What Causes Brain Tumors?

I understand that sometimes the best solution to a health problem is to avoid getting it in the first place. For example, it seems like if you eat right and exercise, you reduce your chances of getting a heart attack or diabetes or similarly nasty diseases.

So, I visited several brain tumor sites and searched for the answers to this question: “What causes brain tumors?”

The ABTA website writes about this as “Risk Factors” - http://www.abta.org/brain-tumor-information/risk-factors/  At the top of the list of ABTA cited risk factors is “exposure to ionizing radiation.”

Since I had no idea what “ionizing radiation” is, I googled it and got this definition from the World Health Organization: “Energy emitted from a source is generally referred to as radiation. Examples include heat or light from the sun, microwaves from an oven, X rays from an X-ray tube, and gamma rays from radioactive elements.” See http://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/about/what_is_ir/en/

This, of course, what got me all hot and bothered about having dental x-rays and you can read my blog posting/rant about that possible correlation with meningioma here -http://johnstumor.blogspot.com/2012/04/dental-x-rays-possible-cause-of.html - because if you’ve had as many bitewing x-rays as I’ve had, your brain is probably hot and bothered, too.

Next, I tried the National Brain Tumor Society’s website: http://www.braintumor.org/  And while I really like the NBTS, I didn’t see anything about how to avoid getting a brain tumor or reducing the risk.

So then I zipped over to the “Cancer Treatment Centers of America” website - http://www.cancercenter.com/ - and learned that “The cause of brain cancer is still largely unknown. Although there are some genetic conditions and environmental factors which may contribute to the development of brain cancer, the risk factors are much less defined for brain cancer than for other cancers in the body.”

This, to me, seems awfully awful. We have lots of brain tumors a year as more that 688,000+ people are grappling with brain tumors in the U.S., let alone all the victims in the rest of the world. http://www.braintumor.org/brain-tumor-information/brain-tumor-information/facts-about-brain-tumors-in-the-us.html

Golly, with that many cases to analyze, interrogate or otherwise manipulate, I thought we’d have a better answer to this seemingly fundamental question.

If you know the answer, or have some clues, please email me. Or, better yet, please tell a high-powered researcher who will actually make use of the information.

John

PS – This all reminds me of Clifton Leaf’s seminal book entitled “The Truth in Small Doses: Why We’re Losing the War on Cancer – and How to Win It.” You can buy it for $12.00 (U.S.) on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Truth-Small-Doses-Losing-Cancer-/dp/1476739994/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417465491&sr=8-1&keywords=clifton+leaf+the+truth+in+small+doses

Copyright: <a href='http://www.123rf.com/profile_eraxion'>eraxion / 123RF Stock Photo</a>

Reuters Special Report: Behind a cancer-treatment firm's rosy survival claims

Here’s a story that I want to make sure US cancer victims have a chance to read. If you’re not from the US, this might be a bit of a surprise for you. 

The following quote gives you the core of the story: “A lot of doctors, hospitals and other healthcare providers in the United States decline to treat people who can't pay, or have inadequate insurance, among other reasons. What sets CTCA (i.e. Cancer Treatment Centers of America) apart is that rejecting certain patients and, even more, culling some of its patients from its survival data lets the company tout in ads and post on its website patient outcomes that look dramatically better than they would if the company treated all comers.”

Here’s a link to the story by Sharon Begley and Robin Respaut which was first published on March 6^th: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/06/us-usa-cancer-ctca-idUSBRE9250L820130306  

PS – Somehow the name, Cancer Treatment Centers of America, makes me wonder if this is a franchise operation. For example, is there a Cancer Treatment Centers of Russia?

ABTA Patient & Family Conference: Do Complementary Therapies Work?

Here’s another ABTA breakout session that I want to attend, Do Complementary Therapies Work?

I guess the title is a bit of a clue, i.e. “complementary” therapies. If it said something like “voodoo therapies” or “desperation therapies” I can imagine what would be said.

Having had acupuncture, I have found that it has helped me with a bum kneed.  I also felt that acupuncture helped me recover faster than I would have without it from my first operation.

As best I can tell, though, it’s not a substitute for radiation or antibiotics or chemo.

The title of the session says “acupuncture, herbs and others.” Since my sister is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, I understand what acupuncture and herbs are.  I’m less clear on what “others” are…and am interested in what that could be.

If you interested, the session will be led by Scott Woodworth, ND from Cancer Treatment Centers of America. The session will be held on Saturday, July 28^th from 2:15 pm to 3:05 pm in the Author Room of the Marriott Renaissance Chicago O’Hare Suites Hotel.

Humor Cures…or at least makes you laugh

Yesterday I spent several hours reading brain tumor blogs of all sorts of different shapes, sizes and concerns.

Strangely enough, one constant theme that appeared in many of my favorite blogs was humor.  It could be silly humor, crazy humor, gallows humor, black humor, blue humor (i.e. lots of swearing) or any other color of humor you can imagine..

Sometimes blogsters talked about brain tumors as being “funny”, like Cancer is SO FUNNY by Amy Marash (http://cancerissofunny.blogspot.com/),  or funny as in Funnycancershirts.com (http://www.funnycancershirts.com/)  by Ryan Armbrust, but to me these are all playing in the same emotional sandbox.

Is laughing good for those of us battling brain tumors?

Well Joni Gatz-Bauma, my new-found Brain Store buddy just introduced me to a bunch of organizations that not only believe humor is therapeutic, they promote humor as therapy.  How can you tell? Just visit their websites. For starters check out the Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humor (http://www.aath.org/). (Their website looks to be in the middle of a major surgery itself, so be warned that there’s a number of pages that aren’t fully operational.)

Of course instead of being happy, I’m now honked off that I missed their annual conference which was right here in Chicago in April (their 2013 conference is in San Diego).

On the AATH site there’s also a list of organizational “friends” on their website that seem to buy into this idea, from Caring Clowns International to Cancer Treatment Centers of America.  See http://www.aath.org/aath-organizational-friends-listing

My next posting will feature a youtube.com video from the AATH annual conference of funny nurses. Wait, that doesn’t sound exactly right.  I mean nurses who find their jobs funny.  Umm, maybe I should say its nurses who find their patients funny. No, that sounds rather cruel.  Ok, just look for my next post and make up your own mind.