Monday, April 7, 2008

The Barbie Doll Syndrome "The Chemo Diet" not for everyone and Please Do NOT try this at home!

I almost forgot to share this little glimpse into the dysfunctional type I grow from.

Something my Mother said to me last week "Oh you will loose alot of weight when you get chemo!" how freaking exciting is that??? Well let me first say, yes I am a little overweight, but not disgustingly so. I always was a person who fluctuates from one size to the other. But my Mom bless her has never to the best of my knowledge ever been over 130lbs. and always boasts about her girlish figure even at the young age of 83. I think she is at about 125lbs. right now. She goes on about how she had the Barbie figure her whole life. My Dad on the other hand was a huge man topping the scales over 300lbs. at one time (so I hear). So I guess we kids all got our genes in the body weight dept. from dear ole Daddy.

So now I can look forward to the chemo diet eh? maybe I should market that concept, what a deal ... diet and free hair care! LOL sorry can't help but be a bit of a synic on this subject.

The next thing is that she cut out this article about how starving yourself before chemo could be beneficial. Now to be fair I must tell you this study was done on rats not humans. So am I now considered a rat??? LOL there I go again. I know she is grasping at straws, trying to help but come the hell on! I know she loves me endlessly but that isn't really helping me at this moment trying to understand the logic. Here is the article below if your interested in such.

We are all afraid of this 125lb ball of fire we call "Mom" but we few would never admit it. She is a force all her own, very strong woman, a man hater (but omg not a lesbian - banish that thought!) She has battled colon cancer without chemo and so far has won, she has battled half her nose falling off due to skin cancer and won! She is an amazing woman, a true warrior, well loved, somewhat respected. Somewhat because of her views on things that sort of rub people the wrong way, misunderstood? I doubt that but hey who am I to say? Did I tell you that at 83 she can put down as many beers as you can? Watches NASCAR thankyou Tony Stewart!

How does the word DYSFUNCTION fit into your world?

The Rat Pack Article

Author is Denise Gellene from the LA Times

Starving mice for a few days before chemo protected their healthy cells from damaging side effects, offering a possible way to shield cancer patients fro the debilitating hair loss, nausea and anemia that now plague the treatments, researchers reported this week.
The study, published Tuesday in Proceedings fo the National Academy of Sciences, could also allow the use of more potent chemo doses without endangering patients.
Valter Longo, of USC who led the research, said healthy cells deprived of noruishment stop dividing and become more resistant to stress. That makes them less vulnerable to chemo, which targets cells that are dividing.
Because cancer cells do not respond to their environment in a normal way, starvation does not protect them from the drugs, said Longo, who conducted the research with scientist at USC and Giannina Gaslini Institute in Genoa, Italy.
The experiment looked at how healty and cancerous cells reacted when they were exposed to toxins after being denied glucose, a simple sugar. Yeast cells, for example were 1,00 times more resitstant to damage from chemo than yeast cells containing a tumor gene.
An experiemnt in mice confirmed the protective effects of fasting. Of the 28 mice that received only water for 48 to 60 hours before chemo one died. By contrast, 20 of the 37 mice that did not fast died from treatment. All mice were given an amount of the cancer drug etoposide equivalent to three times the maximum human dose. Fasting mice that survied treatment had no visible side effects, researchers said, compared witht he second group of mice, which became sluggish and devloped ruffled hair because of the drug.

Well there you have it. Of mice and men.

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