Cancer, etc - radio info

[netmouse]

I caught part of the Diane Rehm show this morning and heard an interesting discussion of cancer-causing product concerns (gist of the main part: Aspartame has not been proven to be safe and some frightening studies show a tendency for it to cause tumors - avoid it unless you're diabetic and even then seek other alternatives. Especially, do not feed it to children).

The guest was Devra Davis, Director of the Center for Environmental Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, and author of The Secret History of the War on Cancer.

One of the callers asked about putting sunscreen on children. First Ms. Davis pointed out that one concern about always using sunscreen is that you might deprive kids (or adults) of their needed 20 minutes of sun exposure a day (which allows us to produce the Vitamin D we need). Then she went on to address the caller's concern that some products are carcinogenic in and of themselves, offering more risk exposure than no sunscreen at all. She said that some products are safer than others, but since she didn't really have time to go into it, she recommended people go to EWG.org, to find out more information about toxics in consumer products and to figure out what is safer to use with your kids.

I just wanted to pass that along.

Comments

[netmouse.livejournal.com]

The comment on the show was that there was a recent study with rats that took the animals into their third year of life, which is not commonly done, and that most of the tumors developed in that third year, the concern being that brain cancer is in fact something that develops very slowly. She also expressed concern that most animal studies start with adult animals, so we don't have evidence as to the effect on babies or juveniles. Again,t his is just what she was saying.

Me, I don't eat or drink aspartame because I can't stand the taste.

[(Anonymous)]

Rats & mice are already cancer-prone, so I wonder how this'd translate to humans, if at all.