Farah Fawcett lost her battle with Colon Cancer on July 25th, 2009.  Farah was at  TV superstar from the 1970’s hit show, Charlie’s Angels.   Could her colon cancer had been prevented?  While I do not know the specifics of her case- studies show that up to colon cancer can be reduced by up to 50% when one optimizes their vitamin D levels. Learn more about Vitamin D and cancer risk. Low vitamin D levels are associated with increased risk of breast cancer, prostate cancer, ovarian cancer and more…..

—-BELOW IS AN EXCERPT FROM VITAMIN D PRESCRIPTION BY ERIC MADRID MD, available on Amazon.com—-

Colon Cancer

Colon cancer is one of the top three cancers affecting those in developed countries. According to the American Cancer Society, colon cancer accounts for 8% of all cancer deaths in men and 9% of all cancer deaths in women in the U.S. Colon cancer will affect 1 in 18 men and 1 in 19 women at some point in their lives. Fortunately, the majority of cases can be prevented. Worldwide, the World Health Organization predicts that colon cancer rates will increase 50% by 2020 and will affect up to 20 million people annually.

Risk factors for developing colon cancer include:

• Colon Polyps
• Poor diet, especially high in red meats
• Overweight
• Obesity
• Racial Groups (African Americans &  Ashkenazi Jews)
• Lack of exercise
• Excess alcohol intake
• Family history
• Type 2 diabetes
• Vitamin D deficiency

Those with higher consumption of fruits and vegetables have a benefit in preventing colon cancer from developing in the first place. A 1996 study reported in JAMA suggested that the trace mineral selenium, a potent antioxidant, and part of the glutathione reductase antioxidant complex, could also be protective against precancerous polyps and colon cancer.

There has been renewed interest in the last few years on the ability of sunshine to prevent colon cancer. Specifically, the sunshine vitamin has anti colon cancer properties, observed back in the 1930s, and later confirmed in the 1980s by Cedric Garland, DrPH (Moores Cancer Center University of California, San Diego), and Frank C. Garland, PhD, FACE (Technical Director, Naval Health Research Center (NHRC), San Diego).
Drs. Cedric and Frank Garlands’ landmark study showed that the risk of colon cancer was associated with solar radiation exposure; many other studies have since confirmed this finding. Drs. Garlands’ 1980 study revealed that in the two states with the most solar radiation, New Mexico and Arizona, white males had cancer rates of 6.7 and 10.1, respectively, per 100,000 people. In the three states with the least solar radiation, New York, Vermont, and New Hampshire, white males experienced colon cancer rates of 17.3, 11.3, and 15.3, respectively, per 100,000 population. Data collection occurred from 1959 to 1961. The conclusion was that those with more sunshine exposure had less colon cancer when compared to those with less sunshine exposure.

A review of the CDC web site and the statistics for colon and rectal cancer from 2002–2004 shows similar results. The data today is more inclusive, with men and women from all ethnicities. Arizona and New Mexico have total colon and rectal cancer rates of 49.9 and 51.8, respectively, per 100,000 population. On the contrary, New York, Vermont, and New Hampshire have rates of 63.0, 57.9, and 59.9, respectively, per 100,000 population…..read more about vitamin D and colon cancer when you purchase Vitamin D Prescription by Dr. Eric Madrid

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NEW YORK TIMES CONFIRMS- MICHAEL JACKSON DEAD

FoxNews Reports He Is In Coma–

Pop star Michael Jackson dead: report Reuters Thursday, June 25, 2009 5:56 PM LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Pop giant Michael Jackson, who took to the stage as a child star and went on to set the world dancing to the thumping rhythms of his music for decades, died Thursday, TMZ website reported. He was 50. “We’ve just learned Michael Jackson has died,” TMZ said. “

Michael suffered a cardiac arrest earlier this afternoon and paramedics were unable to revive him. We’re told when paramedics arrived Jackson had no pulse and they never got a pulse back,” the entertainment site said. There was no official confirmation of the reported death and spokespersons for Jackson could not be reached for comment. Earlier, the Los Angeles Times said that the singer had been rushed to a Los Angeles-area hospital by fire department paramedics who found him not breathing when they arrived at the singer’s home.

The newspaper said paramedics performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation at the scene before taking him to the UCLA Medical Center hospital. Jackson had been due to start a series of comeback concerts in London on July 13 running until March 2010. The singer, whose hits include “Thriller” and “Billie Jean,” had been rehearsing in the Los Angeles area for the past two months. The shows for the 50 London concerts sold out within hours of going on sale in March.

 Jackson started out as a child star in the band “The Jackson 5″ more than 40 years ago. He has lived as a virtual recluse since his acquittal in 2005 on charges of child molestation. There have been concerns about Jackson’s health in recent years but the promoters of the London shows, AEG Live, said in March that Jackson had passed a 4-1/2 hour physical examination with independent doctors. (Additional Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Writing by Frances Kerry, Editing by Jackie Frank) © 2009 Reuters

A chemical found in green tea appears to slow the progression of prostate cancer, a study has suggested.

Green tea has been linked to a positive effect on a wide range of conditions, including heart disease, cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.

The research, in the US journal Cancer Prevention Research, found a significant fall in certain markers which indicate cancer development.

A UK charity said the tea might help men manage low-risk tumours.

Although previous studies have shown benefits from drinking green tea – including some positive findings in relation to prostate cancer, there have been mixed results.

In this study, Philadelphia-based researchers tested a compound called Polyphenon E.

They were looking for a number of biomarkers – molecules – including vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) which are indicators of developing cancer.

They also looked for prostate specific antigen (PSA) – a protein only found in the prostate. Levels can rise if cancer is present.

‘12 cups’

The study included 26 men, aged 41 to 72 years, who had been diagnosed with prostate cancer and who were scheduled for radical prostate surgery.

Patients took four capsules containing Polyphenon E for an average of 34 days, up until the day before surgery – the equivalent of around 12 cups of normally brewed concentrated green tea.

The study found a significant reduction in levels of HGF, VEGF and PSA, with some patients demonstrating reductions of more than 30%.

Dr James Cardelli, from the Feist-Weiller Cancer Center, who led the study, said the compound, which was provided by the company Polyphenon Pharma, “may have the potential to lower the incidence and slow the progression of prostate cancer.”

There were only a few reported side effects associated with this study, and liver function remained normal….read more here…

June 11 (Bloomberg) — Swine flu, causing mostly mild disease outbreaks on four continents, prompted the World Health Organization to declare the first influenza pandemic since 1968.

Margaret Chan, the WHO’s director-general, moved the alert to the top of the agency’s six-stage pandemic scale today on evidence the virus is spreading in communities outside the Americas. The new H1N1 flu strain has taken root in Australia, Chile, the U.K. and Spain since its discovery in Mexico and the U.S. in April.

The pandemic declaration confirms the fourth time in the last century a new influenza strain has swept across the globe. It’s the third time since April 27 that Geneva-based WHO has raised the alert level over swine flu, which has turned up in more than 70 nations as far removed as Iceland, New Zealand and the Bahamas. The move doesn’t mean there will be more deaths or severe cases, Chan said.

“We are seeing a moderate pandemic,” Chan told reporters on a conference call before making the announcement. “We are satisfied that this virus is spreading to a number of countries and it is not stoppable.”

Drugmakers will be finishing their production of seasonal influenza vaccine for the Northern Hemisphere winter in coming weeks, Chan said.

“We would advise them, as soon as they finish their seasonal vaccine production, quickly prepare to make commercial- scale pandemic vaccine,” she said.

Response Plans

WHO urged countries not to implement pandemic response plans designed for a more severe threat after government leaders said last month that moving to phase 6 may spur some countries to restrict travel, ban public events and adopt other measures that aren’t needed for mild flu, worsening the deepest economic slump since the Great Depression.

“Some political leaders worry about some unwarranted overreaction and some are also concerned that, because of the mildness of the disease, people will say ‘so what’s the big deal about pandemic?’” she said. “The balance between overreaction or complacency is another issue that’s of great concern.”

U.S. health officials said they won’t be changing their response to the virus based on the new pandemic designation and have already been responding to the outbreak like they would for a pandemic. There have been more than 13,000 confirmed cases in the U.S., which have caused about 1,000 hospitalizations and 27 deaths, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

‘Strong Message’

“For all intensive purposes, the U.S. government has been in phase 6 of the pandemic level for some time,” Thomas Frieden, director of the CDC, said in a conference call today with reporters. “This does send a strong message that the virus is here and likely to stay.”

In the U.S., the virus has been most severe in children, young adults and those with asthma or who are pregnant, Frieden said. The virus has spread the most widely in Massachusetts, New York and New Jersey. About 7 percent of New Yorkers likely had swine flu in May, according to a survey released yesterday by the New York City health department.

The United Nations health agency doesn’t advise border closures or restrictions on travel and trade, Chan said.

WHO is watching for any sign the disease is worsening as the germ circulates during the Southern Hemisphere’s flu season, creating opportunities for its genes to mutate or combine with those of other viruses, including the H5N1 bird flu strain that’s lethal in three of every five reported cases. The new virus has genes from other strains that have sickened humans, pigs and birds.

Biggest Concern

“The tendency to move into complacency is our biggest concern because we need to continue to monitor this virus, follow its track and not allow it to come back in the second wave to give us more trouble,” Chan said…read more here…

By Michelle Fay Cortez

June 16 (Bloomberg) — Medical imaging scans may be an appropriate alternative to colonoscopies for some people who have a high risk of colon cancer, researchers said.

The computed tomography, or CT, scans identified 85 percent of advanced abnormal-growth spots and colorectal cancers in the Italian study, and correctly ruled them out in 88 percent of cancer-free patients. The report in the Journal of the American Medical Association involved 937 patients with signs of the cancerous lesions or a family or personal history of the disease.

The scans are already one of the methods recommended for screening people with an average risk of cancer. For those who are most prone to the disease, however, doctors recommend colonoscopies that have higher cancer detection rates. These procedures require a tube with a tiny camera to be threaded through the rectum, and many people are reluctant to undergo the process.

A CT scan is “better accepted than colonoscopy,” said the researchers, led by Daniele Regge from the radiology unit at the Institute for Cancer Research and Treatment in Turin, Italy. “Thus, it may help increase the low adherence reported for individuals who are candidates for screening.”

About 210,000 Europeans and 50,000 Americans die each year from colorectal cancer, making it one of the most deadly tumor types, according to the American Cancer Society. Most cases arise when benign-growth polyps turn malignant, a process that can be circumvented by finding and treating the spots before they become cancerous.

Cost, Availability

The scans costs $600 to $1,200 and can be done using standard computed tomography equipment and software made by companies including General Electric Co.’s GE Healthcare unit, Royal Philips Electronics NV, Siemens AG and Vital Images Inc.

…read more here…

By Nicole Gaouette and Laura Litvan

June 17 (Bloomberg) — The largest expansion of U.S. health care since the creation of Medicare in 1965 may emerge from legislation designed to reshape the medical industry and change how Americans receive and pay for care.

Congress today begins crafting legislation that Democratic leaders plan to push through both chambers by their August recess. The measure may require all Americans to get medical insurance, force insurers to accept all patients and end the tax break for employer-paid health benefits. These changes may be hammered out with unprecedented speed at the urging of President Barack Obama, who four days ago said “this is the moment.”

Obama has made a health-care overhaul his top domestic priority, using his February budget proposal to call it a “moral” imperative to extend coverage to the country’s 46 million uninsured. Obama also tied the long-term fiscal soundness of the U.S. to controlling medical costs. Health care consumes 18 percent of the U.S. economy and may rise to 34 percent by 2040, the White House Council of Economic Advisers reported June 2.

“I don’t think we’ve ever had anything this large in American history aimed to go this quickly that touches everybody’s lives,” said Robert J. Blendon, a professor of health policy and political analysis at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in a telephone interview. “They’re moving at a pace we’ve never seen before.”

‘Moment is Right’

The U.S. will spend more than $2 trillion this year on health care, the Health and Human Services department reported in February. Today, the Senate Health committee will begin debating a bill that includes “gateways” where consumers may compare coverage plans. The Senate Finance Committee later this week will unveil a bill that among its provisions will call for taxes on health benefits, and House committees will release a draft of their own comprehensive measure that would create a government-backed plan to compete with private insurance.

“We know the moment is right for health care reform,” Obama told the American Medical Association in Chicago in a speech June 15. “We know this is a historic opportunity we’ve never seen before and may not see again.”

The coming weeks will be pivotal if the House and Senate are to meet their goal to send Obama a single bill in October, said Drew Altman, president of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, based in Menlo Park, California, one of the nation’s largest private foundations devoted to health…read more here…

By Shannon Pettypiece

June 15 (Bloomberg) — Drugs to treat attention deficit disorder were linked to an increase in sudden death among children, according to a government-sponsored study.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which funded the research with the National Institutes of Health, said the study had “limitations” and shouldn’t stop patients from taking the treatments. The findings, published today in theAmerican Journal of Psychiatry, showed that more children who died suddenly from heart complications or unknown causes were taking an attention-deficit drug than those who died in car accidents.

Attention-deficit medicines already carry the FDA’s strongest warning in their prescribing information about sudden death and cardiac risks. Doctors should assess patients for heart risks when prescribing stimulant-based drugs, such as Shire Plc’s Adderall and Novartis AG’s Ritalin, the agency said.

“The FDA believes that this study should not serve as a basis for parents to stop a child’s stimulant medication,” the agency said today in a Web site posting. “Parents should discuss concerns about the use of these medicines with the prescribing health-care professional.”

The agency said it will release a more definitive study on the potential risk later this year.

The research found that of 564 healthy children who died suddenly, 10 were taking stimulant medications at the time of death, the FDA said. That compares to two stimulant users among 564 children who died in traffic accidents.

The low use of stimulants in both groups may have affected the results, as well as inaccuracies in recording drug use by the children, the FDA said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Shannon Pettypiece in New York atspettypiece@bloomberg.net.

Here is a  great video by Inventor of the Wein ViraMask, Stan Weinberg. This is the only self adhesive mask (N99 protection) on the market.  Great to add to your home survival kit.  Be prepared for the swine flu return which is expected by many scientists to return this fall.  To purchase, visit www.eHealthSupplies.com  or visit the manufacturer at www.WeinProducts.com

June 3, 2009 (Oxford, UK) — The authors of a new meta-analysis of aspirin use in primary prevention say their results “do not seem to justify general guidelines advocating the routine use of aspirin in all healthy individuals above a moderate level of risk for coronary heart disease. [1]“

The meta-analysis, published in the May 30, 2009 issue of theLancet, was conducted by the Antithrombotic Trialists’ (ATT) Collaboration, led by Dr Colin Baigent (Clinical Trial Service Unit, Oxford University, UK).

Baigent commented to heartwire : “The present data that we have reported here have not been previously available. The current guidelines are based on previous meta-analyses, which have limitations. We have shown for the first time that the very same people at higher risk of heart disease are also at higher bleeding risk with aspirin, which is a very important piece of information and should influence the way in which aspirin is used.”

He added: “Medicine has moved on in recent years, and we now know that we can safely reduce risk of heart disease by lowering cholesterol and blood pressure, and the drugs used to lower these risk factors are probably safer than aspirin. A person wanting to lower their risk might well consider taking a statin or an antihypertensive first and only after that add in a less safe drug like aspirin.”…read more here…

The 1918 Flu killed between 20-100 million people worldwide.  Interestingly, it was a swine flu.   The first people were affected in the spring. The virus was latent during the summer and returned with a vengeance in the   fall.  Are  you and your family prepared for a fall flu epidemic?  I am almost certain that it WILL return. I would recommend that all families who are interested in protecting themselves invest a small amount of money ($30) in purchasing the Wein ViraMask- The only N99 protection self adhesive mask available.  

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WHO: Swine flu pandemic has begun, 1st in 41 years By MARIA CHENG and FRANK JORDANS – 6 hours ago GENEVA (AP) — Swine flu is now formally a pandemic, a declaration by U.N. health officials that will speed vaccine production and spur government spending to combat the first global flu epidemic in 41 years. Thursday’s announcement by the World Health Organization doesn’t mean the virus is any more lethal — only that its spread is considered unstoppable. Since it was first detected in late April in Mexico and the United States, swine flu has reached 74 countries, infecting nearly 29,000 people. Most who catch the bug have only mild symptoms and don’t need medical treatment. WHO chief Dr. Margaret Chan made the long-awaited declaration after the U.N. agency held an emergency meeting with flu experts and said she was moving to phase 6 — the agency’s highest alert level — which means a pandemic is under way. “The world is moving into the early days of its first influenza pandemic in the 21st century,” Chan said in Geneva. Dr. Thomas Frieden, the new head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in Atlanta that he does not expect widespread public anxiety in the United States as a result of the declaration, noting it came nearly two months after the virus was identified. For many weeks, U.S. health officials have been treating it as a pandemic, increasing the availability of anti-viral flu medicines and pouring money into a possible vaccination program. And scientists have grown to understand that the virus is generally not much more severe than the seasonal flu….read more here…