The Importance of Selenium – InVite Health Podcast, Episode 520
Selenium may be a micro mineral, but it is essential for important functions in the body such as immune defenses, heart health and more.
Tag: cancer
New Findings on Nutrition and Cancer – InVite Health Podcast, Episode 501
Recent research has shown that there may be certain nutrients that can benefit people who are fighting cancer. Jerry Hickey discusses these new studies in this episode of the InVite Health Podcast.
Studies Say Melatonin May Lower The Risk Of Some Cancers – InVite Health Podcast, Episode 302
melatonin
Invite Health Podcast, Episode hosted by Jerry Hickey. Ph
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Melatonin is a hormone that’s sold as a supplement that’s best known for sleep, but now, due to the pandemic, it’s also known for its effects on your immune system. It may also hold some ability to lower your risk of a whole bunch of cancers and there’s mounting evidence that, additionally, it may help you fight cancer.
The importance of sleep
There has been a lot of research done for decades now looking at how night-shift work has consistently been connected with developing heart disease, but there is also a lot of evidence consistently showing that people who work shift work at night have a much higher risk of cancers. The research is so strong and abundant that in 2007, the World Health Organization (WHO) classified nighttime shift work as a probable carcinogen and it’s due to a disruption in your circadian rhythm.†
Your circadian rhythm is your internal clock. At night, you’re expressing melatonin and it helps you go to sleep. A lot of things happen at night. Learning occurs at night and you pass temporary memories into long-term storage sites for memories. Bone building takes place at night. Getting the immune system ready for the next day happens at night. But also, there’s a lot to do with cancer prevention taking place at night.†
Why Melatonin Is Important During COVID-19 – InVite Health Podcast, Episode 209. Listen Now >>
When you’re not getting sleep, you’re disturbing your circadian rhythm and the body gets confused. It gets mixed up with night and day. Your immune system is supposed to rest at night because you’re home, you’re not in the office surrounded by a dozen people. In the daytime, when you’re surrounded by a lot more people and you’re going from place to place, then your immune system must be active. When your circadian rhythm is thrown off, your body can no longer register when it’s night or day, and the immune system gets thrown off. It becomes more active at night than during the day, but it’s during the day that you’re bumping into people. This also seems to affect your cancer risk.†
Melatonin and cancer
How could melatonin help with cancer? First of all, immune cells express melatonin. At night, melatonin calms the immune system down, lowers the blood pressure and lowers the body temperature so you can sleep well. In the daytime, you express other things like cortisol and everything gets activated again. But melatonin is so important to your immune cells that they actually release melatonin. It’s part and parcel of helping your white blood cells fight viruses and bacteria.†
Melatonin has some evidence, and it’s mounting, that it helps prevent cancer in the first place. Italian researchers at the University of Cantabria’s Department of Physiology and Pharmacology did a study that was published in the journal Molecules that looked at whether or not melatonin could reduce the risk of developing breast cancer. That’s a very common cancer. What they were saying is that women who work night shifts and have thrown off their circadian rhythm are at a higher risk of breast cancer due to the night shift work. They said that this was due to the light-induced inhibition of melatonin release. Melatonin helps prevent estrogens from damaging breast tissue. These researchers were saying that actually giving the women who are working night shifts melatonin helps reduce the risk because it helps protect the breasts from the estrogens themselves, as well as from xenoestrogens.†
Why Sleep Is Required For Memory – InVite Health Podcast, Episode 296. Listen Now >>
Tune into the full podcast episode for more studies indicating the relationship between melatonin and cancer.
Thank you for tuning in to the Invite Health Podcast. You can find all of our episodes for free wherever you listen to podcasts or by visiting www.invitehealth.com/podcast. Make sure you subscribe and leave us a review! Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at Invite Health today. We’ll see you next time on another episode of the Invite Health Podcast.
What Science Says About Glucosamine, Chondroitin & Cancer – InVite Health Podcast, Episode 240
Glucosamine and Chondroitin are two well-known nutritional supplements. Now, science shows evidence that Glucosamine and Chondroitin may have the ability to shield us from several cancers and do it to a fairly good degree.
What Science Says About Vitamin D & Cancer Survival – InVite Health Podcast, Episode 236
More research shows that having a good level of Vitamin D in the blood or taking a Vitamin D supplement helps cancer survival.
What You Eat, Including Fish, Impacts Your Breast Cancer Risk – InVite Health Podcast, Episode 195
Invite Health Podcast, Episode hosted by Jerry Hickey. Ph
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Today, we’re going to discuss clinical studies that reported on the effects of fish on your risk of breast cancer. For many decades, we’ve known that lifestyle and eating habits can affect your risk of developing cancer. A good diet and exercise decrease the risk and a poor diet and obesity increase the risk. So what about breast cancer? There’s a lot of data showing that what you eat can affect the risk.
One 2015 study from the Journal of the American Medical Association looked at the effect of food on breast cancer. The researchers worked with over 4000 overweight women with an average age of 67 years old. These women were at risk for having heart disease. The researchers followed this group of women for nearly 5 years and they found that if they followed a Mediterranean-type diet that was rich in extra virgin olive oil, there was a 68% lowered risk of malignant breast cancer. That’s unbelievably powerful. A Mediterranean diet has very little red meat, but has a lot of fresh vegetables, fruits, seeds, nuts and, in this case, extra virgin olive oil. They also tend to eat some poultry and fish.
The Mediterranean Diet Explained – Invite Health Podcast, Episode 89. Listen Now >>
There’s been a lot of evidence that oil from fish lowers the risk of many things, such as sudden cardiac death, massive heart attacks, shrinkage of the brain and dementia, and breast cancer. A 2010 study done by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention adds to the evidence that fish and its oil lowers the risk of breast cancer. The researchers looked at over 35,000 postmenopausal women who did not have a history of breast cancer. They gave each woman a 24-page questionnaire to specifically look at their use of non-vitamin, non-mineral supplements, like herbs, green tea and fish oils. Over the course of 6 years, the researchers found 880 cases of breast cancer and noticed that women who took fish oil supplements long term had a 32% reduced risk of developing breast cancer. That is powerful. Reducing the risk of 32% will reduce the risk for tens of thousands of women.†
For all studies mentioned in this episode, make sure to tune into the full podcast episode by clicking PLAY above.
In 2019, the journal Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition published an updated meta-analysis looking at 22 studies with thousands and thousands of women. They found that women with the highest intake of fish oils lowered their relative risk by 16% minimally. The sum of the evidence shows that fish oils and fish have a huge ability to reduce the risk of breast cancer. What it seems to be, if you really look at the data, is that there’s about a 24% lower risk of ductal carcinoma in situ, the most common and invasive form of breast cancer. A 24% reduced risk would protect tens of thousands of women in America each year.†
Thank you for tuning in to the Invite Health Podcast. You can find all of our episodes for free wherever you listen to podcasts or by visiting www.invitehealth.com/podcast. Make sure you subscribe and leave us a review! Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at Invite Health today. We’ll see you next time on another episode of the Invite Health Podcast
