Fish Oil & Prostate Cancer

Articles by Dr. Erdman are for informational purposes, and are not to be taken as specific medical advice.

On July 10^th, the headline read, “Men Might Want to Shun Fish oils, Study Shows.” This new study from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center supposedly shows a link between increased EPA/DHA levels in the blood and prostate cancer risk. Given all the positive health effects linked to fish oil intake, this study definitely seems out of step with previously shown benefits.

As I have said before, always try to find out more about who did the study, how it was performed and if it has been repeated by others. I am no expert in these activities, but I have found a great article written by an expert, Dr. Michael Murray. He is a leading authority on natural medicine, and has written over 30 books on health and nutrition. Much of the following information is attributed to this article: “How a SELECTed Bad Study Became Big News,” written on July 12, 2013, and published online at GreenMedinfo.com.

Dr. Murray says the pedigree of this study is impressive. It was published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute and was conducted by researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, WA. Yet, the data used is from the much maligned Selenium and Vitamin # Cancer Prevention Trial, or SELECT. That is the problem.

Colloidal Silver

Articles by Dr. Erdman are for informational purposes, and are not to be taken as specific medical advice.

For thousands of years health care practitioners and health minded people have been using the health benefits of silver to treat a myriad of human ailments. The ancient Phoenicians understood that keeping water, wine and vinegar in silver lined vessels maintained the freshness of each. Silver is a germicide and a disinfectant. It is a natural antibiotic, anti-viral and anti-fungal agent. The only problem is that our wonderful government agency, the FDA, does not agree. They decided in 1999 that all colloidal silver products sold over the counter are unsafe and mislabeled. They state they are unaware of any evidence to support its use for any serious disease. [www.FDA.gov/ohrms/dockets/98f/081799a.txt]

Recent research out of Boston University shows silver may be even more powerful than ever thought. They did studies which added silver to current antibiotics for the recent onset of resistant super bugs. What they found was that silver boosted the effectiveness of these antibiotics against super bugs by up to 1000 percent! This study was published in the “Science Translational Medicine Journal” in June 2013. Silver laced antibiotics proved particularly effective against those bugs that caused urinary tract and stomach conditions. Wow, this is great news, right? It would seem so, but when I think about it, I have just one more question. If silver is the reason these antibiotics work again, why not just use silver in the first place? Why do we need to add silver to some manmade chemical as a conduit,  just so big Pharma can patent it and make billions?