From the first moment my wife discovered
she had breast cancer, there was a deafening silence from the men I know. Even
ones whose wives, mothers or girlfriends had breast cancer seemed to have
received a gag order from some Central Cancer Command and did little more than
mumble about the experience. Not one to shut up for any known reason, I started
this blog…
Every month, I’ll be highlighting breast
cancer research that is going on RIGHT NOW! Harvested from different websites,
journals and podcasts, I’ll translate them into understandable English and
share them with you. Today: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/04/130425091345.htm
(Yeah, I know, this seems to be the site
that highlights cutting edge breast cancer research – there’s SO much more
there, you should put it on your Favorites Bar and check it often! If you don’t
get something, I CAN translate (BS in biology, 33 years of experience teaching
science of all sorts, to kids of all sorts…from astronomy to zoology. I CAN
help!)
As they said in
the old Monty Python and His Flying Circus, “And now for something completely
different.”
It sounds like a
“joke” – and I’m sure there are mitigating circumstances – but the headline says
it all!
COFFEE MAY HELP
PREVENT BREAST CANCER RETURNING, STUDY
FINDS!
The data are
there. They echo similar studies reported in 2011 – though that study cautioned: “We
suggest that this may have something to do with the way the coffee was
prepared, or the type of bean preferred. It is unlikely that the protective
effect is due to phytoestrogens present in coffee since there was no reduction
in the incidence of ER-positive cancer in this study.
"So while it is evident that coffee may have beneficial effects in protecting women from ER negative breast cancer the exact mechanism and compounds involved are not yet clear and not all types of coffee are the same.”
While this will
probably make the people who read it smile and shake their heads (that’s what I
did), I wonder if my reaction to this news is a comment on the depth of my
sadness when it comes to thinking about breast cancer. Do I ask myself, “How
can anything as fun as a cup of coffee be a good against something as
horrendous as breast cancer?”
Maybe I could
lighten up a bit on myself, eh?
In A GRIEF OBSERVED (a book by CS Lewis I commented on in this post: http://breastcancerreaper.blogspot.com/2013/07/random-thoughts-on-breast-cancer.html), he says, “The best is perhaps what we understand the least.”
Coffee helps prevent breast cancer’s return? I don’t understand it. Neither do the researchers –but let’s toast it joyfully anyway – with coffee cups!
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