Anemia Drug Risky for People with Diabetes

I'd be very happy if we could go back to the time when medicine was simpler, treatments were simpler, and traditional medical care was more of an art and focused on patients like it used to be.

But you see Big PhRMA and Big Insurance just doesn't want it to be so. This is especially true if you estimate the cost of one dose to be in excess of $300 to more than $1,600 for the medicine, depending on dose, with additional fees for administration.

This is a great example of why the system is failing.

Diabetes: Poor response to anti-anemia drug predicts higher risk of heart disease or death
ScienceDaily (2010-12-29) -- Patients with diabetes, kidney disease and anemia who don't respond to treatment with an anti-anemia drug have a higher risk of cardiovascular disease or death, researchers have found. ...  read full article

Additionally this genetically engineered (recombinant) drug carries with it severe risk of clotting which may increase your risk of heart attack or death.

This drug is also used for people enduring chemotherapy.

WARNING

In a kinder gentler way, blood status can be changed without drugs, the way it used to be done...

Selections from 30+ found in Natural Health News  
Anti-Anemia Drugs: B12 is Better, Safer
Oct 19, 2010
Working as I do from time to time with people who experience serious anemic states because of their health condition or prescribed drugs, I have to stand on the side AGAINST the anemia drugs, regardless of health condition. ...
Death Risk Ups with Cancer Anemia Drugs
May 07, 2009
ScienceDaily (2009-05-07) -- The use of drugs to encourage red blood cell formation (erythropoiesis-stimulating agents) in cancer patients with anemia increases the risk of death and serious adverse events such as blood clots, ...
Natural Health News: Biochemic Help for Malaria
Dec 15, 2010
Additional cell salts Calc Phos (calcium phosphate) can help with secondary anemia resulting from the disease. Ferr Phos (iron phosphate) the oxygen supplying cell salt is very helpful when there is fever and vomiting of undigested food ...
If vitamins are so bad why is FDA giving them to PhRMA
Apr 06, 2010
It is also important for the prevention of cancer and the prevention and treatment of seizures, anemia, mental disorders including schizophrenia, carpal tunnel syndrome, and other conditions. Its effect on carpal tunnel can seem almost ...

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Posted in: anemia,Aranesp,chemotherapy,diabetes,Kidney Disease

Tamoxifen link to second tumors

Many years ago now, Dr. Samuel Epstein of Chicago raised serious concerns about Tamoxifen. Perhaps more people should have been listening.

More people should be listening to the fact that annual screening mammogram promotes breast cancer. (Suggestion: Request Thermography)

Long-term use of a common breast cancer drug may hike the risk of developing a deadly second tumour, a study suggests.

Tamoxifen, given to thousands of British women, prevents tumours being fuelled by the sex hormone oestrogen, and stops them returning after surgery.

But a US study links use of the drug to a four-fold raised risk of developing a more aggressive, difficult-to-treat tumour, not dependent on oestrogen.

However, women are strongly advised not to stop taking tamoxifen.

" Women should be reassured that the benefits of taking hormone-blocking drugs, such as tamoxifen, after their first diagnosis of breast cancer far outweigh any potential risks ”
Dr Alison Ross Cancer Research UK

Experts stress any risks of taking the drug are far outweighed by the benefits.

They said the odds of developing a second, non-hormone sensitive tumour remained very low.

Each year around 45,500 women in the UK are diagnosed with breast cancer and 12,000 die from the disease.

Around two thirds of breast cancers are sensitive to the hormone oestrogen.

Tamoxifen become the "gold standard" treatment for these hormone-sensitive tumours, although in recent years newer drugs have started to be preferred.

The latest study, by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, looked at long-term use of the drug among more than 1,000 women.

The researchers, writing in the journal Cancer Research, found that tamoxifen reduced the chances of oestrogen-positive breast cancer returning by 60%.

But they also found that five or more years of treatment was associated with a 440% increase in the chance of an aggressive, non-hormone sensitive tumour appearing in the opposite breast.

These tumours can be particularly difficult to treat.

Many women in the UK cease tamoxifen treatment after five years to avoid side effects, but several thousand woman have been on the drug for a longer time.

Risks and benefits

Lead researcher Dr Christopher Li said: "It is clear that oestrogen-blocking drugs like tamoxifen have important clinical benefits and have led to major improvements in breast cancer survival rates.

"However, these therapies have risks, and an increased risk of ER negative (oestrogen receptor negative) second cancer may be one of them.

"Still, the benefits of this therapy are well established and doctors should continue to recommend hormonal therapy for breast cancer patients who can benefit from it."

Professor Jack Cuzick, head of Cancer Research UK's Centre for Epidemiology, Mathematics and Statistics at Queen Mary, University of London, stressed that tamoxifen had a proven track record.

He said: "There is overwhelming evidence that tamoxifen, and newer more effective hormone blocking treatments, prevent far more recurrences, new breast cancers and cancer-related deaths than they might stimulate."

Professor Cuzick said some of the non-hormone sensitive tumours recorded in the study may have started out as hormone-sensitive, but had been kept at bay by tamoxifen treatment.

Dr Alison Ross, senior science information officer at Cancer Research UK, said: "Women should be reassured that, based on extensive scientific evidence, the benefits of taking hormone-blocking drugs, such as tamoxifen, after their first diagnosis of breast cancer far outweigh any potential risks.

"More research will be needed to confirm the possible link between its long-term use and the relatively rare occurrence of an aggressive form of the disease in the other breast."

Story from BBC NEWS:http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/health/8220767.stm
Published: 2009/08/25 17:04:00 GMT, © BBC MMIX

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Posted in: chemotherapy,Dr. Samuel Epstein,Tamoxifen

Tip: Keep Your Hair with Chemo

The show filmed Hannah at home getting her head shaved rather than waiting for chemotherapy

While it is very sad that this young girl is facing this situation there are a few considerations to review.

One should be how this happened, and what is the connection to vaccines.

The second is that there is NO need to lose your hair while undergoing chemo.

If, on each of the two days prior to a chemo treatment you take 2000 IU of natural vitamin E, you will more likely than not, keep all of your hair.

Now why isn't the medical cancer industry telling people this safe nutritional information, especially when it is well known that vitamin E has a protective effect against cancer?

SoCal 10-year-old copes with breast cancerWed Jun 3, 5:16 pm ET

LA MIRADA, Calif. – Ten-year-old Hannah Powell-Auslam is trying to remain brave as she copes with a rare form of breast cancer. "I feel like a kid inside but sometimes I feel like an adult, when I'm always at the hospital," Hannah told ABC's "Good Morning America" in an interview that aired Wednesday.

The fifth-grader at Escalona Elementary School in this Los Angeles bedroom community complained of itching in her side in April. Her mother discovered a lump, and that led to a diagnosis of breast cancer.

Her family said she was diagnosed with invasive secretory carcinoma, a type discovered in children in the 1960s.

"Hannah's prognosis is very good and the type of cancer is very slow growing," her father, Jeremy, said in an e-mail Wednesday.

Children still represent only a fraction of a percent of all breast cancer cases.

Hannah had surgery and has begun chemotherapy.

"You feel like you're sick all the time. You just want to go lay in bed," she said.

The show filmed Hannah at home getting her head shaved rather than waiting for chemotherapy to take its toll. Other family members got buzz cuts, too, in solidarity.

"I might be just a little bit afraid. I love my hair. I worked so hard to grow it," Hannah said before the event to take its toll.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090603/ap_on_re_us/us_breast_cancer_child_9

Also consider this -
Vitamins Enhance Chemotherapy
by Erik T. Paterson, M.D., Creston, BC. -
A recent article (National Post of Canada, 6 June 2005) gave an interesting account of problems with the use of supplements with cancer therapy. As far as the antioxidants are concerned, the article is far from as balanced as it would like the readers to believe. In low doses, those usually advocated by conventionally minded professionals, there is little or no value in the use of such substances. In high (remarkably safe) doses they can be highly valuable. For example, high dose vitamin C given experimentally to cultures of any type of cancer cells is lethal to them, but entirely harmless to similar cultures of normal cells. In clinical practice, when prescribed by knowledgeable doctors, high dose vitamin C does not ever interfere with chemotherapy, helps to protect against the adverse (often enough lethal) effects of chemotherapy, enhances the efficacy of chemotherapy, and frequently induces complete remission of cancer (disappearance of all clinical signs of tumour) where chemotherapy cannot. The evidence for this efficacy of high dose vitamin C is voluminous, a good starting point being Hoffer, A. & Pauling, L., Vitamin C and Cancer: Discovery, recovery, controversy, Quarry Health Books, 2000. But similar research shows the value of the other antioxidant supplements, but only when given in high, but safe doses. I am living proof that this works, having fallen ill with a near lethal Acute Mylegenous Leukemia nearly nine years ago. The effects of the chemotherapy nearly killed me. Once in remission (not cure) I have kept myself healthy with vitamin C 8,000 milligrams, niacin 3,000 milligrams, vitamin E 1000 units, vitamins A and D (in Halibut liver oil) and selenium 500 micrograms, along with other supplements all per day. I advocate that people ought to READ, READ, READ but not just journals with a bias against the unconventional use of vitamins.

Another physician comments on natural cancer care -
The first patient I treated for cancer decided not to undergo chemotherapy. He did have surgery to remove the tumor in his colon. Afterward he wanted to stick to natural therapies.

I recommended the basics. We cleaned up his diet and took him off wheat, dairy and sugar – which can drag down the immune system.

Next, I recommended he drink Essiac tea.

For several years, I followed his progress. He saw a full recovery. His post-surgery roommate, who simply went with chemotherapy, died soon after.

Essiac was likely not the sole reason for his recovery. It does, however, have quite a history of success. Yet, even today, it suffers unwarranted suppression and little mainstream investigation.

The herbal formula is named after the Canadian nurse, Rene Caisse (pronounced “reen case”) who formulated it in1920. Essiac is merely Caisse spelt backwards. The recipe is reportedly passed down by an Ojibwa medicine man.

This herbal infusion has recently been highlighted in the news with the case of Daniel Hauser avoiding chemotherapy. Daniel’s situation, likewise, has brought attention back to Billy Best, who used Essiac to help cure his cancer 15 years ago.

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Posted in: chemotherapy,natural health news,vaccines and cancer,vitamin E,vitamin E saves hair with chemo

Death Risk Ups with Cancer Anemia Drugs

If doctors were not so terribly fearful of B12 shots and the fact that they will do much to prevent anmeia of chemotherapy then perhaps the following article would not have to be posted.

The one they do need to know however, is that if they really do have to do a lab test, the correct lab test is INTRACELLULAR B12.

Our RK BioBlend was tested at a leading cancer center and found to protect the red blood cells during chemo.

Drugs To Combat Anemia In Cancer Patients Increase Risk Of Death, Study Suggests

ScienceDaily (2009-05-07) -- The use of drugs to encourage red blood cell formation (erythropoiesis-stimulating agents) in cancer patients with anemia increases the risk of death and serious adverse events such as blood clots, found a new study. ... > read full article

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B Vitamin Heaven

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Posted in: anemia,anemia drugs increased death risk,anemia prevention,B12,chemotherapy,natural health news

Vitamin C cancer study challenged

TUCSON, March 6 (UPI) -- Personal nutrition coach and U.S. nutrition author Jack Challem is challenging a recent study on high doses of vitamin C interfering with chemotherapy drugs.

Challem, a Tucson, Ariz., personal nutrition coach and a regular contributor to the journal Alternative and Complementary Therapies, challenges the findings of a study published in Cancer Research which concludes that vitamin C given to mice or cultured cells treated with common anticancer drugs reduces the tumor-fighting effects of the chemotherapeutic agents.

Challem points out two main problems with the study -- the oxidized form of vitamin C, or dehydroascorbic acid, and not actual vitamin C, ascorbic acid, was used; and in the mouse experiments, the animals were given toxic doses of dehydroascorbic acid, a compound that is not used as a dietary supplement in humans.

"This study and the subsequent headlines were a grievous disservice to physicians and patients with cancer," Challem writes in the Medical Journal Watch column in Alternative and Complementary Therapies.

"Considerable positive research ... has shown striking benefits from high-dose vitamin C (ascorbic acid) in cancer cells and animals -- and in actual human beings."

High-dose intravenous vitamin C is a common form of alternative and complementary therapy for patients receiving chemotherapeutic drugs and is believed to help bring about tumor cell death, Challem says. In addition, it may promote post-surgical healing by enhancing collagen formation, and increase tissue resistance to tumor spread.
http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2009/03/06/Vitamin_C_cancer_study_challenged/UPI-98611236362282/

You might refer to this report on the vitamin C and others you can find by searching Natural Health News.

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Posted in: 2009,Cancer,chemotherapy,consumer health,independent health news,natural health news,natural news,vitamin C

More problems for Women's Health

The difficulty here from my perspective is that you aren't being told that anyone treated for any type of cancer can later develop other cancers. Usually people are told that if they achieve the 5 year window successfully following treatment they are cancer free. The other side of this is that if you do develop cancer again after the end of the 5 year window, it is statistically interpreted as a "new"cancer, although that may not in fact be the case.

What I wonder is why don't more women get told about the real and effective benefits from herbs and other nutritional supplements along with diet that will off set menopausal symptoms bone loss concerns. At time is is important to consider liver health because of its role in recycling neurotransmitters and detoxification, all interfered with by chemotherapy and other synthetic hormone pharmaceuticals.

Menopause drug linked to breast cancer relapse
Tue Feb 17, 2009
PARIS (AFP) – A synthetic steroid used to treat menopause symptoms and prevent osteoporosis significantly increases the risk of a relapse in breast cancer patients, according to a study released Tuesday.

The steroid, called tibolone, should not be prescribed to a woman who has had or is suspected of having breast cancer, concluded the study, published in the British medical journal The Lancet Oncology.

Women with breast cancer undergoing chemotherapy are often beset with the debilitating symptoms of menopause, including hot flushes, night sweats, and bone loss.

Tibolone is licensed for use in 90 countries for alleviating these symptoms, and 55 countries have approved its use in treating osteoporosis, according to the study.

But concern that the drugs might also cause a recurrence of cancer have led to their being ruled out for patients with breast cancer.

Still, many patients with breast cancer use the drug -- often available without prescription -- to counteract the effects of menopause.

In clinical trials led by Peter Kenemans of the VU University Medical Centre in Amsterdam, 3,098 women who had been surgically treated for breast cancer and who were experiencing hot flushes along with other related symptoms were divided into two groups.

The first was given a daily dose of 2.5 milligrammes of tibolone, and the second a look-alike placebo.

Just over 10 percent of the women who had taken the dummy medication suffered a cancer relapse, compared to more than 15 percent of the women who had taken the steroid -- an increased risk of 40 percent.

Seventy percent of the recurrences among the tibolone group were so-called "distant metastatses," which are invariably fatal.

The increased risk was so pronounced that the trial was stopped six months early.

"Although the trial was intended to show the non-inferiority of tibolone compared with placebo, the findings clearly show that -- although effective against hot flushes -- tibolone does increase the risk of breast-cancer recurrence," the study said.

Copyright © 2009 Agence France Presse.

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Posted in: 2009,cancer relapse,chemotherapy,consumer health,detoxification,herbs help menopause,liver health,natural health news,women's health

Bone Loss Problematic, Bone Drugs Risky

In January 2008 the FDA issued warnings regarding the class of drugs developed to allegedly help people with osteopenia and osteoporosis.

Numerous problems are associated with these drugs, including bone frailty and increased fracture rates.

Now chemotherapy for cancer seems to be opening a new window to ply these drugs on patients who already are health compromised because of the cancer and chemotherapy drug treatments.

It is interesting to note that there does exist a safe and effective approach to maintaining storng, healthy and flexible bones with vitamins and other natural supplements.

Some other physicians express concern -"

Bisphosphonates, like Fosamax and Actonel, are taken up by osteoclasts with resulting loss of osteoclast activity and inhibition of bone resorption, and bone remodeling (link). Although DEXA scanning confirms increased bone density and studies such as the FIT suggest reduced fracture rate, Susan Ott, MD raises questions about the long term safety of bisphosphonates. Although the bisphosphonates appear to have short term benefits, she speculates that after 5 years of use, there is severe suppression of bone formation with negative effects such as microdamage and brittleness.

Jennifer P. Schneider, MD, PhD reports a 59-year old previously healthy woman on long-term alendronate. While on a subway train in New York City one morning, the train jolted, and the woman shifted all her weight to one leg, felt a bone snap, and fell to the floor, suffering a spontaneous mid -femur fracture (see image). In the months following, it became clear that the fracture was not uniting. Schneider speculates that increased bone density from the bisphosphonate drug does not necessarily equate with good bone quality. By decreasing osteoclast activity and bone resorption, and therefore bone formation as well, microdamage, and brittle bone may result in fractures.

Odvina reports on 9 cases of spontanous fracture while on alendonate. Five of the nine cases were spontaneous mid femur fractures. Two had bilateral mid femur fractures same as Toulouse Lautrec. Six cases had delayed or absent fracture healing. Histomorphometric analysis of the cancellous bone showed markedly suppressed bone formation, and Odvina raised the possibility that severe suppression of bone turnover could develop during long-term alendronate therapy, resulting in increased susceptibility to, and delayed healing of, nonspinal fractures.

Dimitrakopoulos reports on 11 patients presenting with necrosis of the jaw, claiming this to be a new complication of bisphosphonate therapy administration, i.e. osteonecrosis of jaws. He advised clinicians to reconsider the merits of the rampant use of bisphosphonates. Osteonecrosis of the jaw is a common finding in pycnodysostosis. The bisphosphonates recreate the same clinical p rofile of spontaneous mid femur fractures, failure of bone healing and jaw necrosis which tormented Toulouse Lautrec.

In spite of this well known information, there are four more drugs in clinical trials which are specifically designed to inhibit cathepsin K, the enzyme defect in Lautrec's genetic bone disease. FDA approval for use in osteoporosis treatment is expected. Excuse me here, but perhaps this thinking needs re-evaluation. In essence we are creating a population of women with Toulouse Lautrec's bone disease. Ironically, women who sustain fractures while on Fosamax are told by their docs that the fractures are due to the underlying osteoporosis, not the drug. "

Cancer Treatment May Result In Bone Loss, Study Finds

ScienceDaily (2008-11-17) -- A new cross-Canada study has found that breast and prostate cancer treatment can foster bone loss. Scientists explain how loss of bone mass might affect 46,000 people diagnosed with breast and prostate cancer each year and place them at increased risk for osteoporosis and fractures. ... > read full article

FDA Issues Alert on Bone Drugs
By Elizabeth Trotta
The FDA posted an alert on Monday regarding possible severe, sometimes incapacitating bone, joint, and/or muscle pain in patients taking a class of bone-density drugs called bisphosphonates.
The possibility of such pain is listed in the drugs' prescribing information, but the FDA warned that doctors may overlook it to the point that it's prolonged or results in impairment, possibly requiring analgesics. This pain can occur days, months or years after initial use, and the risk factors for and incidence of severe musculoskeletal pain associated with the class are still unknown, according to the agency.

"Healthcare professionals should consider whether bisphosphonate use might be responsible for severe musculoskeletal pain in patients who present with these symptoms and consider temporary or permanent discontinuation of the drug," noted the health regulator in a Med Watch post on Monday.

The class of bone drugs in question include:

Proctor & Gamble's(PG Quote - Cramer on PG - Stock Picks) Actonel, Actonel +Ca, and Didronel

Novartis'(NVS Quote - Cramer on NVS - Stock Picks) Aredia, Reclast and Zometa

Roche and GlaxoSmithKline's(GSK Quote - Cramer on GSK - Stock Picks) Boniva

Merck's(MRK Quote - Cramer on MRK - Stock Picks) Foxamax, Fosamax + D

Sanofi Aventis'(SNY Quote - Cramer on SNY - Stock Picks) Skelid.

Drug companies downplay risks of bone-strengthening drugs for women
18.01.2008 Source: URL: http://english.pravda.ru/science/103518-bone_strengthening_drugs -0

Drug companies exaggerate the benefits and downplay the risks of prescribing bone-strengthening drugs for women whose bones are weakened but who do not have osteoporosis, a new report claims.

Drugs such as alendronate and risedronate do reduce the risk of fractures of women with osteoporosis, according to the article in the Jan. 19 issue of BMJ.

Alendronate is a bisphosphonate drug used for osteoporosis and several other bone diseases. It is marketed alone as well as in combination with vitamin D (2,800 U and 5600 U, under the name Fosamax+D). Merck's U.S. patent on alendronate is set to expire in 2008 and Merck has lost a series of appeals to block a generic version of the drug from being certified by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Risedronate sodium is a bisphosphonate used to strengthen bone, treat or prevent osteoporosis, and treat Paget's disease of bone. It is produced and marketed by Procter & Gamble and Sanofi-Aventis.

In January 2006 P&G and its marketing partner Sanofi-Aventis filed a Lanham Act false claims lawsuit against rival drugmakers Roche and GlaxoSmithKline claiming false advertising about Boniva. The manufacturers of Boniva, a rival bisphosphonate, were accused in the suit of causing a "serious public health risk" through misrepresentation of scientific findings. In a ruling on on September 7 2006 U.S. District Judge Paul A. Crotty rejected P&G's attempted injunction. P&G was criticized for attempting to "preserve its market share by denigrating Boniva". Judge Crotty wrote that "Roche was clearly entitled to respond with its own data, provided that the data was truthfully and accurately presented".

Source: «PRAVDA.Ru».

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Posted in: American Cancer Society,bisphosphonates,bone health,chemo bone drugs,chemotherapy,FDA warnings on bone drugs,health news,natural care,natural health news,natural news,pain bone drugs