Dutch lawyer starts criminal case against tobacco firms

DutchNews, April 29, 2016

Photo: DutchNews.nl

A Dutch lawyer and lung cancer patient are planning to take tobacco companies to court for for producing cigarettes designed to turn people into addicts as quickly as possible. 

Lawyer Benedicte Ficq and cancer victim Anne Marie van Veen are putting together a criminal case against cigarette producers, arguing that out of court settlements do not go far enough.

‘I want to see tobacco firms prosecuted for deliberately damaging people’s health,’ Ficq told television programme RTL Late Night. 

Tobacco firms cannot hide behind the freedom of choice of people to smoke because they are deliberately influencing smokers’ behaviour, Ficq and Van Veen argue. 

Poison

‘To limit that freedom, addictive chemicals such as nicotine and other additives are put into cigarettes,’ they say. ‘And [the companies] overcome our natural aversion to poisons by adding substances like menthol.’ 

Nor does the argument that the government does not ban smoking hold water, Ficq said. ‘If I fed my children rat poison every day and they eventually die, I would be prosecuted for murder,’ she said. ‘The tobacco industry is simply getting away with it.’ 

Ficq and Van Veen are appealing for other people to sign up to their campaign.

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The Truth About Cancer: A Global Quest docu-series - official trailer

The Truth About Cancer: A Global 

Quest docu-series - official trailer

"The Recalibration of Awareness – Apr 20/21, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Old Energy, Recalibration Lectures, God / Creator, Religions/Spiritual systems (Catholic Church, Priests/Nun’s, Worship, John Paul Pope, Women in the Church otherwise church will go, Current Pope won’t do it), Middle East, Jews, Governments will change (Internet, Media, Democracies, Dictators, North Korea, Nations voted at once), Integrity (Businesses, Tobacco Companies, Bankers/ Financial Institutes, Pharmaceutical company to collapse), Illuminati (Started in Greece, with Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to build Africa, to develop)), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.) - (Text version)

“… The Shift in Human Nature

You're starting to see integrity change. Awareness recalibrates integrity, and the Human Being who would sit there and take advantage of another Human Being in an old energy would never do it in a new energy. The reason? It will become intuitive, so this is a shift in Human Nature as well, for in the past you have assumed that people take advantage of people first and integrity comes later. That's just ordinary Human nature.

In the past, Human nature expressed within governments worked like this: If you were stronger than the other one, you simply conquered them. If you were strong, it was an invitation to conquer. If you were weak, it was an invitation to be conquered. No one even thought about it. It was the way of things. The bigger you could have your armies, the better they would do when you sent them out to conquer. That's not how you think today. Did you notice?

Any country that thinks this way today will not survive, for humanity has discovered that the world goes far better by putting things together instead of tearing them apart. The new energy puts the weak and strong together in ways that make sense and that have integrity. Take a look at what happened to some of the businesses in this great land (USA). Up to 30 years ago, when you started realizing some of them didn't have integrity, you eliminated them. What happened to the tobacco companies when you realized they were knowingly addicting your children? Today, they still sell their products to less-aware countries, but that will also change.

What did you do a few years ago when you realized that your bankers were actually selling you homes that they knew you couldn't pay for later? They were walking away, smiling greedily, not thinking about the heartbreak that was to follow when a life's dream would be lost. Dear American, you are in a recession. However, this is like when you prune a tree and cut back the branches. When the tree grows back, you've got control and the branches will grow bigger and stronger than they were before, without the greed factor. Then, if you don't like the way it grows back, you'll prune it again! I tell you this because awareness is now in control of big money. It's right before your eyes, what you're doing. But fear often rules. 

The Next Ones to Fall

There's something potentially coming that you should know about, and I've reported it before two other times. But I want you to hear it again. What other very large industries don't have integrity, but also have a great deal of money? Prepare for the crumbling of big pharma in America. It is starting now and when the reports happen and the movie is created [smile], Americans will wake up to the fact that they have an enormously wealthy industry that keeps people sick for money.

You're not going to like it and you're not going to tolerate it. Watch. What I say today is not fortune telling, dear ones. I am reporting the potentials of Human nature before me. I'm reporting that awareness is starting to grab that which is inappropriate on this planet, what you call old energy, and slowly is beginning to move it to a place you never thought it would go. It's a place of integrity that your parents told you was impossible for large institutions, but here you are living it. Along with this also will be changes in the very large business of insurance, as we told you before. …”

"THE BRIDGE OF SWORDS" – Sep 29, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) - (Text Version)

“…I'm in Canada and I know it, but I will tell those listening and reading in the American audience the following: Get ready! Because there are some institutions that are yet to fall, ones that don't have integrity and that could never be helped with a bail out. Again, we tell you the biggest one is big pharma, and we told you that before. It's inevitable. If not now, then in a decade. It's inevitable and they will fight to stay alive and they will not be crossing the bridge. For on the other side of the bridge is a new way, not just for medicine but for care. Paradigms that have not yet been thought of, which don't represent any system that currently exists, will be created and developed by young minds who have concepts that the seniors don't know about. Things that don't have integrity today will fall over tomorrow. Just get ready. It's all part of what's on the other side of the bridge. And the old energy won't like it, and they will object. …”

New Zealand scientists discover identify cancer-enabling gene

English.news.cn 2011-05-24

WELLINGTON, May 24 (Xinhua) -- New Zealand researchers have found a way to stop the growth of certain cancer tumors by " silencing" a group of PAX genes, members of a small family of genes that play important roles in embryonic development, but also allow cancer cells to grow and divide in adult tissue.

In an article published in UK medical journal Oncogene, Otago University Professor Michael Eccles and colleagues revealed how they used the PAX8 gene to kill cancer cells.

After detecting high levels of PAX8 protein in the majority of kidney, ovarian and thyroid cancers they studied, the researchers used molecular techniques to silence the PAX8 gene in several cancer cell lines.

"We found that these PAX8-depleted cancer cells ceased growing and dividing. The cells were essentially stopped in their tracks through the failure of multiple mechanisms and pathways crucial to their cell division cycle. They then entered into a state called senescence in which they no longer divided, and after that they ultimately died," Eccles said in a statement from the university Tuesday.

The findings suggested that PAX8 could be a good target for the development of new cancer therapies, he said.

"Any resulting drugs would be a long way down the road, but in the meantime this research helps confirm that a focus on PAX genes may prove to be a fruitful line of attack against a number of cancers," he said.

The research was supported by grants from the Health Research Council of New Zealand. It formed the main piece of work carried out by Otago doctoral graduate Caiyun (Grace) Li, now a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University. Study co-authors also included Professor Antony Braithwaite and master's student Jen Nyman.

In 2003, research led by Eccles discovered that proteins from one or more of the nine PAX genes were present in many common cancers. They found that "silencing" the gene expression of PAX2 in ovarian and bladder cancer cells, and of PAX3 in melanoma, led to the rapid death of the cells.

Editor: Xiong Tong

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"The Quantum Factor" – Apr 10, 2011 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Galaxies, Universe, Intelligent design, Benevolent design, Aliens, Nikola Tesla (Quantum energy), Inter-Planetary Travel, DNA, Genes, Stem Cells, Cells, Rejuvenation, Shift of HumanConsciousness, Spontaneous Remission, Religion, Dictators, Africa, China, Nuclear Power, Sustainable Development, Animals, Global Unity.. etc.) - New

Your Mattress Could be Acting as a Cancer-Causing Radiation Antenna

Mercola.com, Posted by: Dr. Mercola | August 18 2010

The rate of breast cancer in Western countries is 10 percent higher in the left breast than in the right. This also is true for the skin cancer melanoma.

Researchers have suggested a surprising explanation for this -- and for the dramatic increase in rates of breast cancer and melanoma over the past three decades.

In Japan, there is no correlation between the rates of melanoma and breast cancer, and there is no left-side prevalence for either disease. The rate of breast cancer in Japan is also significantly lower than in the West.

This may be due to differences in sleeping habits in Japan and Western countries. Previous research has shown that people prefer to sleep on their right sides, possibly as a way of reducing weight stress on the heart.

This is most likely the same in both the East and the West, but the futons used for sleeping in Japan are mattresses placed directly on the bedroom floor, in contrast to the elevated box springs and mattress of beds used in the West.

According to Scientific American:

"... [A] 2007 study in Sweden conducted between 1989 and 1993 ... revealed a strong link between the incidence of melanoma and the number of FM and TV transmission towers covering the area where the individuals lived ...

Consider, however, that even a TV set cannot respond to broadcast transmissions unless the weak electromagnetic waves are captured and amplified by an appropriately designed antenna. Antennas are simply metal objects of appropriate length sized to match the wavelength of a specific frequency of electromagnetic radiation."

In the U.S., bed frames and box springs are made of metal, and the length of a bed is exactly half the wavelength of FM and TV transmissions.  The maximum strength of the field develops 75 centimeters above the mattress, so when sleeping on your right side, your left side will be exposed to the highest field strength.

Sources: 

•   Scientific American July 2, 2010 
•   Pathophysiology June 2010;17(3):157-160 
•   Pathophysiology June 2010; 17(3):161

Curry spice 'kills cancer cells'

BBC News

The yellow spice gives curries their bright colour

An extract found in the bright yellow curry spice turmeric can kill off cancer cells, scientists have shown.

The chemical - curcumin - has long been thought to have healing powers and is already being tested as a treatment for arthritis and even dementia.

Now tests by a team at the Cork Cancer Research Centre show it can destroy gullet cancer cells in the lab.

Cancer experts said the findings in the British Journal of Cancer could help doctors find new treatments.

Dr Sharon McKenna and her team found that curcumin started to kill cancer cells within 24 hours.

'Natural' remedy

The cells also began to digest themselves, after the curcumin triggered lethal cell death signals.

Dr McKenna said: "Scientists have known for a long time that natural compounds have the potential to treat faulty cells that have become cancerous and we suspected that curcumin might have therapeutic value."

Dr Lesley Walker, director of cancer information at Cancer Research UK, said: "This is interesting research which opens up the possibility that natural chemicals found in turmeric could be developed into new treatments for oesophageal cancer.

"Rates of oesophageal cancer rates have gone up by more than a half since the 70s and this is thought to be linked to rising rates of obesity, alcohol intake and reflux disease so finding ways to prevent this disease is important too."

Each year around 7,800 people are diagnosed with oesophageal cancer in the UK. It is the sixth most common cause of cancer death and accounts for around five percent of all UK cancer deaths.

Mobiles and cancer: the plot thickens

You might as well ask to buy condoms in the Vatican as ask a mobile phone salesman for a low radiation mobile phone handset, says Geoffrey Lean.

Telegraph.co.uk, By Geoffrey Lean 7:15PM BST 11 Sep 2009

Evidence is increasing that radiation from handsets presents a cancer hazard Photo: Getty

If you want to know what it must have been like to be the central character in a Bateman cartoon, stroll into a mobile phone shop and ask – as I do from time to time – for a low-radiation handset.

“Sales executives” who can discourse for hours on WAP and GPRS, on megapixel cameras and MP3 players, on vibration alerts and polyphonic tones are struck speechless. They have no information, they are likely to tell you, and don’t know where to get it. And, if you are really unlucky, you will be lectured by some pimply post-pubescent – as I once was – on how absurd you are being, because there is no risk.

You might as well ask how you can join a foxhunt in Islington or buy condoms in the Vatican. But in fact what you want to know should be the most important thing about the phone you will press to your ear.

Evidence is increasing that radiation from handsets presents a cancer hazard, particularly to children and to those who use their phones for more than a decade.

On Monday, some of this data will be presented at a US Senate hearing. Later this month, a long-awaited 13-nation study should be published. The official European Environment Agency (EEA) is sounding a discreet alarm. And the French government is so concerned that it is developing measures to ban the devices from primary schools, stop their promotion to children under 12, and prevent them being sold without a headset to heavily reduce radiation exposure.

Early studies found no sign of cancer – causing blanket reassurances from ministers and the industry. But they were largely irrelevant, because few, if any, of the people they examined had been using the phones for as much as a decade, and cancers normally take at least 10 years to develop.

More recent studies – especially in Sweden, where mobile phones took off early – have included such “long-term” users. They have found, on average, that they are about twice as likely to get malignant gliomas – an incurable brain cancer – on the side of the head where they held the handset. As the latency period for cancers is usually 20 to 30 years, this may indicate a much bigger toll to come.

Worse, more Swedish research – limited, but believed to be the only work on the effects on children and teenagers – found that people who started using the phones before the age of 20 were five times more likely to contract the cancers, and eight times more prone to get them on the appropriate side of the head.

If these studies are right, we could be in a lot of trouble. There are more than two billion mobile phones in use worldwide. In Britain – where there are now nearly two per person – at least 90 per cent of 16-year-olds have their own handsets, as do more than 40 per cent of primary pupils. Prof David Carpenter, dean of the school of Public Health at the State University of New York, predicts an “epidemic of brain cancers” among today’s children as they grow up.

Ministers, however, have done little to implement measures to reduce exposures recommended nine years ago by an official inquiry headed by Sir William Stewart, a former government chief scientist. Like others, they have been waiting for the results of a massive $30 million, 13-nation study being carried out by the International Agency for Research on Cancer.

Largely financed by the industry, the study has been hotly criticised for features that would seem to underestimate the risk, such as including few long-term users and excluding children and young adults. Even so, some of the research has found increased cancer, and publication of the study has been held up for years while the scientists have argued about how it should be interpreted. Now, after pressure from the EEA and others, a version is finally to see the light of day.

Mobile phones have brought huge benefits, not least in improving safety by keeping parents and children in touch and alerting emergency and security services to accidents. It would make no sense to ban them, even if it were possible. But radiation levels can be brought down fairly easily: they already vary about eightfold between handsets.

Another simple measure – proposed by Stewart, and now being seriously examined in San Francisco – would be to display the radiation level of each phone prominently. Then people could chose whether to buy a low radiation one or not – and I could stop making a nuisance of myself in shops.

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Silence of the Bees | The Importance of Bees

New study firmly ties hormone use to breast cancer

By MARILYNN MARCHIONE / Associated Press 

SAN ANTONIO (AP) — Taking menopause hormones for five years doubles the risk for breast cancer, according to a new analysis of a big federal study that reveals the most dramatic evidence yet of the dangers of these still-popular pills. 

Even women who took estrogen and progestin pills for as little as a couple of years had a greater chance of getting cancer. And when they stopped taking them, their odds quickly improved, returning to a normal risk level roughly two years after quitting. 

Collectively, these new findings are likely to end any doubt that the risks outweigh the benefits for most women.

 

It is clear that breast cancer rates plunged in recent years mainly because millions of women quit hormone therapy and fewer newly menopausal women started on it, said the study's leader, Dr. Rowan Chlebowski of Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles.

 

"It's an excellent message for women: You can still diminish risk (by quitting), even if you've been on hormones for a long time," said Dr. Claudine Isaacs of Georgetown University's Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center. "It's not like smoking where you have to wait 10 or 15 years for the risk to come down."

Study results were given Saturday at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.

 

They are from the Women's Health Initiative, which tested estrogen and progestin pills that doctors long believed would prevent heart disease, bone loss and many other problems in women after menopause. The main part of the study was stopped in 2002 when researchers saw surprisingly higher risks of heart problems and breast cancer in hormone users.

 

Since then, experts have debated whether these risks apply to women who start on hormones when they enter menopause, usually in their 50s, and take them for shorter periods of time. Most of the women in the federal study were in their 60s and well past menopause.

 

So the advice has been to use hormones only if symptoms like hot flashes are severe, and at the lowest dose and shortest time possible. The new study sharpens that message, Chlebowski said.

 

"It does change the balance" on whether to start on treatment at all, he said.

 

Even so, most women will not get breast cancer by taking the pills short-term. The increased cancer risk from a couple of years of hormone use translates to a few extra cases of breast cancer a year for every 1,000 women on hormones. This risk accumulates with each year of use, though.

 

The Women's Health Initiative study had two parts. In one, 16,608 women closely matched for age, weight and other health factors were randomly assigned to take either Wyeth Pharmaceuticals' Prempro — estrogen and progestin — or dummy pills.

 

This part was halted when researchers saw a 26 percent higher risk of breast cancer in those on Prempro.

But that was an average over the 5 1/2 years women were on the pills. For the new study, researchers tracked 15,387 of these women through July 2005, and plotted breast cancer cases as they occurred over time.

 

They saw a clear trend: Risk rose with the start of use, peaked when the study ended and fell as nearly all hormone users stopped taking their pills. At the peak, the breast cancer risk for pill takers was twice that of the others.

 

Think of it as President Bush's public approval rating, said another study leader, Dr. Peter Ravdin of the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

 

"Bush's popularity may be 50 percent on average, but it might have been descending the whole time he was president," Ravdin said.

 

In the second part of the federal study, researchers observed just 16,121 women who had already been on hormones for an average of seven years and another group of 25,328 women who had never used them. No results on breast cancer risk in these women have been given until now.

 

Plotting cases over time, researchers saw in retrospect that hormone users had started out with twice the risk of breast cancer as the others, and it fell as use declined. Among those taking hormones at the start of the study, use dropped to 41 percent in 2003, the year after the main results made news.

 

In the general population, use of hormone products has dropped 70 percent since the study, said another of its leaders, Dr. JoAnn Manson, preventive medicine chief at Harvard's Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

 

That corresponds with big drops in breast cancer cases, but some scientists have said this could be due to a fall-off in mammograms, which would mean fewer cancers were being detected, not necessarily that fewer were occurring.

 

The new study puts that theory to rest. Mammography rates were virtually the same among those taking hormones and those not.

 

"It is clear that changing mammography patterns cannot explain the dramatic reductions in breast cancer risk," Manson said.

 

"The data are getting stronger," said Dr. C. Kent Osborne, a breast cancer specialist at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

 

Women who do need the pills should not panic, though the doubling of risk — a 100 percent increase — for long-term users is quite worrisome, cancer specialists say. Although the new study does not calculate risks in terms of actual cases, previous research showed that the average increased risk of 26 percent meant a difference of a few extra cases a year for every 1,000 women on hormone pills, compared with nonusers.

 

"Hormone therapy remains a good health care choice to relieve moderate to severe menopausal symptoms," says a statement from Wyeth, which made the pills used in the study.

 

"Most women should be able to discontinue hormones in three to four years," or at least reduce their dose, Manson said.

 

A future analysis will look at other women in the study who took only estrogen, generally women who have had hysterectomies.

 

On the Net:

 

Cancer conference: http://www.sabcs.org

Hormone study: http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/whi/estro_pro.htm

Report stresses link between obesity and cancer

Wed Oct 31, 12:04 PM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - Keeping slim is one of the best ways of preventing cancer, as is avoiding excessive amounts of red meat and wine, a landmark study has revealed.

The World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) said the link between body fat and cancer is closer than generally realized.

It found convincing evidence of a link to six types of cancer, five more than in its last report, 10 years ago.

Among the new types are colorectal (bowel) and post-menopausal breast cancer.

Professor Michael Marmot, chair of the panel of 21 eminent scientists who compiled the report, said: "We are recommending that people aim to be as lean as possible within the healthy range, and that they avoid weight gain throughout adulthood."

The report, which selected 7,000 studies from a worldwide pool of 500,000 written since records began in the 1960s, includes five key findings.

They are that processed meats, such as ham and bacon, increase the risk of colorectal cancer, and should be eaten sparingly.

Another is the link between red meat and colorectal cancer, for which the evidence is stronger than ever. People should not eat more than 500g of cooked red meat a week -- or between 700g and 750g for "blue" or uncooked meat.

A further finding was the strongest evidence yet that alcohol is a cause of cancer. If people must drink, the report said, they should limit their intake to two units a day for a man or one for a woman. A unit is a half pint of beer or a small glass of wine.

The report recommended mothers breastfeed exclusively for the first six months after birth followed by complementary breastfeeding, after evidence showed breastfeeding protects the mother against breast cancer.

It did not recommend dietary supplements as prevention.

"This report is a real milestone in the fight against cancer, because its recommendations represent the most definitive advice on preventing cancer that has ever been available anywhere in the world," said Professor Martin Wiseman, project director of the report.

Scientists believe there are several reasons for the link between body fat and cancer.

One is the relationship between excess fat and the hormonal balance in the body.

Research has shown that fat cells release hormones such as estrogen, which increases the risk of breast cancer, while fat around the waist encourages the body to produce growth hormones, which can increase levels of risk.

Evidence of a link is most convincing for cancer of the esophagus, pancreas, colorectum, endometrium (womb), kidney and post-menopausal breast cancer.

The report makes 10 recommendations including 30 minutes of moderate activity a day, rising to 60 minutes; drinking water rather than sugary drinks; eating fruit, vegetables and fiber and limiting salt consumption.

The WCRF report can be found at: http://www.dietandcancerreport.org/

Fruit compound fights head and neck cancer

By Tan Ee Lyn, Tue Oct 16, 2007 5:57am EDT

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Lupeol, a compound in fruits like mangoes, grapes and strawberries, appears to be effective in killing and curbing the spread of cancer cells in the head and neck, a study in Hong Kong has found.

An experiment with mice showed lupeol worked most effectively with chemotherapy drugs and had almost no side effects, scientists at the University of Hong Kong said in a report published in the September issue of the journal Cancer Research.

"It can suppress the movement of cancer cells and suppress their growth and it is found to be even more effective than conventional drugs (eg. cisplatin)," said Anthony Yuen, a professor at the University of Hong Kong's surgery department.

"It's even more effective if we combine it with chemotherapy drugs, and has very little side effects," he said.

The team plans another round of animal test and hopes to proceed eventually to human clinical trials, though it would not commit itself to a timeframe.

Head and neck cancers involve cancers of the nose, oral cavity, throat, voice box, thyroid and salivary glands and they more commonly afflict Asians than Westerners.

Read whole article ....

Overweight elderly don't have higher death rates

Reuters, Thu Jun 28, 2:44 PM ET

After the age of 80, carrying a few extra pounds may not subtract years from your lifespan, a new study from Japan shows.

Among a group of 80-year-olds followed for four years, the researchers found that underweight individuals were more likely to die from cancer, heart disease or pneumonia than normal-weight or overweight people. "Overweight status was associated with longevity and underweight with short life," Dr. Yutaka Takata and colleagues from Kyushu Dental College in Kitakyushu City conclude.

While being overweight has been tied to a greater risk of heart disease, studies have also found that being underweight with heart disease may carry an increased risk of morbidity and mortality, Takata and his team note.

To better understand the controversial relationship between body mass index (BMI) and mortality from heart disease, as well as all-cause mortality, the researchers looked at men and women who were 80-years-old.

Fifty-two were underweight, with an average BMI of 17.2; another 468 were normal-weight, with BMIs averaging 21.8; and 155 were overweight, with an average BMI of 27.3. Just five people in the study were obese (with a BMI of 30 or greater), so they were included in the overweight group. People with BMIs between 18.5 and 25 are considered normal weight, while individuals with BMIs of 25 or greater are classified as overweight.

Mortality rates from heart disease, pneumonia and cancer for normal-weight and overweight individuals weren't significantly different, the researchers found. But underweight men and women were nearly four times as likely to die from any cause compared with as overweight individuals, and nearly 18 times more likely to die from cancer. Heart disease mortality in the underweight group was almost four times greater than among normal-weight individuals.

Other studies have found a protective effect of extra pounds among older individuals, Takata and his colleagues note; for example, among elderly US men, the lowest mortality is seen among men with BMIs of 26 and among women with BMIs of 29.6. While Takata and his colleagues attempted to control for the effects of illness, it is still possible that existing disease accounted for some of the increased mortality risk seen among the underweight individuals, they note.

"It is likely that only mild obesity (but not severe obesity) or overweight status in older people and in patients with heart disease may be associated with a lower mortality rate from any disease, as well as with lower mortality from cardiovascular disease," the researchers conclude.

SOURCE: Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, June 2007.

Tea drinkers may have lower skin cancer risk

Fri May 4, 2007 2:07PM EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - People who unwind with a cup of tea every night may have a lower risk of two common forms of skin cancer, new research suggests.

IIn a study of nearly 2,200 adults, researchers found that tea drinkers had a lower risk of developing squamous cell or basal cell carcinoma, the two most common forms of skin cancer.

Men and women who had ever been regular tea drinkers -- having one or more cups a day -- were 20 percent to 30 percent less likely to develop the cancers than those who didn't drink tea.

The effect was even stronger among study participants who'd been tea fans for decades, as well as those who regularly had at least two cups a day, according to findings published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology.

However, the findings do not mean it's okay to bake in the sun as long as you have a cup of tea afterward. The researchers found no evidence that tea drinking lowered skin cancer risk in people who'd accumulated painful sunburns in the past.

Nor did the study look at the relationship between tea drinking and malignant melanoma, the least common but most deadly form of skin cancer.

Still, the findings support the theory that tea antioxidants may limit the damage UV radiation inflicts on the skin, according to the study authors, led by Dr. Judy R. Rees of Dartmouth Medical School in Lebanon, New Hampshire.

In particular, a tea antioxidant known as EGCG has been shown to reduce burning on UV-exposed skin.

The current findings are based on interviews with 770 New Hampshire residents with basal cell carcinoma, 696 with squamous cell carcinoma, and 715 cancer-free men and women the same age.

Tea consumption was linked to a lower skin cancer risk, even with factors such as age, skin type and history of severe burns considered. However, tea drinkers who'd suffered multiple painful burns in the past did not have a lower risk of skin cancer.

It's possible, the researchers explain, that the antioxidants in tea are enough to limit skin damage caused by moderate sun exposure, but not the "more extreme" effects of sun exposure, such as cancer-promoting damage to the DNA in skin cells.

SOURCE: Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, May 2007.

Cocoa 'could beat the Big Four'

Manchester Evening News, 12/ 3/2007

A COMPOUND found in cocoa could reduce the risk from killer diseases such as cancer, stroke, diabetes and heart failure.

Norman Hollenberg, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, said the compound epicatechin had been shown to have huge health benefits.

He has spent years studying the benefits of cocoa-drinking on the Kuna people in Panama, central America, Chemistry and Industry magazine reported.

He found the risk of the four diseases was less than 10 per cent there. The people drink up to 40 cups a week of cocoa which has high levels of epicatechin.

Prof Hollenberg said: "We all agree that penicillin and anaesthesia are enormously important. But epicatechin could potentially get rid of four of the five most common diseases in the western world.

"How important does that make epicatechin? I would say very important."