Is there a link between antidepressants and breast and ovarian cancer?

Is there a link between antidepressants and breast and ovarian cancer? A new meta-analysis of 61 trials identified a connection in nearly 33 percent of the epidemiological and pre-clinical studies conducted between 1965 and 2010 found an association between cancer and antidepressants. And the link was stronger among women using selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs. Moreover, the study found researchers with industry ties were significantly less likely than researchers without those affiliations to conclude antidepressants increase the risk of breast or ovarian cancer. The authors of the meta-analysis, which was published in PLoS Medicines, suggest the findings raise public health and policy issues, “because there is increasing evidence that financial ties among industry, investigators, and academic institutions can affect the research process.”
Read article at pharmalot.com And see antidepressants.

British doctors are woefully ill-informed about symptoms of ovarian cancer

BBC News reports that ovarian cancer is being 'missed': that far from being a 'silent killer' as it is frequently described, it has several serious symptoms, including abdominal distension and vaginal bleeding, but doctors are not investigating these symptoms.

The report informs us that around 6,800 women are diagnosed with the cancer each year. Only 30% are alive five years after diagnosis, and the survival rate has not improved in 30 years.

Annwen Jones, Chief Executive of the charity Target Ovarian Cancer, says, "The UK's high rates of late diagnosis have played an important part in keeping five year survival rates low, at just 30% - amongst the lowest in the Western World."

I agree with Annwen Jones that change is long overdue. I know of someone who experienced extreme abdominal distension years ago - so much so that people she knew were asking her whether she was pregnant - and was very, very tired and in great pain. She was also bleeding heavily. She presented with these symptoms repeatedly over a space of about 18 months at her GP's and was patronisingly told that these symptoms were perfectly normal for middle-aged women! - This was someone who did not go to see a doctor with trivial complaints, yet she was treated in this dismissive, disgusting way. - She was so tired that she could no longer go to work and had to give in her notice! - Now THAT is not normal for middle-aged women and it is ridiculous and contemptible that a doctor should should insult an exhausted, gravely ill woman in that way.

It was not until she was close to death that the GP actually realised that she was ill and rang to arrange for her to go into hospital. He then told her to 'toddle along home and wait for the ambulance!' - She could not manage to walk more than a few steps along his drive and collapsed, and the receptionist rushed out to her and summoned the ambulance urgently. By the time she reached the hospital she no longer even knew her name and was very dangerously short of blood. She had to be given a blood transfusion urgently and also needed a hysterectomy, because the ovarian cancer had by this time become disseminated throughout the abdominal cavity. There was no way she could possibly recover and she died in agonising pain a few weeks later, another victim of medical negligence, so common in our lousy NHS.

I was reading online today that the NHS is so good that even the Royal Family go into NHS hospitals for treatment. - Yes, of course they do! - But they wouldn't be left to bleed heavily for 18 months first, or be insulted and not be examined till they were dying, would they? - We all - taxpayers - pay for the NHS. We don't all get good treatment. The more important you are, the better the treatment you get.

Britain's doctors should be told to take women's symptoms seriously. When a woman complains of heavy bleeding, she is not complaining because she doesn't like having menstrual periods; she is reporting serious blood loss/haemorrhage, and she should be properly examined and sent to a specialist to find the cause of the bleeding. - Heavy bleeding is not caused by being middle-aged!

Women should stop using talcum powder because of the risk of ovarian cancer, according to researchers.

Women warned of talcum powder cancer risk
Article in the Telegraph

The greater risk of ovarian cancer from using talcum powder on the private parts has been known for years, but this latest research finds that the increased risk is greater than previously thought. - It is an insidious, often fatal disease which frequently goes unrecognised/undiagnosed/untreated, so it's best to take this research seriously and avoid using talc on the private parts.

Extract from the article:

"Scientists fear particles applied to the private parts may travel to the ovaries and trigger a process of inflammation that allows cancer cells to flourish.

Although previous studies have raised concerns over talc, the latest findings from the United States suggest woman who use it are 40 per cent more likely to get ovarian cancer – a much greater risk than first thought.

Experts from Harvard Medical School in Boston studied more than 3,000 women and found using talc merely once a week raised the risk of cancer by 36 per cent, rising to 41 per cent for those applying powder every day.

Dr Maggie Gates, who led the study, said that until the outcome of further research women should avoid using talc in the genital area. An alternative is cornstarch powder."

Acrylamide may be increasing women's risk of ovarian and endometrial/womb cancer

Study finds acrylamide link to cancer in women

Extract from the Telegraph:

"Fresh fears have been raised over the safety of cooked foods as a wide-ranging study found for the first time that a common chemical caused by frying, roasting or grilling can double the risk of cancer in women.

Five years ago, scientists sparked a worldwide alert when they disclosed that many household foods contain the substance acrylamide, which was thought to be a probable cause of the disease.

Now a study involving 120,000 people - half of whom were women - has established a direct link between consumption of the chemical and the incidence of ovarian and womb cancer.

Research has shown that acrylamide is found in cooked foods such as bread, breakfast cereals, coffee and also meat and potatoes which had been fried, baked, roasted, grilled or barbecued.

The Dutch study found that women who absorbed more acrylamide were twice as likely to develop ovarian or womb cancer as those who ingested a smaller amount.

The higher amount eaten by the women involved was the equivalent to a single packet of crisps, half a pack of biscuits, or a portion of chips a day.

The EU has now advised people to avoid burnt toast or golden brown chips because they contain higher levels of the substance acrylamide.

They have also recommended eating home-cooked meals which contain much lower amounts of the chemical than processed products, fast food and restaurant meals."

Reduce your risk of most cancers, lose weight and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html (The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/steroids.html

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ami.html

vulnerable groups

How to Lose weight!

Children and Obesity

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

Wider implications of the flawed theory that excess calorie intake causes obesity

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.

Applying talcum powder in the pelvic area increases a woman's risk of developing ovarian cancer

Talcum powder 'poses cancer risk to women' - Independent on Sunday

Extract:

"The practice of discreetly puffing underwear with a dab of talcum powder may be increasing women's risk of ovarian cancer.

Research shows that women who use talc have a 17 per cent higher risk of getting the cancer. Researchers say using a small amount of talc in the pelvic area may lead to it reaching the ovaries and increasing the risk of the most common gynaecological cancer in the UK, with more than 4,000 deaths a year."

I'm rather surprised to read this as news. - I first read of the connection between ovarian cancer and talc used in the genital area many years ago...


Reduce your risk of most cancers, lose weight and improve your health in many other ways by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
How to Lose weight!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.

Pros and cons of taking HRT - mostly cons...

The truth about HRT - Guardian

Extract from a l-o-n-g article:

"In 1966, one of those epoch-changing books was launched on a generation of women around the age of 50. It told them that they did not have to lose out on the hormonal revolution. In fact, it implied it was their duty not to lose out. Forever Feminine, by In 1966, one of those epoch-changing books was launched on a generation of women around the age of 50. It told them that they did not have to lose out on the hormonal revolution. In fact, it implied it was their duty not to lose out. Forever Feminine, by Dr Robert Wilson, a gynaecologist in Manhattan, told them that the menopause was a disease that could be treated. They could stay well, beautiful and sexually active - they could, in fact, continue to please their husbands - if they took hormone therapy. They must simply replace the oestrogen their bodies had stopped producing.

It was the beginning of a myth that has resolutely refused to die - that HRT will undo the ageing process. Over most of the past four decades, women have been prescribed HRT for all sorts of reasons, not just to stop menopausal hot flushes and night sweats and strengthen their bones, but to improve their sex life, their hair, their skin and their morale. For a long time it was almost a case of, well, why not?

Wilson's book was funded by Wyeth, one of the biggest manufacturers of HRT. But that fact did not emerge until 2002, when his son admitted it to the New York Times just the day after a major trial - astonishingly, the first randomised controlled trial on the effect of HRT on women - was stopped three years early. The trial, known as the Women's Health Initiative (WHI), was set up after repeated calls from women's health activists to find out whether, as drug companies and doctors believed, HRT prevented heart disease. Shockingly, it found the opposite to be true. By far the most common form of treatment, which combines oestrogen and progestin, actually increases the risk of heart attacks, blood clots and strokes. The investigators pulled the plug when they found that women taking it also had a greater chance of invasive breast cancer. The WHI is one of the two biggest and most important studies ever carried out on the effects of HRT. The other is the Million Women Study in the UK, which has published a series of papers on breast cancer and other risks with HRT. The latest bad news from this hugely respectable study, published in the Lancet in April, is that HRT must have caused 1,000 deaths from ovarian cancer between 1991 and 2005.

So that means HRT has now been linked to ovarian cancer, invasive breast cancer, womb cancer (if you just take oestrogen), stroke, blood clots and coronary heart disease. This is just not an elixir of youth. Oh yes, there is a medical case for taking it if you are having a miserable menopause, flushing beetroot red at embarrassing moments and waking up with the sheets soaked - when you can sleep at all - at night. But the relief you get for those things, which don't in themselves kill you, has to be set against the alarming array of pretty nasty possible side effects., a gynaecologist in Manhattan, told them that the menopause was a disease that could be treated. They could stay well, beautiful and sexually active - they could, in fact, continue to please their husbands - if they took hormone therapy. They must simply replace the oestrogen their bodies had stopped producing.

If only doctors warned women to avoid eating salt and salty food while taking HRT (and many other drugs with the harmful side-effects of causing sodium and water retention) the majority of the possible and actual ill-effects would not happen.

See my webpage:
http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/obesity_and_the_salt_connection.html
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Aggressive ovarian cancer linked to obesity

Aggressive ovarian cancer linked to obesity

You can read the article here: Aggressive ovarian cancer linked to obesity

As you know, I have no doubt at all that obesity is caused by salt sensitivity, so I reckon now that we can link aggressive ovarian cancer with salt sensitivity. So that's yet another reason for reducing salt intake if you are in one of the groups vulnerable to salt sensitivity. The vulnerable groups are children (their parents need to protect them from salt as far as is reasonably feasible), pregnant women and women who have already gained weight as a result of childbirth, people taking prescribed steroids, HRT, amitriptyline or certain other drugs, women who suffer from PMT and people who have unwittingly made themselves extra vulnerable to salt by repeated attempts to lose weight by 'slimming'/dieting.

For some interesting facts and reasoning visit http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/conditions.html http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/lose_weight.html and http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html