This recent study looked at both piperine and curcumin to examine their effects on breast cancer and both compounds were found to be potent inhibitors of breast cancer. Piperine is a compound found in black pepper and is responsible for the pungency, so if you are using black pepper for cancer prevention, freshly cracking it so you have the pungency is a good idea. It’s easy to add onto many foods. When you combine it with curcumin from tumeric for example, piperine can amplify curcumin’s effects by up to 2000%. They are very synergistic. However, keep in mind that piperine can affect drug metabolism, so if you are taking medications, use piperine very moderately.
 
Breast Cancer Res Treat. 2009 Nov 7. [Epub ahead of print]

Researchers at Cornell University found that apple skins (from Red Delicious apples) had powerful antioxidant (stronger than vitamin C) and anti-proliferative effects. Specifically they tested certain flavanoids from apple skins against certain liver cancer and breast cancer cell lines and found that both were potently inhibited. This may help explain some of the treatment strategies used by certain natural anti-cancer therapies such as Gerson Therapy, or other juicing regimens that include heavy use of apples. One of the problems though is that the skins of the apples also have the most pesticides, so remember to only use organic apples since peeling them takes out most of their anti-cancerous properties. It may be even more beneficial when juicing apples to save the fiber and then eat it later since some of the skin components will not make it into the juice (don’t mix it in with the juice or you may impair nutrient absorption). Hopefully, Steve Gomberg can give us a recipe for how to do this in a palatable way.
 
J Agric Food Chem. 2008 Nov 12;56(21):9905-10. Epub 2008 Oct 2.

In case you were suspicious about cell phones, it looks like you had good reason to be. Recent, comprehensive epidemiological data has demonstrated that cell phone use for 10 years or more doubles your chance of getting a brain tumor on the side of the head that you put the phone close to. It’s really amazing how far common sense gets you. Common sense tells you that if you can fry an egg on your ear after a phone conversation, then maybe that’s not going to be the best thing for your brain. But somehow we are convinced of the safety of these things. Companies that have financial interests submit safety data and our government makes decisions based on these. My advice is to keep cell phones as far away from you as you practically can. When talking use the speakerphone or car bluetooth and hope for the best.
 
Surg Neurol. 2009 Sep;72(3):205-14; discussion 214-5. Epub 2009 Mar 27.

I’m not sure what gets people to take a look at these things, but I’m going to guess that someone in Malaysia that was doing research on cancer cell lines was eating vanilla ice cream and some dropped into the dish and killed the cancer cells. However it happened, they ended up showing that Vanillin, which is the chemical in vanilla that is responsible for
the flavor and smell of vanilla, stops colon cancer replication. So they are now looking at the potential for vanilla in cancer prevention. Now I’m waiting for Steve to make a colon cancer prevention vanilla cookie or something. Please email him and get him to post a recipe on the blog
 
Cancer Epidemiol. 2009 Aug;33(2):155-60.

If you use mobile OR cordless phones for greater than 10 years you are up to 5 x more likely to get a brain tumor on the side of the head you use to talk more than 50% of the time. Bluetooth headsets are probably not going to help at all … if anything they may make things worse. I recommend speakerphone or car bluetooth.
 
Int J Oncol. 2009 Jul;35(1):5-17
Australas Phys Eng Sci Med. 2008 Dec;31(4):255-67

A recent and quite large study involving over 9,000 women found that women with a diagnosis of clinical migraines have a 26% reduced risk of getting breast cancer. Migraines can be hormonally driven so there is a logical reason why researchers began looking at this. It will be interesting to see if there are other reasons, such as avoidance of alcohol (a common migraine trigger) or other factors. The authors did control for the use of anti-inflammatory drugs like tylenol and found that they did not contribute to the reduction in cancer rates. By the way, if you do suffer from migraines we have a very high success rate at getting rid of them, so you may want to set up an appointment with one of our practitioners.
 
Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2009 Jul;18(7):2030-4

While resveratrol (the component in red wine that is hyped to be so good for you) has been shown to inhibit cancer replication and help induce cancer cells to commit suicide, it turns out that it can also mess up the immune system by inhibiting cells that kill infections and cancer (macrophages, T-cells and B-cells). So red wine may not be the beverage of choice during cold and flu season, or if you have chronic infections like UTI’s, yeast infections, prostate infections, sinus infections, etc. because resveratrol may inhibit your body’s ability to fight them off. Of course if you have certain autoimmune conditions where you are trying to suppress the immune system, resveratrol may be useful (though I wouldn’t recommend it in the form of red wine due to the negative effects of alcohol and histamine). But in general immune suppression should be a last resort in my opinion.
 
It’s also worthy to note the difference between slowing the growth of cancer cells by interfering with their cell cycle, and the cancer cells being destroyed by a targeted attack of the immune system. When people truly beat cancer, meaning a real cure and not just temporary remission or management, it’s usually because the immune system recognizes it and kills the tumors. That’s why researchers are working frantically on cancer vaccines … they know the most powerful weapon against cancer is your immune system. So in this study they showed that resveratrol inhibits two immune components that result in reduced numbers of natural killer cells (NKs) and tumor necrosis factor (TNF). NKs and TNF are two very powerful weapons our immune systems have to kill cancer, so we should think carefully before we inhibit them. Combining resveratrol with other herbs that upregulate NKs and TNF can also counteract these negative effects while still utilizing resveratrols ability to induce cell death in cancer cells, but you really need to know what you’re doing. So once again, we need to eye nutritional supplement hype with caution. Resveratrol can be useful, but it is not a panacea and should be used judiciously. By the way, curcumin was found to have the same immunosuppressive properties that resveratrol has.
 
Clin Exp Immunol. 2007 Jan;147(1):155-63

A chemical in carrots called falcarinol was found to increase proliferation of colon cancer cells in low doses. However, if you ingest high doses of carrots you can strongly induce programmed cell death (apoptosis) in these same cells. While this study was done on rats, it could explain claims from those using Gerson therapy to treat various cancers such as colon cancer. In Gerson therapy they rely heavily on large amounts of fresh juices and carrot juice is one of the major constituents. This suggests that if you have colon cancer, having a few carrots a day might be a bad idea. Juicing carrots, however, will provide the high doses necessary to kill colon cancer. You should, however, juice in the appropriate dose. Specifically, the falcarinol should be greater than 10 microM. For more information, or if you are interested in a consultation, our oncology support is headed by Steve Gomberg.
 
J Agric Food Chem. 2007 Feb 7;55(3):618-23

Grapefruit inhibits a particular enzyme in the liver (CYP450 3A4) that helps metabolize estrogen. So if this enzyme isn’t functioning optimally, estrogens will be much stronger. Theoretically, this could increase risks of estrogen dependent cancers. This study looked into that question and found that indeed there was a 30% increase in breast cancer incidences. The dose was 1/4 grapefruit or more a day. Does this mean you shouldn’t eat grapefruit? Not really, but if you have a family history or other risk factors for estrogen receptive breast cancers (e.g., dense breast tissue) then I certainly would consider a substitute.
 
Br J Cancer. 2007 Aug 6;97(3):440-5. Epub 2007 Jul 10

The Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infects over 3% of the world population and is the leading cause of chronic liver disease worldwide. A compound in grapefruit called naringenin was shown to reduce HCV secretion in infected cells by 80%. In addition, it is effective at concentrations that are an order of magnitude below the toxic threshold in human hepatocytes (liver cells) and in mice. Just keep in mind that if you are on medications or herbs that grapefruit can make them much more potent. While that may sound good, it can actually cause overdose at normal doses so be very cautious and inform your healthcare provider if you decide to take therapeutic amounts of grapefruit extract or if you eat them regularly.
 
Hepatology. 2008 May;47(5):1437-45