There are a couple of interesting stories in the news as of late about breast health that I’d like to share. The first headline really caught my eye, because it put two things that logically don’t go together in one sentence. Spider venom and breast cancer treatment – talk about a shocker. So of course I had to read on – great headlines deserve attention!
Apparently a very deadly type of spider venom, which is essentially the poison that spiders inject into their prey or may emit when they are threatened as a nerve toxin usually, is being eyed as a potential part of treatment in breast cancer. Why on earth would we be looking at a seemingly deadly toxin to treat another deadly disease?
Interested? Well, it gets even more interesting. Researchers are gathering spider venom from an Australian spider that has a very potent venom. The venom has about 300 particular molecules that may be of interest. They are going to try to isolate all of the molecules and try to see if they have any effect on targeting and killing cancer cells only – instead of killing cancer cells and healthy cells, which is what chemotherapy does.
This is why chemo often ends up killing people more quickly, or being the cause of death in some cases. It leaves a person so weak that they cannot fend off the cancer with their immune system any more. That’s just my opinion. I’m no doctor, but I’ve seen chemo kill too many that I love.
The spider venom contains molecules that have traits which suggest they could be useful against cancer, so that is why they are running this study. Should be interesting to see if anything comes of it.
In other news that I feel could impact breast health, BPA’s, those chemicals which are used in so many consumer products today to harden plastics and coat linings of containers among other things, have been implicated in even more health issues.
Not only have BPA’s been implicated in adding to the likelihood of breast cancer because of their synthetic mimicking of estrogen and the hormonal havoc it causes, but now BPA’s have also been linked to behavioral issues in little girls whose mothers have been exposed to BPA’s.
Research shows that women who have high amounts of BPA’s in their urine have daughters more often that end up having behavioral issues by the time they are 3 years old. This is more proof that BPA’s can interfere with brain development when a fetus is exposed, and the role of hormones in fetal development is important.
Remember, AVOID BPA’s if you can!
