For many of us, every day touch, be it a handshake, a pat on the back or a kiss on the cheek is something that we might take for granted. But for someone suffering, be it the emotional pain of loss or a physical struggle with disease, the experience of kind touch can be profound.
Just think about this. Touch, unlike our other senses, is experienced all over our body. Touch is the most developed of all our senses when we are newborns. And many innate reflexes of baby are stimulated by touch:
Root reflex. This reflex begins when the corner of the baby’s mouth is stroked or touched. The baby will turn his or her head and open his or her mouth to follow and “root” in the direction of the stroking. This helps the baby find the breast or bottle to begin feeding
But to comforted a crying baby, to hug a frightened friend or to hold the hand of someone in pain is to understand that touch extends far beyond innate stimulation. Touch is fundamental to our emotional well-being and kind touch can greatly impact our physical health.
Science has shown that the power of touch can:
lower blood pressure and heart rate
increase immune function
relieve pain
According to Dr. Tiffany Field, Ph.D
when you stimulate the pressure receptors under the skin, the heart slows down, food in the gastrointestinal tract is absorbed in to the body better and serotonin is released in to the blood stream. When that happens you decrease pain…Touch can even stimulate the body to better equip its natural killer cells to fight off bacterial infections and even more health threats such as cancer
Experiencing distress, fear and pain is common for cancer patients. The power of touch, your touch, can help relieve these symptoms.
With your touch you have a gift to give that can make the difference in someone’s life.
Let’s bring some awareness to the health of our mouth and how it can impact our overall health. Just as we have a gut microbiome (and several other biomes for that matter) that needs tending to, we also have an oral microbiome that requires care.
Without proper oral hygiene, the balance of good to bad bacteria can become skewed leading to tooth decay and gum disease.
Several studies have shown links between poor oral health and various illnesses including cardio vascular disease and bacterial pneumonia.
But why does this matter when we speak of a cancer? It’s because poor oral hygiene can lead to chronic inflammation. And chronic inflammation can underpin many diseases including cancer. Note this excerpt from the abstract entitled: Poor periodontal health: A cancer risk?
Periodontitis (a chronic infection that affects the gums and the bones that support the teeth), characterized by epithelial proliferation and migration, results in a chronic release of inflammatory cytokines, chemokines, growth factors, prostaglandins, and enzymes, all of which are associated with cancer development
The pathway, in fact, is fairly straight-forward. C-reative proteins are released by the liver when toxic oral bacteria enter our circulatory system. This ignites the inflammatory response and if left unattended percolates as chronic inflammation.
Now not all inflammation is bad. In fact, inflammation is a necessary part of our immune system.(I have written a blog about the inflammatory response called “5 Foods that Help Fight Chronic Inflammation. You can read it here.) But chronic inflammation does us no good.
So achieving oral health is an extremely important part of prevention and is very important during active cancer. And it’s all about promoting balance among the bacteria in your mouth.
5 Tips for achieving a healthy oral biome
Avoid Anti-Bacterial mouth washes
Anti-bacterial mouth washes throw the baby out with the bath water by killing both the good and bad bacteria in your mouth. Want to freshen your breath? Chew on some parsley.
Brush your teeth twice daily
Brushing your teeth twice a day helps to remove plaque, avoid cavities and prevent tooth and gum disease.
Floss daily
Flossing gets in to those hard to reach places that your tooth brush can’t. As with tooth brushing, flossing helps to remove plaque, avoid cavities and prevent tooth and gum disease.
Have your teeth cleaned and checked regularly
Your dentist and hygienist are the batman and robin of oral health. See them regularly!
Eat a healthy diet
Your mouth benefits as much as anywhere else by eating a healthy diet that full of fruits & vegetables and imited in processed foods & sugars. Without a healthy diet your teeth and gums are susceptible to disease.
Perhaps the best way to start here is to give you an understanding of what Integrative Oncology is.
Integrative oncology is a patient-centered, evidence-informed field of cancer care that utilizes mind and body practices, natural products, and/or lifestyle modifications from different traditions alongside conventional cancer treatments. Integrative oncology aims to optimize health, quality of life, and clinical outcomes across the cancer care continuum and to empower people to prevent cancer and become active participants before, during, and beyond cancer treatment.¹
So let’s break this down. In its purest form Integrative oncology uses evidence-based complementary therapies with conventional cancer care. It is meant to work with standard of care allopathic cancer treatments i.e. surgery, chemotherapy and radiation not in place of them. Integrative oncology considers the whole person, mind, body and spirit providing a health protocol to work alongside the medical one.
It is estimated that between 60 to 80 percent of cancer patients use at least one form of integrative medicine following a cancer diagnosis². Frequently met with resistance from oncologists, cancer patients are often faced with a decision of hiding therapies from their doctors or eliminating them while in active treatment.
“If patients are using these therapies in addition to effective scientifically proven cancer therapies and their doctors are aware of it, we’re comfortable with it,” said ASCO senior statesman Dr. Gary Lyman of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center…The only time it becomes an issue is when these are not disclosed or are used instead of conventional effective therapies.”³
Not all therapies were endorsed but the following have been:
Music therapy, meditation, stress management, and yoga are recommended for anxiety/stress reduction.
Meditation, relaxation, yoga, massage, and music therapy are recommended for depression/mood disorders.
Meditation and yoga are recommended to improve quality of life.
Acupressure and acupuncture in addition to anti-nausea medications are recommended for reducing chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting.
It is noted that breast cancer was selected by SIO because it has the largest patient population and the largest amount of scientific data.
ASCO’s endorsement for these therapies is not only a positive step for breast cancer patients but for the area of Integrative Oncology as a whole.
Food preservatives are added to MANY of our food items to give them a longer shelf life. They are added to foods that go bad quickly and are found in all kinds of products in our grocery stores.
It is of interest to note that different types of preservatives work in different ways. Some prevent the growth of bacteria and mold. Others prevent delicate fats from going rancid.
There are many different types of preservatives used. And while the most commonly used ones are “approved,” this doesn’t mean that they are necessarily healthy. Added to this, foods with preservatives tend to be more processed and less-nutritious foods to begin with. Not a good 1-2 punch for cancer prevention.
So let’s learn more about a few common food preservatives.
SALT
Back in the day, before that advent of refrigeration, salt was used to preserve food.
But in today’s day and age, with the advent of refrigeration, salt is not needed for food preservation nearly as much. But our taste buds still seem to crave it on an epic scale. The average American eats over 3,400 mg of sodium per day, well over the recommended 2,300 mg/day. Much of this is because salt is found in many processed foods.
According to Harvard Health:
“… reducing dietary salt (table salt that is only sodium, chloride and iodine) will lower blood pressure, reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke, and save lives.”
So, salt is one of those all-too-common food preservatives that most of us will do better with less of.
Nitrites (nitrates and nitrosamines)
Nitrites are preservatives added to processed meats. They’re not bad in and of themselves, but they do turn into harmful chemicals called nitrosamines. Nitrosamines are carcinogens found in cigarette smoke. Nitrites form nitrosamines when they are cooked at high heat, and sometimes even when exposed to the high acid environment of the stomach.
Nitrites are added to meats to keep the pink-red colour and prevent “browning.” They are found mainly in bacon, ham, sausages and lunch meats.
Of note, processed meats have been linked with colon cancer. Because of the nitrites? Perhaps, but either way, nitrosamines are a confirmed health-buster.
Since nitrosamines (from nitrites) are the bad guys and are formed by cooking nitrites at high heat, what are nitrates?
Nitrates are naturally found in many healthy foods like vegetables. They’re especially high in beets.
Sometimes our enzymes or gut bacteria change these healthy nitrates into nitrites. However, they rarely form nitrosamines.
BHA & BHT
Have you seen BHA & BHT on any packaging? Perhaps on cereal packages or in gum?
“BHA/BHT has been added to the package to help maintain freshness?”
BHA (butylated hydroxyanisole) and BHT (butylated hydroxytoluene) are preservatives. They are antioxidants added to many processed foods. The main way BHA and BHT work is by preventing fats from going rancid. Are they safe? Well, they’re approved for use as a preservative in small doses. However, some studies have shown that they can cause cancer in animals at high doses.
So how do we minimize our exposure to preservatives?
First and foremost this is best accomplished by eating fresh, whole foods. This will ensure that your diet is low in preservatives and loaded with important nutrients to fuel your good health.
Secondly read your labels. Know what you are consuming. Knowledge is power!
Dr. Burns is Professor in the Department of Neurobiology & Developmental Sciences College of Medicine at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences received his BA from Hartwick College in New York in 1961 with a Major in Biology, his Masters from the University of Maine in 1963 and his Ph.D. from the Department of Anatomy, Tulane University School of Medicine, New Orleans, Louisiana in 1967 with a dissertation in experimental oncology and a minor in human pathology. Dr. Burns then completed a 1 yr National Institutes of Health Postdoctoral Fellowship in cancer research and human cancer pathology at the George Washington University in Washington DC, before joining the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences
His career research interest is experimental oncology in mouse models focused on the best time in the host’s circadian rhythm to give anti-cancer chemotherapy drugs and produce less organ toxicity and more long-term cures, i.e. chronochemotherapy. He has 105 scientific publications, which played a role in mouse-based chronochemotherapy eventually moving into successful human chronochemotherapy clinical trials by others. His honors include: 1) a 5 yr Research Career Development Award from the National Cancer Institute in the 1970’s to train in chronobiology under the mentorship of Lawrence Scheving, Ph.D. a chronobiologist and former President of the International Society of Chronobiology, 2) Distinguished Alumnus, Hartwick College, 3) Lutterloh Professor of Medical Education Excellence, 4) Master Teacher and Chancellor’s Teaching Awards at UAMS. He also has publications in the areas of Medical Student Education and Professional Development in health science content for PreK- Grade 12 teachers and school nurses.
Learning Points:
What is Chrono Chemotherapy?
What is research suggesting about our body clocks and their possible impact on the timing of chemotherapy?
What is research suggesting about our body clocks and reducing toxicity of chemotherapy?
Every Tuesday from 11am -12pm I host The Health Hub, an interactive, forward thinking talk show on Radio Maria Canada. Call, tweet or email your questions as together we explore health issues that are relevant to you from new and innovative points of view.
