Skip to content
Home » breast cancer

breast cancer

aluminum antiperspirants

Aluminum antiperspirants and breast cancer? Probably no link

Lately, I keep seeing commercials that push aluminum-free deodorants and antiperspirants, and I was wondering if I missed some important health issue that is causing some sort of epidemic across the world. Now, those who debunk anti-vaccine tropes know all about the mythical dangers of aluminum.

You can assume when I hear claims about aluminum in deodorants that I’m going to squint my skeptical eyes and see if there is anything to it.

Many of the claims centers on breast cancer, although some people make claims about autoimmune diseases or kidney diseases are linked to the aluminum in deodorants. I’m going to stick with breast cancer for this article because that’s the focus of many of the claims. And it’s a deep rabbit hole that I had to climb into.

Read More »Aluminum antiperspirants and breast cancer? Probably no link
Vitamin D supplements

Vitamin D supplements – evidence for clinical effectiveness and safety

The claims about the usefulness of vitamin D supplements are all over the internet. And they seem trendy, as most pseudoscientific claims are these days.

The purpose of this article is to review some of the old and new information about vitamin D supplements. It’s about scientific articles that either support or refute a claim, that’s it. It’s not about what we believe or we do not believe, it’s about evidence.

I don’t think vitamin D is worthless. It is an important micronutrient for human health, and if there’s a chronic deficiency, supplementation may be medically necessary.

On the other hand, proponents of megadoses of vitamins, called megavitamin therapy or orthomolecular medicine (pseudoscientific terms to sound like they are based on real science), seems to work on the unscientific belief that if a little helps, a whole boatload will help a lot more. Most of these ideas have been debunked and are considered quackery and fads.

I wanted to take a look at the science of vitamin D supplements while examining its actual benefits to health compared to the possible dangers of excess supplementation.

Read More »Vitamin D supplements – evidence for clinical effectiveness and safety

breast cancer mortality

Breast cancer mortality rate – it dropped 40 percent in 30 years

There is an ongoing trope that somehow that cancer incidence and cancer mortality has increased substantially over the past few years. Yet, despite that fact that the myth has been shown to be false, it persists, especially around the pseudoscience complementary and alternative medicine world. And now, we have more good news about cancer – the breast cancer mortality rate has dropped by 40% over the past 30 years.

I’m not sure why a lot of people think that cancer is more prevalent today. Maybe it is because of social media, we hear about it more. Maybe it is because of better diagnostic techniques, we think that the cancer situation is worse. Maybe it is that there is an over reliance on anecdotes about cancer. Finally, maybe it is people who think our bodies are being assaulted by cancer causing GMOs (not cancer causing), vaccines (which prevent cancer), or gluten (not cancer causing).

Of course, the pseudoscientific pushing alternative medicine world wants to convince you that science based medicine is incapable of treating cancers and only push highly profitable poisons from Big Pharma pushed into cancer patients. Unfortunately for that narrative, the statistically significant drop in the breast cancer mortality rate says that oncologists are doing a good job with a deadly cancer.Read More »Breast cancer mortality rate – it dropped 40 percent in 30 years

breast cancer risk

Breast cancer risk – lifestyle choices

The myths about cancer risk are both sad and dangerous. Too many times, I read about supplements or diets that stop “cancer” as if it’s one disease (it is not) that a handful of blueberries will destroy. Like almost every cancer, reducing breast cancer risk really boils down to a handful of lifestyle choices.

In 2015, there will be 232,000 new breast cancer cases in the USA (pdf). Worldwide in 2012, it was estimated that there were over 1.7 million new cases of breast cancer. There is evidence that the rate of breast cancer is increasing, but that may be a result of better diagnostic tools that give earlier diagnoses (and this is a discussion left for another day).

Breast cancer has become a part of our culture, partially because the disease moved from a disease that was only mentioned in whispers to one that has some of the highest awareness for cancers.

Using a review article, by Max Dieterich et al.  about breast cancer risk and lifestyle influence as a template, I thought it would be prudent to list out some of the major influencers on breast cancer risk. And no, smoking weed has no known influence on the risk of breast cancer.

Read More »Breast cancer risk – lifestyle choices

More evidence Vitamin D supplementation does not reduce breast cancer risk

vitamin-DPotential causes for cancer are numerous. Infections. Radon gas. Cigarette smoking. Sun exposure. Obesity. With over 200 types of cancer, each with a different pathophysiology, there may be an equal (and probably greater) number of causes.

Although some cancers can be easily prevented, such as never smoking, which reduces your risk of lung cancer, one of the most prevalent cancers in the USA, by over 85%. Or getting the HPV vaccine (Gardasil or Silgard) which blocks HPV infections that are associated with several types of cancer, including cervical, anal, and penile cancers. Unfortunately, the sheer complexity and number of types of cancer means that there is probably not going to be any simple panacea to preventing (or even curing) cancer. In fact, some hereditary cancers, such as those individuals who carry genes that are implicated in breast and ovarian cancers, may not be preventable at all. 

Other than eliminating direct risks, are there things that can be done to actually prevent “cancer”? Once again, with over 200 types of cancer, this may be an impossibility, but the three most popular cancer prevention ideas are diet, vitamins and other types of nutritional supplements. Vitamins and other supplements are a $61 billion industry in the US. They generate these sales with minimal regulation, minimal quality control over the quality and dosage, and no requirement to actually provide evidence that the supplements do what is claimed by the supplement industry, aka Big Herbal. The FDA only gets involved with the industry if there’s some dangerous side effect, or when the claims of the industry are so outrageous that the FDA has no choice but to get involved.

Not too astonishingly, there just hasn’t been much evidence that cancer can prevented with supplements. Prostate cancer and fish oil? May actually increase risk, but generally no effect. Prostate cancer and soy? Nothing there either. Folic acid and cancer? May actually increase risk. Read More »More evidence Vitamin D supplementation does not reduce breast cancer risk

Cancer Treatment Centers of America advertising

cancerYou’ve probably seen their commercials spread over all of the major TV networks. Beautiful scenes. Well-kept hospitals which often to appear to be near empty. And an anecdote or two or three from presumably real patients who describe their experience at Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA), a private, for-profit operator of cancer treatment hospitals and outpatient clinics which provide both conventional and alternative medical treatments. Included in their treatment plans are chiropractic and naturopathy, neither of which have any evidence whatsoever in providing any healthcare benefit to patients, let alone those suffering from cancer.

Reuters recently published an in-depth report on the validity of the claims that are made by CTCA in its advertising. Here are some of the ones specifically mentioned:

Vitamin D reduces breast cancer risk–is there anything to it?

vitamin-DOne of my favorite topics to debunk is the use of supplements to prevent (or worse yet, cure) cancer. As I have discussed in the past, supplements are, with just a couple of exceptions, worthless in preventing cancer. 

Potential causes for cancer are numerous. Infections. Radon gas. Cigarette smoking. Sun exposure. Obesity. With over 200 types of cancer, each with a different pathophysiology, there may be an equal (and probably greater) number of causes for “cancer.” Although many causes of cancer can be easily avoided, such as stopping smoking, testing your house for radon, getting an HPV vaccine to prevent human papillomavirus infections, and wearing sunblock to reduce the risk of melanomas, the sheer complexity and number of types of cancer means that there is probably not going to be any simple panacea to preventing (or even curing) cancer. 

But because cancer is so frightening, and treating it is risky, debilitating and, in some cases, fruitless, we look for the easy solution, the easy prevention with a pill. But the evidence science has found indicates that this doesn’t really work. Of course, according to 2012 cancer statistics, 577,000 people died of various cancers in 2012, and about 160,000 died directly as a result of smoking (or second hand smoking). So, you can easily drop your risk dying of cancer by more than 25% just by quitting smoking. Otherwise, it’s just not that simple.Read More »Vitamin D reduces breast cancer risk–is there anything to it?