News › Comment on cancer in the Sunday newspaper THE AGE in Melbourne
Watch the sugar
The German physician August Bier once said the actual essence of all that has been written about cancer would fit on a postage stamp. Your article "The Cancer Quandary" (15/4) is an exception. Renee Switzer is right that only 5 per cent of breast cancer has a family connection. Few people understand this, unfortunately.
This causes not only undue anxiety, but also unnecessary surgery. A survey of American surgeons found that 70 of 500 do mastectomies on healthy women who are scared because of breast cancer in the family. What a tragedy! The women can be forgiven for their ignorance, but not the surgeons. Scientific studies are indeed confusing because they have a limited perspective and thus come to limited conclusions. Common sense will tell us that tinkering with the hormonal balance will increase the risk of hormone-related cancer.
Scientific research can be valuable however. A major European study was done over 13 years with 64,500 women under the age of 49. It recently found that those with high blood sugar got more cancer of the breast, pancreas, skin, womb and urinary tract. Sugar is harmful to health. It makes the insulin level rise sharply, which has been proven to injure the body and accelerate ageing. Australians eat on an average 60 to 70 kilograms of sugar every year. No wonder breast cancer is rising. By the way, caffeine also raises the insulin level.
STEVEN ACUFF, Chelsea
Posted by steven on Sunday, April 22, 2007 (18:58:04) (1329 reads)
