How to Help Your Thyroid With Virgin Coconut Oil 11/8/03

Coconut oil ... is a saturated fat made up primarily of medium chain fatty acids. Also known as medium chain triglycerides (MCTs), medium chain fatty acids are known to increase metabolism and promote weight loss. Coconut oil can also raise basal body temperatures while increasing metabolism. This is good news for people who suffer with low thyroid function (including of course people with brain tumors!). There have been scores of testimonies to this effect.

The Effect of GOT (Genetically Engineered) Dairy Products on the Growth of Cancer

Blowing the Whistle on rBGH:Dairy Farmers and Monsanto employees Speak Out on rBGH in milk/dairy products

(From a Book by Sam Epstein)

I soon discovered that as early as 1985, Monsanto had become aware of possible negative consumer reactions to the word hormone, and had attempted to change the name rBGH to the more neutral bovine somatotropin, rBST. However, this was too late in the U.S. as the term rBGH had already become well-established in the promotional and scientific literature. This was not, however, the case in Canada and Europe where the name rBST was readily accepted and so remains.
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I first checked all major public health and medical journals and found no reference to any studies on possible human risks from rBGH milk. I then reviewed the 1987 and 1988 supplements of the Journal of Dairy Science...  By the time I had completed reviewing these trials, it had become clear that Monsanto, and the other rBGH industries... had not only monopolized the research field and publications on rBGH but had also suppressed or manipulated evidence on its adverse veterinary effects. The FDA’s complicity was evidenced by their explicit assurances on the safety of rBGH milk, which was falsely claimed to be identical with natural milk. The FDA’s complicity was compounded by its decision to allow the sale of rBGH milk, since the inception of large scale milk production trials in 1985, to the unknowing public in the total absence of any questions, let alone studies, on human safety, particularly routine toxicological tests on rBGH milk and its altered ingredients and contaminants.

Of particular concern in this connection was evidence from sparse publications, unrelated to the industry trials, of elevated levels in rBGH milk of IGF-1, a natural growth factor whose levels are under control of natural growth hormones, whether bovine (BGH) or human (HGH). This raised a red flag in relation to cancer risks, particularly as converging lines of evidence in the endocrinology and cancer literature had already incriminated IGF-1 as a critical factor in the promotion of breast cancer.
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While awaiting publication, a large box with no sender’s name or identification arrived at my office towards the end of October. To my amazement, it contained an extensive set of “Company Confidential” Monsanto files, presumably leaked from the FDA. These files provided details on a wide range of critical adverse health effects, all at striking variance with explicit contrary industry and FDA assurances, as detailed in my article co-authored by Peter Hardin in The Milkweed, January, 1990. These effects included: high levels of rBGH in treated milk; serious pathology in rBGH injected cows; a high incidence of reproductive failure; and the use of illegal drugs to treat mastitis and other adverse effects in rBGH cows.
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It is of particular interest to emphasize that rBGH milk is a genetically engineered (GE) food, a fact not generally recognized by the public, let alone most citizen and consumer advocacy groups that have played such a critical role in the fight against rBGH, and also such national and international groups fighting against non-milk GE foods and ingredients...

So what is the bottom line of this monograph’s saga? First and foremost, shoppers should avoid, if not boycott, all milk and dairy products in favor of those which are certified as rBGH-free. Supermarkets failing to sell these safer products should be pressured by individual consumers and consumer groups to make them freely available. Second, Monsanto’s and the FDA’s reckless two-decade track record of frank manipulation and suppression of health and safety data on GE milk sends the strongest possible warning to reject similar “trust assurances” on the safety of non-milk GE foods -- soy, corn, and other whole and processed foods and ingredients. These concerns are compounded by the total absence of any long-term safety testing of these GE products by Monsanto and other biotech industries, as is the case with rBGH, and emerging independent evidence on their grave and possibly irreversible public health and environmental hazards.

Phase III Recurrent Glioblastoma Survival and
Quality of Life Data from the First Pivotal Study of the NovoTTF-100A
at the 15th Annual Society for Neuro-Oncology (SNO) Scientific Meeting

MONTREAL, CANADA - November 19, 2010 - Data presented today from a pivotal, phase III randomized clinical trial for patients with recurrent glioblastoma tumors suggest that Tumor Treating Fields (TTF) therapy may increase median survival time and improve quality of life scores compared to best standard of care chemotherapy. Professor Zvi Ram, chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery at Tel-Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, presented the data at the Society for Neuro-Oncology (SNO) Annual Scientific Meeting.

Physicians delivered the investigational TTF therapy to patients in the study using the NovoTTF-100A – a portable, non-invasive medical device. Investigators conducted this phase III study under an approved IDE at 28 centers in the US, Europe, and Israel, enrolling 237 patients with glioblastoma tumors that had recurred or progressed after initial treatment. Patients randomly received TTF therapy alone or an effective chemotherapy selected by physicians. The results reported today expand on headline data from the trial presented at the American Society for Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting in June 2010, which suggested that TTF therapy may be as effective as the best available chemotherapy in extending overall survival of patients with recurrent GBM.

“The study suggests that patients treated with TTF therapy, as defined in the protocol, lived significantly longer than patients treated with the currently available best chemotherapeutic regimens,” said Professor Ram. “Interestingly, younger patients and patients with better functional status appear to have an impressive survival advantage. In these patients the incidence of radiological tumor response to TTF therapy was double that seen in patients treated with chemotherapy. Most importantly, in addition to the survival benefit, treatment with TTF therapy was associated with significantly better quality of life compared to patients receiving chemotherapy.”
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Celldex Therapeutics Reports Positive Results from Rindopepimut Phase 2 Brain Cancer Study at SNO 2010 - MarketWatch

Celldex Therapeutics, Inc. today announced the presentation of complete data for the primary endpoint of ACT III, a multi-center, single arm, Phase 2 clinical trial of rindopepimut (CDX-110) in patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). The data showed 66 percent of patients were progression-free at 8.5 months from diagnosis or 5.5 months from start of vaccination, a statistically significant increase over a predetermined progression-free rate (PFR) estimate. These data are consistent with previous studies (ACTIVATE and ACT II) with rindopepimut in GBM conducted at M.D. Anderson and Duke University. The data were presented at the Annual Meeting of The Society for Neuro-Oncology (SNO) in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Rindopepimut is an investigational immunotherapeutic vaccine that targets the tumor-specific molecule, epidermal growth factor receptor variant III (EGFRvIII).

"These data suggest that rindopepimut is extending survival well beyond what we have seen historically in this patient population," said Rose Lai, M.D., Assistant Professor of Neurology in the Division of Neuro-Oncology, Department of Neurology, Columbia University Medical Center, and lead investigator on the ACT III study. "The consistency of data from three separate studies is impressive and clearly supports the plan to conduct a controlled pivotal study in GBM."
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Does coffee or tea prevent brain tumours? | Brain Tumour UK

A cup of coffee or tea a day can help protect you against brain tumours, according to recent media reports.  The reports follow a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in October 2010, which found that a daily cup of coffee or tea can stop brain tumours growing by restricting blood flow to the brain.

However, leading UK neuro-oncologist Roy Rampling, has warned that the study does not give us a clear reason to drink more or less coffee or tea.

The study, quoted in NHS Choices, was conducted by researchers from Imperial College in London and other academic institutions in Europe and the US. It involved 410 000 men and women aged between 25 and 70 from across ten European countries over a period of 8.5 years.

Researchers found that people who drank more than 100ml of coffee or tea per day seemed to have a 34% lower risk of being diagnosed with a glioma.
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Cancer vaccine allows body to kill tumours - Telegraph

A vaccine for cancer that could revolutionise treatment is a step closer after British-based scientists discover a way of harnessing the body's immune system to attack tumours.

Researchers at Cambridge University have discovered how tumour cells protect themselves from the body's natural defences.

By turning off this process, they believe that the body would cure itself of the disease.

In the past attempts to harness the immune system have failed because a protein appears to shield – and even nurture – cancer cells.

But destroying this molecule leaves the cancer completely defenceless and it is killed by the immune system.

At the moment the process has been shown to work in mice but the researchers believe that it should be transferable to humans.

Professor Douglas Fearon, the immunologist who led the study, said it was an "important step" that could radically change cancer treatments.

"I am excited by the research," he said.

"It is possible we have found a very big piece of the jigsaw.
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Major producers to ditch BPA from packaging - Health News, Health & Families - The Independent

Nestlé, Heinz and General Mills among manufacturers to stop using chemical, amid growing concerns about health effects.

BPA has been used in food tins, dentists' operating lamps and CD packages.

Some of the world's biggest food companies are removing the chemical Bisphenol A from packaging, amid growing concern it is causing a wide range of human illnesses including heart disease and breast cancer.

Nestlé, the world's biggest food manufacturer, says its will stop putting Bisphenol A (also known as BPA) into US products within three years, while tinned giant Heinz is at "an advanced stage" in removing it from UK baby food, and is funding research by one of the chemical's leading critics. General Mills, the US giant behind the Green Giant tinned brand, has already ditched BPA from its Muir Glen tomato range, while Campbell Soups says it has done "hundreds" of tests exploring alternatives. Several other firms, such as Coca-Cola, have declined to disclose a timetable for its withdrawal, saying that BPA is safe.

BPA toughens the packaging of many tins, glass jars and plastic bottles, and the casings of electronics gadgets such as TVs, mobile phones and laptop computers.

Dozens of scientists say it is an endocrine disruptor that affects hormones and could be causing breast and prostate cancer, heart disease, brain retardation, impotence and infertility.
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