Cervical Cancer: Good Nutrition, Regular Screenings & Safe Sex Can Protect You

January is Cervical Cancer Awareness Month – and it packs a powerful message no woman can afford to ignore. Here’s what you need to know …

By Colette Bouchez

As we spin head first into a brand new year – and a brand new list of resolutions we’re eager to tackle- it’s easy to let some of life’s more mundane tasks slip by - especially health screenings.

Which is one reason why health awareness months can serve such a strong and powerful purpose: They remind us of the importance of taking care of our health and move us in the direction of preventive care.

If you’re a woman, never is this more true than it is right now during January, the month dedicated to cervical cancer awareness - a disease which, while it affects some 12,00 women a year, can be prevented!

Indeed, with the help of 2 important cervical cancer screening tools – the Pap smear (which looks for abnormal cells within the cervix) and the HPV test ( which detects the human papillomavirus, the leading cause of cervical cancer ) your doctor has the power to not just detect this disease at its earliest, most easily treated stages, but in many instances detect the kind of pre-cancerous cell changes that, once treated, can stop this disease from ever occurring.

Cervical Cancer: What You Should Know

Though it has a specific name, your cervix is actually the lower portion of your uterus. Here, the tissue is lined with a layer of cells that develop, grow and die, and are replaced by new cells, in a cycle that lasts anywhere from 7 to 14 days. The continuing turnover of these cells is one factor that determines cervical health

When, however, due to any number of health challenges these cells come under attack - including infection with the HPV virus - that normal life cycle becomes disrupted. Cells don’t die as they should, and as a result they begin to build up, causing the lining of your cervix to thicken and change in both shape and form. This cell “overgrowth” is known as “dysplasia” – a condition said to affect between 250,000 and 1 million women a year.

Fortunately, for some women dysplasia – even that caused by HPV - can revert to normal on its own. When your immune system is strong, and you are healthy, you simply overcome the HPV virus – or whatever factor is causing the cell build-up - and the dysplasia stops.

For a significant number of women, however, this isn’t the case. For these women, the HPV, if present, does not go away, and the dysplasia – regardless of the cause – continues to worsen. Eventually, if not stopped, these cell changes lead to the development of cervical cancer, which can progress at an alarmingly fast rate.

Unfortunately, the treatment for late stage cervical cancer involves removing not just the cervix, but the entire uterus and usually the ovaries , which is often followed by either chemotherapy, radiation or a combination of both.

The Good News:  Studies show that if  you catch those cervical cell changes early on,  not only can the dysplasia be treated but in doing so the cancer can be prevented. If early cancer is detected, treatment is equally successful.

Treatments for dysplasia or early cervical cancer can include either electro cauterization or laser vaporization (both work to burn away or vaporize the pre-cancer or early stage cancer cells.)  Other treatments also include  the Leep procedure (which uses electrical current passed through thin wire loop to remove the abnormal tissue) or a “cone” biopsy (which removes a wedge shaped piece of the cervix containing the bad cells). 

Preventing Cervical Cancer: What Else You Can Do

While having regular Pap smears and tests for HPV are two ways to protect your fertility, since the HPV virus is sexually transmitted, if you are not in a monogamous relationship (or your partner is not monogamous) you might also want to consider the protection of Gardasil – the first and only vaccine shown to protect against HPV. Although when it first appeared on the scene Gardisil was recommended only for young women, today it is also being recommended for any sexually active middle aged women as well.

Although the vaccine has been the subject of some controversy – with some women having experienced life –threatening and life-changing side effects – to date the vast majority of who have had the Gardasil vaccine appear to suffer no serious side effects or lasting problems.

If, however, you don’t want to get the vaccine, then practicing safe sex is a must – and using condoms is essential.

Perhaps most important to remember is that good nutrition can also make an important preventive difference in protecting against both cervical cancer and the effects of HPV . And there are a number of key vitamins that can help  protect against the cell changes that lead to dysplasia – or in some instances even reverse dysplasia once it begins.

Among the most important are Vitamins C, E, and beta carotene ( vitamin A) , plus other carotenoids found in fruits and vegetables such as carrots, apricots, squash and cantaloupe.

What do all these nutrients have in common?  They are  all antioxidants, natural chemicals which enhance immune system function. And according to experts this could hold the key to protecting cervical cells from undergoing unhealthy changes.

How Vitamins Can Protect You From Cancer

Indeed, in a study at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, researchers found that women who had cervical dysplasia routinely had lower blood levels of both beta carotene and vitamin E when compared to healthy women. Moreover, there was also a direct correlation between the amounts of beta-carotene and vitamin E in the blood, and the stage of cervical abnormality – with the more advanced cases having the more significant nutrient deficiencies.

Likewise, a previous study also conducted at Albert Einstein, found that women who consumed less than 30 mg of vitamin C daily were 10 times more likely to develop cervical dysplasia than women who consumed more.

In studies elsewhere, doctors showed that topically applying vitamin A directly into the cervix was able to reverse cell changes associated with dysplasia in up to 50% of women

Still another key nutrient is folic acid or vitamin B9. How can this help? As you read earlier, cells lining the cervix renew themselves every 7 to 14 days – and in the process continually form new DNA.   When the body is short on folic acid,  studies show that abnormalities in DNA formation can occur – and that can mean a higher risk of dysplasia.

Conversely, keep your folic acid levels high – at least 400 mcg per day – and you may keep your DNA production humming along in a normal and healthy fashion.

So, along with regular screenings, practicing safe sex, and the addition of these nutrients to your diet, you not only have the power to reduce your risk of cervical cancer, but maybe even eliminate that risk entirely.  And that’s the kind of awareness that can make a real difference in your life!

Copyright by Colette Bouchez 2011 - All Rights Reserved. In addition to US Copyright, the text of this FERTILITY BLOG is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. All Formatting and style elements of this page are not available under this license and Colette Bouchez retains all rights in those elements. The owners and contributors to this blog may or may not benefit from the products, services or treatments mentioned herein.

Discovery: Tobacco May Be Key To Killing Cancer Without Side Effects

If a group of Stanford researchers are right doctors may soon be able to treat a variety of cancers via personalized vaccines that bypass completely the need for traditional chemotherapy.

In a surprising twist of the test tube, the scientists also report the tobacco plant is at the heart of the new discovery.

Indeed, researchers claim the tobacco plant can be used to quickly, safely and inexpensively produce personalized antibodies developed from a patient’s own cancer cells. The antibodies are then be used to provide a personalized vaccine that destroys cancer cells without the need for traditional chemotherapy drugs.

"This would be a way to treat cancer without side effects," said Professor Ronald Levy, of Stanford University's the School of Medicine, and lead author of the report.

"The idea is to marshal the body's own immune system to fight cancer, “ he says, indicating that a modified tobacco plant may be the quickest, most effective way to do that.

The new research, published in an advanced on-line issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), offers details on the first human safety trial of a tobacco-produced vaccine for a specific type of long-term chronic lymphoma.

The trial was small – involving only 16 patients – but results were promising enough to create a significant buzz throughout the scientific community. Indeed, the researchers report that the immune systems of more than 70 percent of the patients developed an immediate increased antibody response, while some 47 percent also showed specific immune responses to their cancer.

In general, vaccines work by helping the body to recognize specific types of “ foreign invaders” – including diseased tumor cells. Acting like a kind of biological sentry, the vaccines help send the body on a search and destroy mission that ultimately locates the diseased cells and destroys them before they multiply.

So how does tobacco fit into all of this?

The process occurs like this: First doctors isolate the antibody needed to destroy the cancer from the patients own cancer cells. A gene that helps code or develop that antibody is then inserted into a otherwise harmless virus known as TMV – short for tobacco mosaic virus.

Doctors then scratch the surface of a tobacco plant leaf and deposit TMV, which in turn infects the plant. The virus carries the gene into the plant’s cell, which then begin rapidly producing antibodies against it.

In just a few days the leaves can be harvested, the antibody extracted and purified, and injected into the patient's body - which then uses the antibodies like military reinforcements to hunt down and kill the cancer cells.

The results of the testing is so promising that Bayer pharmaceuticals has recently opened a small scale production facility in Germany that will use a similar tobacco-related technology to produce proteins that may help combat other diseases.

Important to note: Smoking or chewing tobacco leaves does not provide any therapeutic treatment, and will increase your risk of a variety of diseases, including cancer.

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Critical WARNING: Cervical Cancer Vaccine Dangers

STOP - LOOK- AND LISTEN: As the FDA sits poised and ready to approve Gardasil the cervical cancer vaccine, for use in older women, there's startling new evidence that it may not be as safe as we are being led to believe.

In a new report uncovered by public interest group Judicial Watch, the FDA appears to have kept from the public records detailing a troubling total of some 3,461 serious or potentially serious adverse reactions - including as many as a dozen deaths - all allegedly linked to the Gardasil vaccine since it's FDA approval in June 2006. Adverse reactions linked to the vaccine have included paralysis and serious circulatory problems.

According to the Judicial Watch report - with data retrieved via the Freedom of Information Act - these additional worrisome statistics were recently uncovered:

• From May 10 to September 7, 2007, of the 1,847 adverse vaccination reactions reported to the FDA via the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), some 347 were considered medically "serious".


• The death toll linked to the vaccine given to young women is at 12 - and counting.


• Of the 77 women who received this vaccine while pregnant, 33 experienced side effects ranging from spontaneous miscarriage to fetal abnormalities.


• A range of serious side effects including paralysis, Bells Palsy, Guillain-Barre Syndrome and seizures have been reported.

This is of tatamount importance not only to women over 40, who may soon be offered the vaccine, but for our daughters and grand daughters, many of whom have already been encouraged by pediatricians and family doctors to have the vaccine. Currently, two states, Texas and Michigan have made it mandatory for girls aged 11 to 12 to have the vaccine, while other state and local governments are considering similar actions.

What does this mean for you? It doesn't mean turning away from a potentially life-saving treatment. It does mean knowing the facts, and making sure your doctor knows the facts, and having a serious conversation with your physician about your specific risks and benefits in regard to this vaccine.

Remember, this is not about removing the vaccine from the market - it's about intelligent use of it - and informed use. Every drug has it's side effects and risks. But in order to make an intelligent decision about whether the benefits outweigh the risks, you've got to at least know the risks.

Finding out a treatment has side effects is not shocking. Discovering it took a Freedom Of Information Act inquiry to find out about those risks is shocking.

Gardasil, manufactured by Merck, is approved for use in young women aged 9 to 26. It protects against several strains of HPV ( the Human papilloma virus) which is a leading cause of cervical cancer. According to the American Cancer Society, in 2008, about 11,070 cases of invasive cervical cancer will be diagnosed in the United States. ACS reports some researchers estimate that non-invasive cervical cancer (carcinoma in situ) is about 4 times more common than invasive cervical cancer.

ACS also estimates that some 3,900 women will die from cervical cancer in the US during 2008. While once a common cause of cancer death for American women, death rates have declined steadily over the past several decades, due largely in part to better screening that finds this cancer at an early and very treatable stage.

Cervical cancer, which is related to several strains of the HPV virus, is considered a sexually transmitted cancer, because the HPV virus can be passed on during intimate contact.