There’s been a lot of talk about the potential health benefits of flaxseed, and whether it can help prevent or fight breast cancer. But does the talk actually have any scientific basis? According to a review article published last year in Integrative Cancer Therapies, it does! As reported in the review, a study of newly-diagnosed … Continued
Can Your Physician Really Predict How Long You Have to Live? One of the most common sources of distress after a diagnosis of cancer is being told that you have “X” number of months or years to live. This is often presented in the form of a risk-based percentage, such as “a 30 percent chance … Continued
By Keith Block, MD Hope is believing in spite of the evidence, and then watching the evidence change. – Jim Wallis, editor of Sojourners magazine Physicians who offer cancer patients innovative but “unproven” therapies are often criticized for providing false hope. The basic line of reasoning here is that, without definitive evidence from randomized clinical trials … Continued
Ask Dr. Block I’ve heard you say we have made some recent gains, but overall, and for many years, we have been losing the “war on cancer.” Why do you believe this to be the case? Compared to the mortality rate for other diseases, such as cardiovascular disease and stroke, the change in mortality … Continued
For many years, we’ve been telling breast cancer patients that if they have estrogen-receptor positive (ER+) cancers, they can safely eat soy foods like tofu and tempeh. Soy foods have been shown in epidemiological studies to be safe for breast cancer patients, as well as for those at higher risk. They may actually lower breast … Continued
I’ve heard you speak often about the importance of the “biochemical terrain.” How does our terrain influence our risk of getting cancer? I have spent the past 30 years investigating the clinical relevance and influence that the extracellular and intracellular environments have on cancer cells. A patient’s biochemical terrain can either be cancer promoting or … Continued
A major story on health news websites last week was a study from the Netherlands suggesting that fish oil will negate the effects of cancer chemotherapy. This study was published in JAMA Oncology, and thus attracted much attention. It’s actually a continuation of a study that we blogged about a few years ago: https://lifeovercancer.wordpress.com/2011/09/27/fish-oil-and-chemotherapy-the-bigger-picture/. We’ll … Continued
The data and studies looking at the relationship between nutrition and cancer are voluminous. However, there is a major disconnect between what is evidence based and supported by the literature, and what the average mainstream clinician is comfortable with when it comes to advising patients who are battling for their lives. For many years now, … Continued
One of our readers posted a question in response to our recent blog on wheat: “What are your thoughts on the use of glyphosate in GMO varieties?” The question about glyphosate and GMO varieties in relation to wheat comes about from a scientific paper titled “Glyphosate, pathways to modern diseases II: celiac sprue and gluten … Continued
Is Wheat Really the Enemy it’s Being Portrayed As? Wheat has become the latest dietary villain, blamed as the cause for just about every malaise you can imagine, including acne, chronic fatigue and depression. Opponents of wheat have coined the phrase “wheat belly,” pointing a finger at wheat as the cause of excess belly fat. … Continued