Diet, Talcum Powder and Fibroids
First, a disclaimer: Tim spent nearly a decade with Johnson & Johnson as a Global Director for Information Management from 1998 to 2007. During most of Tim’s tenure J&J seemed above-board. Whether J&J is guilty of hiding knowledge that linked talc to cancer is for the legal system and individual consumers to decide. Tim has no financial connection with or investments in J&J.
It is especially interesting in this segment from Michael Greger, MD of NutritionFacts.org that he starts with the benefits of real food (e.g., real fruits and vegetables, not juices or supplements) and eventually ties together diet, talcum powder and fibroids.
There simply must be more research on the benefits from real food and real healthcare organizations must engage non-clinical decisions that determine 80% or more of our health. Social determinants like “food deserts” that continue to vex both minority populations and mainstream consumers need correction. Going back to the HealthCare Too holistic health approach, there is high (potential and recognized) benefit from nutrition that comes with very low risks and costs.
If you randomly select a group of women and ultrasound their uterus, the majority of them have fibroid tumors by age 50. And by most, I mean, more than 80% of black women, and about nearly 70% of white women. Half of white women already have fibroids by their early 40s, and the same could be said for African-American women in their mid-30s.
After getting over the shock of how widespread fibroids are, the next question becomes, why the racial disparity? Is it “diet, stress,…environmental exposures”? Maybe, whatever it is could offer a clue as to what causes fibroids. For example, African-Americans tend to have a “lower intake…of fruits [and] vegetables,” and fruits and vegetables appear protective against fibroids—particularly citrus, here in the Black Women’s Health Study; though not, apparently, just citrus juice.
It’s interesting; if you measure the levels of beta-carotene in fresh surgical tissue samples of uterine fibroids, and “adjacent normal [uterus tissue] obtained” during hysterectomies, you find “significantly…lower” concentrations in the fibroids. In fact, beta-carotene was not even detectable in half the fibroid specimens. The same thing is actually found in cancer. Most cancerous tissues tested had undetectable levels of beta carotene, compared to the normal tissue right next to the tumor. So, maybe “decreased levels of [beta]-carotene” somehow play a role in causing these conditions?
Source: Talcum Powder and Fibroids | NutritionFacts.org
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