LIFESTYLE AND CANCER: TO GAIN RESPECT, YOU GIVE RESPECT

LIFESTYLE AND CANCER

While the MORTALITY (death) from cancer has declined in the USA (Treatment and Early diagnosis), the incidence (new cases, lack of prevention, lack of knowledge) is increasing.

"An increasing number of new cases that are more associated with reproductive, dietary and hormonal factors."  (Lancet, May 2012)

And of course we have the Epidemiologists who have no understanding of the context of lifestyle but blame lifestyle, those troubadours of tragedy, would tell us that it is the race or genes that is the reason.

The mean adjusted incidence rates were three times higher in Porto Alegre than in Fortaleza both for men (25.1 vs. 8.6/100 thousand) and women (19.9 vs. 7.1/100 thousand). This rise in incidence rates may be due to early cancer detection strategies, lifestyle changes, and alterations in the population age structure. A population profile similar to that of developed countries may explain the higher incidence rates in Porto Alegre. 

Several migrant studies have documented that cancer rates in successive generations of migrants shift in the direction of the prevailing rates in the host country, suggesting that the international variations in cancer rates for most cancers largely reflect differences in environmental risk factors (including lifestyle and culture) rather than genetic differences.

(Porto Alegre in Rio Grande do sul in southern Brasil has much more people of European origin than indigenous, black or mixed. I remember fondly a glass of wine I shared with a local fellow Jewish doctor, Moacyr Skliar, who is a well known writer of Novels. The autographed copy I have is: A Majestade do Xingu)

(recently a Quarup, a ceremony to honour ancestors was done at the Parque nacional do Xingu to honour the great Brasilian Anthropologist Darcy Ribeiro)

The increase in the incidence rates in several Asian and Eastern European countries and Spain is thought to reflect changes in dietary and lifestyle factors associated with westernization, including smoking and obesity For example, in some Eastern European countries such as the Czech Republic, nearly 60% of men are current cigarette smokers and more than 25% of adults are obese.

So it would be interesting to speculate what role nutrition plays in all that, it is obvious that that which makes you fat has chemical harmful to your cells. Are there things in the nature that are healing agents for this damage? Of course there are, studies will show that Japanese drink green tea and have lesser prevalence of many cancers.

Everything has to be done WHOLE rather than just one thing at a time. Cinnamon may bring down your blood sugar but certainly, cinnamon is not the treatment for Diabetes!

The rapid increase in cancers in the developing world point out to a shift from a local traditional way of life or the so called lifestyle to the one more resembling a western lifestyle, but without the benefits of being western. Many nerds in India and wannabees in Indonesia and Malaysia and Singapore think that eating Hamburgers and drinking Starbucks makes you western, no my dear, read Gilles de Leuze and some other philosophers to understand the western mind!

In Brasil like in many of these emerging nations, there is a long tradition of traditional medicine, using herbs and leaves and roots. In Northeast Brasil rich as they are in folk history and folk illnesses (nervos for example), there is a tree Pau de Oleo that is consumed with the belief that it is good for the health. Some researchers had done some biochemical studies on rats and this is what they found.

Chemopreventive effect of Copaifera langsdorffii leaves hydroalcoholic extract on 1,2-dimethylhydrazine-induced DNA damage and preneoplastic lesions in rat colon

Juliana Marques Senedese, Jacqueline Morais Alves, Ildercílio Mota Lima, Erick Augusto de Andrade, Ricardo Andrade Furtado, Jairo Kenupp Bastos and Denise Crispim Tavares

·        

BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine 2013, 13:3 doi:10.1186/1472-6882-13-3

Published: 7 January 2013

Abstract (provisional)

Background

Natural antioxidants present in common foods and beverages have drawn great attention to cancer prevention due to its health benefits, remarkable lack of toxicity and side effects. Copaifera langsdorffii, known as "copaiba", "capaiva", or "pau-de-oleo", belongs to the Leguminosae family and occurs in fields and grasslands in the northern and northeastern parts of Brazil. Biological studies of Copaifera corroborate its widespread use by the population. This paper describes the effects of C. langsdorffii leaves hydroalcoholic extract on the 1,2-dimethylhydrazine (DMH)-induced DNA damage and aberrant crypt foci (ACF) in the colon of male Wistar rats.

Methods

The hydroalcoholic extract of C. langsdorffii was administered to rats by gavage at daily doses of 20, 40 and 80 mg/kg body weight. To evaluate DNA damage by the comet assay, animals received the C. langsdorffii extract for seven days and a single subcutaneous injection (sc) of 1,2-dimethylhydrazine (DMH) at a dose of 40 mg/kg on day 7. Animals were sacrificed 4 h after injection of DMH, to assess DNA damage. For the ACF assay, animals were acclimatized for one week (week 1) and then treated with the C. langsdorffii extract five times a week for four weeks (weeks 2 to 5). The rats received sc injections of DMH (40 mg/kg) on days 2 and 5 of weeks 2 and 3, to induce ACF. Animals were euthanized at week 5; i.e., four weeks after the first DMH treatment.

Results

Animals treated with different doses of the C. langsdorffii extract combined with DMH had significantly lower frequency of DNA damage as compared with the positive control (animals treated with DMH only). The percentage of reduction in the frequency of DNA damage ranged from 17.30% to 40.45%. The groups treated with 40 and 80 mg/kg C. langsdorffii extract during and after DMH treatment presented significantly lower numbers of ACF and aberrant crypts compared with the control.

Conclusion

The C. langsdorffii extract significantly reduced the extent of DNA damage and ACF induced by DMH, suggesting that the extract has a protective effect against colon carcinogenesis.

It is important to respect the indigenous knowledge of the people, before the arrogance of our medical training force upon them hardly proven therapies! American Indians have repeatedly said: these outsider doctors (meaning non Indian) think that we have no knowledge and do not respect what we have.

To Gain Respect, You have to give Respect.

RITUALS AND THE DISAPPEARANCE OF LIMINALITY : JANUARY 2013

It was on the first few days of a fresh New Year in la Habana, when someone introduced me to Augusto Monterroso and the line, which hangs in my memory like a pleasant fragrance.

Cuando despertó, el dinosaurio todavía estaba allí.

When I woke up (he or she), the Dinosaur was still there.

I am in another continent preparing for a journey to the Indians of North America.

When I woke up, The Contentment was still there.

Liminality is a term we use a lot in Anthropology, a concept very helpful in explaining many of life’s constantly changing situations.

Noun, Anthropology.

The transitional period or phase of a rite of passage, during which the participant lacks social status or rank, remains anonymous.

The concept of liminality was first developed in the early 20th century by anthropologist Arnold van Gennep and later taken up by Victor Turner. More recently, usage of the term has broadened to describe political and cultural change as well as rituals. During liminal periods of all kinds, social hierarchies may be reversed or temporarily dissolved, continuity of tradition may become uncertain, and future outcomes once taken for granted may be thrown into doubt. The dissolution of order during liminality creates a fluid, malleable situation that enables new institutions and customs to become established. The term has also passed into popular usage, where it is applied much more broadly, undermining its significance to some extent.

I have been aware of Liminality from an earlier stage:  Jewish, Brown Skinned, White Continent, unsure of future or career. Then I discovered travel that is a perfect place for a liminal person! You are neither there nor here. I love Airports and their lounges to this day. You are anonymous, you don't belong to the country where the airport is but you are comfortable in the lounge of that airport.

Going through education in four different countries and then returning to more, I am always aware, acutely, when a liminal situation presents itself. And it takes time to resolve.

Fortunately just a matter of days rather than longer periods as is customary in many other people’s lives.

This year I have been waiting for, as predicted by the Blind Astrologer of Madras. But I was not prepared for the strength of liminality of such a situation. I sought the counsel of some long lost friends and other lovers, but they couldn't help me as they were mired on their own myopic worlds, possibly resolving their own Liminality!

When I teach Anthropology at the University of Havana, I stress and talk about Rites du passage and Liminality (grateful for Professor Ronnie Frankenberg who taught me this) and the students ask me: How can we minimalize the trauma of Liminal Period?

I sought the American Indians for an answer, and they had the answer.

Rituals

When you think about it, after all life changing liminal periods such as Puberty, Marriage and Birth and Death are accompanied by rituals.

As are the modern Graduations, Promotions etc.

We have forgotten much of our rituals since the Revolution, I told the students because liminality in the society had changed dramatically. And for us as individuals we all have identified rituals that are suitable to our lives and our personalities.

No point for me during this liminal period to resort to rituals belonging to any other culture or any other personality other than my own.

The market was busy, fresh fish was available, as were organic grown vegetables and fruits. Bar in French or Bass in English is a white fish. You buy the fish and they fillet it for you. 

Invite some friends, get the champagne ready.

Put in a call to my sister in Miami, who gave me advice on preparations adding that coconut milk and mild green curry would be an addition to the taste.

Fresh fillet of fish wrapped in aluminium foil, along with multitudes of vegetables; a ratatouille prepared of the morning’s vegetables…

Setting of the table, selection of cutlery, glasses and plates. Candles.

I know in my heart that this is a ritual that is close to my heart having done this many a time, after coming of age in Australia. In Baracoa it was almost a daily ritual, where preparing and drinking Cuba Libre was more often an event than formal dinners.

As if the mist was clearing out of a forgotten memory, as the evening progressed, my mind became calmer and the anxiety of the liminality began disappearing.

When I woke up this morning, I remembered Augusto Monterosso and said to myself:

When I woke up, my old self of content and happiness was still there.

INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE: NOSTALGIA FOR NAMIBIA

INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE: NOSTALGIA FOR NAMIBIA

When I was reading Anthropology at London, had a chance to visit the San people of Tsumkwe on four different occasions. Having intimate knowledge of some other ancient peoples of this earth, I could see great parallels, but those parallels were mainly about oppression, Christianisation, coco-colonization and poverty: didn't matter who was perpetuating it, whether White, Black or people claiming to be indigenous.

I have been fortunate enough to spend long periods of time with American Indians whose ancient knowledge is given to you as if by osmosis. No formal teaching, but they convey the message to you. I was lucky that my first teacher from Meskwakia had warned me and I had taken her warning to heart:

Show Respect to each and every Indian, if you can love them, it would be even better.

Air Namibia’s lone, ageing 747 takes off from London and makes its way south to Windhoek. The book with me on that trip was one by Laurence van der Post. Never before or after have I found a write with such an understanding of the Indigenous mind and ways of thinking

Benedict Allen had written:

his appeal as a writer amounted to more than his achievement in depicting a defunct lifestyle. "We need primitive nature, the First Man in ourselves, it seems, as the lungs need air and the body food and water," he had written, and we saw in the Bushmen evidence that the widening gap between modern, western man and his primitive past was a cause of our spiritual and moral decay. Van der Post's friendship with the psychoanalyst Carl Jung explains another element of his thinking. "Men had lost their capacity to dream ..." he reflected after the second world war. "I knew that somehow the world had to be set dreaming again." For Van der Post, the Bushmen were gatekeepers to the unconscious: "I sought to understand imaginatively the primitive in ourselves, and in this search the Bushman has always been for me a kind of frontier guide."

I remember a line ..Why do the outsiders so dislike and hate the Indigenous people?

After many years of travel among many Indigenous groups, I realized that question to be universal.. Why do others hate this innocent man-child?

LvdP provided the answer.. They resent the loss of the innocence of beginning, this closeness to the original creation of God…and then he added, Only when the outsiders begin to show respect for the Indigenous peoples, and understand that they have something to contribute, will the welfare of them get better.

On the last day of December, I was overcome with nostalgia for Jhu/Hoansi San whom I had visited. The Clinic, the Kavango policemen, children doing the tsamma melon dance, Nisa, the middle aged lady who had been filmed since her birth, now turned into an alcoholic. The Peace Corps men and women with their Christian zeal and coca cola bottles.

Soon I was watching a documentary on the very same people I had contacted, and two of the academics appeared also: Meagan Biesele and Robert Hitchcock, both of whom I had the pleasure of meeting in the USA.

Dr Biesele was echoing what LvdP had said very many years earlier (she had worked more than 30 years with San). when the western world realize that the San has some knowledge that is valuable to them, the self esteem of the San would increase.

Following the Australian model of Papunya, the San artists have begun to put down on paper their symbolic stories, and the project seems to be headed for similar success.

My favourite museum in Paris, for obvious reasons is Musee Quai d Branley, one of the nicest anthropological museums in the world.. (In Mexico city, the magnificent collections are about Los Indios, in Kuching, the Sarawak Museum has excellent displays of life in Borneo, Heard Museum has Native American artefacts, even went to one in San Juan, in Argentina!)

And it cannot be a coincidence the special display was about Papunya and the aboriginal paintings… that began only in the 1970s and 1980s and now has brought them respect, self-government and cash flow and tribal prosperity.

It was amazing to see the paintings with clarity of a bird’s eye view of the landscape. American Indians always remind me, Eagle flies high and has a good vision of what is underneath.

Look what Lame Deer of the Lakota had to say:

	"I believe that being a medicine man, more than anything else, is a state of mind, a way of looking at and understanding this earth, a sense of what it is all about."
	-- Lame Deer, LAKOTA
	The Medicine Wheel explains different ways of looking at the world. The four directions are the East, the South, the West, and the North. In the East is the view of the eagle. The eagle flies high and sees the earth from that point of view. The South is the direction of the mouse. Moving on the earth, the mouse will not see what the eagle sees. Both the eagle and the mouse see the truth. The West is the direction of the bear. The bear will see different from the mouse and the eagle. From the North comes the point of view of the bison. To be a Medicine Man you must journey through all points of view and develop the mind to see the interconnectedness of all four directions. This takes time, patience, and an open mind. Eventually, you understand there is only love.

I am forever grateful that I had a chance to know American Indians. Australian Aboriginals and San Bushmen. And visit many others in India, Malaysia, Finland, and most of the Americas (warao, macusi, mapuche etc etc).

I am preparing to leave for the American Indians via London (Bar Italia where once I sat reading Laurence Van der Post)… I miss their physical presence in my life…

(the above picture taken, just before giving a presentation to the HoCank Indians : Learning from our Ancestors, which is available as a slide show on the top right hand side of this blog)

For the San, hope I can re connect with Bob Hitchcock and Meagan Biesele and who knows it would be nice to drivE east from Grootefontein towards Tsumkwe and the Botswana border.

THE YEAR 2013 HAS BEGUN WELL

There are always some Constant Stars in my skies: American Indians
Cuba
Family in Miami

The new star for 2012 was certainly PJ and Indonesia.
Malaysia, Myanmar, India and Iran  faded into the background, while Cambodia maintained its lustre.

I am looking forward to 2013..
Have started the year eating well.. a very typical French meal, with Champagne of course..

Looking forward to London, which will once again see me often there, reliving those days of an Anthropology Student..
A good meal has already been promised.. that is a nice start indeed..

Exciting is the planning for a Mind Body Health Project for Less Fortunate People in the Society in Bogor Indonesia...

Two places I would like to return to:
Tsumkwe, Namibia
Buenos aires, Argentina..

As the poet once said: what all happens in the course of a day..
Nothing happens without a reason, say the Indians. In the distant Cayman Islands, my good friends had dinner last night with some people who have same destinations as me...ah well..

I need to be with American Indians, never wish to be too long away from their counsel... to feel humble before their ancient knowledge..