All in good fun…

May 21, 2008 / / 4 Comments

This is probably going to be one of those “you had to be there” stories, but here goes anyway.

On Friday three of Stefano’s colleagues/friends came over for dinner. Okay, correction: of the three, only one still works in his office. The other two are former colleagues who transferred to the company where I teach English. They are both students of mine. Anyway, it was a very enjoyable evening, even though they talked mostly about work-related stuff and other colleagues that I haven’t met yet. As usual, the meal that chef Stefano prepared was fantastic.

Part of the enjoyment was due to the fact that Stefano and I were able to pull off a joke. As follows.

As I often do now, I had baked two loaves of bread with rosemary (see my post/page on acrylamide) and other herbs from our organic garden. Toward the end of dinner, managing to keep a straight face, I casually asked the women if they liked the bread since we were trying out a new bakery…

Colleague A answered immediately that it was delicious and that she had enjoyed it very much. Colleague B answered that it was very good but a bit salty (very true, I had exaggerated a tad with the salt this time). Colleague C instead screwed up her nose and answered that, even though she hadn’t yet tasted the bread (!), it looked a bit moldy to her.

MOLDY?!!!

Pointing to my precious chopped up herbs, she said, yes, look at all these little green things, what are they? Her actual words in the Tuscan dialect were mah, senti, a me un mi piace ippane che sembra sc’abbia la muffina…icchè sono ‘sti aggeggini verdi?

Stefano and I glanced at each other and began roaring with laughter. After he had somewhat recovered his composure, he explained to our rather baffled guests that I had made the bread. Yes, yes, with my own hands. They were all sooo surprised, even though my reputation as a baker is well known (every year, Stefano’s colleagues receive packets of my U.S. Xmas cookies, and I frequently prepare sweet goodies for my students).

Well, Colleague C was absolutely mortified. A look of (mock) terror settled on her face as soon as she realized that, because of this faux pas, she might flunk her upcoming English exam (hehe…I confess I got some mileage out of that one…).

In an attempt to “mollify” me, she began stuffing my “moldy” bread into her mouth and raving about how tasty it was. She announced that she wanted to take the rest of my bread home and spread Nutella (a popular Italian chocolate-hazelnut cream) all over it. Nutella on rosemary/sage/thyme/origano/moldy bread…hmmm, not quite sure about that combination.

The saga continues. Yesterday at work I discovered that the moldy bread story had made the rounds of the office. Colleague C, a very funny young woman with a good sense of humour, had told everyone what had happened on Friday evening.

She greeted me with an enthusiastic review of my bread and declared that it was the BEST part of the dinner, the best bread she had EVER tasted and would I please make some more so she could take it home to her family. She went a bit overboard. She had even done all of her English homework and more besides. I, of course, was much amused.

But I wasn’t finished with her quite yet. Over the weekend I had chosen and prepared a short text in English on the topic of, you guessed it!, “mold.” I knew she wouldn’t recognize the word, and I deliberately made sure that the text wouldn’t give her any easy clues as to its meaning. During our lesson, I told her that she needed to practice reading English out loud and handed her the…moldy text. She diligently read the first two paragraphs (containing words that were very difficult to pronounce, hehe), then got a bit suspicious and asked me what “mold” meant in Italian.

Ahhh, how I enjoyed the look on her face when I translated the word for her. More laughter.

Later that morning, my other students begged me to be lenient toward Colleague C. This was all done in good fun, of course. They know me well enough by now and, truth be told, Colleague C is my best student. And a wonderful smart and cheerful person, too.

Besides, and even more importantly, she made me laugh more than once, and that alone is worth a whole lot more than a good mark on an exam.

It doesn’t cure death, but…

May 20, 2008 / / 3 Comments

Today’s Science Daily (http://tinyurl.com/42pofz) has an interesting report on Nigella sativa, also known as black cumin. The black cumin seed plant is a member of the buttercup family and is a highly regarded medicinal plant in Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

This is not news to me. I wrote a post in September of 2007 about Nigella sativa titled “A cure for every disease except death.” If you need a memory refresher, just click on my black cumin page on the right side of your screen.

Back to Science Daily. Researchers at Thomas Jefferson University recently discovered that an extract of Nigella sativa, called thymoquinone, blocked pancreatic cancer cell growth and killed the cells via apoptosis.

After adding thymoquinone to pancreatic cancer cells, the researchers observed increased levels of p53 and Bax, both cancer cell killers, as well as decreased levels of Bcl-2, a protein that instead blocks apoptosis. For more technical details please go read the article.

So even though I am working on a different topic right now, this article motivated me to have a quick look around to see what else I could find.

An interesting abstract published in 2006 (see: http://tinyurl.com/4srow5) deals with the effects of Nigella sativa on rats who had been injected with cadmium. Well, the rats that were treated also with Nigella sativa fared much better than the others: their red and white blood cell counts and haemoglobin were higher, for instance. This is actually the real reason I decided to mention this study: if your haemoglobin and red and white blood cell counts are low, you might consider taking this supplement. Nigella sativa also increased the lowered insulin levels and neutrophils of the rats, and decreased their elevated heart rate and glucose concentration. So, good stuff!

Since Sherlock and I have been doing our experiments together, I have stopped taking Nigella sativa. But I will resume taking it over the summer as soon as our current experiment ends. My RBC and WBC counts are low, albeit still within the normal range. My haemoglobin is also within the normal range but I would love to bring it up a bit.

Hmmm, I just read that black cumin seeds are a good source of iron, as you can see here: http://tinyurl.com/3vvs5m. Well, well…WELL!

Beware of dangling toys!

May 18, 2008 / / 2 Comments

This morning I was awakened by a noise that no cat lover ever wants to hear: the bloodcurdling screams of one of my cats. I flew downstairs like a puffin (Stefano was taking a shower and heard nothing, by the way).

The first thing I saw in our living room was Priscilla, my second youngest, perched on the armchair and looking extremely upset. And just behind her I saw my little Peekaboo, whose claws had gotten stuck in one of those blasted furry toys attached to one of the cats’ scratching posts. Her howls of pain almost paralyzed me.

Now, we are normally super careful with cat toys. We have all sorts of cat wands and bright-coloured fluffy toys attached to strings, but once playtime is over (usually when we get tired), the toys get put safely away. We never ever leave out anything that might be dangerous to our cats’ wellbeing. Even a piece of string can be dangerous…or a plastic shopping bag. I remember one time when Piccolo, barely more than a kitten, put his silly little head through the handle of a plastic shopping bag. His head got stuck, at which point he flipped out and began running all over the house, with a very distraught me running after him. He was so terrified that he peed all over the floor and stairs before finally managing to free himself.

Anyway, this stupid dangling toy had been dangling on the cat scratching post for ages. We had never had a problem with it.

Back to this morning’s horror scene. I rushed up to my screeching Peekaboo and tried to set her loose. She screamed even more loudly, twisting and turning her little body so that I couldn’t hold her still, and ended up biting and scratching me. My sweet gentle kitten. Well, luckily this didn’t last very long. With my help, she managed to free herself and disappeared from sight.

My other cats were totally freaked out. Puzzola, my eldest, didn’t even come downstairs for breakfast (I think she is still hiding up in the attic). Piccolo and Priscilla ate their breakfast as though there were a bloodthirsty cat monster in the room: they would take bites of food and cast terrified glances over their shoulders as though something behind them were about to gobble them up.

And Peekaboo? After hiding for a few minutes under our

bed, she came back downstairs as though nothing had happened and happily ate her breakfast on the kitchen counter (we usually discourage this type of behaviour, by the way…). She is now keeping a watchful eye on the birds flying outside my study window (see photo).

After tossing the evil dangling toy into the garbage and disinfecting my bloody hands, I was finally able to begin my Sunday morning with a nice cup of cappuccino. Phew!

April blood test results

May 14, 2008 / / 10 Comments

Just got the results of my most recent blood and urine tests (taken on April 23). These refer to the experiment with EGCG (in addition to the usual dose of curcumin and, in my case, flaxseed oil) that Sherlock and I conducted for almost two months.

Some things went up a bit, some things went down a bit. But let’s proceed in the usual order. If a value shows little or no change, I won’t bother reporting it.

Good stuff. My white blood cells are back within the normal range, phew. On Biocurcumax they had gone way down, below the minimum. My platelets have also gone up, from 254 to 281.

Serum calcium is still within the normal range but dropped to 8.8 from 9.4 (max is 10.7 mg/dL), which is good.

My inherited high cholesterol is way down. It’s not normal yet but it has gone down 10 % for the first time since last November. Yeah!

Total protein is down from 9.3 to 8.7. Still a bit on the high side (slightly above normal, that is), but going in the right direction.

Uric acid is down from 5.3 to 4.6.

Total IgG is down from 35.3 to 34.

M-spike has varied only a teensy weensy bit, from 2.45 to 2.44. But at least it didn’t INCREASE.

Bence Jones protein: negative.

Beta-2 Microglobulin went down from 2.0 to 1.8.

Bad stuff. My ferritin (iron stores) is back down to 7 from 13; the minimum is 10. Oh, bother. And my serum iron has gone from 57 to 43 (minimum is 60 ng/mL). Dear, dear. At this point, I may have to take an iron supplement.

I will talk this over with my doctor.

Albumin went down, from 49 to below the normal range (minimum is 48%). It is now 45.6. But I see that it has been lower in the past, well, on one occasion, so I guess that doesn’t worry me…too much. Hmmm.

Gamma globulin went up, from 27.9 to 31. The top end of the normal range is 22.8 %. It’s never been this high. Uffa.

The albumin/globulin ratio has dropped to 0.84 from 0.96 (minimum is 0.99).

Monoclonal component went up from 26.4 to 28.1. Drat. Not sure what this means, since the M-spike remained stable. Another question for my doctor.

I admit, I would have preferred more of a drop in the M-spike in particular. In fact, I would have liked all of my immunoglobulins to have returned to normal. But what’s the point of wishing for the impossible? After all, upon examining the good and bad list, there are more positive than negative items. I am still stable, and things seem to be moving (slowly) in the right direction…

Dunstanburgh Castle

May 13, 2008 / / 3 Comments

Today I showed some photos of our recent holiday in Northumberland to my students. They really enjoyed the photos of the puffins, of course, but they also loved the shots I took of one of my favourite castles (oh why beat around the bush? This is my most favourite castle ever!): Dunstanburgh. Its main feature is the massive twin-towered gatehouse visible from afar.

You reach Dunstanburgh Castle by following an easy trail by the sea, about a mile and a half walk from the car park located right outside the village of Craster.

What can I say about that walk? Simply stunning, even in the chilly rain, wind and mud (and sheep poo, hehe). And as you approach the castle located on a vast promontory overlooking the sea…well, the views of the coast, of the castle and of nearby fields are magical.

Even though it is now a ruin, Dunstanburgh, according to Wikipedia, was and is the largest castle in Northumberland, occupying 4.5 hectares. It’s protected on two sides by sheer cliffs and the sea, as you can sort of see in the photo on the right that I took from one of its towers (the only one that you can still climb) and in the photo below.

The castle was built in the 14th century for the Earl of Lancaster but apparently did not play a significant part in the border warfare against Scotland. It was severely damaged during the War of the Roses in the 15^th century and subsequently fell into ruin. Today it is owned by the National Trust and managed by English Heritage.

Well worth a visit. You will not be disappointed, believe me.

After visiting most of the castles in Northumberland, Stefano and I decided that we didn’t care much for the privately-owned, restored castles, even though from a distance Bamburgh Castle, also located on the coast of Northumberland, is quite a sight.

No, we liked castle ruins best of all: Edlingham and Etal, just to mention a couple.

Dunstanburgh, though, has no rivals.

More on zerumbone

May 12, 2008 / / 5 Comments

Before we left on our Northumberland holiday, a laughing friend (thanks!) sent me a 2005 MD Anderson study on zerumbone published in “Oncogene” and co-authored by Prof. Aggarwal (is there a natural substance that this remarkable man has NOT tested???). The abstract can be viewed here: http://tinyurl.com/3rzdpa

I had already read elsewhere that zerumbone suppresses the activation of constitutive NF-kappaB ("constitutive" essentially means “active all the time,” which is a BAD thing, see my page on Nuclear Factor-kappaB for details), thus preventing a lot of nasty things from happening. The abstract tells us that it also suppresses, just to give a few better known (to me, anyway) examples, COX-2, Bcl-2 and the Epstein-Barr virus, AND it potentiates the killing effect of chemotherapy on cancer cells. So far, so good.

The full study begins with Hippocrates’ famous “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.” The study then provides a quick account of zerumbone that was first isolated in 1956 from the essential oil of rhizomes of a wild ginger, Zingiber zerumbet Smith, which is widespread in Southeast Asia.

Only about 40 years later, beginning in the 1990s, did it get the attention it deserved, though, as the following excerpts prove: zerumbone has been found to suppress the proliferation of colon cancer and breast cancer, with minimal effects on normal cells. Zerumbone has also been shown to suppress inflammation, suppress the initiation and promotion of skin tumors in mice, etc. Boy, this could easily turn into a sort of cancer “laundry list”! Ok, let me read on and do my best to avoid any mentions of laundry (of which I have been doing tons since we got home from our wonderful holiday…!).

Let’s see. On the one hand, zerumbone is a very potent inhibitor of TNF-induced NF-kB activation. TNF stands for tumour necrosis factor, by the way (hmmm, this is a rather complicated topic that I may address at some point, but for now let it suffice that in this particular scenario, that is, by activating NF-kB, TNF behaves badly, a bit like Mr. Hyde). Anyway, this plant extract suppresses TNF-induced invasion activity, which means it can block tumour metastasis…in vitro at least. I also found it interesting that cells pretreated with zerumbone showed no activation of NF-kB, even after 60 min of TNF stimulation. No activation of NF-kappaB. Extraordinary, no?

On the other hand, zerumbone increased the killing effect of TNF (this time, in its Dr. Jekyll role) on cancer cells by blocking NF-kB. See, I told you it was complicated! Okay, forget this entire part…for now, at least! I will jump to the Discussion section of the study.

The purpose of the study was to see if the antiinflammatory and antiproliferative effects of zerumbone were mediated through modulation of NF-kB and NF-kB regulated gene products involved in inflammation, proliferation, and apoptosis. The researchers found that zerumbone suppressed NF-kB activation induced by various carcinogens and inflammatory agents irrespective of cell type. Super duper.

There are heaps of details in this study, and I confess that I avoided listing them here as much as possible since they were of as much interest to me as a report on the newest most fashionable hair style/colour (yawn!), and I very much doubt they would have grabbed the attention of more than a few of you. However, I would be glad to forward the full study to those of you who enjoy reading about hetarodimers, IkappaBalpha phosphorylation (also suppressed by zerumbone, by the way) and annexing V staining…

Well, okay, here are a few details for the detail-hungry readers: in addition to inhibiting NF-kB (etc.), zerumbone downregulated NF-kB dependent gene products involved in cell proliferation (e.g. cyclin D1 and c-Myc), in antiapoptosis (e.g. survivin, IAP1, IAP2, XIAP, Bcl-2, Bcl-xL, Bfl-1/A1, and FLIP), and in invasion (MMP-9, COX-2, and ICAM-1). Now, aren’t you GLAD I spared you most of the details?

I was interested to see that zerumbone also inhibits MMP-9 (so does thalidomide, by the way, if I am not mistaken), or matrix metallopeptidase 9. I have written on previous occasions about this human enzyme that of course is involved, and not at all in a positive way!, in myeloma (see for instance: http://tinyurl.com/3w54k8) and angiogenesis.

The study concludes: On the basis of our findings, we conclude that zerumbone is a potent inhibitor of NF-kB and NF-kB-regulated gene products and that this inhibition may explain its antiproliferative and antiinflammatory effects.

Here we have another substance that shows tremendous potential in the lab…but, okay, it’s a bit early to get overly excited, since zerumbone is not easy to obtain, and besides, it also would appear to cost an arm and a leg (I received an actual quote from a lab…mamma mia, quanto costa!!!). Drat!

So, given these obstacles, you may rightly ask me: what’s the point of researching and writing about any of these substances that have strong anticancer effects in vitro but are not being tested outside a lab setting?

Well, my main purpose is to get the word out via my blog.

You see, I believe that we can do something to change the current situation, in which promising anticancer plant extracts are essentially being ignored (for obvious reasons, just think of “Sicko”…).

One small and easy thing that we can all do is take the studies about zerumbone (or a substance of your choice, just take your pick among my Pages, e.g.) to our doctors and try to spark their curiosity.

Here, I hope, is an encouraging example. Out of curiosity this morning I did a search for “curcumin and cancer" on PubMed, where I found a total of 806 studies. Now, what follows may not be very scientific, but it does show how the interest in curcumin has been rising throughout the years.

In 2001 there were 41 studies on curcumin and cancer. Last year there were 129. And right now, that is, just a few months into 2008, there are already 48 studies. Astonishing, no?

The irrepressible optimist in me is convinced that we (cancer patients and/or curcumin-takers in general) have a lot to do with this change.

So if we can get just one doctor interested in zerumbone or cyclopamine or DMAPT or another plant extract…even just one doctor…

Why English Teachers Retire Early

May 10, 2008 / / 2 Comments

One of my correspondents sent me this list of very amusing analogies (etc.) allegedly taken from actual U.S. high school student essays. Many gave me a good giggle, some even more than a giggle…! Enjoy!

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its 2 sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliance, like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. Coli, & he was room-temperature Canadian beef.

5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.

8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife’s infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.

9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t.

10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.

11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you’re on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. Instead of 7:30.

12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. Traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. At a speed of 35 mph.

15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan’s teeth.

16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant & she was the East River.

18. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.

19. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

23. The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.

25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.