Subject:  (Guru) Testicular cancer.....
Date:     Thu, 10 Jun 1999 073749 -0500 (CDT)
From:     "Roy L. Beavers" <rbeavers@llion.org>
To:       emfguru <rbeavers@llion.org>
--------------------------------------------------


......Some studies have suggested that EMF/EMR could be a factor in
causing or promoting testicular cancer in men......

......Notice also the similarity in behavior where (women's) breast
cancer and ovarian cancer are concerned -- the last paragraphs of the
following story.....

Roy Beavers (EMFguru)......
rbeavers@llion.org.......
.....It is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness.....
EMF-L web-site can be found at: 
EMF-L archives can be found at: 
..................PEOPLE ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN PROFITS..................


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05:05 PM ET 06/09/99

Brain Damage-Cancer Defense Linked


 By JANET McCONNAUGHEY=
 Associated Press Writer=
           Scientists have discovered that testicular cancer can lead to
 brain damage, seizures, memory loss and dementia long before the
 cancer is even detected.
           The brain damage apparently is caused not by the cancer itself,
 but by an overly aggressive attack by body's own immune system on a
 protein produced by tumors, the researchers said.
           Doctors at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York
 report that men with testicular cancer and damage to one of the
 brain's emotional centers had a particular type of antibody in
 their blood. The antibody was found in most of the men's blood long
 before the cancer was detected.
           That suggests that these antibodies could be used to give
 patients an early warning of testicular cancer.
           The study in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine is the
 third to link brain damage to an immune system attack on cancer.
           Dr. Robert Darnell of Rockefeller University, who has performed
 similar research but was not involved in this study, said these
 rare brain disorders could provide clues necessary to develop tumor
 vaccines and treatments for other degenerative brain diseases.
           ``They're very important models for how an immune response in
 the body can get into the brain and cause degeneration,'' he said.
 ``This is very important for multiple sclerosis and maybe other
 degenerative diseases.''
           Researchers think the biological double whammy occurs because a
 tumor sometimes creates a protein normally found only in the brain.
           Since the immune system ordinarily doesn't come across those
 proteins, it attacks them as invaders. But since the same protein
 is in the brain, the brain also is attacked.
           Dr. Raymond Voltz and colleagues at Sloan-Kettering tested
 samples from 986 cancer patients for antibodies to brain proteins.
           One was a man who had testicular cancer and brain problems
 caused by inflammation in the limbic system, a part of the brain
 important in regulating emotions.
           They found an antibody they had never seen before, and checked
 it against serum from 12 other men. All 12 had both testicular
 cancer and a related inflammation in either the limbic system or
 the brain stem. Nine of them also had the antibodies.
           Eight of the 10 men with the antibodies didn't have any symptoms
 of cancer when they went to the doctor for brain problems. The
 cancer was found six months later, on average, and as long as three
 years later.
           Voltz and his colleagues compared the study group with several
 other types of patients, including those with tumor-related brain
 damage and people who had cancer but no brain damage. The antibody
 was unique to the combination of testicular cancer and inflammation
 of the limbic system or the brain stem.
           This suggests that patients, especially young men, who have
 symptoms of this type of inflammation should be tested for the
 antibodies as an early check for testicular cancer, the doctors
 said.
           Darnell reported a similar link to brain damage among breast and
 ovarian cancer patients last fall. A third study reported the link
 in patients with small-cell lung cancer.
           In the study with breast and ovarian cancer, the patients' blood
 contained immune system T-cells that had attacked both the tumor
 and the cerebellum, the part of the brain that controls movement.
 The patients couldn't walk because their legs and arms jerked as if
 they were being shocked, and they had trouble controlling their eye
 movements.
           The researchers in the new study said they did not know whether
 the brain damage is caused by the antibody, a similar killer T-cell
 response, or both.

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Archive provided courtesy of WaveGuide, http://www.wave-guide.org
Reprinted with permission of Roy Beavers, http://www.feb.se/EMF-L/EMF-L.html