Listen to your mom. Mama put it this way: “You eat your vegetables now, young man.” The National Cancer Institute puts it this way: “Populations consuming diets high in fruits and vegetables tend to have a lower cancer risk.” They both mean the same thing, so do what Mama said. The National Cancer Institute suggests eating five or more servings of fruits and vegetables a day. More is better, according to Dr. Giovannucci, and variety is also important. He suggests that you eat, among other things, leafy green vegetables, deeply colored orange vegetables like carrots, tomatoes, garlic and onions, broccoli, and citrus fruits.

Listen to Neil Young. Excuse the apparent redundancy, but there’s another reason for pinching your overall calorie count besides losing weight. It has to do with the damages of oxidation. “It’s the ‘Rust Never Sleeps’ theory of cancer,” Dr. Wurzelmann says. “We’re under a lot of oxidative stress. The more we eat, the more the furnace burns and the more likely it is we’re going to create something that causes cancer. We can reduce that oxidative stress by reducing our total caloric intake.”

Hide the beef. Studies consistently show that colon cancer is low wherever meat consumption is low. There is some suggestion that increased meat consumption could also increase the risk for prostate cancer. Vegetarians, even in the United States, have a lower risk of cancer than their carnivorous compatriots. “Try to stay as close to a vegetarian diet as you can,” advises William J. Catalona, M.D., chief of urologic surgery at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. “If you do want to eat meat, try to emphasize fish and chicken and limit the amount of red meat that you eat-ideally, not more than one serving per week.”

Iron out your risk. Dr. Wurzelmann led a study that showed a connection between high levels of iron and cancer. For the most part, he says, the link is a corollary of the red meat problem. “If you eat beef, you eat iron,” Dr. Wurzelmann says. But, he adds, there does seem to be a clear connection between iron overload itself and liver cancer. “People who are supplementing with iron might not be doing themselves a favor,” he says. “I think this medical practice deserves serious reappraisal.”

Get enough selenium. Research has pointed to a “very promising” role for the trace mineral selenium in reducing the risk of several cancers, including prostate and colorectal.

“There’s more work to do,” Dr. Giovannucci says. “But at this point it might be a reasonable thing to take selenium supplements given our current knowledge. More research is necessary to make firm recommendations, though.” The Daily Value for selenium is 70 micrograms.

Go for the grape. The revered grape has long been a folk cure, but a 1997 study by University of Illinois at Chicago researchers has put some scientific muscle behind the idea. The preliminary evidence in test tubes and animals is that resveratrol, a compound found in grapes and other plants, may slow down tumor growth, block the action of cancer-causing agents, and even clean up precancerous cells.

Yes, there’s resveratrol in wine, but Varro E. Tyler, Ph.D., dean emeritus of Purdue University School of Pharmacy and Pharmacal Sciences in West Lafayette, Indiana, and distinguished professor emeritus of pharmacognosy (natural pharmaceuticals), suggests taking advantage of the potential benefits by adding some real grapes or a glass of grape juice to your diet.

Smother it with onions. If you’re in the habit of saying “hold the onions,” you might reconsider. Dutch researchers found that volunteers who ate half an onion a day had half the risk of stomach cancer that their sweeter-breath co-subjects did. The heroes in onions are allylic sulfides, which help enzymes neutralize cancer-causing substances.

Get enough vitamin C. It’s always a controversial topic, but when researchers look into the health role of vitamin C, they usually find that it protects against certain cancers, according to the National Cancer Institute. The best evidence is that it fights cancers of the esophagus, mouth, and stomach. But it also helps fend off pancreas and rectum cancers.

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Dr. Scanes Spicer (Welbeck Street) writes:

In reply to “Stertor’s” query, I would suggest that the condition of the nose and naso-pharynx be thoroughly explored by anterior and posterior rhinoscopy, to ascertain whether there is an obstruction, structural or erectile. In my experience, most snorers have some obstruction of the nose, which increases from erectile conditions of the mucous membrane on assuming the horizontal position; and most cases of snoring will yield when the physiological path of the breath is permanently restored, together with many of the symptoms so often accompanying snoring, such as nightmare, restless nights, dryness of mouth, and unpleasant taste of mouth in the morning, necessity for placing the water-bottle by the bedside to allay the parched throat, post-nasal catarrh, and throat irritation and cough. Over-indulgence in food, alcohol, and tobacco undoubtedly increases the erectile condition of the obstruction.

Thereafter, some discussion could always be found on the causes of snoring and methods to minimize it, but it was not until the 1960s that the diverse branches of medical science began to focus their attention on the subject, paving the way for significant developments into our understanding of snoring and its consequences. Research into the nature of sleep was accelerated after the late 1930s when it was discovered that sleep, rather than being a steady state, was characterized by a series of discrete and measurable stages. However, it was not until the late 1950s and the following decade that these stages were accurately described to an extent where they could be applied with some confidence in a clinical setting. An unfortunate fact of medical practice and research has been the need for some sort of invasive monitoring, a good example being the collection of blood samples. After years of observation and speculation about the effects of snoring, medical scientists had accumulated enough evidence to suspect that the airway obstruction of severe snoring impaired the normal oxygenation of blood. The most direct way to measure blood oxygen levels was, and still is, to take a sample of blood with a needle and syringe and have it analyzed, but this presents very real problems if one proposes to take samples from sleeping, snoring patients. Many patients are so intimidated by the thought of multiple blood collections that they would find it impossible to sleep, and it would also be necessary to take a large number of samples during the period of sleep to give a true indication of oxygenation throughout the night.

In the 1940s a non-invasive technique for estimating blood oxygen levels was developed which, to put very simply, relied on the absorbance of light by oxygenated blood. The device was called an ear oximeter, and by placing a light source and detector on the earlobe it was possible to measure blood oxygen levels continuously with minimal trauma to the patient. The first commercially viable oximeters became available in the 1970s, a decade which established their usefulness in a variety of clinical situations, particularly in the management of respiratory and sleep disorders. Oximeters have since been substantially modified. They are readily portable and suitable for bedside use, are attached with reasonable comfort to either ear or finger and are probably the most important diagnostic tools in those laboratories which have been set up to investigate snoring and other sleep disorders.

An understanding of snoring has resulted from the contributions of several medical specialties. Mention has been made of advances in sleep staging and oxygen monitoring technology but we owe just as much to the physiologists who told us about the mechanisms which control breathing, to the radiologists who filmed the collapse of the upper airway during snoring, to the cardiologists who verified the dramatic response of the heart to the suffocating effects of severe snoring and finally to the band of dedicated researchers who would spend months observing the snoring patient from one night to another while the rest of the community slept.

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There are various investigations which can be carried out at a hospital or special clinic if any disease of the breast is suspected. The more common ones will be described here, before the actual process of diagnosis is explained. All doctors and all hospitals and clinics have their own way of doing things, although there are plans to standardize this care.

Mammography

Mammography involves taking X-rays of the soft tissues of the breast and armpit. It is used for routine breast screening and as a tool in the diagnosis of breast diseases.

The natural contrast due to the breast’s fat content is exploited in mammography. Most breast cancers occur in women over the age of 45, and it is around this age that glandular tissue within the breast begins to be replaced by fat. The appearances of different types of growth vary, allowing quite accurate distinction between some benign and malignant lumps.

Young women, who are concerned about breast cancer, perhaps because they have a family history of this disease, may find that their request for a mammogram is refused; some then arrange for mammography at a private clinic. However, mammograms are not normally helpful in women under the age of 35 as their breast tissue is too dense for most abnormalities to be visible.

Seen on an X-ray, benign breast tumours and cysts tend to have a smooth outline, sometimes surrounded by a ‘halo’ of fat. Malignant tumours, on the other hand, are usually poorly defined, more diffuse masses with diagnostically important tendrils extending randomly into the surrounding tissue. Both types of tumour can contain calcium deposits, but these are more numerous, irregular and less coarse in a malignant growth. If mammography reveals a lump in the breast, it may be followed by further investigations such as a biopsy.

When is mammography necessary?

Apart from its use as a screening tool for women over the age of 50 in the UK, and for those who are particularly at risk of developing breast cancer, mammography is important in the diagnosis of various breast diseases. The following are some signs and symptoms which may need to be investigated by X-ray mammography.

* A lump of unknown origin.

* Several small lumps which can be felt within the breast.

* Unexplained discharge from the nipple.

* Unexplained inversion of the nipple.

When malignant disease is suspected, mammography is also used to:

* confirm the clinical diagnosis,

* determine the extent of the disease – there may be more than one cancer in the breast,

* look for disease which cannot be felt but which may be apparent on a mammogram as areas

of calcification,

* look for cancer in the other breast.

Mammography can also help in the planning of surgical treatment as a lumpectomy will not be suitable for all women. It may also be used to look for signs of recurrent disease or further breast lumps following cancer treatment.

Some small benign lumps, and occasionally cancers, within the central ducts of the breast near the nipple are difficult to detect by mammography, and X-ray following the injection into the duct of a radio-opaque substance may be required if these are suspected.

The process of mammography

You will be asked to remove your clothing down to your waist, and a radiographer will then help to position you for the X-ray. Each breast in turn will be placed on a shelf-like plate on the mammography machine, and another plate will then be lowered onto the breast to compress it. You will be asked to keep very still while the X-ray is taken.

The pressure on the breast as it is compressed between the two plates can be quite uncomfortable, but lasts only a few seconds. Many women are anxious about having a mammogram and so are more than usually sensitive to any discomfort it causes. Some do find the process painful – particularly just before a period – and, rarely, it can cause bruising of the breast and in some cases pain that can last for several days or weeks. However, the pressure of the plates is unlikely to cause any harm, and the radiation level from the X-ray is very low, although higher radiation doses are required to take X-rays of the breasts of young women, who therefore should not have more mammograms than necessary. The benefits of mammography as a diagnostic tool and for breast screening do outweigh any discomfort it may cause.

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The significant step forward in preventive medicine came with the alarming realization that health was not just a middle-class luxury. In other words the middle and upper classes began to realize that whether they liked it or not their own health and wealth was deeply involved with the health of the ordinary working people. It is perhaps surprising that industrialists did not see the economic link between the poor and unhealthy working classes and low productivity earlier, but they did not and in 1848 when parliament was debating the first Public Health Bill even the Economist magazine did not see the connection between the two. As we have seen, Petty had been talking about exactly this link over a century beforehand but an Austrian, Johann Peter Frank, was the first to make the assertion that governments were strengthened by healthy, happy workers. His thinking produced the world’s first government medical system, in Germany in 1883.

The growth of preventive and public health measures in any industrialized country appears to follow a fairly predictable pattern as the country becomes industrialized. First, there is a rush for power, then an increase in exploitation which is difficult to control. Along with this, rural people and even those from outside the country migrate to the major cities, become separated from their own food supply and depend on cash as wages. At the same time death rates rise dramatically and the value placed on individual life is low. But such a system, whether it occurs in nineteenth-century England or twentieth-century Third World countries, produces wealth and makes money available for those who want to spread it around. Historically, individual philanthropists started creating better conditions for their workers and indeed for whole communities and this, combined with the new egalitarianism born as a result of the French and American Revolutions, made the upper classes more aware of the value of keeping the masses healthy.

At the turn of this century another truth began to dawn. About 60 per cent of all the men who volunteered for the British army’s fight in the Boer War were unfit for service. This appeared to shake people’s long-held attitudes almost more than any other single factor and led Sidney Webb to write:

We have become aware, almost in a flash, that we are not merely individuals but members of a community, nay and citizens of the world. . . . In short, the opening of the twentieth century finds us all, to the dismay of the old-fashioned, individualist, thinking in communities!

Slowly, the notion that society was a collection of communities began to develop-rather more slowly in the US than in the UK, partly because of the individualistic frontiersman thinking in the former. But things were on the move and the time was ripe for the second phase in the development of preventive medicine -the scientific approach.

Until this time facts and figures about health were poor, so few lessons could be learned. Simple ‘Bills of Mortality’ had been collected in London since 1603 but it was not until the establishment of the office of the Registrar General in 1837 that guesswork was replaced by real statistics. The availability of verifiable facts now made it possible to enact regulations to prevent frankly harmful behaviour and to promote healthy behaviour and practices. Ordinances to abate noise, control sewage and dispose of decayed matter, dead bodies, filth and stagnant waters go back as far as 1388 and in colonial times several American communities enacted laws to quarantine ships and isolate smallpox. Baltimore organized America’s first board of health in 1793. But effective public health administration was impossible in either country because local parishes and communities overruled national goals. As so often occurs in history, the activities of one man changed all this.

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Pastor Kneipp combined hydro treatment with the old culture of bathing in aromatics and healing bath oils. ” Herbal bathing” is especially healthy because the healing power of herbs affects the body on different levels. The active ingredients of the medicinal herbs are absorbed through the skin and therefore directly into the blood. Up to 30 times more active ingredients are taken through the blood during a bath. The body will absorb so many etheric oils, that these are often enough for the treatment but without having any negative side affects on the digestive organs. Parts of the etheric oils are absorbed through the lungs when breathing. The herbal steam affects the limbic part of the brain through the sense of smell, which is regarded as the connection between body and soul. In Kneipp’s day, it was common for everyone to collect their own herbs in nearby forests, on field edges and in meadows.

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