A Christmas Story
Another December, another selenium and cancer prevention study published.
Selenium has been noted in the news for prevention of a high-risk bladder cancer according to findings by Dartmouth Medical School researchers in a study published in the December issue of Cancer Prevention Research.
Seems that selenium and cancer prevention is getting to be somewhat of a Christmas tradition.
Perhaps the following column from Christmas 2004 offered as an annual tradition might contribute to selenium against cancer being pulled from forgotten files to a place of common remembrance instead.
A Selenium Christmas Carol
I shall endeavour in this ghastly little article (a dickens of a tale of more than just two cities), to raise the ghost of an idea, which shall put my readers out of humour with themselves this season but hopefully not with me. May it haunt their houses awakening them to lay upon good sense and sensibilities. Their faithful Friend and Servant columnist, C.B. with notable thanks to Charles Dickens and his Uncle Scrooge (U.S. for short).
Christmas PAST
"Selenium May Fight Cancer, Study Shows" read the top, front page headline Christmas morning of 1996 in the Los Angeles Times.
A study published that same Christmas morning in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) noted 63 per cent reduction of prostate cancer, 58 per cent reduction of colorectal cancer, and 46 per cent reduction in lung cancer with less than 10 years of selenium supplementation at 200 micrograms daily. The study was conducted simultaneously through seven different cities.
"It's one study with provocative findings that have to be confirmed," said U.S. worker Dr. Peter Greenwald of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in Scrooge-like fashion.
Before going forward with any selenium recommendations, Dr. Greenwald, director of the Division of Cancer Prevention and Control, demanded additional studies with many more people.
The Christmas day story noted more than 1,300 people in this study! Scores of selenium cancer studies with favorable results dated back half a century already.
A 1985 article in Nutrition Reviews, "Can Selenium Modify Cancer Risk?" cited 97 scholarly references alone! The earliest reference suggesting selenium as anti-cancerous dates all the way back to 1912!
Another medical expert criticized the Christmas 1996 JAMA article about the use of a grown variety of selenium being used rather than an inexpensive, man-made variety. Truly, a man after the chilling, cold heart of penny-pinching Ebenezer Scrooge. A greater than 50 per cent reduction in cancer using a supplement containing a grown, food variety of selenium and this "expert" (so called) complained that a cheap, man-made variety should have been used.
This reminds me of the disciple in Scripture who complained when a woman used a very precious ointment to anoint The Saviour of the world. That disciple, too, complained about the excessive cost and it being a waste of money.
"Let her alone; why trouble ye her? She hath wrought a good work on me," The Saviour said. This recent selenium study was another in a long series of studies that wrought good work for you and for me.
One of the most consistent criticisms of supplement studies by medical men is that nutrients should come from food. Yet this successful supplement study was with a nutrient from a food source, and then paradoxically criticized for not using the form that is usually criticized! This medical criticism is simply not honest and betrays good sense -- common or scientific.
Oh, and that complaining disciple noted above? He was Judas Iscariot.
"This he said, not that he cared for the poor: but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein."
Furthermore, Greenwald later praised another prostate cancer study in the New England Journal of Medicine that had only a 25 per cent reduction rate.
"This trial proves that prostate cancer, at least in part, is preventable. It is a huge step forward for cancer research," Greenwald declared with elation.
That study was with a non-essential drug that cost much more than the essential nutrient selenium. The drug also had many side effects that were exactly opposite of side benefits attributed to selenium.
Why did Greenwald not demand additional studies with many more people for this expensive drug with only 25 per cent results like he did for the inexpensive nutrient with 63 per cent results?
Alas, the conclusions offered at that Christmas past noted another five to ten years might be needed before selenium could be recommended against cancer.
Can you hear ghostly cries from those who have died of cancer?
Christmas PRESENT
As the thoughts of most turn to Christmas at this time of year the current issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute features an article on selenium and cancer. That is the same NCI of U.S. worker Dr. Peter Greenwald!
"Your risk of colorectal cancer can vary by the amount of selenium you consume," said Dr. Elizabeth T. Jacobs, lead researcher from the Arizona Cancer Center.
The Arizona Cancer Center? That is the same source as the selenium study from the above Christmas PAST!
"People with higher blood selenium levels tended to have a decreased risk of a recurrence of colon cancer," Dr. Jacobs said.
That is also just as noted in the above Christmas PAST study!!
The new U.S. NCI study article also disclosed that selenium may protect against prostate and lung cancers as well. That is again just as noted in the above Christmas PAST study!!!
Can't you just hear Gomer Pyle about now, 'surprise, surprise, SURPRISE!'
One medical expert criticized this Christmas PRESENT study, "This study is not definitive," said Dr. Scott M. Lippman of the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center "because it is not from a large randomized control trial of selenium."
Does he mean as in the above Christmas PAST study!!!!
A dour and dreary Ebenezer Scrooge would have been proud.
"I believe that over the next five to 10 years, we will have some very compelling data one way or the other regarding selenium's ability to suppress colorectal cancer," Dr. Lippman said.
It has already been five to 10 years since other medical experts provided that same consensus.
Can you hear ghostly cries from those who have died of cancer increasing and getting louder?
Christmas FUTURE
Another selenium cancer study by the U.S. NCI was announced two years ago to be concluded in 2014. That is yet another 10 years away!
How many more will develop cancer and die from cancer in the future before selenium is finally recommended as a preventative agent?
Almost 30 years ago Dr. Gerhard Schrauzer of the University of California San Diego Medical School recommended 200 micrograms of selenium daily as a cancer preventative agent. Dr. Schrauzer has since chaired two world conferences on selenium and cancer.
It was 20 years ago that same 200 micrograms of selenium was taken daily in a cancer study trial.
Less than 10 years ago dramatic, positive results as a reduction of cancer were noted in those who took that 200 micrograms of selenium daily. That selenium was specifically from a grown, food variety of selenium as opposed to the cheap, chemical form commonly found on store shelves.
This year yet another study notes selenium as a cancer preventative agent.
Should another ten years elapse before selenium receives lively recommendation as a preventative agent against deadly cancer?
In the classic Dickens' tale U.S. expressed that to " decrease the surplus population" might be a good thing. Could that be part of what is going on with dragging this so slowly along?
Selenium studies on cancer keep being made to disappear a la the magic of David Copperfield by U.S. researchers over and over and over again ad infinitum ad nauseum.
Will ghostly cries from those who have died of cancer continue to increase and get yet louder still?
These U.S. researchers twist facts with an artful dodge of truth while the masses continue to languish in their suffering. The common people are as orphans hoping against hope to be rescued from their suffering confines.
Will you continue to wait as an orphan for the passing of a series of hopeful (or hopeless) tomorrows?
The cancer researchers of today are like Little Orphan Annies. Their Daddy Warbucks is the U.S. government by way of John Q. Public's picked pockets. They are having a grand ol,' sing song time!
Tomorrow, tomorrow
It may be tomorrow
Cancer answers are
10 YEARS AWAY?!?!?
Yet as another song notes, "Tomorrow never comes" when it comes to solid cancer answers from the modern medical, health care system with its runaway costs to match runaway profits, and perhaps matched also by escalating suffering.
Perhaps you will rather awaken with a renewed vigor for life and the life protecting, essential nutrient selenium.
I have GREAT EXPECTATIONS of you every one!
Christopher C. Barr writes Naturally Speaking from Arkansas: The Natural State … naturally! You may write him at P. O. Box 1147, Pocahontas, Arkansas 72455 or by e-mail at servantofYHVH@hotmail.com.
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