Participants: Nick Evenson (Host), Dr. James Marcum
Series Code: UP
Program Code: UP000073A
|
00:16 Do you or someone you know have breast cancer?
00:19 On today's program, we're going to be answering 00:21 questions and talking about the cancer that affects 00:23 1 in 8 women in the United States... stay tuned. 00:26 I'm Dr. James Marcum... 00:28 Are you interested in discovering the reason why? 00:32 Do you want solutions to your healthcare problem? 00:35 Are you tired of taking medications? 00:37 Well, you're about to be given "The Ultimate Prescription" 00:43 Hi, I'm your host, Nick Evenson, 00:45 and on today's program, we're going to be talking about 00:47 breast cancer - a topic that can be very serious and scary. 00:50 In 2014, 232,000 were diagnosed with breast cancer. 00:55 What do we need to know and is there hope 00:57 for the 1 in 8 women who will be diagnosed this year? 01:00 Dr. Marcum, welcome to the program. 01:02 Well thank you, Nick, and this is a very serious 01:05 topic that we're talking about. 01:07 And, you know, we were talking before we went on... 01:10 we want to give hope too. That's right 01:12 You know, even though it's serious and we choose 01:14 programs based on what affects a lot of people, 01:16 and 1 in 8, that's a pretty significant number, 01:21 1 in 8 will develop breast cancer. 01:24 And, if you think about cancers, cancer is a very scary thing. 01:31 I'm going to quiz you for a second here. Okay 01:33 You might not know all the answers, 01:35 but let me throw some out. 01:36 Do you know what the most common type of cancer is 01:38 overall - the most common type of cancer? 01:40 Skin cancer? Yes! ... for one 01:43 Do you know which cancer kills the most people every year? 01:48 Ummm - I'd go with lung cancer. 01:50 That's right - lung cancer. It's like we practiced. 01:52 Yes, we practiced that one, okay. 01:54 Now the cancer that seems to affect the most women, 01:57 of course, is skin, but breast cancer 1 in 8, 02:00 that's a pretty incredible statistic. Yeah 02:04 Now, in thinking about cancers, everyone out there 02:07 the first thing is we want to avoid getting cancer, 02:11 including breast cancer, including skin cancer, 02:14 and then if we have cancer, we want to do things to 02:16 help our own immune system knock down the cancer cells. 02:20 And the way I think about it is... 02:22 One of the things that triggers cancers is prolonged exposures 02:26 to stressors, okay... For instance, prolonged 02:28 exposure to the sun - skin cancer. Right 02:30 Prolonged exposure to cigarettes - lung cancer. Right 02:35 Now, in breast cancer it's more like prolonged exposure 02:40 to estrogen. 02:42 There are a couple of doctors out there that think that it's 02:45 possible and the name of one of them is Dr. Walter Willett, 02:48 that you can make a woman breast cancer-free, 02:51 totally breast cancer-free, 02:52 no breast cancer at all, it's possible. 02:54 BUT, okay, listen at what we have to do to do this. 02:57 But to do that, they would have to not start to reach 03:01 their menstrual period until they were 17 or 18 years of age, 03:05 and they would have to stay pregnant almost all the time. 03:08 What this does is - it keeps the estrogen cycle down 03:12 so in breast cancer, estrogen tends to be a trigger. Okay 03:17 The longer a woman is exposed to estrogen, 03:20 the greater the risk they get cancer. 03:23 So, if you have early periods, if your menarche 03:28 happens at an earlier age, then they have more periods 03:30 in a lifetime, they're exposed longer to estrogen... 03:33 estrogen turns on the breast tissue which, 03:36 if there are cancer genes, 03:37 more likely to happen. Does that make sense? Yeah 03:39 Now, I imagine there may be places in the world that 03:41 have lower rates of breast cancer than we do. Exactly! 03:44 And, are these some factors that play into their culture? 03:46 Yes in rural China for instance, the girls do not have their 03:49 periods until they are 17 or 18, 03:52 so they have a much lower risk of breast cancer. 03:54 Now, through the years, the age of menarche... 03:58 when women started having their menstrual became 04:01 younger and younger and younger because they 04:03 got exposed to, what I think is, an animal-based diet. 04:08 They get exposed to a lot more estrogens earlier in life, 04:11 and then starting to have their menstrual periods early, 04:15 so they have a prolonged exposure to estrogen 04:17 over a lifetime which is going to raise their risk. 04:20 So that's one thing the early menarche. 04:22 Another thing that happens is we have gained extra weight 04:26 as a society... Yeah, we have 04:28 Fat takes even a little bit of extra weight, 04:31 and you make more estrogen. 04:33 In fact, if you're a little bit overweight, 04:35 you make 3 times the estrogen as you normally would. Really? 04:38 So just carrying extra weight 04:40 increases the risk of breast cancer. 04:43 Another factor that going to increase the risk of 04:45 a woman having breast cancer is 04:47 increased insulin levels, now think of it this way... 04:51 Insulin is a growth hormone, it makes cells grow, 04:55 and if you think about it, if a person eats a food 04:59 that's highly processed, especially high fructose 05:02 corn syrup and those high processed sugars, 05:05 that spikes insulin levels. Okay 05:06 So your insulin level spikes, so you have this 05:09 pro-growth thing, so any cancer in the body 05:12 is going to be more likely to be stimulated. 05:15 So processed foods, being an insulin mechanism, 05:19 could stimulate breast cancer growth. 05:21 So remember, a lot of us have cancer genes... 05:23 They're in our bodies and we want them to stay dormant. 05:26 We don't want to activate them. Right 05:28 So processed foods, through insulin, is another way 05:31 we could activate cancer genes in addition to 05:34 prolonged exposures to estrogen, 05:36 and then we also talked about the weight factor. 05:41 So these are some interesting things and that's 05:43 why we see these levels of breast cancer go up every year. 05:46 So let me make sure I have this right... 05:47 You're saying that our diet and some other factors as well, 05:51 but our diet kind of increases insulin which increases 05:54 growth in a more rapid rate than we were made to have? 05:56 That's right. And that can trigger 05:58 some of the cancer. Right 05:59 And you know, high insulin levels not only 06:02 stimulates cancer growth, but it messes up 06:05 the endothelium which is the lining of our blood vessels. 06:08 That's why diabetes, you know type 2 diabetes which is 06:11 extra weight, all that insulin that's made, damages the body. 06:15 It damages the blood vessels, 06:16 raises the chance of having cancer. 06:18 So all the people that carry extra weight, 06:20 they increase risk of different types of cancer. Sure 06:24 So that's another thing that we want to get out there, 06:26 is let people know that the diet makes a difference, 06:29 the food makes a difference, and movement and exercise 06:33 tends to be very valuable in lowering the risk 06:35 of having cancer through lots of mechanisms. 06:38 Through the weight loss mechanisms and probably 06:41 through mechanisms on the genetics itself. 06:44 Now genes are what make proteins that decide what our bodies do. 06:51 And they have cancer genes, but throughout the body 06:53 you also have genes that inhibit cancer. 06:56 And one of the cancer genes that got a lot of press 06:59 was this "BCRA" gene. 07:01 Have you heard of that? No, I haven't. 07:03 Well that was a gene that they isolated and there was this 07:05 actress, "Angelina Jolie," she had this gene which 07:11 raises her risk of having breast cancer and because 07:14 she had this gene, she had both breasts removed. 07:18 She wasn't going to take any chances. 07:20 No breast tissue - no breast cancer. Right 07:22 Get rid of it if you can. 07:23 She wasn't going to take that chance. 07:24 So a lot of people said, "Well, should everyone get 07:27 tested for this gene?" 07:28 No really, they shouldn't. 07:31 So if you do have a high risk of breast cancer 07:34 in your family, that's a whole different story, 07:36 and she had young people having cancer in her family 07:39 including ovarian cancer. 07:41 But if you had a high risk, one of the things we want 07:44 people to do are the things we've talked about... 07:45 Exercise, lower your exposures 07:49 to estrogen in whatever way you can. 07:52 You know, do those type of things and get your 07:54 mammograms and your breast self-checks regularly 07:57 so if you do have it, you'd pick it up very early. 07:59 And eat a diet that doesn't cause inflammation. 08:01 Yes, now that's what I wanted to bring up, 08:03 and if you think about the diet, the food we eat... 08:05 The food we eat directly affects our genes. 08:09 And we have cells in our body that... 08:11 For instance, the BCRA gene, that was a defective gene. 08:14 That gene specifically encodes for proteins that help destroy 08:18 cancers - gets rid of cancers! 08:21 So if you don't have that gene, 08:23 you can't get rid of the cancers. Right 08:24 So we want to make our genetics very valuable and we want to 08:28 stimulate things that help fight cancer. 08:31 Well we know that things that cause this process 08:33 is "oxidation," I call it "rust" in the body. 08:36 Oxidation damages our genes, hurts the ability of our genes 08:40 to sort of clean up things. 08:42 The foods that help our bodies fight cancer are the 08:45 "antioxidants" because it helps our genes develop 08:50 the things that we need to help fight, 08:52 and we talked, in other programs, about telomeres 08:55 and different genetics and aging and different genetics, 08:58 but we want to stimulate our genes to do their own job 09:01 to clean up the matter, basically enhance 09:04 our own defense system, our immune system. 09:07 But we know that things like exercise helps our genes. 09:10 We also know that the food we eat helps our genes, 09:12 but if you think about this word "oxidation," Nick, 09:15 anything that puts prolonged stress on our body 09:18 could promote oxidation. Right 09:21 So it's not only the food... can you imagine, 09:23 a person that's under a lot of brain stress, 09:25 a lot of worries and concerns or people have stress 09:29 because they don't sleep well at night... 09:31 So any type of prolonged stress, I think, can hurt 09:34 our immune system and damage our genetics so we can't 09:39 fight off the cells that we normally would. Right 09:41 Now this not only will help lower the risk of 09:43 cancer cells getting out of control, 09:45 but it will help infections and many other things in the body. 09:48 It's sort of neat how these chemical changes 09:51 affect the entire body. Right 09:54 And these are things that we should think about 09:56 because this is what, especially if a woman 09:58 that is at high risk for breast cancer, 10:00 this is something I would want to do. 10:01 I'd want to say, "Listen, I want to make my own 10:04 immune system - my own cancer cells a lot stronger. 10:07 Now there are some natural herbs that have been 10:09 shown to help like "turmeric," and things like that 10:11 to have anticancer properties. 10:13 And the way they studied these, Nick, is they have these 10:16 dishes of cancer cells and they actually put these 10:18 substances in to see if they inhibit the growth. 10:21 So they'll react directly with each other outside of the body. 10:24 Right, they can see which cancers are growing faster, 10:26 the ones that get oxidation or the ones that get antioxidants. 10:30 And they can actually show that certain foods, 10:32 of course - the fresh foods are the antioxidants, 10:34 the tumor cells don't grow as quickly. 10:38 It's much more complicated in the body, 10:40 but these are some things that 10:42 we want women to think about as they think about 10:44 breast cancer - all the things that they can do to lower 10:47 their risk and if they've had breast cancer before, 10:50 all these things will also enhance those. 10:53 So we want to answer some questions 10:55 about breast cancer today. 10:57 We certainly do - it's a very important discussion to have, 10:59 but first, before we go into the questions, 11:01 we've been building a first aid kit this year, 11:03 and we've got an item here. 11:05 Tell us about it and why should 11:06 it be in everyone's first aid kit. 11:08 Yes, this is a very important item and I realized 11:10 the importance of it yesterday. 11:12 We were in the studio yesterday, and someone had a 11:15 situation where their husband fell into the water, 11:18 and they got very, very cold, on a very cold day. 11:22 Very cold weather! 11:24 And one of the things that's important is, 11:26 when you're out in the world, is hypothermia. 11:29 If hypothermia is not addressed quickly, 11:32 the cells - bad things happen quickly. 11:34 So first aid for hypothermia would include 11:38 rubbing the body parts. 11:40 Some people would take water, warm water in. 11:45 You know, we talked about skin, how the skin wants to 11:48 retain heat, but this is something that's fairly simple 11:50 that a first aid kit should have - a blanket! 11:54 Now this doesn't look much like a blanket 11:56 because it's in a small package, 11:58 but it's great because you can carry it with you; 12:00 you can put it in your first aid kit and if you happen 12:02 to run into hypothermia or a cold situation, 12:06 you can wear this... this helps reflect heat, 12:09 and it says this - I've never used it myself, 12:11 but it can reflect up to 70 to 80% of heat. 12:14 It can keep you warm until someone can come and 12:16 warm you up, Nick. 12:18 And it seems like that's more efficient than a lot of 12:19 blankets in my house that are much bigger. 12:21 No, let me hand this to you, look how little that is. Yes 12:23 It's not very big at all and I would unwrap it, 12:26 but I'm afraid if we unwrap it on the set, 12:28 we might not get it put back together. Probably not 12:31 But this is another good thing that our viewers can add 12:35 to their first aid kit that will help them in an emergency, 12:38 and it might help someone else, you never know. 12:40 You know, they might come along the side of the road, 12:42 and there might be a family that's really cold, 12:44 and has need of a blanket, this will keep them warm 12:47 until they can get a warm blanket. 12:49 So that's very important, we're trying to give people 12:52 some practical ideas of things that they can do, 12:55 not only to help themselves, but also to serve other people. 12:58 So, we have a lot of questions 13:00 on breast cancer we're going to get to. That's right 13:02 We're going to get to those questions in just a moment. 13:04 But first, we're going to break and we'll be right back. |
Revised 2016-08-15