Prof. Keith Scott-Mumby's Total Health Newsletter #35. Week ending Jan 24th, 2010
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This week's Menu:

• This week's Quote

1. Mixed Up Cell Lines Catastrophe In Cancer Research
2. Investing In Yourself
3. The Joys Of Sex
4. Seaweed For Weightloss
5. This Cancer Study Isn't What People Are Saying
6. What's In A Word?

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This Week's Quote:

We have come to believe that someone who has more educational merit badges, who is a whiz at some form of scholastic discipline (math, science, a huge vocabulary, a memory for superfluous facts, a fast reader) is "intelligent". Yet mental hospitals are clogged with patients who have all of the properly lettered credentials--as well as many who don't. A truer barometer of intelligence is an effective, happy life lived each day and each present moment of every day.

- Wayne W. Dyer, Your Erroneous Zones

1. Mixed Up Cell Lines Catastrophe in Cancer Research

It’s me that used the word catastrophe here; most doctors are talking of a minor glitch. But then most doctors and scientists are gullible or frauds. The fact that 100 scientific papers and 11 US patents are invalidated by the discovery that trials were done on the wrong type of cells is very major indeed.

This is outrageous.

Know what’s weird here? Hardly anybody is concerned. Doesn’t that say volumes for the fact that they don’t believe their own B*S* anyway? I think it does.

If you had the “latest drug” for pancreatic cancer, that was “proven” to work, but in fact had been tested only on lung cells or ovarian cancer, wouldn’t you worry… just a little?

Well, that’s what patients are now facing. It seems there has been a huge mix up and scientists supposedly doing research into cancer therapies have been testing out on any old cell line, not necessarily the one they claimed. In other words all the science is fraudulent and should be re-done, even if not an intentional mistake (no evidence of that).

The study which stirred all this up is a Dutch study (you’d never get this degree of honesty from an American study or researchers), showing that three of 13 human esophageal cancer cell lines widely used for worldwide research were actually cell lines from lung, colorectal and other malignancies.

Two of the contaminated or misidentified cell lines were involved in research published in more than 100 papers and in the issuance of 11 U.S. patents, which led to clinical trials in patients. Winand N.M. Dinjens, senior author of a short paper published online Jan. 14 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute and head of molecular diagnostics in the department of pathology at the Josephine Nefkens Institute, University Medical Center Rotterdam in The Netherlands.

Predictably, “experts” are stating that the unintentional misidentification or contamination of the cell lines is not critical and is even a fairly common occurrence. Well, they would say that, wouldn't they, since they got egg all over their faces...

"From the scientific point of view, it's not a huge deal, but it's certainly something you're glad you found out," said Charles Saxe, scientific director of the Program in Cancer Cell Biology and Metastasis at the American Cancer Society in Atlanta [Yeah, I'll bet he was real glad]. "This probably doesn't surprise anybody. The surprise is probably that there were only three."

The unpleasant surprise for the rest of us, Mr. Saxe, is that you seem to play down mistakes of this order, yet belong to a lobby which wants to jail honest holistic practitioners for staking out part of your money-grabbing territory with something a little less twisted (Saxe works for the corrupt charity known as the American Cancer Society; most countries have a version of this "cancer charity" scam).

"The issue of misidentification/crosscontamination is not a new thing," said Robert H. Shoemaker, chief of the screening technologies branch at the U.S. National Cancer Institute and author of an editorial accompanying the study, who also did not deem the finding a huge catastrophe.

What? A kid in 2nd or 3rd grade who turned in such sloppy work would be punished by the teacher. If you got an assignment to write about European history and wrote instead about Japanese history, you’d get whalloped--- and expect to be, right?

Notice that my concern here is not that this happened or that there was contamination: it’s that nobody in responsible positions seems to give a damn.

It shows just what cycnicism and phoney science is out there. It's not science: it's pre-packaging drugs for sale to an unsupecting public.

SOURCE: Jan. 14, 2010, online Journal of the National Cancer Institute; comments from www.medicine.net

2. Investing In Yourself

It's truly amazing, the number of people who will invest time, money or effort in worldly options, such as real estate, stocks and bonds, starting a business or even gambling and lottery schemes, yet will not even have considered investing in their most powerful lasting redeemable asset, which will never depreciate - themselves!

We all need to invest in growth for ourselves; that is, our own BEING, our own SELF, putting our time, energy and commitment into developing a new, strong, dynamically balanced, and resourcefully knowledgeable "me". You can turn that asset into cash rewards, fame, happiness or whatever you judge success to mean. Otherwise a person is faced with just stagnation, setbacks and eventually succumbing under the pressure of events.

It's about the future; what you've got now - what you see, do and have - will always be the same unless you alter it (that's only logical). Unfortunately, the conditions of life don't remain static. There is change - process - evolution - and if you don't respond to it, keep abreast, then you will fall behind. We must make modifications to our mind set to grow, live, survive.

If you have a stack of money and leave it in the bank, it will slowly erode. Even allowing for interest accumulation, this does not compensate for inflationary losses and economic pressures which change the world. Unless over the years you have developed more dollars (Yen, Pounds, Euros etc), you have been steadily declining in worth in recent decades. That’s inflation.

Human Inflation?

The principle of inflation could even be compared to human potential. Once upon a time a university degree was virtually a passport to a good job and an above-average salary. Nowadays there are even graduates with TWO degrees who cannot find work.

Life's Bank Account

You can look at your life potential in the same way as a bank balance. Unless you put more in the credit column of life's account (human potential), you are probably going backwards.

Never give up trying to better yourself, to learn more, to love more, to live more. Taking the words of Winston Churchill and adding to them, "Never, never, never give up..." in seeking the truth and meaning of life.

3. The Joys Of Sex

I like writing about sex. I regard it as one of the greatest human "feel good" activities. It's just sad that when I do, I get a lot of emails from subscribers who have not got an active partner with whom to share the joys I sing of!

Of course, it's important to do it right - not hurriedly and furtively taking from the other, with feelings of guilt, but in out loud delight, done "reverently, discreetly, advisedly and in awe of God", to steal a few liturgical words. Some texts say "in the fear of God". How comical. In what sense is it possible to be afraid of God? It just shows you how weird and crazy religious dogma can get.

In fact let's change "done" to enacted, while we are at it. Done was a crude word for the sex act when I was at school and may be still, among some groups.

The Church is pretty clear, or at least the Protestant Church (perhaps some Catholic subscribers would direct me to suitable passages), that this is about husband and wife together in the delight and tenderness of sexual union and joyful commitment.

Nowadays, I have no problem with the fact that people often commune sexually outside of marriage. This is something the religious fathers could probably not have forseen. But without wishing to become dogmatic or rigid, I think it is wise to hang onto the sacred values, even if you want to dump the rules! Keep the blessing of sex, whatever Higher Power you believe in; it is something VERY special. Judge that for yourself, by the amazing feelings we get at the climax and how much we just melt into each other when we have made love as we should.

Casual sex is such a waste of energy, juices and semen, I wonder sincerely why anyone bothers!

If you want some fun, you might get my naughty 21 Ways To Spice Up Your Sex Life but a word of warning: it's not for the prudish.

4. Seaweed For Weightloss?

An extract of Undaria pinnatifida – a brown seaweed – has been helping people lose weight, without the dangers and hype of Hoodia and other scams. It seems to work by killing the appetite; nothing wrong in that, providing the lack of desire for food does not become extreme.

One laboratory study found that mice that were fed fucoxanthin, a carotenoid contained in this brown seaweed, saw a marked reduction in abdominal fat. Abdominal fat is the one most of us want to get rid of: it causes widespread inflammation in the body and (for men) it's a source of dangerous and unwanted estrogen compounds.

More recently, researchers performed a double-blind clinical study on fucoxanthin with human test subjects.

Patients in the control group who took a placebo lost just 3 pounds in 4 months. Those taking fucoxanthin dropped 15 pounds during the same time period, losing 5 times more weight. So if you have been struggling, it may be worth a try!

[SOURCES: Maeda H, et al. Fucoxanthin shows antiobesity effect through UCP1 expression in white adipose tissues. Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2005 Jul 1;332(2):392-7 and Ramazanov, Z. Effect of fucoxanthin on energy expenditure in obese women: a double-blind, randomized and placebo-controlled trial. Submitted for publication 2008.]

Don't forget the "other" African herb I told you about last week: Irvingia gabonensis (IG) – or “bush mango". Read more here

And don't forget the amazing "Fat Release System" I shared with you by email last week. I'll tell you more about it next week but for those of you who are impatient, go watch these movies: fat release weight loss system

5. Hold On There: This Cancer Study Isn't What People Are Saying

Bromelain for treating cancer has been known a l-o-n-g time. I wrote about it as an enzyme ingredient in Cancer Confidential (to find out why we are ALL BATTLING CANCER, click this link: Cancer Confidential Report) Bromelain comes from friendly pineapple! It digests protein and is used as a meat tenderizer, as well as a cancer therapy.

A recent and much lauded study has shown that bromelain contains compounds CCS and CCZ, which can inhibit the growth of a broad range of tumor cells,including lung, colon, breast and ovarian tumors, as well as melanoma.”

Suddenly lead author Tracey Mynott is the star of the alternative medicine fraternity. She did a good study but hold on-- because this was not a clinical trial. Just a test tube experiment.

Worst of all, the substances studied are not from pineappples! Well at least not from the fruit but from the woody stems of the plants, which are not eatable.

Moreover, CCS and CCZ are pretty toxic. So how is this different from chemotherapy? Not at all: it's still "kill the cancer before you kill the patient" strategy. If there is a wide gap between clinical effectiveness and toxicity, we call that holistic; if there is a narrow gap, we call it chemo. Not much difference otherwise.

6. What's In A Word?

Milquetoast

This is one of those words derived from a comic strip character: Casper Milquetoast, created by Harold Webster in 1924, was a timid and retiring man named for a timid food (anyone remember "pobs"? - sweetened warm milk with bread soaked in it).

The first instance of milquetoast as a common noun is found in the mid-1930s. Milquetoast thus joins the ranks of other such words, including sad sack, from a blundering army private invented by George Baker in 1942, and Wimpy, from J. Wellington Wimpy in the Popeye comic strip, which became a trade name for a hamburger. Also from comic strip land we have Mickey Mouse, which has become a slang term for something that is fake, insignificant, small-time, worthless, or petty.

So, that's all for this week!

Be well; find the sacred in all you do, otherwise don't do it!

Prof.

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