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That's a pretty fascinating study. It makes me wonder if our bodies' immune systems, when healthy, can constantly fend off small threats from disorders or disease, and only when our immune systems break down in some way do the disorders or disease take the upper hand.

These paragraphs are both exciting and worrisome:

"If the results are replicated, he said, it could eventually be possible for some women to opt for so-called watchful waiting, monitoring a tumor in their breast to see whether it grows. “People have never thought that way about breast cancer,” he added.

"Dr. Kaplan and his colleague, Dr. Franz Porzsolt, an oncologist at the University of Ulm, said in an editorial that accompanied the study, “If the spontaneous remission hypothesis is credible, it should cause a major re-evaluation in the approach to breast cancer research and treatment.” "

That's exciting because anything that improves treatment and success rates for any cancer is exciting, but I wonder about the "watchful waiting" part, simply because women have always been told that the cancers found earliest are the ones easiest to treat. Imagine the trauma and pain if a woman engaged in "watchful waiting" and during that time, a small tumor became larger and more threatening to her life? Perhaps requiring much more drastic levels of treatment?

Perhaps as we gain more knowledge of what a healthy body does naturally in this area, we'll be even more motivated to keep our bodies in the best condition we can, and we'll think three times about bad nutrition, smoking and other harmful habits. It's definitely (no pun intended) food for thought.

November 25, 2008 - 5:31pm

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