I thought I would post about two recent Science Daily articles today, as I continue to read about and research other topics.

The first (http://tinyurl.com/cu7a6x) is titled “Omega-3 Kills Cancer Cells”…intriguing, wouldn’t you say? The article discusses specifically the omega-3 acid known as DHA, or docosahexaenoic acid. It is contained in fish oil but not flaxseed oil (which instead contains alpha-linolenic acid, related to DHA but not the same thing). See this Mayo Clinic write-up: http://tinyurl.com/3c7298 A vegetarian source of DHA is seaweed, as I recall.

Well, it turns out that not only does DHA kill solid tumor cells on its own, it also enhances the killing effects of the chemo drug cisplatin, while limiting its harmful side effects. Chemopreventive, huh? Good stuff!

The Science Daily article is an interesting read, please go have a look. It reminded me that I really must look into maximum tolerated fish oil doses. As of now, I take 2 grams of fish oil (capsule form) a day. The studies I found this morning, after a quick bit of preliminary research, show that much higher doses have been tested and found to be okay. Hmmm. Does anyone here take more than 2 grams of fish oil a day?

The second article (http://tinyurl.com/d2hhuq) tells us that drinking very hot tea—70° or more, Celsius (thanks, Brad)—increases our risk of developing throat cancer. Now, I am not a tea drinker, I confess, but I am sure that a lot of you are, so I thought I would post about this study, carried out in northern Iran, which has one of the highest rates of oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma, or OSCC, in the world. Hot tea drinking is widespread in that region. While the study findings are not supposed to alarm us (or tea-selling companies, either, I guess…), they do suggest that we let our very hot food and drinks cool down a bit before swallowing. Four minutes is the minimum recommended amount of waiting time.

An excerpt from the SD article: Compared with drinking warm or lukewarm tea (65°C or less), drinking hot tea (65-69°C) was associated with twice the risk of oesophageal cancer, and drinking very hot tea (70°C or more) was associated with eight-fold increased risk. Likewise, compared with drinking tea four or more minutes after being poured, drinking tea less than two minutes after pouring was associated with a five-fold higher risk. There was no association between the amount of tea consumed and risk of cancer.

Well, two studies that give us a bit to ponder over today.