The Effect Of Environmental Factors, Emotional Support, Exercise And Food On Breast Cancer - New Book

Main Category: Breast Cancer
Also Included In: Cancer / Oncology;  Psychology / Psychiatry;  Nutrition / Diet
Article Date: 15 Oct 2008 - 1:00 PST

email to a friend   printer friendly   view / write opinions   rate article

Dr David Servan-Schreiber's book Anticancer shows what influences breast cancer, reporting on a number of published studies:

• The risk of developing breast cancer may be 9 times greater in people dealing with an emotional and psychological challenge

• The loss of an important emotional relationship doubles the risk of breast cancer. Break-ups and painful divorces are more directly correlated with cancer than the death of a spouse

• Regular practice of physical exercise reduces the risk of relapse by 50-60% - comparable to the powerful effects of chemotherapy

• The risk of breast cancer can be halved by simply reducing the consumption of red meat

At the age of 31 David Servan-Schreiber was a rising neuroscientist with his own laboratory and funding for brain imaging. During the course of testing new brain imaging equipment, he discovered a tumour the size of a walnut lodged in his own brain. This pioneering book is the culmination of his experience in the field of cancer both as a doctor and as a patient - he has now kept cancer at bay for seven years. He tells his personal story and the cases he has encountered, alongside focusing on the disease and its mechanisms from a purely scientific and medical angle. He looks at the relationship between a body and its cancer, at the immune system, the new blood vessels necessary for cancer growth, and the roles played by nutrition, environmental toxins, emotions and physical activity in containing cancer.

Servan-Schreiber explains:

• How exactly foods like green tea, mushrooms, berries, dark chocolate and red wine act to support the immune system and actively fight cancer cells (and that sugar literally feeds cancer)

• How stress isn't bad for us - it's our response to stress that is crucial. It is feelings of helplessness and lack of support that are extremely harmful

• How to develop a science-based Anticancer diet: small changes that make a big difference

• The effects of environmental toxins and the top household products to replace

The book comes with a pocket guide reproducing all the key information and an Anticancer shopping list to enable readers to easily check what foods to eat and what to avoid - detailing foods that specifically inhibit cell growth in certain cancers.

This truly groundbreaking, positive book is currently a New York Times bestseller and has been a bestseller around the world. In it, Dr David Servan-Schreiber makes the most compelling and inspiring case for playing a crucial part in your own health. 'Everyday at every meal we can choose food that will defend out bodies against the invasion of cancer.'

About Dr David Servan-Schreiber

David Servan-Schreiber, is a French-born psychiatrist and neuroscientist who is clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and confounded the Centre for Integrative Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre.

He co-directed for several years a US National Institutes of Health lab for the study of clinical cognitive neuroscience and functional neuroimaging and he has published more than 90 scientific monographs, and lectured at leading international academic centres, including Stanford, Columbia, Cornell and Cambridge.

One of the original seven members of the US board of Doctors Without Borders, he helped provide medical and psychiatric relief in Kurdistan, Guatemala, India (Tibetan refugees), Tajikistan and Kosovo, and continues to develop mental health interventions for victims of crises, while also training therapists in crisis areas.

The son of famous French journalist and politician Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber (former editor of L'Express, author of "The American Challenge"), Servan-Schreiber wrote The Instinct to Heal, which has sold 1.3 million copies world wide and has been translated into 28 languages.

"Anticancer: A New Way of Life"
David Servan-Schreiber
Paperback (Penguin Books) £14.99
-- Details in Amazon.co.uk
-- Details in Amazon.com

Source
Becke Parker
Penguin Group (UK)