Polite Explanations are Welcome....

Thank goodness that there might just be SOME people in the medical community that are above reproach. I feel so much better now.

Oy... Now I feel worse... "Hide". I haven't a clue what you are referring to. We live in a very transparent world. And nowadays, my doctors don't even know how to hold a pen. All their notes are done electronically. Furthermore, because of transparancy and electronic data, I have access to as much data as I can possibly want to read. When the DH was diagnosed, gathering data about his disease was a Hurculean task. Nowadays, I marvel at how easy it is to do research. That's why I call myself VoraciousReader. Some of my friends also call me MagicFingers... Because if the information is out there, these magic fingers will find it. No one is hiding anything. Believe me! The hardest part now is figuring out what is important and what is irrelevant. And finally, everyone wants their data out there. So hiding? I don't think so. and if someone chooses to deliberately hide something? Forgettaboutit!

If I recall, you ladies (you know who you are) invited AA several times to create her own thread and now you are on here trying to sabotage it.  Evebarry is no longer posting on BCO because you sabotaged her thread.  I don't understand any of it.  What are you trying to prove?  Every one of you are far too intelligent to lower yourselves to this level.

 Why don't we stop the dueling egos and get back to the real world of BCO which is a site that offers an opportunity for education, comfort and support!

A quick detour back to the question raised earlier about why it is that the risk to get BC increases as we age, despite the fact that we have less and less estrogen in our systems as we get older.

First of all, here is the latest data (from the U.S.) on breast cancer risk by age:

• from age 30 through age 39 . . . . . . 0.43 percent (often expressed as "1 in 233")
• from age 40 through age 49 . . . . . . 1.45 percent (often expressed as "1 in 69")
• from age 50 through age 59 . . . . . . 2.38 percent (often expressed as "1 in 42")
• from age 60 through age 69 . . . . . . 3.45 percent (often expressed as "1 in 29") 

I was looking this up recently for someone else who asked so I can fill in the rest of the chart:

• from age 20 through age 29 . . . . . . 0.05 percent (often expressed as "1 in 2000")
• from age 70 through age 89 . . . . . . 4.44 percent (often expressed as "1 in 23") 
• TOTAL LIFETIME RISK:  12.2 percent (often expressed as "1 in 8") 

So why does our BC risk increase with age?  For the same reason that our risk to get most cancers and many other diseases increases with age... as we get older, our bodies start to break down while at the same our cells lose the ability to repair themselves. 

Cancer arises from one single cell. The transformation from a normal cell into a tumour cell is a multistage process, typically a progression from a pre-cancerous lesion to malignant tumours. These changes are the result of the interaction between a person's genetic factors and three categories of external agents, including:

• physical carcinogens, such as ultraviolet and ionizing radiation;
• chemical carcinogens, such as asbestos, components of tobacco smoke, aflatoxin (a food contaminant) and arsenic (a drinking water contaminant); and
• biological carcinogens, such as infections from certain viruses, bacteria or parasites.

Ageing is another fundamental factor for the development of cancer. The incidence of cancer rises dramatically with age, most likely due to a build up of risks for specific cancers that increase with age. The overall risk accumulation is combined with the tendency for cellular repair mechanisms to be less effective as a person grows older.   http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs297/en/

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The other explanation I read that really helped me understand why cancer develops as we age related to the BRCA mutations.  Basically it explained that the BRCA genes are tumor suppressor genes - they control cell growth & death and thereby serve to prevent the development of cancer.  But as we go through life, cells become damaged and fail.  It could be aging or it might be damage caused by some environmental factor that causes a cell to stop working properly.  We all start with 2 copies of each of the BRCA genes, one inherited from our father and one inherited from our mother.  Both copies of these genes need to fail in order for cancer to develop.  Those born with a BRCA mutation start off at birth with one copy of the gene already not working properly or at all.  If at any point the other gene is damaged, cancer can develop.  But the rest of us start with two healthy copies of each gene.  If one is damaged, the other still protects us. This is why those with BRCA mutations are more likely to develop BC (and other cancers) and why they are more likely to develop these cancers at an earlier age.  If both a BRCA+ woman and a BRCA- women lose one copy of the gene at age 39, the BRCA woman now might develop BC whereas the BRCA- woman will still be protected until such time as the second copy of the gene also fails - and that might never happen or it might not happen for many years to come. That's why the risk to develop BC becomes greater as we get older. 

The other thing to keep in mind is that even if a breast cancer is ER+, it just means that estrogen to some extent fuels that cancer.  It doesn't necessarily mean that estrogen caused the cancer or even had much of a role in the development and growth of the cancer.   

Now, back to the discussion already in progress ...... 

Yo! I knew you'd come thru beesie! Now this kind of education and information is not readily available or easily accessible elsewhere. Brilliant! Just a thought about how the discussion is going...this is really informative stuff and you know just talking about difficult situations and talking about the 'what ifs' no matter when can be therapeutic. Noone is perfect but we can try to be kind?

Kaara...That's great news regarding your what your RO said to you about your healing.  I'm glad you feel that perhaps your anti-cancer diet has promoted your healing.  It would be nice if there was a clinical trial that could be certain of the benefits.  However, I just want you to know, I had MAJOR surgery more than a decade ago to repair a hole on my lung. The doctor had to open my chest to repair the hole.  Two years ago, at age 53, when I was diagnosed with BC, my MO was examining me and said to me that he could not tell from my X-Ray that I had had major lung surgery, nor could he find my scar.  I've never taken ANY supplements or vitamins in my adult life and healed wonderfully as well.

I'm going to go a little off topic here and try to present to you and the sisters the difficulty in trying to understand the benefits we infer from taking supplements and vitamins by using this terrific study I found two weeks ago regarding Vitamin D and heart health.  The original study from Johns Hopkins came my way via Theheart.org.  I found the study VERY interesting and then found the following article which I think exemplifies how little we ACTUALLY know about supplements and vitamins.

"Response to CRP and vitamin D association finding

Posted on January 11, 2012 by Dr John Cannell

In a paper critical of higher levels of vitamin D for allegedly increasing a marker of inflammation, c-reactive protein (CRP), Drs. Muhammad Amer and Rehan Qayyum of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, began their paper by saying:

"The cardiovascular protection offered by vitamin D and its analogues is probably mediated by modulation of inflammatory cytokines."

Amer M, Qayyum R. Relation Between Serum 25-Hydroxyvitamin D and C-Reactive Protein in Asymptomatic Adults (From the Continuous National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2001 to 2006). Am J Cardiol. 2011 Oct 12.

25(OH)D levels of 20 ng/ml were associated with a CRP of 1.7, while 25(OH)D levels of 50 ng/ml were associated with a CRP of 1.9,

If you will notice, both physicians know that vitamin D offers "cardiovascular protection." However, they are concerned 25(OH)D levels higher than 20 ng/ml will increase inflammation as measured by CRP and thus worsen cardiovascular protection. CRP is a protein in the blood which tends to rise in response to inflammation or injury. Its physiologic role is to take part in the "complement system."

The authors arrived at this conclusion by adjusting their data for up to 9 variables and finding that a 25(OH)D of 20 ng/ml is associated with a CRP (range 0-5) of approximately 1.7 while a 25(OH)D of 50 ng/ml is associated with a CRP of 1.9. Their raw findings contradict their adjusted data in that the raw data showed what we have known for some time and that is that in the lower ranges of 25(OH)D, vitamin D reduces CRP. As with most biomarkers of vitamin D, the big improvement is in people who get their 25(OH)D up  from 5 ng/ml up to 20 ng/ml. We know that in most cases, the biggest bang for the buck is in treating severe deficiency in people with such low levels.

So if you have natural levels of vitamin D, say a 25(OH)D of 50 ng/ml, and you want to decrease your CRP by 0.2, then stop your vitamin D and stay out of the sun, get your levels to 20 ng/ml, and see if all the corrections and adjustments the doctors performed were correct. I certainly am not going to do such a silly thing.

Dozens of studies now exist showing supplemental vitamin D3 reduces mortality rates, in part due to its cardiovascular protection. The majority of these studies show that improvement in mortality continues through 30 ng/ml and even up to 40 ng/ml. Not enough people have levels of 50 ng/ml for scientists to see if such levels offer further protection. However, cardiovascular disease is rare in native peoples around the equator where vitamin D levels of 50 ng/ml are not uncommon.

The takeaway message from this paper is that scientists will need to recalculate lots of different "normals," using vitamin D sufficient subjects. It's not just that normal CRP may be a bit higher in vitamin D sufficient people, their red blood count and the protein albumin may be a bit lower, for example. The point is that pathologists and epidemiologists will need to redo much of their work. We don't know the normal range of CRP in 65-year-old men; we know the range of CRP in 65-year-old vitamin D deficient men. Likewise, we don't know the incidence of heart disease in 65-year-old men; we know the incidence of heart disease in vitamin D deficient 65 year-old men. We have lots of work to do.

About Dr John Cannell

Dr. John Cannell is founder of the Vitamin D Council. He has written many peer-reviewed papers on vitamin D and speaks frequently across the United States on the subject. Dr. Cannell holds an M.D. and has served the medical field as a general practitioner, itinerant emergency physician, and psychiatrist. "    

Anyone see how complicated STUDYING vitamins is?          

 Now, if you are still following me on this journey....I'm going to make things slightly more complicated by explain to you a little bit about rare genetic metabolic diseases....

The DH's genetic metabolic muscular dystrophy causes a defect in fatty acid oxidation.  That means, his body doesn't produce enough of a particular enzyme to make it's way into the mitochondria to make energy.  Many of you might recall from learning in school that the mitochondria is called the "powerhouse" of the cell because that is where energy is made and released from.  People who have all kinds of genetic metabolic diseases have defects that affect the cell's functioning.  Now here's where it gets interesting and complicated for researchers to understand.  You would think that two siblings who BOTH have the same genetic metabolic mutation would both have the same amount of enzymes and would be affected the same way.  No and No.  What is facinating and incomprehensible to researchers today is that one sibling can have more of the enzymes and yet be more symptomatic than the other sibling who has less enzymes.  And, there are siblings who have the genetic mutation and while deficient in enzymes  are asymptomatic!  Have I confused anyone reading this yet?

I always am amused when people tell me they are deficient in this or that and to "correct" the deficiency, they take this or that.  But from the example I just gave you and the study about Vitamin D, it really isn't clear how people might benefit from taking a supplement or vitamin.  I would love to explain how my husband's endocrinologists and genetic physicians find ways to treat him...but alas, this is a breast cancer website and I don't think it's fair to take all of us on another journey...because I think I would confuse all of you and I simply don't want to do that.

I hope however, you have all learned from these examples, though, that the human body is as magnificent and elegant as the universe.  And both choose to unravel their mysteries to us very, very slowly.

Apple...One of the top books now is Thinking Fast and Thinking Slow written by a Nobel Laurete.  The premise behind the book is that usually when our gut is telling us to do something....it's usually WRONG!  Check out the book!  One of my walking companions is reading it and is raving about it! 

Digger! Lol! Funny and sad and also true!!!