif&hash=6b2de9175724042bf5dd85010ab9bab9)
The Vitamin D Connection to Pediatric Infections and Immune Function.
Walker VP, Modlin RL.
Department of Pediatrics [V.P.W.], Department of Microbiology [R.L.M.], Department of Medicine [R.L.M.], David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA Los Angeles, CA 90095.
Over the past twenty years, a resurgence in vitamin D deficiency and nutritional rickets has been reported throughout the world, including the United States. Inadequate serum vitamin D concentrations have also been associated with complications from other health problems, including tuberculosis, cancer (prostate, breast and colon), multiple sclerosis and diabetes. These findings support the concept of vitamin D possessing important pleiotropic actions outside of calcium homeostasis and bone metabolism.
In children, an association between nutritional rickets with respiratory compromise has long been recognized. Recent epidemiological studies clearly demonstrate the link between vitamin D deficiency and the increased incidence of respiratory infections. Further research has also elucidated the contribution of vitamin D in the host defense response to infection. However, the mechanism(s) by which vitamin D levels contribute to pediatric infections and immune function has yet to be determined. This knowledge is particularly relevant and timely, because infants and children appear more susceptible to viral rather than bacterial infections in the face of vitamin D deficiency.
The connection between vitamin D, infections and immune function in the pediatric population indicates a possible role for vitamin D supplementation in potential interventions and adjuvant therapies.
Pediatr Res. 2009 Jan 28. [Epub ahead of print]
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Vitamins 'could shorten lifespan'...
...may be they don't!
I'll try to read the complete report, then
I might be able to comment on this.
For now I just note that vitamin C didn't
do bad things and vitamin D is not mentioned.
ikod
...I'm not sure, really, that vitamin supplements could 'shorten' lifespan...
at least at the very beginning of life!
Canada rules.
Prenatal multivitamin supplementation and rates of pediatric cancers: a meta-analysis.
Goh YI, Bollano E, Einarson TR, Koren G.
Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Toronto, and The Motherisk Program, Division of Clinical Pharmacology/Toxicology, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Prenatal supplementation of folic acid has been shown to decrease the risk of several congenital malformations. Several studies have recently suggested a potential protective effect of folic acid on certain pediatric cancers. The protective role of prenatal multivitamins has not been elucidated. We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to assess the potential protective effect of prenatal multivitamins on several pediatric cancers. Medline, PubMed, EMBASE, Toxline, Healthstar, and Cochrane databases were searched for studies published in all languages from 1960 to July 2005 on multivitamin supplementation and pediatric cancers. References from all articles collected were reviewed for additional articles. Two blinded independent reviewers assessed the articles for inclusion and exclusion. Rates of cancers in women supplemented with multivitamins were compared with unsupplemented women using a random effects model. Sixty-one articles were identified in the initial search, of which, seven articles met the inclusion criteria. There was an apparent protective effect for leukemia (odds ratio (OR)=0.61, 95% confidence interval (CI)=0.50-0.74), pediatric brain tumors (OR=0.73, 95% CI=0.60-0.88) and neuroblastoma (OR=0.53, 95% CI=0.42-0.68).
In conclusion, maternal ingestion of prenatal multivitamins is associated with a decreased risk for pediatric brain tumors, neuroblastoma, and leukemia. Presently, it is not known which constituent(s) among the multivitamins confer this protective effect.
Clin Pharmacol Ther. 2007 May;81(5):685-91.
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...and here we go, BACK to the beginning of this endless thread!
Maternal Dietary Risk Factors in Childhood Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (United States)
Jensen CD, Block G, Buffler P, Ma X, Selvin S, Month S.
...
Abstract
Objective: Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is the most common childhood cancer, and the second most common cause of mortality in children aged 1–14 years. Recent research has established that the disease can originate in utero, and thus maternal diet may be an important risk factor for ALL.
Cancer Causes Control. 2004 Aug;15(6):559-70. http://www.springerlink.com/content/t87661x864l14368/fulltext.pdf
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=4987.0
Is vitamin D deficiency in childhood leukemia an underestimated reality?
Could cod liver oil - the old remedy, a relic from the past - help in the
empirically arranged but clinically effective today's treatment protocols?
...
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Thank you Zoey,
for asking about my favourite quote. Well, to explain it properly, in a short 'essay' in english... it will take me more than a few minutes! But translating it is the easiest thing:
"The sun gives life, the sun takes it back"
These words concluded one of the best lectures I attended in my life. At the 3rd year of Medical school, General Pathology course, more than thirty years ago. Professor Mario Umberto Dianzani was our teacher, Dean of the Medical Faculty and a distinguished scientist, totally dedicated to his students. Later on he has been Rector of the University of Turin for several years before retiring.
In those days biochemistry was 'the' thing: new cofactors and vitamins were deeply explored by medical research.
I'm sure I owe to his excellent lectures my following research interest in cofactors.
"Aging of cells and living organisms" was the subject of the lecture.
In less than one hour we went from the origin of life on our Planet to the present time.
Volcanoes and oceans plus UV light to catalyze the synthesis of organic compounds (Miller's experiment), then nucleic acid formation after million years of random combinations.
Primitive organisms, bacteria and algae. Again the sunlight creates energy through photosynthetic processes and here come trees and forests! Different species of primitive life, unicellular, multicellular towards more and more complex organisms, thanks to spontaneous mutations, natural selection and evolution. For the whole 'biosphere' survival is always tightly bound to its origin, to the sunlight.
Sunlight and ultraviolet rays give energy and feed the whole system, nevertheless they are responsible -in the end- for lipid peroxidation and DNA damage. A series of biochemical reactions lead to senescence in multicellular organisms too.
Complex systems are progressively deranged: skin, bones, muscles, nerves, glands and immune cells get older...diseases follow.
The sun itself puts an end to our lives.
Magic
...
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.bootsnall.com%2FChuck%2Ffiles%2F2008%2F01%2F_Beautiful_Sunrise.jpg&hash=f223a1e5bc8fc44fac26a5b2f0212940)
http://blogs.bootsnall.com/Chuck/uploads/_Beautiful%20Sunrise.jpg
"Il sole dona la vita, il sole se la riprende"
Mario Umberto Dianzani, 1975.
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I got two hours of that beautiful sunshine today and it makes me feel so much better!!
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Long time, no see... [;)]
No discussion anymore, >70k viewers in over 3 years, ≈100 a day.
Is vitamin D3 good for the bone(marrow)?
Vitamin D Metabolism and Action in Human Bone Marrow Stromal Cells.
Zhou S, Leboff MS, Glowacki J.
Departments of Orthopedic Surgery (S.Z., J.G.) and Medicine (M.S.L.), Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115.
Vitamin D metabolites are important effectors of bone and mineral homeostasis. Extrarenal conversion of 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25OHD) to the biologically active form of vitamin D, 1alpha,25-dihydroxyvitamin D [1,25(OH)2D] is catalyzed in several cell types by the 1alpha-hydroxylase (CYP27B1), but little is known about the expression or regulation of CYP27B1 in human bones. We examined whether human bone marrow stromal cells (hMSCs, also known as mesenchymal stem cells) participate in vitamin D metabolism and whether vitamin D hydroxylases in hMSCs are influenced by the vitamin D status of the individual from whom the hMSCs were obtained. We also investigated the effects of vitamin D metabolites on osteoblast differentiation and the role of IGF-I in the regulation of CYP27B1. In a series of 27 subjects, vitamin D hydroxylases in hMSCs were expressed at different levels and were correlated with serum 25OHD, 1,25(OH)2D, and PTH. In vitro treatment with 25OHD up-regulated CYP27B1 and IGF-I in hMSCs; IGF-I also up-regulated CY27B1 expression and stimulated osteoblast differentiation. When hydroxylation of 25OHD was blocked by ketoconazole, a cytochrome P450 inhibitor, 25OHD was no longer able to induce CYP27B1 expression.
In summary, these findings show that human bone marrow stromal cells have the molecular machinery both to metabolize and respond to vitamin D. We propose that circulating 25OHD, by virtue of its local conversion to 1,25(OH)2D catalyzed by basal CYP27B1 in hMSCs, amplifies vitamin D signaling through IGF-I up-regulation, which in turn induces CYP27B1 in a feed-forward mechanism to potentiate osteoblast differentiation initiated by IGF-I.
Endocrinology. 2009 Dec 4. [Epub ahead of print]
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Iko what is osteoblast differentiation?
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An osteoblast is a cell from which bone develops, differentiation here means to specialise and form different types of cells with different functions, for example, some specialise to become the periosteum on the outside of the bone and others the marrow on the inside.
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Thank you Chem4me,
...I have been looking for some pic&link to post for Karen:
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sigmaaldrich.com%2Fetc%2Fmedialib%2Flife-science%2Fstem-cell-biology%2Fmesenchymal-stem-cell.Par.0001.Image.457.gif&hash=ddc2ba1ad2d96599e10e079012f848d1)
http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/etc/medialib/life-science/stem-cell-biology/mesenchymal-stem-cell.Par.0001.Image.457.gif
...and here is the text: http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/life-science/stem-cell-biology/mesenchymal-stem-cells.html
Bone marrow is a complex 'system', and to fix its defects and failures even more difficult sometime!
I'll look for other nice pictures and links in a while.
ikod
...Location of active bone marrow in an adult:
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aurorahealthcare.org%2Fhealthgate%2Fimages%2Fsi55551619_ma.jpg&hash=4f70d60e6ede2b9f5a8c2960a9436633)
link: http://www.aurorahealthcare.org/yourhealth/healthgate/getcontent.asp?URLhealthgate=96475.html
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Say someone is diagnosed as being severely deficient in vitamin D. Would that person Possibly be suffering, extreme exhaustion, weakness in the legs, arms etc. Maybe general feelings of un-wellness, or perhaps heaviness of limbs, degenerating bones, fractures,and unusual wear and tear on bones? Maybe even aches in the joints and such problems..etc? Perhaps short stabbing pains in toes and bottom of feet and legs also? Could a deficiency of"D" cause any of these symptoms...?
What concerns should one have when having severe deficiencies of "D".
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Say someone is diagnosed as being severely deficient in vitamin D. Would that person Possibly be suffering, extreme exhaustion, weakness in the legs, arms etc. Maybe general feelings of un-wellness, or perhaps heaviness of limbs, degenerating bones, fractures,and unusual wear and tear on bones? Maybe even aches in the joints and such problems..etc? Perhaps short stabbing pains in toes and bottom of feet and legs also? Could a deficiency of"D" cause any of these symptoms...?
What concerns should one have when having severe deficiencies of "D".
Hi Karen,
Today vitamin D deficiency is diagnosed by testing 25OHvitamin D levels in a blood sample.
Levels <20 ng/mL are defined as 'vitamin D deficiency'. Symptoms may be totally absent or many and severe. We are all different, with different capabilities to cope with a temporary condition of deficiency (lack of sun exposure during winter months).
Treatment is easy: 50,000 I.U vitamin D3 per week, orally for 6 weeks (300,000 I.U total), then 50,000 I.U. per month. Blood levels may be rechecked after 6-12 months.
Half-life of vitamin D should be around 90 days.
Improvement in symptoms of deficiency (bone pain, weakness etc.) may be expected not before 10-15days. See Professor Michael Holick's videos for details! ...and for the fun of it: he is treating zoo's patients...waiting for his turn in the Nobel Prize race!
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=21270.msg260424#msg260424
What my mind is made up about is the assertion that "vitamins can do magic" is crap.
Vitamin D is unique amongst vitamins because it's a pre-hormone and is part of the endocrine system. Genetic research from the last 10-20 years has revealed that vitamin D (as calcitriol) regulates many important functions throughout the body, including immunity, inflammation and cell propagation. These functions are linked to a number of morbidities.
Ecological studies link latitude and skin colour to 'vitamin D' morbidities; cohort studies link low vitamin D levels with 'vitamin D' morbidities; epidemiological studies show high levels of vitamin D deficiency by latitude and by skin colour; the few RCTs involving large dose supplementation show that vitamin D significantly reduces 'vitamin D' morbidities.
Not "vitamins", just vitamin D; not magic, just science.
You are exactly right Kevan,
but we have to tell the whole story:
why such a simple and cheap remedy is coming so late in modern medicine?
I can give you some good reasons to 'justify' such a delay:
- Vitamin D is not a vitamin, but a steroid hormone acting on specific cell receptors.
- The dosage in serum is tricky and expensive: large studies are coming out only now.
- Normal levels are expressed in ng/mL or nmol/ml, just for the fun of it...
- The active form, calcitriol, has been improperly used instead of replenishing 25-OHvitD pool.
- Toxicity has been overestimated: 400U/day failed where 2000U/day are making the trick.
- Cholecalciferol or vitamin D3 is a 'generic' drug, too cheap to support clinical trials.
Do you want to play the doctor?
Just read this amazing case report, free-fulltext from Canada:
http://www.jabfm.org/cgi/reprint/22/1/69
Now look for a chronic-back-pain patient, get a history of lack of sunlight exposure, no cod liver oil or vitamin D supplements and suggest her/him to have 25-OHvitaminD tested.
If the result is below 20 ng/ml...Bingo! Send her/him to a doctor for a 50kU/week x 8weeks prescription. A clinician will exclude any condition of vitD toxicity or intolerance and monitor calcium levels if necessary.
The following two-three weeks might be really magic for that patient...
Unbelievable? On my part, I don't think so anymore! [;)]
Improvement of chronic back pain or failed back surgery with vitamin D repletion: a case series.
Schwalfenberg G.
Department of Family Medicine, University of Alberta, Canada. gschwalf@telus.net
This article reviews 6 selected cases of improvement/resolution of chronic back pain or failed back surgery after vitamin D repletion in a Canadian family practice setting. Pub Med was searched for articles on chronic back pain, failed back surgery, and vitamin D deficiency. Chronic low back pain and failed back surgery may improve with repletion of vitamin D from a state of deficiency/insufficiency to sufficiency. Vitamin D insufficiency is common; repletion of vitamin D to normal levels in patients who have chronic low back pain or have had failed back surgery may improve quality of life or, in some cases, result in complete resolution of symptoms.
J Am Board Fam Med.2009 Jan-Feb;22(1):69-74.
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ok Iko.. My blood tests=vitamin "D" test came back at 12 WHICH she said was very very low.. supplements have been added 1 a week at 1.25mg for a 12 weeks. Only she said it shouldn't be that low while I am taking huge doses of omega 3, Vitamin "D," and my thyroid screwed up, so I am now taking 175mcg levoxyl instead 150.Feel like crap and hurt everywhere especially in my bones etc...
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ok Iko.. My tests vitamin "D" test came back at 12 and she said it was very very low.. supplements have been added 1 a week at 1.25mg for a 12 weeks. Only she said it shouldn't be that low while I am taking huge doses of omega 3 Vitamin. "D" and my thyroid screwed up now taking 175mcg levoxyl instead 150.Feel like crap and hurt everywhere specially in my bones etc...
1 a week at 1.25mg...
...of WHAT? D2, D3, Dx?
Ergocalciferol, Cholecalciferol, Calcitriol, Whateverol? [;)]
1.25mg per week of D2(ergocalciferol) or D3(cholecalciferol) are 50,000 I.U.(International Units).
Just fine for a good replenishing of the sunshine hormone avoiding toxicity.
Improvement expected in 10-15 days: sometimes referred as magic, all of a sudden.
Fingers crossed.
How low were your very very low low values...in digits?
20-30min. of proper sunlight exposure,
the so called "suberythemal dose"
should give us 10-20,000 I.U. of Vit.D!!!
I got two hours of that beautiful sunshine today and it makes me feel so much better!!
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in digits....12
She said she wants to get me back up to around 50 or 60 can't recall which one.
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The bottle says: TAKE ONE CAPSULE WEEKLY
VITAMIN D 1.25MG
GREEN OVAL PA140
THEY ARE GREEN OVAL LIQUID FILLED CAPSULES.
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Yap! Got it!
http://www.medicineonline.com/drugs/V/1355/VITAMIN-D-ERGOCALCIFEROL-Capsules-USP-1-25-mg-SOFTGELS-Soft-Gelatin-Capsules-50000-USP-Units-R-only.html
It is vitamin D2(ergocalciferol)...It seems that you don't have D3 in the States, poor things [:D].
But you have prof. Michael Holick!
It is the right stuff and the proper dosage.
See you in 10days (after the second pill!).
Wish you all the best,
ikod
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in digits....12
...I'm so sorry! and ignorant: I thought 'back at 12' was the TIME!!! [;D]
You seem to be in the right range to benefit from this type of treatment.
Today values <20 nanograms/milliliter are considered as vitamin D deficiency.
In the few patients I heard of, from relatives and friends (I don't practice):
a 6ng/mL, over 80yrs was in very bad shape and got better quickly,
a 9ng/mL, around 70yrs had chronic back pain and bony aches(mostly hips): fine after 10days.
a 17ng/mL, 60yrs with back pains in the morning got better in weeks.
It's called osteomalacia from vitamin D deficiency...and it has been neglected for long.
Vitamin D dosages started to be commonly available only in the '90s.
For fear of toxicity, vitamin supplements usually have 200 I.U. only (1400 per week!).
I hope this is your case and you'll find other 'deficient' patients in your neighbourhood to tell your happy end...in just two weeks!
http://www.jabfm.org/cgi/reprint/22/1/69
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Thank you IKO I
Yap! Got it!
http://www.medicineonline.com/drugs/V/1355/VITAMIN-D-ERGOCALCIFEROL-Capsules-USP-1-25-mg-SOFTGELS-Soft-Gelatin-Capsules-50000-USP-Units-R-only.html
It is vitamin D2(ergocalciferol)...It seems that you don't have D3 in the States, poor things [:D].
But you have prof. Michael Holick!
It is the right stuff and the proper dosage.
See you in 10days (after the second pill!).
Wish you all the best,
ikod
LOL...LOL..I sure hope it works well. Will be good to feel better!
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Thanks IKO..
Yap! Got it!
http://www.medicineonline.com/drugs/V/1355/VITAMIN-D-ERGOCALCIFEROL-Capsules-USP-1-25-mg-SOFTGELS-Soft-Gelatin-Capsules-50000-USP-Units-R-only.html
It is vitamin D2(ergocalciferol)...It seems that you don't have D3 in the States, poor things [:D].
But you have prof. Michael Holick!
It is the right stuff and the proper dosage.
See you in 10days (after the second pill!).
Wish you all the best,
ikod
Ten days from thursday day before yesterday! YAYYYYYYYYY!!!!
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ok Iko.. My blood tests=vitamin "D" test came back at 12 WHICH she said was very very low.. supplements have been added 1 a week at 1.25mg for a 12 weeks. Only she said it shouldn't be that low while I am taking huge doses of omega 3 Vitamin. "D" and my thyroid screwed up now taking 175mcg levoxyl instead 150.Feel like crap and hurt everywhere specially in my bones etc...
Instead of tons of omega-3(fish oil), you could have taken
Liver fish oil, rich of omega-3 plus vitamin A and D. [;)]
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WELL THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN GOOD lol... WHAT THE HECK IS A LIVER FISH? LOL...
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WELL THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN GOOD lol... WHAT THE HECK IS A LIVER FISH? LOL...
Fish liver oil...mostly cod liver oil!!! [;D]
(I learned English from a book!)
Hugs
ikod
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LOL...LOL. Basically cod liver oil.... OK then.. Thanks Iko.. Your English is fine like mine... Sometimes, I need to explain myself, too!
Thank you!
Hugs you back!
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update...I am now in my second round of 12 weeks of Vitamin D supplementation. I do feel some better but still having some problems.. She checked my Vitamin d level and felt it necessary to continue for another 12 weeks on 50,000 units a week.
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"There is much we still need to learn about the roles of diet and physical activity in protecting against cancer: We are confident these new studies will add to our understanding in this vital field,"
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Do we need more than vitamin D 200-400 I.U. per day recommended in the past century?
Maybe:
Are commonly recommended dosages for vitamin D supplementation too low?
Vitamin D status and effects of supplementation on serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels
-an observational study during clinical practice conditions.
Leidig-Bruckner G, Roth HJ, Bruckner T, Lorenz A, Raue F, Frank-Raue K.
Gemeinschaftspraxis für Endokrinologie, Nuklearmedizin und Humangenetik, Brückenstr. 21, 69120, Heidelberg, Germany, thomas.bruckner@t-online.de.
Abstract
Vitamin D deficiency is associated with increased fracture risk. The observational study aimed to investigate vitamin D status and supplementation in ambulatory patients. Only 20% of patients had optimal serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] levels. Commonly recommended dosages were insufficient to achieve clinically relevant increase of 25(OH)D levels. Higher dosages were safe and effective under clinical practice conditions.
INTRODUCTION: Vitamin D deficiency is associated with adverse health outcome. The study aimed to investigate vitamin D status and supplementation in ambulatory patients.
METHODS: Nine hundred seventy-five women and 188 men were evaluated for bone status from January 2008 to August 2008 within an observational study; 104 patients (n = 70 osteoporosis) received follow-up after 3 months. Dosage of vitamin D supplementation was documented and serum 25(OH)D and parathyroid hormone (PTH) determined.
RESULTS: In all patients (age, 60.4 +/- 14.1 years), distribution of 25(OH)D was 56.3 +/- 22.3 nmol/L (normal range, 52-182 nmol/L) and PTH 53.8 +/- 67.5 ng/L (normal range, 11-43 ng/L). The proportion of patients with 25(OH)D < 25, 25 to <50, 50 to <75, >/=75 nmol/L was 7.5%, 33.3%, 38.9% and 20.2% in the total group and 20.1%, 38.5%, 30.8%, 10.6% at baseline in the follow-up group, respectively. After 3 months, 3.9% had still 25(OH)D < 25 nmol/L; only 12.5% achieved 25(OH)D >/= 75 nmol/L. In osteoporosis patients, 25(OH)D increased more in those taking >/=1,500 (median, 3,000) IU vitamin D per day (33.1 +/- 14.7 nmol/L) compared with </=1,000 (median, 800) IU/day (10.6 +/- 20.0 nmol/L) (p < 0.0008). PTH decreased more in patients taking >/=1,500 IU/day (-13.2 +/- 15.2 ng/L) compared with </=1,000 IU/day (-7.6 +/- 19.2 ng/L; p = 0.29). 25(OH)D was negatively correlated to PTH (r = -0.49, p < 0.0001). An increase of 25(OH)D >/= 75 nmol/L resulted in normalised PTH.
CONCLUSION: Supplementation with higher vitamin D dosages (2,000-3,000 IU/day) is required to achieve a relevant increase of 25(OH)D and normalisation of PTH.
Osteoporos Int. 2010 Jun 17. [Epub ahead of print]
A promise is a promise... [;)]
so here you find D-vitamin safety limits:
Risk assessment for vitamin D.
Hathcock JN, Shao A, Vieth R, Heaney R.
Council for Responsible Nutrition, Washington, DC 20036-5114, USA. jhathcock@crnusa.org
The objective of this review was to apply the risk assessment methodology used by the Food and Nutrition Board (FNB) to derive a revised safe Tolerable Upper Intake Level (UL) for vitamin D. New data continue to emerge regarding the health benefits of vitamin D beyond its role in bone. The intakes associated with those benefits suggest a need for levels of supplementation, food fortification, or both that are higher than current levels. A prevailing concern exists, however, regarding the potential for toxicity related to excessive vitamin D intakes. The UL established by the FNB for vitamin D (50 microg, or 2000 IU) is not based on current evidence and is viewed by many as being too restrictive, thus curtailing research, commercial development, and optimization of nutritional policy. Human clinical trial data published subsequent to the establishment of the FNB vitamin D UL published in 1997 support a significantly higher UL. We present a risk assessment based on relevant, well-designed human clinical trials of vitamin D.
Collectively, the absence of toxicity in trials conducted in healthy adults that used vitamin D dose > or = 250 microg/d (10,000 IU vitamin D3) supports the confident selection of this value as the UL.
Am J Clin Nutr. 2007 Jan;85(1):6-18.
Free full text to enjoy real Science! http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/reprint/85/1/6
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he doctor should be called if the parent notices that the child has any signs of vitamin D
take care people
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Jimmy Blue do you mean if the child has any sign of vitamin "D" deficiency?
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D-vitamin newsletter! [;D] [;D] [;D]
Serum 25-hydroxyvitamin d and the incidence of acute viral respiratory tract infections in healthy adults.
Sabetta JR, Depetrillo P, Cipriani RJ, Smardin J, Burns LA, Landry ML.
Department of Medicine, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, United States of America.
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Declining serum concentrations of 25-hydroxyvitamin D seen in the fall and winter as distance increases from the equator may be a factor in the seasonal increased prevalence of influenza and other viral infections. This study was done to determine if serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentrations correlated with the incidence of acute viral respiratory tract infections. METHODOLOGY/FINDINGS: In this prospective cohort study serial monthly concentrations of 25-hydroxyvitamin D were measured over the fall and winter 2009-2010 in 198 healthy adults, blinded to the nature of the substance being measured. The participants were evaluated for the development of any acute respiratory tract infections by investigators blinded to the 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentrations. The incidence of infection in participants with different concentrations of vitamin D was determined. One hundred ninety-five (98.5%) of the enrolled participants completed the study. Light skin pigmentation, lean body mass, and supplementation with vitamin D were found to correlate with higher concentrations of 25-hydroxyvitamin D. Concentrations of 38 ng/ml or more were associated with a significant (p<0.0001) two-fold reduction in the risk of developing acute respiratory tract infections and with a marked reduction in the percentages of days ill.
CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Maintenance of a 25-hydroxyvitamin D serum concentration of 38 ng/ml or higher should significantly reduce the incidence of acute viral respiratory tract infections and the burden of illness caused thereby, at least during the fall and winter in temperate zones. The findings of the present study provide direction for and call for future interventional studies examining the efficacy of vitamin D supplementation in reducing the incidence and severity of specific viral infections, including influenza, in the general population and in subpopulations with lower 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentrations, such as pregnant women, dark skinned individuals, and the obese.
PLoS One. 2010 Jun 14;5(6):e11088
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Searching for D-vitamin & leukemia connections...
Products of vitamin D3 or 7-dehydrocholesterol metabolism by cytochrome P450scc show anti-leukemia effects, having low or absent calcemic activity.
Slominski AT, Janjetovic Z, Fuller BE, Zmijewski MA, Tuckey RC, Nguyen MN, Sweatman T, Li W, Zjawiony J, Miller D, Chen TC, Lozanski G, Holick MF.
Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, Tennessee, United States of America. aslominski@uthsc.edu
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Cytochrome P450scc metabolizes vitamin D3 to 20-hydroxyvitamin D3 (20(OH)D3) and 20,23(OH)(2)D3, as well as 1-hydroxyvitamin D3 to 1alpha,20-dihydroxyvitamin D3 (1,20(OH)(2)D3). It also cleaves the side chain of 7-dehydrocholesterol producing 7-dehydropregnenolone (7DHP), which can be transformed to 20(OH)7DHP. UVB induces transformation of the steroidal 5,7-dienes to pregnacalciferol (pD) and a lumisterol-like compounds (pL).
METHODS AND FINDINGS: To define the biological significance of these P450scc-initiated pathways, we tested the effects of their 5,7-diene precursors and secosteroidal products on leukemia cell differentiation and proliferation in comparison to 1alpha,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 (1,25(OH)(2)D3). These secosteroids inhibited proliferation and induced erythroid differentiation of K562 human chronic myeloid and MEL mouse leukemia cells with 20(OH)D3 and 20,23(OH)(2)D3 being either equipotent or slightly less potent than 1,25(OH)(2)D3, while 1,20(OH)(2)D3, pD and pL compounds were slightly or moderately less potent. The compounds also inhibited proliferation and induced monocytic differentiation of HL-60 promyelocytic and U937 promonocytic human leukemia cells. Among them 1,25(OH)(2)D3 was the most potent, 20(OH)D3, 20,23(OH)(2)D3 and 1,20(OH)(2)D3 were less active, and pD and pL compounds were the least potent. Since it had been previously proven that secosteroids without the side chain (pD) have no effect on systemic calcium levels we performed additional testing in rats and found that 20(OH)D3 had no calcemic activity at concentration as high as 1 microg/kg, whereas, 1,20(OH)(2)D3 was slightly to moderately calcemic and 1,25(OH)(2)D3 had strong calcemic activity.
CONCLUSIONS: We identified novel secosteroids that are excellent candidates for anti-leukemia therapy with 20(OH)D3 deserving special attention because of its relatively high potency and lack of calcemic activity.
PLoS One. 2010 Mar 26;5(3):e9907
free full-text! http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20360850
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Vitamins versus leukemia
Vitamins A and D may stop cancer cells from growing
by Joseph Briante
Vitamins that can "steer" cancer cells away from growth toward cell differentiation or cell death may form the basis of new therapies for fighting leukemia, say University of Guelph researchers.
Profs. Kelly Meckling-Gill and Jim Kirkland, graduate student Donna Berry and post-doctoral fellow Ducica Curdic, Department of Human Biology and Nutritional Sciences, have discovered a vitamin D signalling pathway that affects how cancer cells grow and develop.
They're now looking at a combination of vitamins A and D to combat acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL), which accounts for about 10 per cent of leukemia cases.
Vitamins A and D may also have preventive activity in inhibiting leukemia development in the "at risk" population.
"If we treat leukemia cells with both (Vitamin A and D), those cells are induced to die at a high rate," says Meckling-Gill. "And the vitamins may have a role in preventing cancerous development."
THE APL CHALLENGE
APL usually strikes adults in the prime of their life, with a median age of about 35. Traditional chemotherapy is effective, but relapses are common and very aggressive. So physicians use another approach known as differentiation therapy, which uses an agent to force immature cancer cells to mature and, at the same time, inhibits their growth.
One such agent, retinoic acid -- an active metabolite of vitamin A -- has already been used clinically to treat APL. But its use is limited because it has only short-term efficacy, and patients generally develop resistance.
The Guelph researchers hope that a dual attack using calcitriol, the active form of Vitamin D, and retinoic acid will improve the efficacy of differentiation therapy. If this happens, a treatment could be developed to use when retinoic acid fails.
Meckling-Gill has shown that when calcitriol is used, APL cells mature normally in a pathway distinct from the one induced by retinoic acid. APL cells are arrested at a point where they would normally choose between two maturation pathways. Retinoic acid stimulates maturation to neutrophils; and calcitriol, to monocytes and macrophages, cell types important for immune function.
"A patient resistant to retinoic acid may still respond to vitamin D," says Meckling-Gill. "We hope this research will contribute to the design of a drug to use in a clinical setting."
A MORE GENTLE THERAPY
The advantage of vitamin-derived treatment is that it could decrease problems associated with immunosuppressive and chemotherapeutic drugs, which often have very toxic side effects. If effective, differentiation therapy eliminates the need for patients to undergo bone marrow transplants, which are risky and costly.
This research is sponsored by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council and the Cancer Research Society Inc.
Fall 1998!!! 10 years after the "Shanghai Report"!
http://www.uoguelph.ca/research/publications/Assets/HTML_MAGS/health/page35.html
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Time is flowing fast, reports about vit.D
deficiency are many: this one is about post-
-bone marrow transplant pediatric patients:
mostly leukemic patients, of course.
25-Hydroxy Vitamin D Deficiency Following Pediatric Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant.
Duncan CN, Vrooman L, Apfelbaum EM, Whitley K, Bechard L, Lehmann LE.
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA 02115, United States.
Children may be at increased risk for vitamin D deficiency following HSCT due to lack of sun exposure, the recommended use of sunscreen, dietary insufficiency, malabsorption, and the use of certain medications. We prospectively assessed the prevalence of and risk factors for 25-hydroxy (OH) vitamin D deficiency in 67 patients transplanted at our institution. 25-OH vitamin D levels were checked during three separate four week periods in the spring, autumn, and winter. Subjects were less than two years following transplant and/or being treated for chronic GVHD. Levels less than 20 ng/mL were considered deficient and those less than 30 ng/mL were considered insufficient. The mean 25-OH vitamin D level was 22.8 ng/mL (range 7- 46.2). 80.6% (CI 69.1- 89.3%) of patients had a level less than the lower limit of the institutional normal range. The deficiency rate was 37.3% (CI 25.8-50%). The mean parathyroid hormone (PTH) level was 77.5 (SD 80.5). There was no correlation between 25-OH vitamin D and PTH levels. We evaluated potential risk factors for 25-OH vitamin D deficiency including age, season of testing, sun exposure, sunscreen use, use of steroid or calcineurin inhibitor, race, and dairy intake. In multivariate logistic regression, only older age was found to be a risk factor for deficiency (p=0.004). Patients with deficient levels were treated with 50,000 IU of ergocalciferol once weekly for six weeks. A post-repletion 25-OH level was available for 22 patients. The majority of repleted patients had a normal post-treatment level (63.6%). The post-supplementation level corrected into the insufficient range for 31.8% of patients and 4.6% remained deficient.
Vitamin D insufficiency and deficiency are common following HSCT. Further investigation into potential risk factors and the appropriate supplementation for these patients is warranted.
Biol.Bone Marrow Transplant 2010 Oct.14
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Freshly published. From Rochester, Minnesota, USA.
Almost 22 years after the 'Shanghai Report'.
Vitamin D insufficiency and prognosis in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL).
Shanafelt TD, Drake MT, Maurer MJ, Allmer C, Rabe KG, Slager SL, Weiner GJ, Call TG, Link BK, Zent CS, Kay NE, Hanson CA, Witzig TE, Cerhan JR.
Division of Hematology, Department of Internal Medicine, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, United States;
Abstract
Vitamin D insufficiency is common globally with low levels linked to higher cancer incidence. Although vitamin D insufficiency is related to inferior prognosis in some cancers, no data exist for chronic lymphocytic leukemia/small lymphocytic lymphoma (CLL). We evaluated the relationship of 25(OH)D serum levels with time-to-treatment(TTT) and overall survival(OS) in newly diagnosed CLL patients participating in a prospective cohort study(discovery cohort) and a separate cohort of previously untreated patients participating in an observational study(confirmation cohort). Of 390 CLL patients in the discovery cohort, 119(30.5%) were 25(OH)D insufficient. After median follow-up of 3 years, TTT(hazard ratio[HR ]=1.66; p=0.005) and OS(HR=2.39; p=0.01) were shorter for 25(OH)D insufficient patients. In the validation cohort, 61 of 153 patients(39.9%) were 25(OH)D insufficient. After median follow-up of 9.9 years, TTT(HR=1.59; p=0.05) and OS(HR 1.63; p=0.06) were again shorter for 25(OH)D insufficient patients. On pooled multivariable analysis of patients in both cohorts adjusting for age, sex, stage, CD38, ZAP-70, IGHV, CD49d, and FISH, 25(OH)D insufficiency remained an independent predictor of TTT(HR=1.47; p=0.008), although the association with OS was not significant(HR=1.47; p=0.07). Vitamin D insufficiency is associated with inferior TTT and OS in CLL patients. Whether normalizing vitamin D levels in deficient CLL patients would improve outcome merits clinical testing.
Blood. 2010 Nov 3. [Epub ahead of print]
PMID: 21048153
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Hey!
Somebody just found the ancient "Shanghai Report" searching PubMed...
...and surprisingly didn't think to cross leukemia and 'cod' on Google!
http://community.lls.org/thread/8398
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...and now, if you Google "leukemia cod" these two 'pieces of information'
come first and second out of 245k citations! I love this new global Era...
and I'd like to celebrate with you all. Stand up and dance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I23Bkk92124&feature=channel
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http://img3.allvoices.com/thumbs/event/609/480/65740950-tula.jpg
Playing for Change is a multimedia movement created to inspire, connect, and bring peace to the world through music. It creates music all over the world to make money to build music and art schools in communities that are in need of inspiration and hope.
Based on the belief that music has the power to break down boundaries and overcome distances between people, Playing for Change set out to make music by gathering musicians from all over the world and bringing their music to the masses. Their efforts clearly proves that music is the same throughout the world.
Chanda Mama is a folk song from India about the moon. Playing for Change made the Chanda Mama video with a group of talented musicians such as Tula (Israel), Noel Schajris (Argentina), Paolo Morais (Portugal), Roberto Luti & Stefano Tomaselli (Italy), Oneness Choir (India), choir Sinamuva & Sibongiseni Mbanjwa (South Africa), Marcelo "Gaucho" & Santiago Maggi (Argentina), Damien Issertes (France), to name a few.
Here are the lyrics and the English translation as can be found on www.songlyrics.com
Chanda mama raavayya : Moon please come
Nannu yetthukoni muddhuladi povayya : Hold me and kiss me and go
Maraalu nenenni chesina : Thou I always sulked and made petty demands
Gaaralyu neeve chupina: YOu always returned your TLC (tender loving care) and pampered me
"This Song Around The World is a folk tune that originated in Chennai, India. We started the track in New Orleans and added musicians from the all over the world before finally delivering it the people of its origin. We ended up in Chennai recording and filming vocals by the Oneness Choir. The result is an uplifting track that has a feeling of perseverance and joy." - Playing for Change
http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/7137474-playing-for-change-chanda-mama/content/65740950-tula
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"...From a clinical perspective, vitamin D insufficiency represents the first potentially modifiable prognostic marker in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) by presenting the opportunity for patients to have their serum vitamin D checked and, if they are deficient, vitamin D supplements administered to correct the deficit."
...
CLL: a supplementary question?
Pepper C, Fegan C.
Cardiff University.
Comment on:
Blood. 2011 Feb 3;117(5):1492-8.
Abstract
In this issue of Blood, Shanafelt and colleagues provide the first evidence that vitamin D deficiency is a risk factor for disease progression in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). Their findings imply that dietary vitamin D supplementation could potentially modify the natural history of this incurable disease.
Blood. 2011 Feb 3;117(5):1439-40.
http://bloodjournal.hematologylibrary.org/cgi/reprint/117/5/1439
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Ok, we seem to be almost THERE.
It's a pity we didn't start from childhood leukemias...they are not incurable, in fact, but curable in the majority of patients (well over 50%), not enough though.
"To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle." George Orwell
If, in the near future, proper vitamin D3 supplementation improves survival in childhood leukemias...
Well...I'm going to take a week off, a month off...maybe a whole year off!
Ikod
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wallpaperweb.org%2Fwallpaper%2Fsport%2F1024x768%2F11ski102wp.jpg&hash=376c7caf0e7a1222162f6dec146b6be3)
...and that's it my friends,
I thank you so much for your interest
in such a neglected area of human research.
Ikod