Tag: cancer

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Magnesium deficiency and cancer – and magnesium sulfate salt

Magnesium Deficiency and Cancer, Sara Castiglioni, Jeanette AM Maier (2011):

“In addition, magnesium concentration in drinking water is inversely correlated with death from breast, prostate, and ovarian cancers, whereas no correlation existed for other tumors [36, 38, 39].”

Looking at the bigger picture can lead to a better understanding of the real underlying issues and we are overlooking or being deceived about the underlying causes of cancer:

“Experimental evidence therefore leads to the conclusion that in rodents, magnesium deficiency participates both in early (initiation) and late (progression) phases of tumorigenesis (figure 2).”

Full text: http://www.jle.com/fr/revues/mrh/e-docs/magnesium_and_cancer_a_dangerous_liason_290268/article.phtml?tab=texte

*this article also mentions that low magnesium levels slow down growth of the main cancer tumor but that it is associated with increased spread of the cancer to other areas of the body. There is some speculation that low magnesium could be used to slow growth of cancer tumors but I would point out that the simple answer is math – cancer is very rapidly growing and any rate limiting factor such as reduced levels of essential nutrients such as magnesium or folate would reduce growth of rapidly growing cell groups but also would affect the health of the immune system and rest of the body. Cancer cells are ravenous, they have no off switch and it is the magnesium which provides the body’s ability to kill by apoptosis cells that are defective or too old. The article goes into more detail about oxidative stress, inflammation and mentions factors involved with apoptosis that are dependent on adequate magnesium. Some types of cancer treatments increase the risk of low magnesium and treating with extra magnesium sources has been studied elsewhere. Problems with fingertips occurs in a variety of health situations that involve starvation of some important nutrient including Raynaud’s disease – mentioned here, in an article about the cancer treatment associated with low magnesium: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/1097-0142(19851215)56:12%3C2765::AID-CNCR2820561208%3E3.0.CO;2-2/full

The most well known example of fingertip problems due to lack of essential nutrients is frostbite – warmth is the missing nutrient – is that a nutrient? not really but without warmth nothing else works. I’ve written about a few other type of vasculitis problems that begin with finger symptoms. I’ve included some of that post at the end of this, to be organized later on the effectivecare.info site.

In the case of cold water drowning the body has self preservation techniques that may sacrifice the fingers and toes while saving circulation throughout the heart, brain and lungs – the three most important organs for survival. Drowning victims in very cold water sometimes survive much longer exposure than would be possible in warm water because of this survival tactic that may be based somewhere in our evolutionary past. Life guards are trained on the importance of not giving up on the search for cold water victims. (cold water survival) My first job was as life guard, water safety instructor and camp counselor.

The cancer treatment with magnesium may need a source that can be absorbed through the skin. Many factors can reduce the body’s ability to absorb magnesium as well through the intestines.

Humans intestinal and renal systems are designed with an expectation that we will have lots of magnesium available and not much calcium so magnesium tends to be wasted easily and absorbed poorly. Current water supplies tend to be lower in magnesium content than natural river water might be. An Epsom magnesium sulfate salt bath or foot soak can be a better absorbed source as skin readily absorbs it. 20 minutes with about a cup of the magnesium sulfate salt is a medicinal dose, Staying in longer than 40 minutes might be dangerous due to slowing of the heart, and can cause watery bowel movements for up to a day or two if oversoaking as the magnesium causes relaxation of smooth muscle fibers which are what control the heart rate and the intestinal system. there are early symptoms of a fluttery weaker heart rate that is a signal to rinse off, you spent too long soaking.

Originally posted Feb. 20, 2011 – Regarding Vasculitis:

The first picture that I saw of someone diagnosed with vasculitis reminded me of hypothermia. The person’s fingertips were red and swollen but also shriveling at the tips. I learned about the body’s amazing ability to divert nutrients to the brain and heart during my training as a Water Safety Instructor. People survive drowning in extreme cold sometimes because the body stops circulating blood through the arms and legs. The person might lose fingertips and toes due to frost bite but if they survived an hour under water without brain damage, then it seems like a small price to pay.In the case of vasculitis, however, white blood cells are breaking down blood vessel tissue and destroying function of the area. It has been a mystery – why would the body attack itself and take apart structures?

I suggest that it is occurring for the same reason that anorexics die of heart attacks. In cases of malnutrition the body will catabolize – break down – body parts that are not essential in order to keep the brain alive. In the drowning victim, the brain, lungs and heart continue circulating blood while the extremities are left to freeze. The anorexic’s body needs calories to feed the brain and fat stores won’t work. Muscle tissue can be converted into energy that the brain can use. Over time, the heart and the rest of the muscles are eaten from within to feed the starving brain, leaving the weakened heart muscle at risk from any overwork.

Buerger’s Disease

The type of vasculitis most associated with fingertip loss is also most associated with smoking. And  the most effective treatment is to stop smoking. The vascular tissue would be oxygen starved in a chronic smoker as well as magnesium deficient.

Buerger’s Disease,
photo from: [vasculitis.med.jhu.edu/typesof/buergers.html]  John Hopkins Vasculitis Center
Central Nervous System Vasculitis

**This is a rare form of brain vasculitis but the description of symptoms and population at risk reminded me of my migraine days of maximal blood brain permeability and sensitivity to many foods and chemicals.

 
“Treatment and Course of CNS Vasculitis” 
PACNS: Until recently, CNS vasculitis was a fatal condition in a high percentage of cases, with death following diagnosis in a mean of 45 days after diagnosis. The availability of powerful immunosuppressive therapy, however, has significantly improved the prognosis for people with this condition. Some patients with PACNS respond well to treatment with high doses of steroids alone. Others require the addition of cyclophosphamide to the steroid regimen. In many cases, a reasonable approach is to attempt to control the disease with high doses of steroids first (e.g., for one month), adding cyclophosphamide only if steroids fail or if patients begin to develop unacceptable side–effects of steroid treatment.
 
Balancing control of the disease with the possibility of serious side–effects of treatment is often challenging. For PACNS, treatment must often be continued for a year or more.
 
BACNS: Patients who fit the typical patient profile of BACNS and who have clinical presentations compatible with that diagnosis may be candidates for less intensive treatment regimens than those used in clear–cut cases of PACNS. Patients believed to have BACNS may be treated with calcium–channel blockers (a class of drug used to treat high blood pressure and spasm of blood vessels that occurs in a variety of conditions) for a few weeks, along with a comparatively short course of steroids (prednisone). No firm guidelines exist regarding the length of therapy, however, and decisions about the length of treatment must be made on a case–by–case basis.
 
Cocaine use, malignant hypertension, preeclampsia, and intravascular lymphoma can mimic this disease. The best therapy has not been established: many patients are treated with prednisone and cyclophosphamide.”

from:
[vasculitis.med.jhu.edu/typesof/cns.html] – John Hopkins Vasculitis Center

** Calcium channel blockers are a pharmaceutical stand-in for magnesium. Deficiency of the building blocks and energy sources that the body needs for regeneration prevents the body from growing new tissue. When functioning correctly, new skin cells are grown every day. Hypertension and preeclampsia are conditions resulting from magnesium deficiency. Cocaine use is associated with minimal eating and weight loss (appetite for more cocaine instead of food). Cancer is also associated with malfunctioning white blood cell function – apoptosis is required to prune decaying cells before they mutate. Magnesium is essential to grow the white blood cells and to arm them with the enzyme and adhesion powers necessary for apoptosis.

When nutrients are missing the body will recycle nutrients from less important body parts. White blood cells, our work force, will break down and not repair tissues that aren’t supporting the brain, lungs and heart circulation. Tissue with rapid cell turn over will show the lack of repair earliest. The skin and blood vessels in areas of the body that are less physiologically important will show break down and inflammation earliest in the progression of disease. Leaky Gut Syndrome is a similar problem happening with disrepair of the intestinal lining. It leads to worsening malabsorption problems and further malnutrition.

Bypassing the poor intestinal absorption with delivery of nutrients by skin is a low budget, low risk solution worth trying. A magnesium containing skin cream may provide some of the nourishment that the skin cells need for repair. Excess active hormone D also causes increased intestinal calcium absorption and worse magnesium absorption. Some types of infection can cause an increase in active hormone D and cause an imbalance in calcium and magnesium. Consuming extra vitamin D will add to the imbalance in vitamin D vs hormone D levels that the chronic infection is triggering. the increased levels of hormone D cause movement of calcium and magnesium out of the bone tissue and lead to increased urinary magnesium losses. Magnesium deficiency prevents growth and repair of our skin and everything else.

Use of a magnesium containing skin cream may bypass the poor intestinal absorption and bring symptom relief sooner than just taking a supplement of magnesium.

Eating supplements or diets rich in lecithin from egg yolk and omega 3 fatty acids from fish oil, or flax or hemp oils rich in essential fats can help nourish the skin and promote healthy membranes in the brain and throughout the body. Self care and nourishment helps speed healing.  Calcium channel blockers and corticosteroids will not provide any building blocks for growth in the long run.

*I must not have been aware of Epsom salt baths at this stage of my learning more about better self-care – migraine headaches may have to do with vasculitis – 9/12/2021 addition: also TRP channel activators. Certain foods and seasonings contain phytonutrients that can open ion channels and allow the calcium entry. More about TRP channels and oxidative stress (inflammation) is here: Relaxation & Stress.

Magnesium sulfate, Epsom Salt, is a well absorbed topical source of magnesium and the sulfate can be beneficial for health too. It may be particularly helpful for people on the autism spectrum to get more magnesium and more sulfate. Other psychiatric and cognitive or chronic pain conditions might benefit also. Magnesium can be low in a standard diet, but if supplements are also not helping much, then trying the Epsom salt soaks can let you know within 20 minutes whether muscle cramps or a bad mood are improved. (Usually they are!) See: Epsom Salt Footsoaks.

Magnesium overview page: jenniferdepew.com/magnesium.

  • Disclaimer: Opinions are my own and the information is provided for educational purposes within the guidelines of fair use. While I am a Registered Dietitian this information is not intended to provide individual health guidance. Please see a health professional for individual health care purposes.  
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Prenatal ultrasounds are a great idea, but for baby too?

I told you the last story to tell you a different one. My father is not a computer scientist but as a mechanical engineer and he liked to build things in his spare time in a home workshop with many tools with which he could custom make hand engineered parts built to fit whatever the project required.

As a professional mechanical engineer he worked on national defense projects for a company who contracted with the U.S. government.  He didn’t own the patents on any of his work as a employee; all rights to his inventions and collaborations remained the property of the company. Feeling proud to work in defense of your country is a reward in itself.

One of the projects he worked on in collaboration with two other engineers is still in active production. Underwater detection of submarines is performed with sound-waves, somewhat like whale’s communicating with songs that travel across oceans, or like bat’s sending out clicks and listening for the rebound in echo location. Fascinating and not my area to try to explain in more detail. The Sonar detecting equipment that my father helped invent is still in production for the defense of the nation and I am very proud of him and his work.

Since the initial invention of the sound-wave technology the same “ultrasound” technology was adapted for use to make black and white images of the interior of the body that are formed of soft tissue and can’t be viewed with an X-Ray in the way that hard bone tissue can be viewed. The ultrasound technology can be used to view organs or look for tumors and it is now regularly used to view and make images of a fetus during it’s prenatal development.

The use of ultrasound imaging for viewing babies has become almost standard as an early proof of pregnancy even though it is not necessary as lab tests checking hormonal changes are also performed.

The use of ultrasound imaging during pregnancies has become standard in the United States, however women in China may not receive an ultrasound during their pregnancies.

To skip back to the whale song momentarily — try to visualize the sound-waves of a deep long note or tone that is strong enough to travel across an ocean and now the bat clicking. The deep long note travels across the ocean from one whale to another and is heard as communication.  Or the clicks of a dolphin or a bat are sent out in long deep or shorter more rapid notes that bounces off an object and returns to be interpreted as a map or echo location. Now try to visualize the ultrasound technician holding an ultrasound device that sends long deep notes through the abdomen into the watery environment surrounding or making up the body of the baby. Sound travels well through liquid and it would be loud.

Research studies on the effects of ultrasound imaging on the expected fetus took place in China with a group of women who were requesting abortions. Other studies with animal subjects have replicated part of the results which showed that ultrasound could cause fetal cells to move out of place within the developing infant. Ultrasound waves when held in one place for a longer time and at a closer distance were found to cause actual movement of fetal cells out of their normal positions.  [The animal-based research study.]

Other risks were also noted in the research performed in China, most significantly when the imaging wand was used for ten minutes instead of three and when it was used in an internal, vaginal position instead of using a larger external sweeping motion across the expanse of the abdomen. [pubmed/11776185 ]

The other risks to the infant included increased heat especially within the bony cavity of the skull which has been studied elsewhere without any babies. A container of water was found to consistently have an increase in temperature occur after just one minute of ultrasound exposure. Specific types of ultrasound devices vary somewhat and the recommendations and cautions regarding ultrasound use in pregnancy are available in this research article: [PMC4547707 ] Avoiding use of ultrasounds during the first trimester is recommended in the article and using the lowest settings possible for patients who have a medical need for ultrasound imaging is recommended for prenatal patients in later stages of pregnancy.

Gastroschisis is a rare medical condition in a developing fetus that might require an ultrasound for diagnosis around 18-20 weeks/gestation as surgery would be needed shortly after the baby’s birth as the condition would likely be deadly otherwise. An opening in the infant’s abdomen near the umbilical cord allows some of the intestine and/or liver to be outside of the body. [cincinnatichildrens.org/gastroschisis]

Protecting the developing brain of the fetus is important throughout the pregnancy but  the greatest risk to the fetus from ultrasounds may occur during the first trimester according to a research study that took place elsewhere than China.

  • A book, 50 Human Studies, in Utero, Conducted in Modern China, Indicate Extreme Risk for Prenatal Ultrasound: A New Bibliography,  by Jim West, a non-Chinese scientist, is available in which the findings from the Chinese studies are summarized for English readers and a Japanese translation is now also available. The book is mentioned on the following site along with a variety of links to research on the topic of the use of ultrasounds prenatally and a potential increased risk for autism developing in the infant later in life: ultrasound-autism.org
  • A lengthy review of the book and the history of how it came to be written by Jim West is available here: whale.to/50 Human Studies.
  • An excerpt summarizes the recommendation regarding ultrasound use prenatally based on findings by a project that ultimately involved approximately 100 scientists in China and 2,700 maternal-fetal pairs, between 1988-2011 :

“From these human studies, Professor Ruo Feng, of the Acoustic Institute at Nanjing University, published guidelines in 2000:

“Commercial or educational fetal ultrasound imaging should be strictly eliminated. Ultrasound for the identification of fetal sex and fetal entertainment imaging should be strictly eliminated. For the best early pregnancy, avoid ultrasound.”

Ruo Feng, who reviewed many of the studies, stipulated that routine ultrasound be avoided. Only if there were exceptional medical indications should ultrasound be allowed, and at minimum intensity. Sessions should be very brief, no more than 3 minutes, 5 minutes at most. Multiple sessions should be avoided because hazards are cumulative. Human studies had found sensitive organs damaged at 1 minute exposure.

The Chinese studies echo and confirm the earlier, ignored and rejected, 1984 “Consensus Statement”, published by the National Institute of Health and signed by the preeminent American scientists of that era. 2″  – whale.to/50 Human Studies

  • I learned of this research on the potential risks of ultrasound when researching other topics on possible causes of autism. Many factors may be involved in the risk of autism developing, which, in combination, can lead to changes occurring in the developing fetus that aren’t obvious in the infant but which may flair up into an autoimmune-like reaction during toddler-hood if there are enough negative factors and not enough or an adequate variety of nutrients and other positive factors in the child’s home life. Genetic susceptibilities are also involved but none identified thus far have been found to lead to autism without there being additional environmental toxins or nutrient deficiencies involved.
  • Autism can be caused by the use of thalidomide prenatally. That wouldn’t be recommended as the medication can also cause physical birth defects when used during a pregnancy, however it is a medication used for some non-pregnancy related conditions and there might be an occasional unplanned pregnancy. The point is not only that planning pregnancies is recommended so that prenatal vitamins can be started months in advance (ideally a year prior to conception for least risk of autism in one study); and so that potentially toxic medications can be gradually stopped before trying to conceive; but that if autism can be caused by a medication then how could it also be a natural variation?
  • Family studies suggest that personality traits slightly similar to autistic characteristics can be more common in the family members of patients with autism. Protecting the developing fetus from ultrasounds that are too intense, or go on for too long a time causing over-heating can be a simple way to help protect the child’s true genetic potential. Higher functioning people with Asperger’s like symptoms and skills may represent the more natural variation end of the autism spectrum while patients at the least functioning end of the spectrum have likely been exposed to more variety of toxins and possibly with less nutrients available or less genetic detoxification ability available to excrete the toxins.
  • The use of ultrasounds in addition to other factors may all be adding up to increased rate of autism that has been seen in our modern culture.
  • Using equipment that was originally designed to  detect submarines to take pictures of a developing infant is a practice to use cautiously rather than allowing it to become typical for all pregnancies or to be available for non-medical reasons, possibly performed by non-medical staff who may not follow safe procedures in the pursuit of a better image. In some areas the technology has been used for photo-booth type purposes, “Have you noticed ultrasound boutiques popping up in strip malls?”. Read more: birthrelaxationkit.com/ Ultrasound Concerns for Baby’s Development.
  • If the damage can accumulate with repeated exposure as suggested by the statement by Dr. Ruo Feng then each additional ultrasound may be adding to the risk of a neurological conditions such as autism.

Ultrasound technology is currently being used medically in other ways then prenatal or soft tissue imaging. It may be used specifically as a heat treatment on sore or cramped muscles during a physical therapy session.  And still in the research phases, high frequency ultrasound waves are being used at more intense strengths to actually kill cancer cells. That would be a safer technique for the health of the surrounding tissue than using radiation on cancerous tumors. X-ray type radiation is directed at the tumor in a rotating manner so that surrounding tissue gets less rays while the tumor gets a maximum dose in order to kill the cancerous cells.

So killing cancer cells with high frequency soundwaves sounds like a great idea compared to being rotated on a table while an X-ray is directed at a tumor. Eating healthy and not getting a tumor also sounds good.

  • Having an ultrasound during the first trimester of a pregnancy doesn’t sound good to me. Disclosure – I declined any ultrasounds for both of my pregnancies. I had listened to my dad play whale songs for too many hours of my youth to want my babies to have a sound wave ray gun directed at them. My thought at the time, which research suggests was an accurate concern, was, “I don’t want to risk scrambling my baby’s brain just to see what sex it is. I’d prefer to wait and see anyway.”
  • At the time of my pregnancies, ultrasounds were still a fairly “new-fangled” invention or service which was offered as a choice rather than being expected with every single “I’m expecting a baby” announcement. Send a photo of the urine test stick instead or the results from the official lab test. Once you’ve seen one black and white fuzzy image of a blob, you’ve seen them all – you can trust me on that. Ultrasound images have become so standard they are used as proof of pregnancy for agencies that offer free services to women who are pregnant and I admired a lot of little adorable blobs — women can be very protective of their babies, no matter what they look like.

So protecting your newly conceived baby’s brain seems worth considering , not just the fuzzy image for a birth announcement.

In high risk pregnancies there may be an increased number of ultrasounds recommended, possibly just to be cautious. It is okay as a patient to ask questions about medical necessity and what is truly necessary and what is possibly being recommended to look thorough in case of a potential malpractice suit. If the ultrasound tests themselves may be increasing risk to the infant though, then how cautious is it to use them more often just because a woman’s pregnancy has some high risk factor?

It’s okay to ask questions. It’s your baby, your body, and your baby’s brain and future at risk.

  • A whale song combined with music by a musician I listened to as a child can be heard online; Whale Lullaby, with music by Paul Winter: Youtube.

Disclaimer: Opinions are my own and the information is provided for educational purposes within the guidelines of fair use. While I am a Registered Dietitian this information is not intended to provide individual health guidance. Please see a health professional for individual health care purposes.

 

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Mitochondria, P53, cancer and magnesium deficiency

Addition, 7/21/16, there is more information about mitochondria and chronic illness at this link: https://www.sott.net/article/321987-Thanks-Big-Pharma-for-the-Mitochondrial-collateral-damage, the site also has a few other articles on the topic which I haven’t read yet and the topic of magnesium doesn’t come up until you reach the comment that I added. I will have to read more about this topic. Medications that cause an imbalance in calcium and magnesium could be causing stress to the mitochondria and lead to their death and to chronic illness.

  • This article is short introducing a long video. A quote from the short text does mention nutrient deficiencies can be involved, “Nutrient deficiencies are a contributing factor to mitochondrial dysfunction. ” https://www.sott.net/article/308212-Mitochondrial-dysfunction-GMOs-Glyphosate Glyphosate  Inhibition of vitamin D metabolism could lead to magnesium and  calcium imbalance which could be stressing mitochhondria and lead to chronic illness.
  • An abstract with a link to the full text: https://www.sott.net/article/264786-Oxidative-stress-mitochondrial-damage-and-neurodegenerative-diseases
  • https://www.sott.net/article/294075-Fibromyalgia-as-a-mitochondrial-disorder
  • I haven’t watched the video or read all of the articles yet but fibromyalgia is what I had symptoms of that were bad enough to lead to my giving up wheat and gluten products initially. It simply hurt too much when I ate them. And I got better without gluten. Maybe it was the gluten or maybe my genetics with errors in the vitamin D metabolism. I will have to get back to this topic but I share the information now because pain hurts and if even one person is helped then I would be glad. *And I was a professional gourmet baker, I know how to make from scratch croissant, and French baguettes and loaf breads of many types as well as cookies and quick breads. I love wheat products but they didn’t love my body.

A comment of mine that is awaiting moderation posted on another site:

Mitochondria need lots of magnesium (and magnesium is also necessary for white blood cells to be able to perform apoptosis.) “Additionally, exposure to low Mg upregulated plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1) [24]. PAI-1 is considered not merely a marker of senescence, since it is both necessary and sufficient for the induction of replicative senescence downstream of p53 [27].” by D. Killilea and J. Maier, “A connection between magnesium deficiency and aging: new insights from cellular studies” Magnes Res. 2008 Jun; 21(2): 77–82. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2790427/.  Please U. of Penn. researchers, look into preventing cancer by providing mitochondria with a healthy diet instead of by providing them with some sort of pharmaceutical designed to manipulate P53 — just prevent P53 from being induced by providing adequate magnesium to the cells. Thanks.

The comment is in response to this article which is about recent animal based research that suggests that a cell’s mitochondria when under stress may produce a chemical (P53) that may lead to cancer: http://scienmag.com/penn-team-finds-mitochondrial-stress-induces-cancer-related-metabolic-shifts/#comment-7188

Now I know mitochondria need a lot of magnesium so one search led to the link in the comment and ~391,000 other links, https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=mitochondrial+stress+P53+calcium+magnesium, including this one:

by Giorgi C., et. al., “p53 at the endoplasmic reticulum regulates apoptosis in a Ca2+-dependent manner” PNAS, Feb. 10, 2015, vol. 112, no. 6, pp 1779–1784. http://www.pnas.org/content/112/6/1779.full.pdf

Apoptosis is the method by which white blood cells are able to kill infected or malfunctioning or old cells. Calcium and magnesium are both electrically active and can both act as signals to promote different types of cellular actions. Magnesium is most active within cellular fluid and calcium entry into cells is limited in part by ion channels that are powered by magnesium. So a magnesium deficient cell can allow too much calcium to enter the cell and within the cell calcium can cause a variety of actions and can even over activate the cell to the point of cell death. (155,000 search results for “excess calcium overworks mitochondria” :   https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=excess%20calcium%20overworks%20mitochondria  and which includes a link about the nerve degeneration disease ALS: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933290/  so it looks like if I want to protect myself from cancer or ALS I should not stress out my mitochondria by maintaining a good intake and internal balance of both magnesium and calcium.)

Another addition to look into more at some point – P53 and apoptosis has been found to be affected by treatment with a homeopathic preparation (which would be a completely non-toxic energy based treatment. http://www.jcimjournal.com/articles/publishArticles/pdf/S2095-4964(16)60230-3.pdf

/Disclaimer: This information is provided for educational purposes within the guidelines of fair use. While I am a Registered Dietitian this information is not intended to provide individual health guidance. Please see a health professional for individual health care purposes./

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Other fringe topics revealed the connection between our health and that of the environment

Recently I wrote about a quote regarding investigative reporting and mainstream media. According to the quote investigative reporting is the job of fringe investigators, rather than a job for mainstream media. [Fringe Reports]

Vitamin D and hormone D metabolism has been an my self assigned Don Quixote project but I have also written about other health topics in the past that had seemed to be suppressed or ignored by the mainstream media at the time.

Ignoring or suppressing worrisome events in the news may seem more comfortable in the short term but not addressing unspoken anxieties can lead to greater fear and worse problems over time. Not addressing problems also wastes time that could have been used to develop and implement improved strategies. Worrying by itself is not helpful but worrying that leads to improved procedures can save time, money and health over the long run.

I’m going to summarize some other fringe topics from my archives as a review of what we may not have heard much about over the last few years.

Fracking – I learned about the hydraulic fracturing technique used in the petroleum industry in a round-about way. Over the years I had noticed that the pets and pet farm animals of a family I knew living in the north east area of Ohio that seemed to have roughly a 25% cancer rate – whenever I talked to the family it seemed like at least one of the family’s animals had cancer. It was a hobby farm so there weren’t chemicals being sprayed on their own land but they did live within a farming community. What I discovered when I started searching for information about cancer prevalence in the area was that children in the area also had been having an increased rate of cancer. [1]

However the types of cancers varied among the children and the types of contaminants found in the ground water supplies that were tested varied from area to area – no specific culprit or toxin could be named or held accountable – except that coincidentally hydraulic fracturing techniques had been used in the area since approximately 1965. [2, includes an interactive map of Ohio marked with locations where fracking incidents have occurred. Governor Kasich’s policies in Ohio have allowed for expansion of the fracking industry in the state and have even allowed waste water from fracking operations taking place in other states to be stored, treated and dumped into Ohio rivers  – per the information on this link by Earthjustice, a legal defense oriented environmental nonprofit group.]

The increased rate of cancer found in children living in the northern area of Ohio was never officially blamed on fracking or on any other industry.

The technique that became known as ‘fracking’ pumps extremely large amounts of water deep underground under high pressure. The water has a mixture of unidentified and corporate protected chemical solvents added before being injected underground in order to help dissolve tiny deposits of oil from the shale rock. The water picks up more contaminants while it is deep underground and the waste water that returns to the surface has to be collected and treated as a toxin. I learned that unfortunately for our clean water supplies, during Dick Cheney’s administration businesses using hydraulic fracturing techniques were exempted from being required to follow Clean Water Act standards.

The waste water that returns to the surface may be stored in open ponds that can flood during rainy seasons and, even worse, in some places the waste water has been sprayed on dirt roads to reduce dust or even used to irrigate farm crops. [5] And wastewater has been allowed to be injected directly into underground clean water aquifers in the state of California even though there is a severe multi year long drought occurring in the state. [6]

Articles on fracking from my archives – 1 & 2 are brief with a single link, 3 is a long series of old posts copied onto one page and the formatting is wrong, sorry, many links though: [1, 2, 3]

Citizens of Oklahoma and Texas and elsewhere have also been experiencing earthquakes almost daily in some places. The earthquakes may be due to the quantity of fluid that is being pumped deep underground either during the initial fracking process, or afterwards, as a way to get rid of the contaminated waste water. The citizens of Oklahoma are expected to just get used to rattling around on a regular basis as the fracking process was protected at the state level there even though the increase in earthquakes has been associated with the hydraulic fracturing techniques. [4]

I will continue this summary of other fringe topics in a series of posts.

/Disclosure: This information is provided for educational purposes within the guidelines of fair use. While I am a Registered Dietitian this information is not intended to provide individual health guidance. Please see a health professional for individual health care purposes./