Obesity Fuels Cancer in Women
This is not good news – From BBC Health News:
About 6,000 middle-aged or older women in the UK develop cancer each year because they are obese or overweight, a Cancer Research UK-funded study says.
The study, which looked at 45,000 cases of cancer in 1m women over seven years, says this is about 5% of such cases.
It is published online by the British Medical Journal and blames excess fat for 50% of cases of womb cancer and a type of oesophageal cancer.
Last week an international study warned of the link between cancer and weight.
Cancers Linked to Obesity:
Womb
Oesophagus
Bowel
Kidney
Leukaemia
Breast
Multiple myeloma (bone marrow)
Pancreatic
Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma
Ovarian
You can read the entire article HERE.
Bedbug Renaissance Inn
We had just come back to Germany from our son’s graduation from law school, and woke up the next morning with welts – we didn’t know what they were. All we knew is suddenly, we had red itchy welts, and I was allergic to whatever they were.
We were lucky – we got in to see a doctor right away, and he told us what they were and what to do, and we did it and we never had another problem. He also told us that he was seeing this problem more and more – that many hotels have extra guests they never tell you about, even the very best hotels. (Our poor kitty – we had blamed her, we thought maybe she had brought in fleas, and it wasn’t her at all, it was hitch-hikers from Florida.)
What we learned from this truly awful experience is that bedbug infestations are happening everywhere. It’s something no one talks about out of shame, but with DDT off the market, and increasingly warm climates, they are on the increase.
To this day, I wash my sheets in hot hot water, and dry them on hot. And I think twice when I say to children, as is common in the USA “sleep tight, and don’t let the bed bugs bite!”
From AOL News:
(Nov. 7) – First come the bites, amazingly itchy, raised red welts that appear, literally, overnight. Then, you might notice scarlet spots on your sheets from smashed bugs or perhaps clusters of little black dots that you assume are dirt but are in fact constellations of fecal matter.
And one day, you might wake up in the wee hours of the morning, flip on the lights and find red bugs, slightly bigger than ticks, crawling on your sheets, pillows and legs.
Welcome to the most retro pest of the 21st century, the bedbug. The bugs, which were thought to be wiped out by powerful pesticides such as DDT 30 years ago, are back and infesting major urban areas, suburbia and the heartland.
You can read the entire horrifying story at AOL Health News.
USA Today’s List of How to Cope with a Bedbug Infestation:
Coping With Bedbugs: Advice From Experts
The best rule of thumb for dealing with bedbugs? Try not to get them in the first place.
Otherwise, read on:
Be careful where you put your suitcase when you travel. “These guys are fantastic hitchhikers,” says the University of Maryland’s Michael Raupp. “If you have a luggage rack with metal racks, put your suitcase on that.”
Check behind a hotel headboard. That’s one of their favorite spots, Raupp says. Pull back the comforter and sheets and look for the fecal stains on the mattress seams and ticking. Shine a penlight behind the headboard and look for dark fecal stains.
If you do wake up with red welts, assume the worst. “At that point, when you go home, all laundry goes into a trash bag outside, and then right into a washing machine on a hot cycle, and then a clothes dryer,” says the University of Kentucky’s Michael F. Potter. “As little as five or 10 minutes kills everything on high heat. Cold will not kill the eggs and not all the adults.”
Don’t pull mattresses and dressers off the street. Steer clear of yard sales or flea markets. And don’t ever buy used bedding.
If you do get them, don’t use a bomb or spray, which will only scatter them through your home. “Find a good pest-control company. This is not one where you buy bug spray and battle it yourself,” Potter says.
In many cases, pros suggest getting rid of your box spring and mattress, or if you can’t, using a bug-proof zippered mattress cover that traps the buggers inside for at least a year.
Source: USA Today
Cretan Olive Oil
This response is to a post I wrote October 25th on The Olive Oil scandal, that even when you buy a brand you have thought is reliable, you may not be getting what you paid for. For me, it was particularly horrifying to discover they were adulterating the olive oil with hazlenut oil – I don’t have a severe allergy to hazlenuts, but they make the insides of my ears itch. I avoid hazlenuts!
I keep getting such good responses to the post – and I have a partiality (disclaimer!) to small producers of anything, from olive oil to soap to pecans . . . I love buying from the entrepreneur.
Which is why I have taken this response from the comments page and made it an entry. Thank you, Mr. Sassone, for your thoughtful addition to this subject:
It is indeed a shame that the majority of the olive oil on the American and world market has been adulterated by unscrupulous sellers looking for enormous profits.
That is why I started growing olives on the island of Crete, making extra virgin olive oil-EVOO, and importing it to the US. I personally observe all steps in the process from the time the olive flowers bud on the tree until the EVOO goes in the can. I know it is the cleanest, freshest, highest quality, and most healthful EVOO you can buy at any price.
I also offer all customers copies of test reports from independent laboratories that show the exact quality. Acidity is 0.17%. Total polyphenols are 165ppm. Peroxide value is 6. Nothing can compare at any price.
When people buy EVOOs that are labeled as a mix of oil from several countries, they must take this into account: How clean was process to gather the olives? How clean was the factory that processed the oil? How clean were the trucks that transported the oil to the ship? How clean was the ship that transported the oil? You can see where this is going. At any one or more of dozens of steps in the process, contamination can occur. Some of the olive producing countries do not have food the safety standards like the European Union or US Food and Drug Administration.
My curiosity got the best of me. Recently, I sent samples of 13 EVOOs sold in the US for lab testing to find out just how good or bad they are. I dont have a web site just yet, but will publish the results as a comparison to my oil. So long as I keep complete control of the entire process, I can improve the quality of my oil each year.
My EVOO is now available in the US. It is the finest quality and most healthful EVOO you can buy at any price. Send me and email if interested. kretareserve@cox.net Thanks. Tony
She Did Everything Right
When I was a little girl growing up in Alaska, we had neighbors who lived just across the creek. Our neighbors had a daughter 6 years older than me; she was my first babysitter. Growing up, those six years made all the difference – we didn’t know one another as friends, the gap was too great. Our families were very close, however, and when my parents would go to parties at her parents house, they would take us and put us to bed in her bed.
I saw her now and then through the years, but our lives were in different places. When I was just getting married, she had big boys, by the time my son was a teenager, hers were getting married and going to college. We reconnected in Florida, of all places, where we both ended up at the same time due to our husband’s jobs.
Having our Alaska childhood in common, having grown up together and knowing each other’s family through all the years created a strong bond. We saw each other often; she was like a big sister to me.
She always had it all together. She had a group that bicycled together every morning, and then had outings later in the day. She was a fitness buff, and ran in the mornings before she bicycled. She kept herself thin, and she loved to cook, but she could eat what she wanted because she exercised it all off.
She was a reader, and would pass along the really good books to me. She and her husband were also news buffs, so when we would get together with our husbands, there was never a dull moment at the dinner table.
She and her husband were sent to Egypt, and to Rumallah, and to China, and they made the most of every minute. They loved traveling, they loved their sailing boat, they loved their family. They would come to visit us in our places of the world, and we would have great reunions. They were so alive.
She could be annoying. She would chide me about not exercising enough. She would comment on how much food people ate. She always knew the latest in medical research to back herself up. She kept her mind active, and she kept her weight down. She exercised, she travelled, she took care of her parents, she did good works for others. She did everything right.
A couple years ago, we joined her and her husband for dinner. She hadn’t combed her hair. She weighed about 20 lbs more, and didn’t seem to notice. She couldn’t remember the last book she had read, and she couldn’t remember her recent trip to Mexico, or an earlier one to Spain.
It’s been downhill since then. Her loving husband is strong and able to care for her, this once-beautiful, sprite-like, spirited woman. I think she still knew me, when I saw her last summer, but she can no longer really express what she is thinking. She is restless, up and down from the table, and not able to participate in the conversation.
I am haunted. I am so much like her; I tried to live up to all that she has taught me. A part of me wants to scream at God “This isn’t fair! She did everything right!”
Perhaps doing everything right gave her a few extra years, and I am just not seeing things from the right perspective. Meanwhile, I get no answers, and my heart breaks when I think of her.
Eat Your Onions!
(And carry breath mints!)
From today’s BBC Health News comes proof that those helpings of vegetables and fruits cut the risk of early heart disease.
Onions ‘cut heart disease risk’
Eating a meal rich in compounds called flavonoids reduces some early signs of heart disease, research shows.
An Institute of Food Research team focused on one of the compounds, quercetin, which is found in tea, onions, apples and red wine.
The Atherosclerosis study examined the effect of the compounds produced after quercetin is broken down by the body.
They were shown to help prevent the chronic inflammation which can lead to thickening of the arteries.
You can read the rest of the article HERE.
Be Thin, Cut Cancer Risk
Be thin to cut cancer, study says
This is from today’s BBC Health News
Even those who are not overweight should slim down if they want to cut their risk of cancer, a major international study has claimed.
The World Cancer Research Fund carried out the largest ever inquiry into lifestyle and cancer, and issued several stark recommendations.
They include not gaining weight as an adult, avoiding sugary drinks and alcohol, and not eating bacon or ham.
Everyone must also aim to be as thin as possible without becoming underweight.
People with a Body Mass Index (BMI), a calculation which takes into account height and weight, of between 18.5 and 25, are deemed to be within a “healthy” weight range.
But the study says their risk increases as they head towards the 25 mark, and that everyone should try to be as close to the lower end as possible.
Recommendations include:
Limit red meat
Limit alcohol
Avoid bacon, ham, and other processed meats
No sugary drinks
No weight gain after 21
Exercise every day
Breastfeed children
Do not take dietary supplements to cut cancer
Comment: This is not a new study, but a compilation based on the committee looking at hundreds of studies done on correlations of weight, diet and cancer risk. The troublesome issue to me is that these are things we have been told, things that we KNOW, and things we aren’t doing anything about.
Hey! The weather is great! Let’s go for a walk!
(You can read the rest of the BBC article here.
Halloween Warning
When you eat too much candy, bad things happen.
This is so gross, and too funny.
Not for people with a weak stomach.
Olive Oil Scandal Comment
This is a response to my recent post on The Olive Oil Scandal. I am so delighted when I get a thoughtful and enlightening response like this that I want to give it a separate entry so that it won’t be overlooked by all you bloggers with little time and short attention spans. 😉
It certainly is disgusting. One might note that, though, that none of the above named diluters of olive oil come from Spain, by far the largest producer and exporter of the product.
Currently, in fact, the Andalucian regional government (Andalucía, in which I am an olive grower, produces over 30% of the world’s olive oil) is currently funding a project intended to identify through mass spectometry analysis the molecular ‘signature’ of all the different regional denominations of extra virgin olive oil, enabling bottlers to include this information on barcode-like labels on every bottle marketed and against which the contents could be tested. The systematic adoption of this system, when it is completed, would go along way to protect consumers from the present situation, brought on partly through the fraudulent business practices of various Italian and American producers and sellers.
Also, considering that IOOC olive oil standards have no legal force in the United States, effectively permitting virgin or lampante oil to be sold as EVOO (but not diluted with other oils), the seemingly imminent adoption of international nomenclature by the USDA would be a very positive move. It can’t come soon enough.
Charles Butler’s website, The Olive Oil Gazette, is an absolutely fascinating resource, with all kinds of listings for Olive Oil sites and all kinds of olive oil information, including an article on October 21 about the proposal for the DNA “fingerprinting” of olive oil. Here is what it says about author Charles Butler McKay:
The Olive Oil Gazette is published in Cazorla, Jaén, Spain by Charles Butler Mackay, whose Spanish birth certificate states, correctly, that he was born in Toronto, Canada. Aside from editing this news source, he owns and oversees an olive plantation that has been in his family for a century and a half.
Thank you for your input!
Meanwhile, I don’t want to be sceptical. For a very good price, I found the below olive oil at the Sultan Center, and the lable says all the right things:
Cholesterol Free
Less than 1% acidity
Cold Pressed
It even has an expiration date
And it says it is a product of Syria. Because I am sceptical, I bought it because I thought it had a pretty label:
The Olive Oil Scandal
A good friend gave me a subscription several years ago to The New Yorker, and at the time I didn’t know how lucky I was. First, I loved the cartoons. A couple magazines later, I got pulled in by some of their excellent travel and political writing. Later, the fiction issues pulled me in and introduced me to authors I had never read before. In no time at all, I was totally addicted.
Now, when The New Yorker arrives, Adventure Man and I fight to see who gets to read it first! Often he wins; he skims it. He knows I will take too long getting through it.
It was the New Yorker magazine who informed me about the great olive oil scandal.
I love olive oil. I only use other oils in baked goods, where the olive oil might give an odd taste, we use olive oil almost exclusively. Or so I thought.
In the August 13 Issue of the New Yorker, Tom Meuller starts like this:
On August 10, 1991, a rusty tanker called the Mazal I docked at the industrial port of Ordu, in Turkey, and pumped twenty-two hundred tons of hazelnut oil into its hold. The ship then embarked on a meandering voyage through the Mediterranean and the North Sea. By September 21st, when the Mazal II reached Barletta, a port in Puglia, in southern Italy, its cargo had become, on the ship’s official documents, Greek olive oil. It slipped through customs, possibly with the connivance of an official, was piped into tanker trucks, and was delivered to the refinery of Riolio, an Italian olive-oil produce based in Barletta. There it was sold—in some instances blended with real olive oil—to Riolio customers
Between August and November of 1991, the Mazal II and another tanker, the Katerina T., delivered nearly ten thousand tons of Turkish hazelnut oil and Argentinean sunflower-seed oil to Riolio, all identified as Greek olive oil.
Riolio’s owner, Domenico Ribatti, grew rich from the bogus oil, assembling substantial real-estate holdings, including a former department store in Bari. He bribed two officials, one with cash, the other with cartons of olive oil, and made trips to Rome, where he stayed at the Grand Hotel, and met with other unscrupulous olive-oil producers from Italy and abroad. As one of Italy’s leading importers of olive oil, Ribatti’s company was a member of ASSITOL, the country’s powerful olive-oil trade association, and Ribatti had enough clout in Rome to ask a favor—preferential treatment of an associate’s nephew, who was seeking admission to a military officers’ school—of a high-ranking official at the Finance Ministry, a fellow-pugliese.
However, by early 1992 Ribatti and his associates were under investigation by the Guardia di Finanza, the Finance Ministry’s military-police force. One officer, wearing a miniature video camera on his tie, posed as a waiter at a lunch hosted by Ribatti at the Grand Hotel. Others, eavesdropping on telephone calls among Riolio executives, heard the rustle of bribe money being counted out. During the next two years, the Guardia di Finanza team, working closely with agents of the European Union’s anti-fraud office, pieced together the details of Ribatti’s crime, identifying Swiss bank accounts and Caribbean shell companies that Ribatti had used to buy the ersatz olive oil.
The investigators discovered that seed and hazelnut oil had reached Riolio’s refinery by tanker truck and by train, as well as by ship, and they found stocks of hazelnut oil waiting in Rotterdam for delivery to Riolio and other olive-oil companies.
The investigators also discovered where Ribatti’s adulterated oil had gone: to some of the largest producers of Italian olive oil, among them Nestlé, Unilever, Bertolli, and Oleifici Fasanesi, who sold it to consumers as olive oil, and collected about twelve million dollars in E.U. subsidies intended to support the olive-oil industry. (These companies claimed that they had been swindled by Ribatti, and prosecutors were unable to prove complicity on their part.)
You can read this entire fascinating article here: Tom Meuller: Slippery BusinessGive yourself plenty of time. It is an article well worth reading.
There is another good reference here: The Great Olive Oil Scandal from PalestinianOliveOil.org
Investigators have gathered evidence indicating that the biggest olive oil brands in Italy — Bertolli, Sasso, and Cirio — have for years been systematically diluting their extra-virgin olive oil with cheap, highly-refined hazelnut oil imported from Turkey. [1]
A 1996 study by the FDA found that 96 percent of the olive oils they tested, while being labeled 100 percent olive oil, had been diluted with other oils. A study in Italy found that only 40 percent of the olive oil brands labeled “extra-virgin” actually met those standards. Italy produces 400,000 tons of olive oil for domestic consumption, but 750,000 tons are sold. The difference is made up with highly refined nut and seed oils. [2]
EVEN THE BIGGEST OF THEM WILL MISLEAD THE PUBLIC…
“In 1998, the New York law firm Rabin and Peckel, LLP, took on the olive oil labeling misnomer and filed a class action suit in the New York Supreme Court against Unilever, the English-Dutch manufacturer of Bertolli olive oil. The firm argued that Bertolli’s labels, which read “Imported from Italy,” did not meet full disclosure laws because, even though the oil had passed through Italian ports, most of it had originated in Tunisia, Turkey, Spain or Greece. “Bertolli olive oil is imported from Italy, but contains no measurable quantity of Italian oil,” according to court documents.”
Curezone lists manufacturers of adulterated olive oil and marketers of the same oil. It is disgusting. We pay high prices for junk-olive oil. From Curezone.com/forums
The Guilty
Below is a list of known adulterated brands and dishonest distributors with links to information about their cases.
Adulterated brands of extra virgin olive oil
with country of origin
Andy’s Pure Olive Oil (Italy)
Bertolli (Italy)
Castel Tiziano (Italy)
Cirio (Italy)
Cornelia (Italy)
Italico (Italy)
Ligaro (Italy)
Olivio (Greece)
Petrou Bros. Olive Oil (California)
Primi (Italy)
Regale (Italy)
Ricetta Antica (Italy)
Rubino (Italy)
San Paolo (Italy)
Sasso (Italy)
Terra Mia (Italy)
Distributors caught selling adulterated olive oil
Altapac Trading
AMT Fine Foods
Bella International Food Brokers
Cher-Mor Foods International
D&G Foods
Deluca Brothers International
Gestion Trorico Inc.
Itaical Trading
Kalamata Foods
Les Ailments MIA Food Distributing
Lonath International
Mario Sardo Sales, Inc.
Petrou Foods, Inc.
Rubino USA Inc.
Siena Foods Ltd.
Vernon Foods
So who do we trust? How do we know that we are getting a quality, unadulterated product? This is fraud in an international scale!
Recent Comments
intlxpatr on Shampoo Ginger tigerbutterya0c5ff1d… on Shampoo Ginger intlxpatr on British Soldier Kidnapped, Esc… John on British Soldier Kidnapped, Esc… intlxpatr on British Soldier Kidnapped, Esc… Wikipedia Donate Button
Amazina
Early Voting in Florida
Here There and Everywhere 
Comment on Obesity Post
I normally won’t post a comment as a new post unless it meets two criteria – the author has a blog that is legitimate and the post is so well written that I don’t want it buried in the comments. This response to the Obesity Fuels Cancer in Women Post only meets the well written rule, but the reference blog was non-existent. Too bad – the comment is so full of good information that this commenter should be writing her own blog, and I hope she is.
Guess the link between obesity and breast cancer is significantly higher in comparison to other cancers because fat has an oestrogenic effect, which stimulates the lining epithelium of the mammary glands. The more stimulated the gland the greater are the chances of spontaneous mutations happening which could result in cancer.
By that metric, women with rather large breasts could also be at risk. Suddenly, breast augmentation doesn’t sound like a brilliant idea anymore.
My prof. would insist you could cut your breast cancer risk in half simply by taking a brisk walk daily for 45 mins and cutting back on red meat, smoking, alcohol and spicy food.
This after undergoing molecular testing for BRCA1/BRCA2 mutation analysis if a first degree relative suffers early onset breast or ovarian cancer ( before age 45) so that you can begin annual screening by mammography alternating with an ultra-sound, a full 10 years ahead of the rest of the population starting at 30.
What’s useful to know is that you should not change your radiologist or the mammography machine as there can be wide variation in result interpretation with different machines and/or operators.
A final word of caution – ladies, don’t let’s apply deodorants under our armpits. Studies claim a higher incidence of cancers in the left upper quadrant of the breast due to such an application in mostly, right handed women. It is a truism – every little helps; baby steps can go a long way.
Monthly self-examination of both the breasts with flat of the palm; taking care to avoid the time of monthly periods can enable the detection of small pea sized cancerous lumps.
It is a step in the right direction that Q8 is slowly but surely awakening to the need of mass public education on breast cancer through TV and print ads, as well as through sharing space with commercial ads in cinemas and the distribution of flyers and brochures with the testing of perfumes and cosmetics in malls and shopping arcades across Kuwait.
It is unfortunate that similar campaigns are not being directed at men for lung and prostate cancer as well as to raise the awareness of the rare breast cancer happening in men with a far worse prognosis.
November 10, 2007 Posted by intlxpatr | Blogging, ExPat Life, Health Issues, Living Conditions, Women's Issues | blog comments, cancer, Obesity | 11 Comments