Dr. Sanjay Gupta: If you limit your sugar you decrease your chances of developing cancer?

Lewis Cantley, PhD: Absolutely.

Cantley, a Harvard professor and the head of the Beth Israel Deaconess Cancer Center, says when we eat or drink sugar, it causes a sudden spike in the hormone insulin, which can serve as a catalyst to fuel certain types of cancers.

Lewis Cantley: What we’re beginning to learn is that insulin can cause adverse effects in the various tissues. And of particular concern is cancer.

Why? Nearly a third of some common cancers—including breast and colon cancers—have something called insulin receptors on their surface. Insulin binds to these receptors and signals the tumor to start consuming glucose [which allows it to grow].

Lewis Cantley: Every cell in our body needs glucose to survive. But the trouble is, these cancer cells also use it to grow. So if you happen to have the tumor that has insulin receptors on it then it will get stimulated to take up the glucose that’s in the bloodstream rather than go into fat or muscle, the glucose goes into the tumor. And the tumor uses it to grow.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta: The mantra that you hear from most nutritionists is that a calorie is a calorie is a calorie.

Kimber Stanhope, PhD: And I think the results of the study showed clearly that is not true.

Stanhope has found that fructose increase small dense LDL cholesterol as well as other risk factors for cardiovascular disease.

Lewis Cantley’s research team is working on developing drugs that will cut off the glucose supply to cancer cells and keep them from growing. But until there’s a breakthrough, Cantley’s advice? Don’t eat sugar. And if you must, keep it to a minimum.

Cantley, a Harvard professor and the head of the Beth Israel Deaconess Cancer Center, says when we eat or drink sugar, it causes a sudden spike in the hormone insulin, which can serve as a catalyst to fuel certain types of cancers.

Lewis Cantley: What we’re beginning to learn is that insulin can cause adverse effects in the various tissues. And of particular concern is cancer.

Why? Nearly a third of some common cancers—including breast and colon cancers—have something called insulin receptors on their surface. Insulin binds to these receptors and signals the tumor to start consuming glucose [which allows it to grow].

Lewis Cantley: Every cell in our body needs glucose to survive. But the trouble is, these cancer cells also use it to grow. So if you happen to have the tumor that has insulin receptors on it then it will get stimulated to take up the glucose that’s in the bloodstream rather than go into fat or muscle, the glucose goes into the tumor. And the tumor uses it to grow.

Kimber Stanhope, PhD: We found that the subjects who consumed [25% of their calories as] high fructose corn syrup had increased blood levels of LDL cholesterol and other risk factors for cardiovascular disease.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta: How quickly did these changes occur?

Kimber Stanhope: Within two weeks.

Saturated fat intake is NOT correlated with cholesterol levels or coronary heart disease, and cholesterol levels are NOT correlated with coronary heart disease notes Dr. Malcolm Kendrick in this 4.5 minute video clip from the upcoming documentary ”$29 Billion Reasons To Lie About Cholesterol”.

“[T]here is no evidence that diet prevents cardiovascular morbidity or mortality,” noted Uffe Ravnskov, MD, PhD.

“This effect was shown in a systematic review of eight ecological, 41 cross-sectional, 25 cohort, six case-control studies, and a meta-analysis of nine controlled randomised dietary trials.”

“In my opinion, statins are destroying the lives of countless people around the world,” notes Malcolm Kendrick, MD, author of The Great Cholesterol Con: The Truth About What Really Causes Heart Disease and How to Avoid It .)

The basis for using cholesterol-lowering drugs is not based on science notes Joel M. Kauffman, PhD, the author of Malignant Medical Myths: Why Medical Treatment Causes 200,000 Deaths in the USA each Year, and How to Protect Yourself.

“Low cholesterol levels are dangerous; high ones usually are not,” Kauffman writes.

Mark Starr, MD’s cholesterol levels had increased from 150 when he was in medical school to 240 when he was 40-years-old and feeling really ill. He suspected he might have hypothyroidism, but his blood tests (TSH levels) were normal, and the endocrinologist at the University where he had trained told him that his thyroid was fine, and that he was just working too hard. However, after read the old medical literature and realized that he had hypothyroidism, and started taking 4 grains of desiccated thyroid, his cholesterol levels dropped from 240 to 150, and his triglycerides fell from 500 to less than 100.

Here is a short audio clip of Dr. Starr talking about this in a speech he gave at a 2007 Orthomolecular Conference.

Patients eating a low-carbohydrate group lost nearly twice as much weight as those in the low-fat group. Those in the low-carb group lost an average of 26.4 pounds versus 14.3 pounds for those in the low-fat group.

Women eating portion-controlled diets lost more weight than women on a diet that was not portion-controlled even though both were supposed to eat the same number of calories according to a recent study. Women on the portion-controlled diet lost 12.3 pounds in two months compared to 7.9 pounds for women following a non-portion-controlled diet.

The concept that HDL could remove cholesterol from a plaque is such a stupid idea that I cannot believe it still exists. Once you understand the science, the whole thing is patently ridiculous.”

(This article was written by Malcolm Kendrick, MD, author of the wonderful, eye-opening, paradigm-shifting book The Great Cholesterol Con: The Truth About What Really Causes Heart Disease and How to Avoid It .)

Men who were given 200 grams of fructose per day for two weeks had a 5% decrease in HDL levels, falling from 46 mg per deciliter to 44 mg per deciliter according to a new study.

Statin use increased dramatically from 1999 to 2005 from 8% of people surveyed to 13.4% of people surveyed, however there was also a significant increase in

• coronary heart disease (from 2.8% to 3.7%)
• strokes (from 2.0% to 2.9%)
• diabetes (from 7.8% to 10.3%)

when comparing the prevalence of these events in 1999 to those in 2005.

Interestingly, statins increase the risk of diabetes according to the the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

This is the paper that Dr. Michael Eades talked about that I noted in the previous article.

This video shows the paper in more detail and shows that these differences are statistically significant.

“This study shows NO evidence that lowering LDL cholesterol decreases the prevalence of heart disease… And [yet] what [the authors of this paper concluded] from this data is that we simply need to treat more people. Brilliant!”
This is a quote from Michael Eades, MD author of “Protein Power” on his blog, Nov 19, 2009.

Eighteen ounces (18 oz) of Orange Juice raised HDL levels by 21% in one month, from 60 mg/dL to 78 mg/dL (1.56 mmol per liter increased to 2.03 mmol per liter) according to a study published in 2000.

HDL levels seem to be key to preventing heart disease, NOT the lowering of LDL which the statin manufacturer’s would like us to believe.

The greater the reduction in LDL cholesterol in statin users who were also given the cholesterol-lowering drug Zetia (ezetimibe), the greater the acceleration of atherosclerosis according to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

“We found an unexpected paradoxical relationship of a greater degree of atherosclerosis progression in patients with larger, [ Zetia-induced ] ezetimibe-induced reductions in LDL cholesterol level,” the researchers noted.

“The use of [ Zetia ] ezetimibe led to a paradoxical increase in the degree of atherosclerosis in association with greater reduction in LDL cholesterol, an effect we hypothesize may stem from unintended biologic effects of this agent,” they concluded.

But that’s not all.

Even though LDL levels were lower in the statin plus Zetia (ezetimibe) than the statin plus niacin group, during a 14 month period there were:

• 3 times as many heart attacks in the Zetia (ezetimibe) group (3 vs 1)
• 5 times as many cardiovascular deaths in the Zetia (ezetimibe) group (5 vs 1), and
• 7 times as many total deaths in the Zetia (ezetimibe) group (7 vs 1), and
• more than 3 times as many heart bypasses performed in the Zetia (ezetimibe) group (3 vs 0)

Do not be fooled by whether or not a drug lowers some number on a piece of paper, that is, some marker, such as LDL cholesterol, blood pressure or blood sugar.

The drug companies have convinced doctors and patients alike that if a drug lowers cholesterol… or blood pressure or blood sugar, that is must be good for you.

This is not true!

Studies going back to the early 1970’s found that while oral diabetes drugs lower blood sugar, they caused more problems than they solved.

A 2004 study of blood pressure drugs in older women found that while these drugs lowered blood pressure by 10-15 points lower than women taking no blood pressure drugs, women taking the drugs were MORE likely to die of cardiovascular disease in seven out of the eight ( 7 of 8 ) drug groups than the “no drug” group!

Yes, really.

In fact, women who had been given a diuretic plus a calcium channel blocker were 2.4 times MORE likely to die of cardiovascular disease than women taking no blood pressure medicines at all, even though the systolic pressure of the women taking this drug combination was 11 points lower (138 mm Hg in the drug group vs 149 mm Hg in the “no drug” group)!

This is another example showing that the number on a piece of paper is irrelevant!

It does not matter whether or not a drug lowers LDL cholesterol or blood pressure or blood sugar or any other marker.

The only thing that matters is whether or not it lowers your total risk of death.

Please do not fall for this advertising nonsense!

Dr. Rodney A. Hayward says we should IGNORE LDL cholesterol ignore

Researchers quoted in the January 17th, 2008 cover story in BusinessWeek titled “Do Cholesterol Drugs Do Any Good”, said that they research suggests that we should IGNORE LDL cholesterol altogether.

”[C]urrent evidence supports ignoring LDL cholesterol altogether,” University of Michigan’s [Dr. Rodney A. Hayward, professor of internal medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School] was quoted as saying in this BusinessWeek article.

There were fewer heart attacks, fewer heart bypasses performed, fewer cardiovascular deaths, and fewer total deaths during a 14 month period in statin users given extended-release niacin compared to those given Zetia (ezetimibe) according to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The final dose of extended-release niacin was:

• 2000 mg in 75% of patients
• 1500 mg in 3% of patients
• 1000 mg in 12% of patients
• 500 mg in 10% of patients

In rare cases, niacin can cause liver problems.

This is more common with extended-release niacin than regular niacin.

This is because extended-release niacin (or time-release niacin) is roughly the equivalent of double the dose of regular niacin as noted by Dr. William Parsons in the 1993 book Coronary Heart Disease: The Dietary Sense and Nonsense. An evaluation by scientists.

There were 86% fewer total deaths in 14 months in statin users given extended-release niacin compared to those given Zetia (ezetimibe) according to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

There was one (1) deaths in the niacin group during the 14 months versus seven (7) deaths in the Zetia (ezetimibe) group.

Two of the deaths in the Zetia (ezetimibe) group, and one (1) death in the niacin group were non-cardiovascular, however, they don’t say what they were.

Since statins and other cholesterol-lowering drugs which artificially lower cholesterol have been found to increase the risk of cancer, suicide, accidental death, and congestive heart failure (with statins), these two deaths may or may not be relevant.

Since they did not say what these people died from, it feels to me like they are trying to hide something.

I am trying to find out what these other people died from.

There were 67% fewer heart attacks in 14 months in statin users given extended release niacin compared to those given Zetia (ezetimibe) according to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

There was one (1) heart attack in the niacin group versus three (3) heart attacks in the Zetia (ezetimibe) group.

There were 100% fewer heart attacks in 14 months in statin users given extended release niacin compared to those given Zetia (ezetimibe) according to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

There were no heart bypasses (0) performed in the niacin group during the 14 months versus three (3) heart bypasses performed in the Zetia (ezetimibe) group.

There were 80% fewer cardiovascular deaths in 14 months in statin users given extended release niacin compared to those given Zetia (ezetimibe) according to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

There was one (1) cardiovascular death in the niacin group versus five (5) cardiovascular deaths in the Zetia (ezetimibe) group.

Type 2 Hypothyroidism can cause elevated cholesterol levels according to Mark Starr, MD author of the wonderful book Hypothyroidism Type 2: The Epidemic.

The prevalence of hypertension increases as body weight increases as found in a study of 56784 men aged 18-25 years, entering the Swiss army.
The prevalence of obesity by weight category was as follows:

• 12.5% in underweight men with BMI less than 18.5
• 23.9% in normal weight men with a BMI less than 18.5 to 24.9
• 37.6% in overweight men with a BMI of 25 to 29.9
• 49.7% in obese men with a BMI of 30 to 34.9
• 56.7% in obese men with a BMI of 35 to 39.9
• 54.2% in underweight men with a BMI of 40 or greater

A 4-year study of Red Yeast Rice extract known as Xuezhikang which lowers cholesterol, at a dose of 600 mg twice a day,

• Reduced coronary events by 37%
• Reduced death from coronary heart disease by 31%
• Reduced strokes by 44%
• Reduced the need for coronary bypass surgery by 49%
• Reduced cancers by 51%
• And, most importantly, reduced all-cause mortality by 32%.

These benefits are vastly superior to any study I ever seen done with the cholesterol-lowering drugs known as statins.