Colorectal Cancer - Letters to the Editor

Editor:

I must commend Ralph Moss, PhD for his reports in your journal on what the orthodox medical establishment is doing or not getting done in new ways to treat cancer. I read his reports and then read them the second time.

I would like to comment on his report in your January 2002 issue on radiation treatment for rectal cancer. It is not a good story that Dr. Moss tells. There was no increase in survival at all and much that will cause devastating problems. I see that I have written on the subject of colon cancer in your August/September 2001 issue, but I have left something important unsaid.

Rectal and colon cancer are usually lumped together as one form of cancer listed as colorectal cancer. The point that I did not make is that we will this year have about 55,000 deaths from colorectal cancer. There could be no such deaths or very few such deaths among us.

William Grant, PhD had a report in the TLfDP in the July 1999 issue. He casts some doubt on whether fiber in diet is preventing colorectal cancer. In his letter he had an interesting chart. It showed a marked increase in colon cancer as calories from animal food increased. He showed over 200 deaths per 100,000 from colon cancer if diet was largely from animal food but near zero if all food in the diet was in vegetable calories.

I have mentioned it before but there was an editorial in The Lancet in the April 27, 1974 issue with the title "Beware of the Ox." In this editorial it was said that colon cancer is proportional to beef in diet. There is no place in the world, the editor said, where there is little beef in diet and a high incidence of colon cancer. As this is being typed, there is a news flash on CNN TV saying that red meat in diet increases the risk of both colon and stomach cancer by a factor of three. It is likely that red meat other than beef in general, is a major cause of colorectal cancer.

There was a report in The Lancet for January 13, 1990 that 15,000 Indians living in Scotland were almost free from colorectal cancer. They were living among the population of Scotland which had the most beef in diet of any place in the world along with the highest incidence of colorectal cancer any place in the world.

I suggested to Burkitt that it was the absence of red meat in the Ugandian diet both in the black and the Indian populations, that was causing them to be free from colorectal cancer. He stayed with his concept that fiber in diet was preventing colorectal cancer.

I think it likely that if we would all become strict vegetarians, we might be free from colorectal cancer. It could be that we can still live on a high meat diet and at the same time, greatly reduce the risk of death from colorectal cancer.

In my letter in the Aug/Sept. issue of the TL[florin]DP I told of Drs. Frank and Cedric Garland of the University of California. For many years it has been their teaching that vitamin D tends to prevent both colorectal and breast cancer. I have told of a trial they ran in Maryland and reported on in The Lancet in the November 18, 1989 issue. In this study a population of 26,000 was followed for eight years. What was found was that the 20% of this population with the lowest vitamin Din blood had a risk of colorectal cancer that was 80% greater than the 20% of the part of the population with the highest vitamin D in blood. This study was done in a population with much red meat in diet. The implication of this study was that one can have a lot of red meat in diet and still be at a low risk of colorectal cancer if one has high vitamin D in blood. The Garlands feel that calcium plays a part with vitamin D in the prevention of colorectal cancer.

There has been a trial underway conducted by our National Institutes of Health of 32,000 postmenopausal women. Half are given a supplement of calcium and vitamin D. What will be followed are colorectal cancer, breast cancer and bone fractures. This trial has been underway for eight years and the results will be published in 2003. I venture that there will be some exciting results.

It is suggested here that in our big meat-eating population, there can be a great reduction in colorectal cancer if in general, a supplement of vitamin D and calcium is taken. How much calcium and vitamin D that should be taken I do not know. I take 1,000 iu of vitamin D and 500 mg of calcium citrate.

Now let us say that one eats a lot of red meat, takes no supplement of vitamin D and calcium and develops colorectal cancer. There is still hope for a long survival and a long cancer-free life thereafter.

Cimetidine, trade name Tagamet, is a wonderful anticancer drug. Smith Klein Beechman at one time had a patent on cimetidine and this drug firm did much of the work to find the anticancer effect of cimetidine. Yet when the patent expired on cimetidine, this drug firm stopped fostering cimetidine for cancer treatment.

Cimetidine inhibits T suppressor cells. It also inhibits histamine which is immunosuppressive. Cimetidine also causes cancer cell killing lymphocytes to infiltrate malignant tumors.

There have been two small trials on using cimetidine in treating colorectal cancer at the time of surgery. The results have been so good as to be astounding.

The first trial to be reported on was in The Lancet in the December 24/31, 1994 issue. It was by Drs. Warwick Adams and David Morris of St. George Hospital in Kogarth NSW Australia.

Following a major surgery for a period of seven days, there is a surge in T suppressor cells. This is highly immunosuppressive at a time when surgery for colorectal cancer may be sending a flood of cancer cells to all parts of the body. Cimetidine at 800 to 1,200 mg a day will inhibit T suppressor cells. In the above-mentioned trial in Australia half the patients were given cimetidine for seven days only at the time of surgery, this to prevent the surge in T suppressor cells. At three years the survival of the patients who were given cimetidine was 93%; the survival of the patients who did not receive cimetidine was 59%. This was an incredible result. The 59% survival at three years among the patients not getting cimetidine is in line with the expected survival of patients who have had surgery for colorectal cancer.

The second trial of cimetidine following surgery for colorectal cancer was in Japan. The trial was done by Dr. Sumio Matsumoto of the Fujita Health University in Nagoya, Aichi, Japan.

In this trial patients following surgery for colorectal cancer were given adjuvant chemotherapy for one year with 5-flurouracil. All the patients received adjuvant chemotherapy. Half the patients were given adjuvant chemotherapy plus 800mg of cimetidine a day.

The results were as follows: The patients with colon cancer and with rectal cancer were reported separately. The survivals were reported at 3.9 years. The rectal cancer patients who had chemotherapy and cimetidine had a survival of 100%. The ones who had chemotherapy alone had a survival of 53.3%. Among the colon cancer patients, those who had chemotherapy and cimetidine had a survival of 96.3%. Those who had chemotherapy alone had a survival of 68%. As with the trial in Australia, these results are incredible.

In this trial in Japan, patients did not receive cimetidine until a week following surgery thus they did not have the benefit of the inhibition of the T suppressor cell surge during surgery.

One should take note of the poor survival of the patients on chemotherapy alone. Nearly 100% of patients having surgery for colorectal cancer in the USA now are given one year of adjuvant chemotherapy and we still have 55,000 deaths a year from colorectal cancer. One year of adjuvant chemotherapy following surgery for colorectal cancer is increasing survival. some, but if patients were told by how little it increases survival, it is doubtful if many patients would want one year of chemotherapy following surgery.

It is suggested that the proper way to use cimetidine following surgery for colorectal cancer maybe to give patients 1,000 mg of cimetidine for from one week before surgery to one year following surgery. If this were done nationwide it is suggested that deaths from colorectal cancer may be reduced by as much as 80% in the USA each year.

These two reports, one from Australia and the other from Japan, were in 1994 and 1995. It is doubtful if over the past seven years there has been a single patient having surgery for colorectal cancer who has been given cimetidine at the time of surgery.

Now it follows that we have more than one way to avoid death from colorectal cancer. We can turn vegetarian; by eliminating red meat from diet and substituting fish and poultry in its place, the risk of colorectal cancer may be greatly reduced.

Perhaps Burkitt was right about fiber in diet. One may eat whole grain bread and have in diet high fiber food such as beans and prunes.

It may be as the Drs. Garland suggest, that taking vitamin D and calcium as a supplement will greatly reduce that risk of colorectal cancer.

But lastly, if one has surgery for colorectal cancer, it would be well to buy some non-prescription Tagamet and take it before surgery and for one year thereafter.

Wayne Martin

25 Orchard Drive

Fairhope, Alabama 36532

Phone/Fax 251-928-0150

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