FIFTEEN WAYS TO SAVE YOUR SKIN

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E V E R Y T H I N G Y O U N E E D T O K N O W T O H E L P Y O U B E AT C A N C E R
i n t e g r a t e d
c a n c e r
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o n c o l o g y
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June 2003 Volume 1 Issue 12
FIFTEEN WAYS TO
SAVE YOUR SKIN
Overcoming
ovarian cancer
HOW LISA
CHANGED HER LIFE
Can candida cause
cancer?
AS SAFE AS
HOUSES?
Beware of toxins
in your home
Carctol
Healing herbs
from India
ATOMIC MAN
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A magazine from Health Issues
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Edited and Produced by
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Editorial team: Maggie Goodman, Melanie
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Living Proof
Overcoming ovarian
cancer; how Lisa changed
her life for the better
8
LETTERS AND NEWS
Over to you
Medical Report
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CAN CANDIDA
CAUSE CANCER?
14
Fifteen ways to
save your skin
FULL OF THEM!
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What makes us who we are
G Breast cancer screening
G Clamydia and ovarian cancer
NEWS ROUND-UP
WARNING:
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IN NEXT MONTH’S ISSUE
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Beating breast cancer
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Centrefold: how to protect your
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E D I T O R I A L
i c o n
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i 12 cmonthsolatern
ell, this is the last issue of volume 1. It's hard
to imagine that only a year ago (with no
experience whatsoever of publishing - we
know, it showed!) we brought out a "trial" magazine
to see what people thought.
W
In her integrated practice she works with Chris
Etheridge, a doctor and a man of three PhD's. He is an
absolute fount of knowledge on medical research,
from drugs to herbs and he will be helping us with
"Lab Report" and general informational support.
One year on and we have our lovely editorial team of
Maggie, Madeleine and Melanie, all top journalists in
their own right. They have just been joined by Ginny,
whose story you read in May and we have a variety of
interesting people submitting articles all the time. So
much so we frequently run out of space!
We have had letters from HRH Prince Charles and from
Cherie Blair, others from Australia, Sweden, Germany
and the USA, all praising our efforts. We simply try to
be open-minded about all the possible steps you can
take to beat cancer. And to present them in an
interesting way.
Over the next 12 months, as we have started to do
recently, we will be featuring one cancer in a little
more detail each month. Last month it was brain
tumours, this month ovarian, then we have breast
cancer and lung cancer in the coming months.
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last month it was Professor Pilkington. Over the next
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Rosy Daniel (formerly head of the Bristol Cancer Help
Centre and now President of the British Society of
Integrated Medicine) and a number of her colleagues.
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ur charity Cancer Active is finalised, and will
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Dr Samuel Epstein has asked me to run the
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Onward and upward!
CHRIS WOOLLAMS M.A. (OXON)
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4
L I V I N G
P R O O F
“I’m not a victim,
I’m a survivor”
HOW LISA BEARDOW LEARNED TO FEEL WHOLE AGAIN
Lisa Beardow attributes her recovery from ovarian cancer to a "well-stocked toolbox": surgery
and chemotherapy dealt with the tumours, while reflexology and massage, healing and
counselling combined to "make me feel whole again". Lisa, who seems wise and deep beyond her
years, lives with her partner Leo in South London. Just 32 when she was diagnosed five and a half
years ago, Lisa was a carefree London career girl. A sales manager for a smart West End store she
worked at the cutting edge of high fashion with top designers . Looking back, Lisa feels she was
then quite a material girl with a passion for shoes and colour and clothes. She still loves beautiful
things but now sees colour and beauty beyond the surface too. She also loves her two new jobs as a qualified reflexologist and an administrator for Ovacome, the ovarian cancer charity.
L I V I N G
"Before I was diagnosed I
didn’t even know that you
could get cancer in the
ovaries. Cancer simply
hadn’t touched my life. I
thought of myself as
healthy except that I had
very heavy and painful
periods. Over the years I’d
had four laparoscopies,
from which it was deduced
that I had endometriosis. I
was given hormone drug
treatment to suppress
growth in the lining of the
endometrium. There were
then bad spells and better
spells, but it’s amazing
what the body can get
used to. Knowing no
different I didn’t think
there was anything wrong
with popping endless
painkillers. And though it
sounds odd, I’d been quite
grateful to know I had
endometriosis, because I no
longer felt crazy and
peculiar because I wasn’t
like all my girlfriends on
the Pill who had half a
day’s bleeding a month and
continued to swim 20
lengths in the pool.
I
went to my GP again
when I began bleeding
within my cycle and was
suffering pain on
ovulation as well as
frequent urination and
gastric pain. He sent me to
St George’s who thought
the endometriosis had
flared up again and
suggested a further
laparoscopy in six months’
time. Not wanting to wait I
was then referred to the
Chelsea and Westminster
Hospital where I was
booked in for a
laparoscopy within two
weeks - and that’s when
they found the cancer. It’s
unusual in someone as
young as I was - most
people affected are 45 and
upwards. No one has ever
said whether the
endometriosis developed
into cancer or if it saved my
life because it was the
reason my condition came
to light. Luckily it was
caught early. My surgeon
Jane Bridges was very kind
and sympathetic; being a
woman I think she
understood my extreme
shock and pain. She said
that she knew how much I
wanted to have a child and
would do everything she
could to save my uterus which she did.
E
ven so, I remember
yelling like a small
child 'No! No!’ and
to this day I have no
recollection of getting
home on the bus, train or
taxi. Maybe we block
unbearable pain from
memory because the
operation on December
22nd - a terrible time for
someone who finds
Christmas childishly magical
- felt very unreal. I look
back on that time as very
vague yet also vivid. I was
confronting a threefold loss
not only of my organs, but
my sense of being a
woman able to have
children. I was catapulted
into an early surgical
menopause.
hugely positive way. I think
it’s actually worse for loved
ones looking in than it is
for the patient, because
they feel so powerless
while you’ve actually got to
get on with being put back
together. I was also
battling with HRT which
I’ve had to take for my
bones. I have to take
progesterone as well as
oestrogen and it really
messes my system up.
Inevitably I had very dark
days when I’d just sob, but I
P R O O F
i c o n
5
Trinity Hospice for
counselling, and to the
Wandsworth Cancer
Resource Centre for
healing, massage,
reflexology and
counselling. The
amalgamation of all this
help plus a change of diet
gradually put me back
together again. Reflexology
gave me back my wellbeing
and I was so intrigued by
the therapy that I decided
to train myself. I’ve been in
practice now for three
Besides the physical pain,
hot flushes and emotional
loss, what I most remember
about my hospital stay is
the two women in my
ward. We kept each other
going, cried together on
Christmas morning and
shared a lot of chocolates.
My six months of chemo
felt increasingly difficult
but I never gave up trust or
once thought I was going
to die. But like a small child
I became terrified of
needles. It’s amazing how
the mind works. You can
get yourself through the
worst things like having
poison dripped into your
veins and then something
small becomes a massive
trauma that has you in
floods of tears. Leo was
brilliant through this
period - and throughout.
He’d come home from
work at lunchtime bringing
me choc ices and lollies
because I had mouth ulcers.
My Mum also came down
from Sheffield every other
weekend. Together they
influenced my recovery in a
LISA’S NOW HAS A NEW CAREER AS A REFLEXOLOGIST
tried not to block out the
pain, just sit with it and
breathe through it, because
these are the cards you’ve
been dealt and you just
have to accept, pick them
up and reshuffle.
E
ven during chemo it
was clear that I
needed more than
just physical healing
because even though I
functioned as a woman and
looked like one, I didn’t
feel like that inside. So I
went to the Day Centre at
years. I also saw a
homeopath, Lynne Davies:
Her Australian bush flower
remedies work on the
metaphysical form, on your
emotions, helping to
restore balance. My
counsellor, Gill, was always
there to support me
through the grieving
process. She let me be sad
and listened to me in a way
I don’t think many people
had really listened before.
In a very dark time she
helped me see some kind
of light and to live in the
L
i c o n
6
L I V I N G
P R O O F
diagnosed took control away
from every aspect of my life,
but she helped me get some
back. At the same time the
charity Ovacome also
became a significant part of
my life: I could always phone
and speak to someone who
had been through a similar
experience.”
day instead of constantly
projecting my thoughts on to
a frightening future. When I
was focussing on what I
hadn’t got, Gill made me
realise that I still had so
much in my life. Being
T
he huge change process
Lisa underwent affected
even her working life: “Back
at the store I remember
looking down the sales floor
and deciding: 'I don’t want
to be here.' If you’d asked
me before the cancer I’d
have said that I loved it and
hated it, but looking back
now I think I probably hated
it more! I hadn’t a clue what
I’d do next but I knew there
must be more to life. I’m
now a part-time reflexologist
at The Vitality Centre in
Wandsworth and last August
I joined the Ovacome team
as a part-time administrator
and adviser to other women
suffering from the same
condition. Changing careers
is absolutely the best thing
that ever happened to me. I
used to feel drained and
exhausted after work, but
now I feel so rewarded. I’m
passionate about what I do;
I’m my own boss and every
day is different.
F
ive years to the day that I
was diagnosed with
ovarian cancer, Leo and I
cracked open a bottle of
champagne at our favourite
Cantonese restaurant.
December 16 2002 means
nothing to the world at
large but to me it is such a
precious anniversary. The
benchmark I’d held in my
head since year two had all
of a sudden arrived.”
Further help from Ovacome:
0207 600 5141
Ovarian Cancer. The Facts.
O
varian cancer affects some 7000 British women every year and
165,000 new cases are diagnosed every year, worldwide.
Worldwide, ovarian is the sixth most common form of cancer. It
develops mostly in women over 55, and half of all cases occur in
women of 65 plus, although one in ten patients will be under 45. Once
known as the "silent killer" (because it gives few, if any, warning signs
at the early stage when treatment can be successful) ovarian cancer is
perhaps more usefully described as the "whispering" disease, because
women who listen to their bodies may pick up possibly life-saving
signs. These include pelvic or abdominal discomfort and pain; cramps,
bloating or swelling; loss of weight or appetite, fatigue, breathlessness,
backache, urinary problems, unexplained changes in bowel habits and
unusual vaginal bleeding. Your chances of contracting ovarian cancer
are reassuringly small, but any woman noting several of these signs,
should consult her GP. Seventy per cent of women diagnosed with
ovarian cancer present with disease that has already spread beyond
the ovaries, which is why the overall five-year survival rate is only 28
per cent. It can be as high as 90 per cent for those of the 2000 British
women diagnosed early every year.
RISK ASSESSMENT
Certain risk factors have been identified for the most prevalent
form of ovarian cancer, known as epithelial. Much less is known
about the rare germ cell and stromal ovarian tumours. Women who
have no children are more likely to have this cancer, and women
who start a family after 30 also have a slightly greater risk.
Menstruation patterns are also implicated - more monthly periods
may increase the risk; women who began their periods before the
age of 12, who had a late menopause and did not breastfeed may
also have a higher risk. Dr David Guthrie, consultant clinical
oncologist at the Derbyshire Royal Infirmary, stresses that
childbearing patterns and ovarian cancer are markedly linked: this
cancer is rare in the now scant number of women who have had
four or more pregnancies. The unfashionable message seems to be
that falling birth rates are bad for ovarian health. Women who
have had breast cancer are more likely to develop ovarian cancer
and chlamydia has also been linked.
FAMILY LINKS
A woman with two or more close relatives with ovarian cancer, or
one with this cancer and another with breast cancer diagnosed
before she was 50, has a strong family history and carries a greater
risk. In the past few years scientists have learned much more about
genetic predisposition to this form of cancer. The BRCA1 and BRCA2
genes which women can inherit from their parents are designed to
prevent cancer by making proteins to inhibit abnormal cell growth.
Mutations on these genes can make the protein less effective but
are thought responsible for less than 5 per cent of ovarian cancer
overall. The lifetime risk for women with either of these two
mutations rises to something between 17 and 44 per cent.
LOWERING THE RISK
LOWERING THE RISK
Despite its vexed reputation for women's health overall, the birth
control pill actually lowers the risk for ovarian cancer in women
who have taken it for five years. After ten years, says Dr David
Guthrie, the risk reduction is a marked 50 per cent. Women who
have undergone tubal ligation to prevent pregnancy or had a
hysterectomy also seem to have lowered risk, though this is not a
reason for choosing surgery. The American Cancer Society
recommends a diet high in fruits vegetables and wholegrain with a
limited intake of red and processed meats. There's been some
suspicion that the use of talcum powder in the genital area could
double the risk of ovarian cancer: two out of nine studies suggested
a significantly raised risk and another five a slightly increased risk
SCREENING
Internal examinations can only detect large ovarian tumours.
Regular smears only rule out cancer of the cervix. But a study of
over 5000 women at King's College confirmed that ultrasound could
detect many cases of ovarian cancer at an early stage. Another
study at the Royal London and Barts Hospital looked at ultrasound
combined with a blood test for protein levels of CA125 (which is
raised in women with ovarian cancer).
T
he conclusion was that this dual screening enabled many cases to
be detected before any symptoms developed. The problem with
screening, however, is that false positives are common and false
negatives also occur. Medics have also yet to establish beyond any
doubt that screening would actually save lives. To that end a massively
ambitious, randomised UK trial (UKTOCS) is under way involving
200,000 women between 50 and 74 at 13 regional centres. Before
seeking screening even women with a strong family history should
seek expert advice - the fact that you have undergone genetic testing
could, for instance, affect your life insurance cover.
TREATMENT
Ovarian cancer usually begins with a laparotomy to establish the
site and scale of the problem. A complete hysterectomy will usually
be recommended, followed by chemotherapy. A huge international
study of 477 women with early ovarian cancer from 84 centres in
five countries concludes that Carboplatin is the gold standard
chemotherapy for these particular ovarian cancer patients.
Dr David Guthrie explains that even if surgery appears to remove all
visible evidence of ovarian cancer, some microscopic deposits may
persist and cause a recurrence in about a third of patients
diagnosed at an early stage. The key question for oncologists has
been whether to wait, see and give chemo only when a recurrence
is found, or to give it routinely after surgery. This recent trial
however suggests that survival is increased by 9 per cent if
Carboplatin is given within six weeks of surgery.
Q U E S T I O N S
Q
A
How common is Osteosarcoma of the
bone, how does it spread, and how
will doctors treat it?
Cancers arising in bone are rare, making up a
small percentage of all cancers. They grow
slowly in the beginning, causing little pain and
can be confused with arthritis. Consequently,
they are often ignored. As they grow locally,
they compress the surrounding bone and give
a characteristic view on x-rays. When the cancer
spreads from the bone, it must metastasise in the
blood stream, as bone has no lymphatic vessels. The
cancer will often spread locally within the bone from
which it starts, by migrating along the inside. It is
thought that almost all osteogenic sarcomas have
spread before they are diagnosed.
A surgeon, a radiation therapist and a medical
oncologist will evaluate all patients with this disease.
The treatment is divided into that for the systemic
disease and that for the local disease. Results of the
old treatments were very poor - with less than a 20 per
cent chance of a five year survival. It is now thought
that most sarcomas have metastasised before they are
diagnosed. Now with chemotherapy to treat the
systemic disease, followed by aggressive management
of the primary cancer, five year survival rates are more
than 60 per cent.
The primary cancer is treated with a combination of
either intra-arterial chemotherapy or radiation therapy
or both. These treatments may be given concurrently
or sequentially. All efforts are made to spare the limb
involved with the cancer. At the end of systemic and
local therapy, the surgeon may have to remove dead
tumour from the treated bone and then strengthen it
again with different types of fillings or replace bone
with prosthetic devices.
As with all cancers, and as regular readers of this
magazine will know, there are many other things to be
considered for an holistic approach to tackling it.
Q
A
Is it true that milk is not necessary for
maintaining healthy bones? I have been
concerned about both breast cancer and
osteoporosis?
The evidence is that there is a great deal of
oestrogen in milk and other dairy products.
Many breast cancers are oestrogen positive
which means they use oestrogen to grow.
There is growing evidence linking the amount
of oestrogen in our environment to our high
rates of breast cancer.
Dairy milk is actually not the great source of calcium
we were led to believe as children. The human body
cannot easily absorb the calcium from milk, so we do
not get particularly useful levels from it. Calcium is
available from many other sources such as root and
green vegetables; a well-balanced diet should provide
enough calcium to make supplements unnecessary.
Patricia Peat can be contacted on 01623 438733
www.canceroptions.co.uk, or write to her at Ask Nurse Patricia,
i c o n , The Elms, Radclive Road, Gawcott, Buckingham, MK18 4JB
or Email her on enquiries@iconmag.co.uk
&
A N S W E R S
i c o n
7
Ask nurse
Patricia
Patricia Peat is a registered nurse who has combined
vast experience of working in oncology with years of
research into natural approaches to dealing with cancer.
She runs Cancer Options, a private Integrative Cancer
Consultancy
Q
A
Are there any effective treatments for
pancreatic cancer other than
chemotherapy?
Chemotherapy has to date, shown little
effectiveness against pancreatic cancer, and
dependant on the individual staging,
oncologists may or may not consider it worth
offering to patients.
The Gonzalez therapy, based on the use of
pancreatic enzymes, has raised so much interest
that it received the largest ever grant for research for an
alternative therapy from the National
Cancer Institute. Patients on the Gonzalez regimen had
nearly three times the usual survival period for
comparable patients with advanced pancreatic cancer. It
is however, not for the faint hearted.
The diet is not strictly vegetarian, and does allow some
limited animal products. Specifically, you would be
expected to eat one to two eggs daily, yogurt daily and
fish twice weekly. Red meat and poultry, however, are
strictly forbidden. Fried foods, white sugar products such
as candy, cakes and carbonated beverages, artificial
sweeteners, alcoholic beverages and all refined, white
flour products are also out.
In terms of supplements, patients will be required to
take in the range of 140 capsules a day, spread
throughout the day. The supplement portion of the
therapy includes vitamin, mineral and trace element
capsules, which are generally taken with meals. In
addition, each patient takes large numbers of
specifically formulated pancreatic proteolytic enzymes.
The third component of the treatment, the
detoxification routine, involves procedures such as
coffee enemas to be done twice each day. This is
certainly a treatment that would require a large
investment in time and dedication, but there is currently
nothing else around showing comparable results.
i c o n
8
L E T T E R S
&
N O T E S
Letters
I
& News
Y
Thanks for your help and
undoubtedly we’ll need more
books in the future.
was really inspired by The Brain
Detox (icon centrefold April). At
first I thought it was too simple
or basic to be worth doing but as
soon as I started to fill it in I
realised how much thought needs
to go into every answer. By the
time I had finished, I was really
determined to make some
changes. Like many others I have
been touched by cancer (my sister
has breast cancer but is thankfully
doing well) and a crisis like that
makes you realise that life is
precious and that we can’t waste
time. Thank you for shedding so
much light.
JAMES B RASSI, USA
GILL HYMAN, Aintree
Address details on inside front cover.
am certain many people will be
thankful for the understanding,
confidence and renewed hope
that they will receive when
applying the truths that have been
gathered and so wonderfully
spelled out in your magazine and
again in your book.
Please thank Chris and Catherine
for their willingness to pass this
information on to others with
similar challenges.
I
CANCER ACTIVE - OUR NEW CHARITY
We are in the process of setting up
Cancer Active and all profits from i c o n and all
donations will go this charity.
ITS AIMS AND OBJECTIVES ARE:
A. To carry out and publish scientifically rigorous
research (ideally to clinical trial level) into
integrated cancer treatments, for example, the
effect of soya isoflavones on outcomes of
radiotherapy.
B. To communicate these findings and other
relevant information in an easy-to-read manner to
people touched by cancer, e.g. cancer patients and
their families, health professionals and other cancer
charities.
C. To train, develop and support a network of
individuals whose role is to provide integrated
cancer treatments, support, counselling and
information to people with cancer, from the time
of diagnosis for as long as it is needed.
D. To provide cancer patients with an information
pack at the time of diagnosis.
For more details ring 01280 815166
our April Fool’s Day joke
about a red wine pill for
cancer protection raised a
laugh but in fact it’s quite a clever
idea for people who can’t or
won’t tolerate alcohol. Though of
course you can drink grape juice
which presumably would have the
same effect. Not for me!
RED WINE LOVER, Swindon
All contributions and comments from
readers will be most welcome. In future,
the writer of the lead letter or email will
be rewarded with a FREE signed copy of
Chris Woollams’ latest book.
With a magazine and a website, i c o n
really does aim to provide “everything you
need to know to help you beat cancer”.
Let’s Beat Cancer Tour
2003
Come along and hear Chris Woollams, the
man behind icon, who will be speaking at
the following venues. Admission is free but
booking is advisable
Friday 6th/Saturday 7th June at Neways UK
Convention, Harrogate International Centre. For more
details CONTACT: Convention hotline 01480 862731
Sunday 29th June at 2.00pm for 2.30pm start at The
Ship Hotel, North Street, Chichester, West Sussex PO19
1NH. CONTACT: Marion Hall-Hall on 01243 431314 or
Marion@forgoodhealth.co.uk
Sunday 7th September at 10am at the the
Mollington Banastre Hotel Chester. CONTACT: Susan
Davidson on 0150 648 8998 or Gayle Dickenson on
01244 400994
Sunday 5th October at 9.30 am for 10.00 start at The
Suffolk Golf and Country Club, Fornham St Genevieve,
Bury St Edmonds, Suffolk IP28 6JQ. CONTACT: Rita
Wolfers on 01473 788768
Thursday 9th October Salisbury at 7.30 pm - venue to
be confirmed. CONTACT: Jane Singleton on 007957
863183
Se
Ed con
iti d
on
CANCER
The one book you need
"As you can imagine I
have been sent books,
magazines and articles
from all over the world,
and I want to tell you
that your book is head
and shoulders above
them all.
It’s informative,
practical and really
down to earth.
It’s brilliant."
“This book
fulfils an
unmet need.
It is easy to access
and understand,
and gives basic
information
all the way
from surgery to
nutritional
supplements for
cancer.
This is a truly
integrated book
and deserves a
wide readership.”
GEOFFREY BOYCOTT
ONLY
00
.
5
1
£ us
Dr. JULIAN KENYON
Medical Director
of the Dove Clinic for
Integrated Medecine,
Southampton & London
Pl
P
0 P+
5
.
2
£
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i c o n
1 0
M E D I C A L
R E P O R T
CAN CANDIDA
CAUSE CANCER ?
By Chris Woollams
have a wonderful job. I meet so
many interesting people, so many
experts all on the same mission –
helping people beat cancer. One
minute it’s Charlotte Gerson, then Dr
Contreras. I may get a complex soon
though; none of Britain’s top
orthodox doctors ever seem to ring
me up to tell me of their latest work,
which is very sad because icon now
goes out to cancer patients in
Britain’s top oncology units every
month.
that’s fine. Antibiotics have no side
effects. Who says?
One gentleman, with whom I have
been corresponding, is Gerald Green,
a medical herbalist and
immunologist in Bexhill, Sussex. His
grandfather (Professor Fritz Hüber
1868-1934) won a Nobel Prize and
was one of Germany’s finest
scientists. Energy and investigative
endurance clearly run in the family.
Gerald has devoted a large part of
his life to studying candida.
The friendly bacteria in the gut
perform a number of functions.
They are the first line of the immune
defence system; they produce useful
vitamins like biotin, also helpful to
the immune system and cellular
health, they work with bile acids to
extract and help you absorb the
maximum level of minerals from
your digested food and American
research recently showed something
amazing. Bits of their cell walls kill
cancer cells in vitro. And no one yet
knows why!
I
It is estimated that 70 per cent of the
British population have a yeast
infection. The primary cause of this
is our love of antibiotics. Swollen
glands? Take antibiotics. Tonsillitis?
Take antibiotics. Are you allergic to
antibiotics? If the answer is no,
Friendly bacteria
Apart from a minor problem that
they may well be toxic to brain cells
(Drs Goldman & Klatz – US),
antibiotics kill all bacteria in the
body, including the ones you need;
the friendly ones in the gut.
Acidophilus is on the supermarket
shelves; you are urged to take it, but
the damage may be already done.
W
hen they are not
performing all these
extremely useful functions
they feed, especially when your
stomach and intestines are at rest.
At night their favourite food is
yeasts. It is not just antibiotics that
harm the “friendlies” – chlorinated
tap water and acid bodies caused by
stress and poor diet can eliminate
them in just a few days, so you are
wise to take a daily probiotic.
Diet
It is easy to see how yeasts have
taken a hold in the Western world.
The US and UK diets are simply weak
in the foods that keep yeasts under
control. My Thai wife used to live in
a country with a trillion such
microbes lounging on every street
corner, but the Thai diet of coconut
(caprylic acid), garlic, chillies and bee
propolis are all natural controllers of
yeasts. Our diets merely help to
propagate them. High sugar drinks,
snacks, fast food, alcohol, refined
wheat, indeed any high glycaemic
food, feed the yeasts. And we live
in high glycaemic land in the West.
A cause of cancer
I like Gerald Green. Of course, I’m
biased. I always like people who
share my views We seem to have
two views in common.
M E D I C A L
1. Candida is a part of the cause of
most, if not all cancers.
2. Doctors rarely, if ever, stop to
think about candida, or parasite
infection. And as a result their
medicines only treat part of the
cancer equation. In other walks of
life it would be called: “Neglect”.
There, I’ve said it.
All sugar products:
honey, fructose, lactose, glucose,
dextrose and sweeteners like
Nutrisweet and Canderel.
Nearly all fruit:
overripe fruits are full of sugar and
yeasts. Plus vegetables like
courgettes, pumpkin, squash,
marrow.
I recently went to a cancer clinic in
the USA, and to the Dove Clinic in
the UK. At both I talked to the
nurses.
High sugar root vegetables:
carrots, parsnips, sweet potatoes,
beetroots, (maximum 1 potato per
day).
They were unanimous. EVERY
CANCER PATIENT THEY SEE, MAN
OR WOMAN, HAS BAD CANDIDA.
Whether it is breast cancer or
prostate cancer. (It is most definitely
true for my daughter with her brain
tumour too).
P
The problem is that these yeasts get
everywhere. Whilst they might start
off in your gut, they soon pass into
the blood stream and then, like
Alien, they are loose in the mother
ship. And they make an alcohol as a
by-product of their very existence,
and this alcohol feeds cancer
cells.
Cancer treatments make
matters worse!
To repeat: “cancer treatments make
matters worse!” Steroids and
chemotherapy, for example, both
heighten the effect of the yeasts,
worsening the cancer cell feeding.
It’s like throwing babies to the
sharks.
Take action
So back to the expert Mr Green.
(And he is an expert. I have seen the
letters he receives from hospitals and
microbiology units saying he knows
more than they do). He believes
even terminal cancer patients can be
saved if the root cause is candida.
He believes sufferers must
immediately ELIMINATE THE
FOLLOWING FROM THEIR DIET:
All cow’s milk products:
cheese, yoghurt, whey. And all cow’s
milk derivatives which are
everywhere in processed food.
Yeast products:
alcohol, bread, Marmite, Oxo, Bovril,
vinegars, mushrooms, processed and
smoked fish and meats.
ersonally, I would add all high
glycaemic foods to this list, e.g.
refined wheat, rice, pasta, fizzy
soft drinks, fruit juices and squash,
biscuits, pastries, pies and corn.
Gerald mentions most of these too in
his diet and he suggests you avoid all
pulses, processed meats, high salt
foods and hydrogenated vegetable
oils too.
Below you will find his list of Good
Food Choices.
His sweetener of choice is Stevia, a
herb 100 times sweeter than sugar
but a natural anti-fungal agent.
He recommends astragalus and
echinacea plus 1 gm vitamin C daily
to boost the immune system.
Good food choices
EAT PLENTY OF THE FOLLOWING
FOODS:
Alfalfa sprouts
Bean sprouts
Bell peppers (sweet peppers)
Bok choy
Broccoli
Brussel sprouts
Cabbage
Cauliflower
Celery
Cucumber
Endive
Fennel
Garlic
Green beans
Hot chilli peppers
Kale
Lettuce
Onions
Parsley
Radishes
Spring onions
Spinach
Swiss chard
Turnips
Yellow beans
R E P O R T
i c o n
1 1
FATS (in moderation):
Granose sunflower margarine
Tomor kosher margarine (both these
margarines should be available at
your local health food shop)
Avocado oil
Fish oil
Flaxseed oil
Grapeseed oil
Hemp oil
Mayonnaise
Monounsaturated fats
Olive oil
Primrose oil
FLUIDS
Try to drink eight glasses of water
each day.
Herbal teas are acceptable
PROTEINS
Free range eggs
Fresh fish and seafood
Pork, lamb, veal
Poultry: chicken, turkey (particularly
skinless white meat)
Game
Tofu
Quorn
Soy milk/cheeses (in moderation)
Rice milk
Sheep’s milk/cheeses (dilute sheep’s
milk 50/50 with water and it will
taste the same as cow’s milk)
Goat’s milk/cheeses
Culinary herbs and spices
P
ersonally I would add that
garlic, caprylic acid, oregano
and Pau D’Arco are all excellent
yeast raiders. Gerald Green’s
favoured natural destroyer is
wormwood. I always believe fish oils
are a good supplement too.
Gerald Green
For further information on herbs and
supplements, and an anti-candida
diet you could ring Gerald Green
on 01424-218683 after midday.
Gerald does a lot of work with
cancer patients, MS, Crohn’s and
lupus sufferers.
i c o n
1 2
C E N T R E F O L D
P I N - U P
ATTENTION ALL MEN!
THE NAKED
TRUTH
15
ways to save
your skin
Do not turn the page
as this is not a beauty
piece. Everyone has
skin – technically, it’s
the body’s largest
organ – and it’s
essential to our
survival as it prevents
harmful substances
and micro-organisms
from entering the
body, as well as
shielding us from the
sun’s damaging
ultraviolet rays.
Skin cancer is now the
second most common
form of cancer in the
UK, and nonmelanoma skin cancer
affects 57,000 new
people a year here (1
million in the US). How
thin our protective
barrier becomes is up
to us. So take action
now to look and feel
great in years to come.
and yet they will
probably end up looking
old prematurely - and
possibly getting skin
cancer.” Children and
teenagers are at most
risk, with the chances of
developing a tumour
increasing by up to 20
per cent per decade of
sunbed use before the
age of 56.
This goes for home
tanning machines
too. A study has
shown that people
who use tanning devices
have 2.5 times the risk of
squamous cell cancer and
1.5 times the risk of basal
cell cancer. France has
banned under-18s from
using sun beds.
3
1
Avoid prolonged
use of steroid
creams, as they
thin and discolour
the skin. The
epidermis is about as
thick as a sheet of paper
(thinner on our eyelids),
and has four layers of
cells that are constantly
flaking off and being
renewed.
Cancel your trip to
the sunbed salon.
They’ve sprung up
on every high
street, but the BMA’s
(British Medical
Association’s) head of
science has said, “People
use sunbeds because they
think they’ll look better,
2
Keep babies out of
direct sunlight and
stay in the shade
yourself between
11am - 3pm.
If children under 15 get
badly sunburnt they are
at major risk of
developing skin cancer in
later years.
4
C E N T R E F O L D
mimic the effect of
oestrogen. (See the
Centrefold in May icon
for more chemicals to
avoid)
If you don’t want
to look too pale,
follow the above
advice and then
sunbathe for short
periods. An Australian
study found that going
all-out for a tan on a
fortnight’s holiday is
riskier than working
constantly outdoors!
8
Think Australian
and slip on a shirt,
slap on a hat and
slop on the sun
block. If you’re fairskinned with a light
complexion (freckles),
and blue, grey or green
eyes, make sure it has a
SPF (Sun Protection
Factor) of 15 or higher,
which will protect you for
just under four hours.
5
“But hang on…”
we hear you cry, “if
we’re covering up
and using sunblock
on children, none of us
will get the vitamin D we
need from sun exposure
to avoid rickets and
osteoporosis, and fight
colon and prostate
cancers.” Yes, and studies
have shown that more
cases of rickets are being
reported, so sunbathe
moderately and give
children 200 IU
(international units) of
vitamin D daily.
6
Buy safe, toxin-free
sun lotions,
moisturisers and
fake tans. Avoid
those containing AHAs
(Alpha Hydroxy Acids)
which exfoliate the skin’s
protective barrier along
with damaged skin cells
and PABA (para-aminobenzoic-acid) which
causes irritation. Other
baddies include
propylene glycol, mineral
oil, parabens, and skin
suffocants bentonite,
kaolin and lanolin, which
can cause skin rashes.
Research shows that
7
P I N - U P
i c o n
1 3
If you get bored
lying around, try
some outdoor
exercise. Brisk
walks, yoga and
swimming will oxygenate
your blood, capillaries
and thus your skin too.
10
Ask your partner
or friends to
keep check on
any moles on
parts of your body you
can’t see easily, such as
back and scalp, and tell
your doctor about any
change in shape or
colour, or if itching,
bleeding or inflammation
occurs.
11
Take vitamins C, E
and betacarotene.
Modern-day
living, pollution and the
sun’s radiation combine
to produce destructive
free radicals. Antioxidants
help protect the skin and
the rest of the body from
damage. Cod liver oil/fish
oils, omega 3s and
selenium are good too.
Warmer weather
is the perfect
excuse you need
to try juicing for
the first time. Invest in a
good juicer and make
your own non-alcoholic
breakfast cocktails – all
great for your skin and a
must on any beat-cancer
diet.
13
12
OK, so you’ve read
it and ignored it
countless times
over the years…but
that doesn’t make it any
less true. Drinking twoto-three litres of glassbottled or RO (reverse
osmosis filtered) water a
day is the easiest way to
guarantee a great skin, as
well as all the other
benefits. (Call 01280
815166 for details of the
special RO filter offer
featured in January icon)
9
We all know
smoking and too
much alcohol are
no-nos for so
many reasons – maybe
least of all because they
age and discolour the
skin. So use your holiday
to cut down on both, and
also fats, which all
produce free radicals. Try
eating more fish, fresh
fruit and salads which
help neutralise them.
The vitamins and
minerals in salads also
increase our stores of
tryptophan, the precursor
of melatonin (see below).
14
Phew! Doing the
right thing under
the sun can be
tiring work, so
take time out for plenty
of relaxation. Sleep
increases the hormone
melatonin, which
regenerates your system,
neutralises free radicals
and makes us nicer
people to live with!
15
i c o n
1 4
A S
S A F E
A S
H O U S E S ?
Y
AS SAFE AS
ou watch what you eat, you’ve taken
up yoga and you’ve joined the gym.
A few years ago you gave up
smoking and moderated your alcohol
consumption. So what’s the problem?
You’re doing everything you can to beat the
big C. Or are you?
HOUSES?
Beware of toxins
in the home
We are all aware of the ever increasing toxins
in our environment and trying to beat cancer
sometimes resembles running up a down
escalator as we try to do our best, for
ourselves and our families, against a tidal
wave of daily carcinogenic toxins that seem
determined to cause us harm. At least we
can retreat into the safety of our own homes.
Well, actually, that’s where most of the
problems start!
Household toxins can
seriously damage your children
A toxic environment may be dangerous for us adults,
but it is far, far worse for our children. There is
abundant evidence that infants and children are far
more susceptible to the negative influence of toxins.
Experiments with carcinogens on mice (mice share 99
per cent of the same genes as humans) show that some
carcinogens have little or no effect on the adult mice,
but cause illness and death amongst all the young. Even
with active carcinogens by adulthood we seem to build
up immunity to many.
Indeed there is also evidence that some problems
actually can start much earlier. Research on oestrogen
mimics in perfumes used by pregnant women showed
links to a 4 per cent level of testicular cancer in male
offspring, according to one Swedish study.
An outside chance
The dangers can start as soon as you walk through the
front gate. Moss killers, weed killers, ant killers, rose
sprays: if they are harmful to the genes of plants and
aphids why would they not be harmful to your genes?
The link between cancer and pesticide exposure is well
documented. Children under 14 whose gardens have
been sprayed with herbicides have a four times greater
incidence of connective tissue tumours; pesticides used
to eradicate garden insects are linked with increased
levels of brain tumours in children in one study and with
a four-fold increase in childhood leukaemia in another.
Then you stroke the cat and pat the dog; dog collars
and flea collars may keep the pests away from your
house, but they too have been directly linked with
increased levels of cancer, especially in children. Pet
sprays and shampoos all contain pesticides. Instead try
feeding your cat garlic and brewers yeast. Try rubbing
the fur with clove or eucalyptus oil. To reduce the
garden bugs, look for more organic approaches.
Vinegar pots kill slugs, good old fashioned fly paper still
works, marigolds keep the aphids off garden vegetables,
chickens eat the moth bugs that descend from the apple
trees in winter, garlic and onions have a control effect
on aphids too, not just vampires!
A S
Spend time in the garden sunshine and without
adequate sunscreen you may burn a little. Although
your skin cancer might not develop until you reach your
sixties, there is ample evidence that it was originally
caused in your teens. Slap some sunscreen on and the
risk of cancer diminishes.
Er, well not exactly. In 2000 fourteen sunscreen products
were banned in Scandinavia because ingredients such as
P.A.B.A. were adjudged to the carcinogenic. Look for
the P.A.B.A. free alternatives.
Home sweet home
We finally make it to the front door. Here it is a good
idea to adopt an oriental custom and leave your
outdoor shoes outside. Why walk the germs, pesticides
and herbicides into the house and onto the carpets?
Again scientific studies have shown that is exactly what
you do!
Relax in the lounge and take a deep breath at the end
of a tiring day. If the formaldehyde doesn’t get you the
radon might!
Formaldehyde is a class A carcinogen (the worst sort)
present from the manufacture of cheaper woods
(plywood and chipboards), and from some fixatives for
carpets and tiles. It certainly causes respiratory and eye
problems and the FDA in America has stated that it may
even cause cancer. Formaldehyde is used to stiffen many
fabrics, from new clothing to upholstery and carpets. It
is also contained in many cosmetic and skin and personal
care products. It is found in household cleaning
products, mould and mildew cleaners and even in
articles from furniture to contraceptives (see VOC’s later
in this article). Formaldehyde has over 50 different
synonyms used by manufacturers to hide its presence.
S
o read labels and avoid products containing it; wash
all new clothing before wearing it and leave newly
carpeted and curtained rooms a week or two with
the windows open before you or your children sleep
there. Always use 100 per cent cotton sheets and wash
them before use.
Radon is an inert gas. You cannot see it, smell it or
taste it. It bubbles up through the flooring if your
house is on certain types of soil containing even low
quantities of uranium. The decomposing uranium gives
off radon, which rises into the house. You could try
opening all the doors and windows, but this is not
wonderfully effective as the radon “sticks” to dust
particles in the localised environment of the house.
When you breathe in, these dust particles go to the
deepest recesses of your lungs and the radon
decomposes further resulting in carcinogenic activity.
Don’t be under any illusions about this. Several big
studies in the USA, and the Surgeon General, have
concluded that radon is the second largest cause of lung
cancer after cigarette smoking. Indeed, if it combines
S A F E
A S
H O U S E S ?
i c o n
1 5
with cigarette smoking, risks are disproportionately
multiplied.
T
he answer is simple, contact the Radiological
Protection Board on 0800 614529 or visit
www.nrpb.org ideally before you buy the house as
pockets of uranium soil, although predominantly in
areas of South West England and Wales, exist all over
the UK.
Throwing open the windows may not always be the
safest thing to do, though. If you live near a main road
you are inviting all those nasty diesel fumes to enter
your home. These work much the same way as radon.
They are particulate, you breathe them in, and then the
toxins in them get to work and attack your lungs. Make
no mistake, diesel fumes are dangerous and, after
smoking and radon, diesel fumes are the next biggest
cause of lung cancer. Lorries, buses and taxis using
diesel, especially those with old and poor exhaust
systems are a real danger. The answer lies in the hands
of government. Try writing to your MP.
Of course, you have given up smoking. But have all
those around you? Certainly there is compelling
evidence to ask visitors and guests not to smoke in your
home. Recent research from Cancer Research UK has
concluded that the harm from passive smoking is much
worse than originally thought. Passive smokers where
another person in the same household smokes breathe
six times more smoke per day than non-passive smokers.
Females are particularly vulnerable as the risks of
smoking link to factors in the airways. These factors are
produced by the X chromosome. (In our DNA each of us
has two chromosomes. Women have two X
chromosomes and men have an X and a Y. Thus women
produce twice as many X related airway factors).
Women whose husbands smoke have approaching the
same risk of lung cancer as their smoker husbands even
though they might not smoke themselves.
Lead is another toxin that can enter through those open
windows, although less and less as lead-free petrols are
widely used now. However, the soil alongside major
roads has been found to still be contaminated, another
reason to kick off those shoes at the front door! It has
not been proven to be carcinogenic but it is extremely
toxic to the nervous system, kidneys, blood system and
in cell reproduction. Lead is still found in paints made
before 1980. Maybe it’s time to brighten up your house.
But nowadays lead comes into your home another way your water system.
You are
what you drink
Many people will shop organically, cut dairy, eat more
vegetables and chant the mantra, “you are what you
eat“, before settling down to a nice cup of tea in front
of the TV. There is a weird irony about water in the
home. Young lycra clad women on running machines
have their plastic bottled mineral water about them at
L
i c o n
L
1 6
A S
S A F E
A S
H O U S E S ?
all times. A symbol of health, indeed fashion.
Then they cook in tap water, or eat out in restaurants
that do the same.
T
ap water was covered extensively in icon January
2003. It contains chlorine which reacts with
organic materials to form highly carcinogenic
trihalomethanes and often fluoride. It contains heavy
metals like aluminium and lead, and recycled water in
major cities contains oestrogen levels you most
definitely do not need. Increasingly, some tap waters
contain chlorine resistant microscopic parasites.
Boiling the water may kill off parasites, bacteria and
viruses, but it only serves to concentrate the other
impurities, making your organic vegetables very toxic,
and your caffeine-free coffee more hazardous than
healthy. I saw a test where an electric current was
passed between two electrodes in tap water. The
charge will only pass if there are impurities. After thirty
seconds the water was warm and had turned varying
colours of yellow, brown, green and blue. It was not a
pretty sight!
The solution is to purchase or rent a reverse osmosis
water filter, which will take out all the nasties. Contact
icon on 01280 815166 for our cost price offer. You
consume eight pints of water per day and cook with it
as well. You can clean it up completely for less than £5
per week. This has to make sense.
Oestrogen mimics pose a real danger. They add to the
body’s oestrogen pool, already much higher in 2003
than in 1003. Don’t breathe the fumes when you put
petrol in the car; don’t use plastic bottled water, which
leaches phthalates (more oestrogen mimics) from the
plastic into the supposedly pure water, remove
oestrogen from tap water with a filter, beware
perfumes, deodorants, hairsprays and shampoos. The
list is seemingly endless.
The ultimate solution
Oestrogen mimics are part of a larger collection of
known toxins called volatile organic compounds (VOC’s).
VOC’s comprise hundreds, even thousands of man-made
and even natural carbon-based agents.
Toluene, xylene, trichloroethylene and l-trichloro-ethane
comprise the majority of the solvent market. VOC’s are
ideal solvents and are also found in pesticides and
disinfectants. If you walk down the cleaner aisle of your
grocery store you can smell them in the air. The gases
can pass through plastic containers; you absorb them by
breathing, ingestion or through absorption via the skin.
VOC’s have been placed third by the American EPA after
cigarette smoke and radon as indoor carcinogens. EPA
statistics show that women working at home have
a 55 per cent increased risk of cancer over those
who work away from home!
VOC’s are found in paints, varnishes, glues, dyes,
cleaning products, inks, perfumes, polish removers and
more. The only way to stay safe is to buy these products
where possible from companies who make toxin-free
alternatives. (Contact 01280 815166 for details).
One American scientific study showed that indoor air
was actually more polluted than the outdoor air in New
York and Los Angeles!
We have talked about formaldehyde, but other harmful
substances include:
Phenols: found in disinfectants, air fresheners, furniture
polishes and paint removers. But also in fragrances, nail
polish, lip balm, antiseptics, lipstick, mouthwashes and
other personal care products.
Creosol: found in numerous products from paint
removers and disinfectants to personal care products.
Benzene and nitrobenzene; these cross cell walls,
damage immune systems and are known carcinogens.
Again found in a variety of products from furniture
polish to personal care products.
Ammonia: found in cleaners, furniture polish and fabric
softeners. But also antiperspirants, disinfectants, beauty
products, personal care and even baby products!
Chlorine: in everything from tap water to bleach and
swimming pools and jacuzzis. Chlorine gas was, after
all, a warfare agent. You can remove much of it by
cleaning up your drinking water as we said above and
using an ozone-producing unit for the Jacuzzi.
If you are painting or decorating, keep the area very
well ventilated for weeks after the job is finished. Have
lots of live plants around especially foliage varieties like
spider plants. Cover chipboards and plywoods fast if
you can’t remove them. Look for manufacturers of
“safer” carpet tiles like Interface.
Become ingredients-conscious; but this is difficult as
there are so many names and so much is hidden, so buy
toxin-free products wherever possible. Keep the dust
down: the more dust in the air the more toxins you
inhale as evaporating VOC’s and toxins like lead “stick”
to the particles, just like radon and diesel fumes.
Perhaps the most worrying thing about these in-home
toxins is that it is much easier to believe that nasty
smelling household cleaners are more harmful than your
carpet. Then you find both are hazards.
Carpets hold over a hundred times more dust than wood
flooring and lead levels in carpet dust exceed those in
toxic clean-up factory sites! Think about getting rid of
your carpets! If not, vacuum at least twice per week
and use a vacuum cleaner with a HEPA filter. The
interesting thing is “safer’” household products are
usually no more expensive than their toxic rivals.
And so to bed
Worse is to come in your bedroom and bathroom.
Have you washed your hands yet? Depending on what
you did today your hands could be covered in bad
bacteria, or in nickel from coins, or in pesticides and
herbicides if you just had a round of golf.
So you wash your hands and brush your teeth. But most
A S
soaps and toothpaste contain sodium lauryl sulphate,
(also found in shampoos and shower gels). It is used as
a wetting agent and apart from providing toxic residues
to the heart, lungs, liver and brain (Journal of American
Toxicology Vol 2 No. 7 1983), it increases the
permeability of the skin by 40 per cent allowing the
toxins more freedom of absorption. There is no
evidence that sodium lauryl sulphate is carcinogenic but
it can cause severe epidermal changes.
So you take a bath, increasing your skin’s permeability
and bathing yourself in the chlorine, lead, copper and
aluminium solution we call water. If you want to make
matters worse you could always add bath salts to the
bath, especially the perfumed sort! And afterwards men
and women alike may dry themselves off and spread a
little talc around. Who hasn’t used a little on
themselves or even the baby’s bottom?
According to the US News and World Report (1997,
March) talc used in the genital area increases ovarian
cancer risk significantly while feminine deodorants
increase risk by 90 per cent!
In the USA toothpaste labels actually warn users to
contact a Poison Control Centre immediately if you
swallow any. Have you told your children or
grandchildren this? Did you even know?
Now comes the really dangerous part. It’s late, cold and
the heating kicks in. Downstairs the gas boiler in the
kitchen burns away. You may even have cooked with
gas. Whilst old appliances, and especially those with a
pilot light, are a significant problem, all gas appliances
can cause an increase in nitrogen dioxide levels in the
home. It hasn’t been proven as a carcinogen to humans,
just to animals, although it is known to significantly
impair the immune system and have links to arthritis.
Y
ou must vent your kitchen to the outside fully and
ideally have the boiler in a room completely
outside the house. The by-products of
combustion like nitrogen dioxide will rise through your
home, ending up in your bedroom and they can exceed
maximum limits set for the gas in polluted city centres!
You may not feel tired yet so you stop to tidy up the
kid’s toys. Many plastic toys contain polyvinyl chloride.
In landfill sites this requires special treatment as a toxic
waste. Polypropylene and wood are safer alternatives.
PVC furniture and coverings (for example, in new car
seats) give off carcinogenic gases.
S A F E
A S
H O U S E S ?
i c o n
son who is still awake. He takes the call. His skull is
thinner than yours, more vulnerable to the radiation.
Research by The Ecologist and Spanish scientists bears
this out.
The call is thankfully short, you switch on the TV but
there’s nothing good on, so off it goes and you get into
bed, turning the lights off either side of the bed. Ah, a
nice, warm, bed; at least the electric blanket works.
H
ave you considered that the cosy glow you feel
may be in part due to the surrounding magnetic
radiation? From the TV (turned off or on
standby), the electrical fields generated by the bedside
electricity and the electric blanket.
At least the sheets and pillows cases are cotton, now
washed in carcinogen-free products, the pillows filled
with carcinogen-free filling.
If you want to reduce these known carcinogens in your
life take the TV and electric blanket from your bedroom
and get an electrician to move the bedside wiring. If
you have a TV in your bedroom, cover it at night time.
A team of researchers in the University of San Antonio,
Texas linked EMF’s to the suppression of melatonin
production and thus to an increased cancer risk.
Melatonin production peaks about one hour to two
hours after falling asleep and is normally an excellent
neutraliser of free radicals in the body.
Vow to move away from the nearby power lines. Nine
studies in the UK show that relatively low levels of EMF’s
from power cables, pylons or mains electricity are linked
to an increase of childhood cancers especially leukaemia.
This has been confirmed in Sweden and the USA. Vow
to write to the local council about the mobile phone
mast they are erecting next door. The Spanish village
that won a court case in 2002 successfully drew
attention to the childhood cancers in the village since
the masts arrived.
Some homes sit on EMF fault lines, or at points of high
magnetic fields caused by several transmitters often
miles away, yet coinciding.
The UK Radiological Protection Board may be able to
help on this one and check out your home.
Ah. To sleep, perchance to dream.
Still not tired, you pop into your office and flick on the
computer; you have a fax to read too. VOC’s (including
benzene) evaporate from the computer circuitry, laser
printers and fax machines in operation. Keep all these
machines well away from bedrooms and in rooms which
are well ventilated at all times. Don’t let your children
play computer games upstairs.
And so to bed. Blast! The mobile phone goes. You put
it to your ear and the ionising radiation floods into your
skull. Maybe you use an earpiece; it doesn’t matter, the
great majority make little difference. Swedish and
Finnish research concludes you are damaging your
blood/brain barrier and a few of those toxins in your
body are given a chance to get in and poison your brain.
(See icon November 2002). It’s for your eight-year-old
It could have been worse; at least you gave the sun bed
a miss and didn’t use your old microwave oven!
1 7
i c o n
1 8
L E T ’ S
B E
C O M P L E M E N T A R Y
fundamental distrust of these
“ethereal” Chinese and Indian view of
medicine. Western science is about
quantity, about supposedly hard facts,
about proof. About doing what we
know best and avoiding things we don’t
understand.
Atomic
Man W
hile Russians were developing
an ability to photograph your
body energy, Americans were
trying to weigh it! (They succeeded – it
weighs about 2.4 ounces!).
CHECK OUT YOUR
CHAKRAS
Part 1
Your emotions,
your body energy and
your cellular health
are all linked.
And you cannot beat
cancer without attending
to them all.
By Chris Woollams
N
ext time you look in a mirror,
remember this. You are looking
at a body which is at least 95
per cent air! “Surely not. I’m solid. I
have bones. I bleed.”
This constant exchange of atoms with
your universe results in a completely
new you every 90 days or so. Zillions of
new atoms replacing the zillions of old
ones. A constant movement; a
continuous energy flow.
Actually what you are looking at is
zillions of atoms, each with electrons
spinning around a nucleus just as the
Earth spins around the Sun. In between
lies an air mass, far greater in size than
the size of the planets.
And that’s the difference between you
and the chair you are sitting on. It too
is made of atoms and molecules. But
there is no flow of energetic force
between the electrons in the chair.
Atoms join forces with other atoms.
They build into molecules, and the
molecules form your bodily structure,
which reflects light and this is what you
are capable of seeing. You just cannot
see the atoms and their neutrons and
electrons.
This “life force” in your body is call
“chi” in Chinese medicine. For over 500
years the Chinese have understood that
our life force constantly interacts with
other energetic atoms. The Japanese
call the same principles “ki“, the Indians
“prana“.
Some atoms attract other atoms. Some
atoms repel other atoms. There are
forces, electrical forces, at work
between them.
D
Every second of every day you exchange
atoms with the universe around you; in
obvious ways like breathing in or out,
eating, drinking and excreting. And in
not so obvious ways. Your energy heats
your environment. If you hold an ice
cube for long enough it melts. As
Newton said, “Energy can neither be
created nor destroyed!” Your body
energy has to “go” somewhere.
But this is sad because we live in a world
where science, rather than medicine,
holds that Newton and Einstein have
“cracked it“. We have a universe held
together by energetic forces and
magnetic fields. We know planets pull
other planets towards them and stars
implode to form black holes, but we
don’t ask our doctors to think that the
liver you are receiving from the sadly
departed gentleman from Manchester
might be arriving complete with his own
electrical and magnetic forces too!
Just as our atoms attract and repel each
other, so our bodies reflect this in flows
of energy. Western medicine
understands we have nerves along
which there is electrical stimulation. At
school budding 14-year-old scientists put
small currents through wires and
surround them with iron filings. The
iron filings neatly form themselves into
a magnetic field. Why then is it then so
hard for doctors to understand you or I
have a magnetic field around us?
Moreover you have
nerve endings in your
fingertips. You can
put your finger tips
onto a photographic
plate and, using a
THE ROOT
system discovered
(1st) CHAKRA
thirty years or so ago
by Kirlian in Russia, take a picture,
which clearly shows your nerve endings
and the aura (or energetic field) coming
off them. I know, I’ve seen mine and
from this picture an Austrian Scientist
who knew nothing of me, told me my
medical history; accurately!
espite the principles of Newtonian
physics being known for several
hundred years, the Western medical
establishment resolutely ignored them
until only recently. This, sadly, has resulted
in doctors being trained as little more than
clever mechanics. “You have a limp, a bad
hip. We can give you a new plastic one.
You’ve poisoned your liver? We can give
you somebody else’s. Better still in the
future we can clone you, and give you a
replacement liver, all of your very own.”
The Chinese told the West that the
energy forces were not confined to the
nervous system, but flowed in meridians
around the body. The West couldn’t
find these or measure them and so
dismissed them. At first.
And herein lies the conflict and the
fundamental distrust of these
But two things happened. Firstly a lot
of “alternative health workers” in the
Moreover he even told me my
emotional state and my work history
and how I’d changed my life from highpowered businessman to a calmer (!)
healthier state.
L E T ’ S
West started studying
Eastern energy
beliefs. Although
often dismissed as
cranks, there has
been a gradual
acceptance of some
THE SACRAL
(2nd) CHAKRA
of the disciplines as
medically helpful (for example, the NHS
accepts acupuncture) if not an
acceptance of the logic or science (what
science?) behind them.
Secondly, during the cold war when the
Russians started playing around with
body energy systems, the American
military and space programmes
responded.
Barbara Ann Brennan, whose book
Hands of Light goes in depth into the
magnetic fields around your body (the
aura as it is more commonly called) had
a couple of doctorates and also worked
for NASA. They developed an
understanding of how your emotions
and feelings could influence the
magnetic field around you, and even
how two magnetic fields might be able
to communicate! (Presumably
important if we bump into any little
green men who don’t speak English.)
T
he biochemistry of cells is clear.
Atoms like potassium need to be
pumped in, and sodium needs to
be pumped out to keep the cell slightly
alkaline and able to metabolise in its
most efficient way. Similar “micro
energy flows” build up all around the
body, as negatively or positively charged
molecules replace each other. This is
critical in cancer as mitochondria, the
power stations, must work with atoms,
while others poison them.
B E
C O M P L E M E N T A R Y
body, and it is these seven energetic
fields that make up your aura and can
be photographed.
T
hese photographs show your aura,
big or small, as a mixture of
colours: and the colours reflect
your emotions and your lifestyle. My
aura four years ago was predominantly
white and blue from which another
gentleman, who didn’t know me,
concluded so accurately that I was
intelligent, university educated, a
businessman, entrepreneur even a
maverick, very practical and
knowledgeable (!). He then spotted a
gold ‘growth’ under my arm and said,
“You’ve obviously changed your life –
this is a new more emotional, spiritual
and health-conscious you coming to
take over!! Since at the time I was in
trainers, jeans and t-shirt he could not
have guessed any of this.
THE HEART
(4th) CHAKRA
But then we “sense”
people as they walk in
the room. We “sense”
danger. Some people
have big personalities;
others we distrust
before they have
opened their mouths.
Our auras, our magnetic fields, touch
and interact with all the magnetic fields
around us. Maybe this is the first point
of contact, before sight or hearing.
The doctors reading this article should
by now hopefully be realising we are
not merely mechanical beings, to be cut
up, bits replaced, or have bits poisoned
with chemotherapy.
Bigger ones always control small
electrical fields, and there are a number
of electrical force points all over your
body between which energy flows. If it
doesn’t flow it reflects, or causes,
illness.
Our brain links to our
nerves, our nerves to
our aura. Our chakras
each link to an
endocrine gland, so
our aura links to our
THE THROAT
(5th) CHAKRA
hormone system. Our
emotions link to every cell in our body.
The epicentre of all these electrical
forces lies in a line down your backbone,
running from the top of your head to
the base of your spine. The main power
cables run down your spine.
If our energy flow is blocked in one part
of our body, it will almost certainly be
linked to an emotional blockage, and a
biochemical, cellular blockage and thus
illness.
At several points on the way are energy
centres, more commonly called chakras.
Each is a spinning vortex of energy
protruding three
quarters to your
front and a quarter
to your back. (The
main picture shows
these positions).
You simply cannot divorce emotion, cells
and magnetic energy. Our mind, body,
spirit as most call it.
Each chakra provides
a layer of energetic
field around your
So too, if you place your hands and your
magnetic field on the blockage in a
patient. A cranial osteopath spends
THE SOLAR PLEXUS
(3rd) CHAKRA
But remember back to the wire, the
current and the iron filings lining up in
a magnetic field. If you bring another
magnet into this field, it will alter and
move it.
i c o n
1 9
four years at university learning how to
do this effectively. An acupuncturist
unblocks meridians. Yoga frees the
skeletal and muscular system to allow
free energy flow. The chakras each have
their own
frequency, that
has been
proven. They
spin alternately
THE 3rd EYE (6th) CHAKRA
in opposite
directions, and they each link to you and
your relationship with the outside
world. This may seem like I’ve stopped
being a scientist and become “ethereal”
but just think for a moment. If
someone dies, or your partner leaves
you, the expression may be “having a
broken heart“, but where is the feeling
really? In the pit of your stomach.
Because the solar plexus chakra is the
chakra of emotion. The base of the
spine roots you, the sacral chakra is your
practical and sexual chakra, the solar
plexus your emotional store, the heart
(more powerful than all the others put
together) is the chakra of personal
relationships, the throat of
communication, the pineal or third eye
of perception, the crown is the chakra
that links you to the spiritual world.
Not convinced?
If you are stressed you get a pain in your
stomach. Poor digestion maybe. Your
acid kills the good bacteria, the yeasts
multiply. The immune system fights
with the yeasts. Yeasts drain your
vitamins and your energy.
P
ay a visit to a cranial osteopath and
he or she will probably tell you
straight away that all your energy
surrounds your stomach in your practical
sacral chakra. And little remains in your
throat or head. Tonsillitis is common in
these circumstances, or throat infections,
or headaches.
Next month we will look at the chakras
in more detail. But for this month
understand that science knows that your
emotions, your body energy and your
cellular health are all inexorably linked.
And you cannot beat cancer without
attending to them all. But if you want
to be really controversial, imagine this.
There is a very small, but growing body
of thought that says your brain is not
your knowledge store but merely a
processor. Your knowledge, as with a
computer, is electronically stored – in
your relevant
chakras!
No I can’t prove
this. But then it
sounds more
plausible than a
brain cell actually
storing information
somewhere inside it!
THE CROWN
(7th) CHAKRA
i c o n
2 0
T H E
i c o n
Helping
Hand
Your guide
to cancer helplines,
websites
and other
useful numbers
GENERAL SUPPORT
National Association of
Citizens’ Advice Bureau
020 7833 2181
(To find your local branch,
look in Yellow Pages.)
The Patients’
Association Helpline
0845 608 4455 or
020 8423 8999
Royal Marsden Hospital
www.royalmarsden.org
The UK's top cancer unit;
good information and news
D I R E C T O R Y
SPECIFIC CHARITIES
Brain Tumours
(Samantha Dickson Trust)
01252 617843
www.sdrt.co.uk
Breast Cancer Care
Helpline 0808 800 6000
www.breastcancercare.org.uk
Colon Cancer Helpline
020 7381 4711
www.coloncancer.org.uk
International Myeloma
Foundation
0800 980 3332
www.myeloma.org
Roy Castle Lung Cancer
Foundation
O800 357 7200
www.roycastle.org
Lymphoma Association Helpline
0808 808 5555
www.lymphoma.org.uk
Macmillan CancerLine
Helpline 0808 808 2020
www.macmillan.org.uk
Comprehensive practical help on
all aspects of living with cancer.
Ovarian Cancer
020 7380 9589
www.ovarian.org
Marie Curie Cancer Care
0800 716 146
www.mariecurie.org.uk
Care for cancer patients in
their own homes, in hospices and
day therapy centres .
Pancreatic Cancer
0121 449 0667
www.pancan.org
Carers UK
Helpline: 080 8808 7777
www.carersonline.org
Prostate Cancer
0845 300 8383
www.prostate-cancer.org.uk
Teenage Cancer Trust
0202 7387 1000
www.teencancer.org
Funds and organises support to
improve the lives of
teenagers with cancer
COMPLEMENTARY HEALTH
Cancer Bacup
Helpline 0808 800 1234
www.cancerbacup.org.uk
Trained nurses provide
emotional and practical help.
Bristol Cancer Help Centre
Helpline 0117 980 9505
www.bristolcancerhelp.org
The gold standard for
complementary therapies,
counselling and learning to live
with cancer through self-help.
Marie Carnie Cancer Support
Groups
01467 629909
mariecarnie@ecosse.net
Puts people in touch with
groups in Aberdeenshire
and helps people to set up
new groups
New Approaches to Cancer
through positive self-help.
Freephone: 0800 389 2662
www.anac.org.uk
Therapy, caring support plus
residential courses with yoga
and other healing therapies
CARE FACILITIES
Leukaemia Care Line
0800 169 6680
CANCER SUPPORT
Cancer Research UK
Information service line:
020 7269 3142
www.cancerresearchuk.org
The largest cancer charity in
Europe. Funds lots of research.
Information line is
staffed by trained nurses.
The Foundation for Natural Health
Cancer Health Centre
01202 824 109
www.cancerhelpcentre.co.uk
Dorset based centre providing B17
metabolic therapy and holistic
approach with two medical
doctors and helpline
The Dove Clinic for Integrated
Medicine 020 7486 5588
& 01962 718000
www.doveclinic.com
Screening, complementary
treatment and counselling
in London and Winchester.
The Haven Trust
Helpline: 020 7384 0099
www.thehaventrust.org.uk
Information, advice, counselling,
holistic treatments and therapy
for breast cancer patients.
2Higher Ground
Free coaching for cancer carers
07977 444 130
OTHER USEFUL NUMBERS
British Acupuncture Council
020 8735 0400
British Association of
Nutritional Therapists
0870 606 1284
Institute for Optimum Nutrition
020 8877 9993
The Society of Homeopaths
01604 621 400
Cranial Osteopathy
Sutherland Cranial College
01291 689 908
www.scc.osteopathy.co.uk
CHARITY OF THE MONTH
i c o n
2 1
OVACOME
Featured Charity
OVACOME
O
VACOME offers informed support to all those who
are touched by ovarian cancer, helping them put
fears into perspective and regain quality of life.
Small, vital and very personal, this UK support
group provides patients and their families with handouts on
treatments, screening and research. It raises general
awareness of a condition that affects 6000 women every
year and – most important of all – links new sufferers with
women who can talk realistically and often reassuringly
about what to expect of diagnosis and treatment, because
they themselves have experienced it first-hand.
OVACOME was inspired and founded by Sarah Dickinson,
who developed the disease at 31, whilst expecting her first
child. A prenatal scan picked up an abnormality on one of
Sarah’s ovaries and soon after Michele was born in l995, this
new mother learned that her condition was already
advanced, having spread beyond her ovaries into the
abdominal cavity. Sarah determined to enjoy every possible
day with her family, but still made time to set up a support
group: it seemed to her that compared with high-profile
diseases like breast cancer, ovarian cancer was little
discussed, so women sufferers felt sadly isolated: “I’ve
found I can talk to another woman with ovarian cancer and
discuss things I couldn’t with my own family because they
are too distressing” said Sarah at the time. Few doctors
were likely to pass on her personal prescription for a sore
stomach: “Baileys and a hot water bottle”. While she was
actually undergoing triple-drug chemo, Sarah wrote about
what would benefit women sufferers in Good
Housekeeping magazine. She explained that it was not just
the effects of surgery and painful clinical examinations that
needed airing, but practical considerations “such as finding
clothes that won’t rub the scar that runs like a fat worm
down my front and needing a fun, go-faster haircut to
counter the effects of chemo”. If women could establish
phone, fax, e-mail and postal links, then, suggested Sarah,
“we could talk, help each other and know were not alone”.
Thanks to Sarah and the response she received, subsequent
sufferers (many with far more promising prognoses) have
found OVACOME ready and waiting to help. In September
l996 the charity was launched with a sponsored bike ride
from London to Windsor. Two years later the first paid
workers came on board and OVACOME’s office at Bart’s
Hospital in London (moving to University College Hospital
soon) now has a busy staff of five. Everyone who works for
the charity has personal experience of ovarian cancer be it
as a patient or relative. Most are survivors who can give
hope and comfort because they have, encouragingly, done
well themselves. Early diagnosis remains the main medical
challenge but when detected before it has spread beyond
the ovary, the survival rate from this form of cancer is, after
all, a reassuring 90 per cent. So from the very first phone
contact, an anxious caller can count on upbeat and caring
back-up, though the charity stresses that it does not give
medical advice.
Actress Jenny Agutter has been deeply involved with the
charity from its outset and a year later dedicated a brand
new ovarian cancer resource centre at the Royal Marsden in
Chelsea. The charity has developed a telephone counselling
service and publishes a quarterly newsletter as well as
providing fact sheets and supportive videos documenting
real case histories. Its been welcomed by clinicians, drugs
companies and other cancer charities alike.
In financial terms, OVACOME is certainly no giant, but the
£80,000 it raises each year (through donations, events and
sponsored activities) now provides exactly the therapeutic
links Sarah Dickinson so missed.
There’s a nationwide telephone network, FoneFriends,
through which callers can connect with another volunteer
in their area whose situation matches their own.
FoneFriends can also link family members – husbands,
siblings, parents - to others who have been through what
they now face.
L
ouise Bayne, OVACOME’s recently appointed Director
was a nurse who became a patient aged 26 when, two
weeks after the birth of a first baby, her “pretty
perfect” world slipped off its axis. Now well, Louise is
steering OVACOME into a significant new phase for both
present members and future sufferers. It is now the official
channel through which the interests of affected women are
represented to the National Institute of Clinical Excellence.
Issues such as the length of time taken to diagnose women
and levels of ignorance about genetic links will now be
addressed head on. OVACOME, assures Louise, will never
seek a sensation-seeking approach to these life-saving
issues. But by raising a determinedly “responsible,
reasonable and accurate” voice, this charity means to save
lives as well as improve them beyond measure for women
with ovarian cancer – just as Sarah Dickinson dreamed.
For further information, to make a donation to OVACOME,
buy their polo shirts, notelets, or deep turquoise ribbons,
please call 020 7380 9589
or visit the website www.ovacome.org.uk.
i c o n
2 2
LAB. REPORT
VIKING ROOTS OF
INHERITED CANCERS
The Scots and Northern Irish
are genetically distinct from
elsewhere in the UK, with a
different legacy of inherited
cancers than in England and
Wales.
The study, published in the
British Journal of Cancer (BJC
Vol. 88:8), found women from
Scotland and Northern Ireland
with breast cancer in their
families have inherited a
distinct cluster of genetic
mutations, including one that
may have been brought over
by the Vikings. Inheriting
damaged versions of two key
genes - called BRCA1 and
BRCA2 - causes around three
per cent of breast cancers,
many ovarian cancers and
several other types of cancer.
Scientists also found evidence
that specific genetic faults in
the Scottish population have a
different effect on cancer risk
than others. They found that
faults in the first two thirds of
the BRCA1 gene gave women
a significantly higher risk of
ovarian cancer than faults in
the final third, while damage
in the central portion of
BRCA2 also conveyed a high
risk of the disease. This
information should allow
doctors to carefully tailor the
advice they give to individual
women.
Women who inherit a
damaged BRCA1 gene have a
60-85 per cent chance of
developing breast cancer at
some stage in their lives and a
20-40 per cent chance of
developing ovarian cancer. For
BRCA2, the risks are 40-60 per
cent and 10-20 per cent
respectively.
Studies of cancer genetics in
Scotland are particularly
accurate, because the Scottish
Cancer Registry is recognised
as one of the best in the
world.
BREAST CANCER
SCREENING BENEFITS
The Lancet (Saturday 26
April, 2003) reports that
among 200,000 Swedish
women aged between 20
and 69, numbers of women
who died from breast cancer
in the pre-screening period
declined by 44% after
screening was introduced.
However, with greater breast
cancer awareness, the report
showed women who were
not screened during the
second period mortality rates
also dropped 16 per cent.
The conclusions are being
used to justify
mammography, which has a
lot of dissenting voices. But
before people get carried
away, it is of course possible
that the regular screening
made those women tested
more health and breast
aware.
Stephen Duffy, Cancer
Research UK's Professor of
Cancer Screening, correctly
says: "This produces very
strong evidence that
screening women for breast
cancer, along with other
improvements in breast
cancer care, can almost
halve the number of women
who might otherwise die
from the disease.
Bulletin
Board
HIGH DOSE THERAPY
FOR MYELOMA
SEXUAL
DISEASE
AND
OVARIAN
CANCER
Cancer Research UK scientists
have for the first time shown
that a controversial
treatment is more effective
than traditional
chemotherapy for treating
multiple myeloma, a cancer
of the bone marrow. The
treatment, known as HighDose Therapy, was at the
centre of a medical scandal in
2001 when a South African
researcher admitted falsifying
results of using the therapy
to treat breast cancer.
However, a report published
in the New England Journal
of Medicine (Vol. 348, No. 19)
reveals that High-Dose
Therapy for multiple
myeloma is more than five
times as effective than
standard chemotherapy.
Lead Researcher, Professor
Peter Selby who is Director of
the Cancer Research UK Unit
at St James’s Hospital in
Leeds, says: "This treatment
certainly has a controversial
past, especially for treating
breast cancer. However, our
large-scale study proves that
High-Dose Therapy is
effective for patients with
multiple myeloma."
In fact, the new study, which
also received funding from
the Medical Research Council
and Leukaemia Research
Fund, shows that patients
who received High-Dose
Therapy survived, on
average, a year longer than
those who had conventional
chemotherapy.
Professor Selby explains:
"Nearly half of patients on
High-Dose Therapy showed a
complete response, which
means that there was no sign
of the cancer after
treatment. This compares to
less than ten per cent of
patients on standard
chemotherapy."
A sexually transmitted
disease, increasingly common
amongst Britain’s teenagers
can almost double the risk of
ovarian cancer.
American Research shows that
women who are infected with
Chlamydia are 90% more
likely to get cancer of the
ovaries later in life. Chlamydia
affects one in ten women
under the age of twenty-five
in Britain and is transmitted
through unprotected sex. It
has already been linked to
cervical cancer.
Vitamin March
The Health Freedom
Movement is meeting in Hyde
Park (North Carriage Drive)
from 11.00 am Sunday, June
15 and marching to Trafalgar
Square at 12 noon. Parliament
will vote to decide whether
the UK will ratify the first of
the EU directives about two
weeks after the march.
It is hoped the British
Parliament will have the sense
to turn down the EU
proposals on limiting vitamins
to Recommended Daily
Allowance levels well below
levels which have been shown
in research to make a health
difference. In some cases, e.g.
selenium, scientifically proven
RDA’s do not even exist.
It’s only Natural
i c o n
2 3
Carctol
HEALING HERBS FROM INDIA
C
arctol is a combination of natural Indian
herbs, recommended for people with cancer
and those wishing to prevent it. The herbs
are recognised as having medicinal value in
India, and several of them are recognised as such in
the UK. So, although it has not been through the
official licensing process in the UK (primarily because
of the huge costs required), it is nevertheless
classified as a UK medicine and can be prescribed by
doctors over here.
Carctol is comprised of the seeds, roots and leaves of
eight Ayurvedic Indian herbs. Volumes in descending
proportions per capsule are:
Blepharis Edulis
Piper Cubeba Linn
Smilax China Linn
Ammani Vesicatoria
Hemidesmus Indicus
Lepidium Sativum Linn
Rheumemodi Wall
Tribulus Terrestris
-
200 mg
120 mg
80 mg
20 mg
20 mg
20 mg
20 mg
20 mg
a positive factor in the health of a two-year-old with
cancer. She had no negatives during chemotherapy
and even put on weight.
Nowhere does the information suggest how these
eight herbs work. One UK doctor I know is
prescribing it and she says that litmus paper tests on
the tongue show the patient’s system progressively
going from acid to alkaline. Of course, this could be
excellent, as alkalinity is essential for proper cell
metabolism and a strong immune response. But then
the proponents of Carctol demand a non-acid diet
regime.
Simultaneously with Carctol, a vegetarian diet is
recommended. As a minimum, patients are advised
not to eat “acid foods” like unripe fruits, tomatoes,
vinegar or oranges. Carctol works best with a good
digestive system.
Normally one capsule is taken four times per day, but
a maximum of eight is not unusual. Pre-boiled and
cooled water is recommended, not tap water.
The product is reported to be completely non-toxic
and has been tested in both India (Institute of
Medical Sciences) and London (Lyne, Martin and
Radford).
The effect is supposed to be slow and steady. A twomonth trial is the minimum essential period, but
more normally a six-month period is recommended
with follow up periods.
Carctol would appear to have several benefits:
Carctol is only available on prescription but
apparently it makes a significant difference to those
cancer patients on chemotherapy.
The web site clearly says that, “Carctol is a herbal
compound containing only rare, natural and
indigenous Indian herbs mixed together with
proportional strength to treat and heal all types of
cancer” (sic). Treat and heal is a pretty strong claim!
The claim is then backed up by charts showing 1900
cases of all types of cancer with groups who were 80100 per cent symptom free ranging from about 30
per cent (oesophageal) of patients down to 3 per
cent (lymphoma).
The Daily Telegraph recently covered the story of
Gwen Garner, a lady of advancing years, who had
both a primary bladder cancer and a secondary
pancreatic cancer. Being told there was nothing
more the doctors could do, she went on a course of
Carctol. Within 6 months the pancreatic cancer
growth had stopped; the original bladder cancer
disappeared.
The product is supposedly excellent when used
during radiotherapy and chemotherapy, preventing
patients becoming neutropenic (i.e. there is no
compromise of white cells). This would give your
body more of a “fighting chance“. The oncology unit
of Strongbrook Hospital, New York reports Carctol as
A
yurveda means “The science of Life” and
Indian medicine starts with the premise that
a living creature is composed of soul, mind
and body. Many herbs have been widely
used for 4,000 years; the willow tree is a natural
analgesic, and Neem, a tree, has so many benefits it is
often described as the “Village Pharmacy“. It is antiviral, anti-fungal, antiseptic and anti-inflammatory.
Presumably it is also anti-EU?
i c o n
2 4
N E W S
R O U N D - U P
WARNING:
B-eurocrats & news reporters
can damage your health
At icon, we were more than a little concerned to
read headlines saying that vitamin pills can damage
your health. As our readers know, we pride
ourselves on accuracy and investigation, so we sent
our Intrepid Reporter to interview the famous
Health Editor of one of Britain’s leading
Newspapers, Frank St John Adams.
IR: We were quite amazed to read your headline:
“Vitamins can Cause Cancer”. Could you tell us how you
came to write this?
FSA: Well, it’s jolly poor form actually. Some
unlucky chap took a bit too much of one vitamin
and actually killed himself! So we need to bring
that sort of thing to the public’s attention.
IR: That was chromium picolinate wasn’t it?
FSA: Quite right, old chap. Damn poor show. This
chromium lark causes cancer, you know.
IR: But I thought two people died because they took
levels around 7.5 mgs a day for quite a long period, when
it says on the bottle to take only 0.6 mgs. And anyway, it
was kidney and liver damage not cancer.
FSA: Well we have a duty to protect people in
Britain.
IR: So what about acrylamides then? The World Health
Organisation says the safe limit is zero but they have been
found in crisps and biscuits and breakfast cereals and they
may well cause cancer.
FSA: Ah, but we’ve just had a research report that
says there’s no long-term danger to people’s health
from a build up of those.
IR: And how long did that research take?
FSA: About three months.
IR: Getting back to vitamins, your article talks about
beta-carotene causing lung cancer.
FSA: Quite true. People who smoke or go near
asbestos get lung cancer if they take beta-carotene.
IR: Nothing to do with the smoking or asbestos then?
Actually there is a single American study, which has never
been confirmed in a follow up study. In fact since 1947
there are scores of studies on the protective nature of
beta-carotene and vitamin A. How did you decide that
7 mgs was now to be the safe limit?
FSA: Well a few of us had a chat with a German
chap and a French fella and they have
Recommended Daily Allowances, you know.
IR: Yes, but 7mgs isn’t one of those and anyway many of
the levels do not have recent and accurate research
support.
FSA: Well you’re missing the point – we are paid to
know these things. It’s a sort of natural instinct.
IR: Is that how you came up with zinc being harmful?
There is no supporting evidence of that in the official 350
page Expert Group on Vitamins and Minerals.
FSA: Maybe we misread that bit.
IR: Yes but that was also the case for vitamin C – The
EGVM said two major trials pointed to 1000 mgs being
fine for five years, you said that it wasn’t…..or calcium
being all right in trials at doses to 2000 mgs per day, you
said 1500 mgs maximum; or iron having adverse reactions
at 60 mgs and you said 17mgs. Aren’t you fudging the
issues here and anyway where is the link to cancer?
FSA: Well actually, I think you are nit-picking now.
We just do our best to save the public from
themselves.
IR: Well that’s an interesting thought. What ever
happened to the major study on HRT in America that had
to be abandoned after two years as cancer rates had gone
up 27% and heart problems about 41%? Have you
lobbied about that?
FSA: It’s not my area, old chap – I’m vitamins,
minerals and herbs. We could have killed it off if it
were a herb, but you need to talk to the drug
chappies about that.
IR: But 2.2 million women take it in Britain today and
research shows it does cause cancer. Haven’t you got a
duty to tell those people – to save those people from
themselves?
FSA: Look old chap, I can’t even tell my wife what
to do. How am I going to tell 2.2 million women?
Anyway my job is about things you eat and
protecting people from those.
IR: Well what about the latest American studies on
fluoride – 39,000 school children tested and it makes no
difference to cavities, but sodium fluoride was rat poison
and the US research on aluminium fluoride was funded by
the aluminium industry.
FSA: Yes, but that’s in the water. It’s not really food
or supplements.
IR: Well what about aspartame - Dr William Campbell
Douglas is directly linking that to lupus and MS. That’s in
food.
FSA: Ah but you need hard evidence. Facts.
IR: What, you mean like a 350 page report? My view of
this is that you are totally inconsistent and deliberately
misrepresenting facts. What’s yours?
FSA: Never thought you’d ask, old boy. Mine’s a gin
and tonic. Don’t mind if I do.