A cancer diagnosis may be the most traumatic thing that can befall a patient within the contemporary medical system; that is, beyond the conventional cancer treatments themselves, many of which have life-threatening and even lethal side effects.

New research now indicates that a cancer diagnosis may be as fatal as the cancer itself, dramatically increasing the risk of suicide and heart-related death in the week following diagnosis.

Published in the New England Journal of Medicine this month, researchers looked at data on more than 6 million Swedes aged 30 and older between 1991-2006 using the country's health registries in order to determine how the psychological toll of cancer diagnosis impacts the risk for death. After analyzing over 500,000 people who were diagnosed with cancer during that period, the risk of suicide was found to be 12 times higher and the risk of heart-related death 6 times higher during the first week following diagnosis versus those who were cancer free.

Sometimes called the nocebo effect (In contradistinction to the placebo effect), a doctor's negative attitudes and beliefs surrounding a diagnosis may infect the patient with despair and hopelessness, two psychospiritual states at the very root of of dis-ease. A more ancient example of this is known as "bone-pointing," which involved a shaman pointing a bone at someone whose death was said to be imminent from supernatural causes, resulting in that person dying through the power of suggestion (i.e. emotionally-induced trauma).

Most people cringe at the thought of a cold shower. Just a glance at the many polar bear clubs dipping themselves into freezing water can make even those resistant to cold turn their heads away. However, the sporadic research that has been done suggests that regular exposure to cold water (via showers, baths or swims) may have some incredible health benefits.

Most people are unware that cool ambient and water temperature can have a positive impact on your health, primarily by boosting antioxidant levels and promoting better sleep.

Increasing Glutathione Production

Cold showers may increase glutathione -- one of the body's most powerful endegenous antioxidants. In fact, many of the antioxidants we ingest orally work by helping the body produce glutathione. While the body can make its own glutathione from other nutrients, if we try to take a glutathione pill, our bodies just can't seem to utilize it. Encouragingly, a study of winter swimmers hints that cold water therapy can stimulate increases in glutathione levels.

Boosting the Immune System

A study from England found that taking daily cold showers increased the numbers of disease-fighting white blood cells (compared to people who took hot showers). The investigators at Britain's Thrombosis Research Institute suggested that as the body tries to warm itself during and after a cold shower, metabolic rate speeds up and activates the immune system, which leads to the release of more white blood cells. And, according to a German study, an occasional winter swim in cold water causes oxidative stress, but, done regularly, such swimming leads to an adaptive antioxidant response; in other words, the body is better able to combat oxidative stress in general once it's accustomed to cold-water swims.

Relieves Depression

Lots of great men from history suffered bouts of depression. Henry David Thoreau is one such man. But perhaps Thoreau's baths in chilly Walden Pond helped keep his black dog at bay. Research at the Department of Radiation Oncology at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine indicates that short cold showers may stimulate the brain's "blue spot"- the brain's primary source of noradrenaline -- a chemical that could help mitigate depression.

A new study has shown a link between frequent dental X-rays and an increased risk of developing non-cancerous brain tumors. Researchers are using this study as a reminder of the dangers of frequent dental X-rays.

Rather than suggesting patients eschew these X-rays, these researchers are recommending their new findings become part of the conversation the patient has with their doctor. In fact, the American Dental Association's (ADA) guidelines still recommend healthy patients, free of other health risks, get "bitewing" X-rays once every one to three years, depending on their age.

Dr. Elizabeth Claus, a professor of public health at the Yale University School of Public Health and a neurosurgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital, led the study which was published Tuesday in the journal Cancer.

"The broader public health message is that probably the increase in risk to a given individual, given the current dose [of radiation exposure] is low," said Claus, speaking with the Boston Globe.

"But you could say, gee, if this is a primary exposure in the US and we can lessen the exposure," this is an issue worth considering Claus said.

To find these results, researchers surveyed more than 1,400 patients who had meningiomas (the non-cancerous brain tumors) and compared them with more than 1,300 patients who did not have the tumors. The researchers then asked these patients about their X-ray history. According to these surveys, those who had the bitewing X-rays were twice as likely to develop the meningiomas than those who did not have the X-rays. Those patients who had at least one X-ray a year had an increased risk for these tumors, despite their age.

At the Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, professor of experimental intensive care medicine Dr. Peter Pickkers and his team have performed research on "Iceman" Wim Hof. Hof claims that he can influence his autonomic nervous system and immune response through concentration and meditation. The results obtained are remarkable, however, the investigators emphasize that so far, these results have only been obtained in a single individual. Therefore, they can not serve as scientific evidence for the hypothesis that the autonomic nervous system and the immune response can be influenced through concentration and meditation techniques. Further research with larger groups is warranted.

Research on the immune response

A well-functioning immune system protects us against viruses and bacteria. However, excessive activation of the immune system can cause tissue and organ damage. The immune system is, in part, controlled by the autonomic nervous system, a system which cannot be deliberately influenced. Professor Peter Pickkers and PhD candidate Matthijs Kox investigate the effects of the autonomic nervous system on the immune response.

The discovery of a major gear in the biological clock that tells the body when to sleep and metabolize food is leading to a new understanding on metabolic disorders, including diabetes.

Scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, led by Ronald M. Evans, a professor in Salk's Gene Expression Laboratory, showed that two cellular switches found on the nucleus of mouse cells, known as REV-ERB alpha and REV-ERB beta, are essential for maintaining normal sleeping and eating cycles and for metabolism of nutrients from food.

The findings, reported March 29 in Nature, describe a powerful link between circadian rhythms and metabolism and suggest a new avenue for understanding disorders of both systems, including jet lag, sleep disorders, obesity and diabetes.

"This fundamentally changes our knowledge about the workings of the circadian clock and how it orchestrates our sleep-wake cycles, when we eat and even the times our bodies metabolize nutrients," says Evans.

Nurses, emergency personnel and others who work shifts that alter the normal 24-hour cycle of waking and sleeping are at much higher risk for a number of diseases, including metabolic disorders such as diabetes. To address this, scientists are trying to understand precisely how the biological clock works and uncover possible underlying mechanisms that could adjust the circadian rhythm in people with sleep disorders and circadian-associated metabolic disorders.

In mammals, the circadian timing system is orchestrated by a central clock in the brain and subsidiary clocks in most other organs. The master clock in the brain is set by light and determines the overall diurnal or nocturnal preference of an animal, including sleep-wake cycles and feeding behavior.

Happy bowels are central to overall health, aren't they?

Eliminate the gliadin protein of wheat and it can no longer trigger activation of inflammatory T-lymphocytes in the intestinal lining. Eliminate the lectin of wheat, wheat germ agglutinin, and this direct intestinal toxin can no longer destroy intestinal villi, increase intestinal permeability to foreign substances, and enter the bloodstream itself (and generate wheat germ agglutinin antibodies). (Interestingly, in experimental models, administration of wheat lectin alone is sufficient to generate celiac disease-like destructive changes.)

A former researcher at Amgen Inc has found that many basic studies on cancer -- a high proportion of them from university labs -- are unreliable, with grim consequences for producing new medicines in the future.

During a decade as head of global cancer research at Amgen, C. Glenn Begley identified 53 "landmark" publications -- papers in top journals, from reputable labs -- for his team to reproduce. Begley sought to double-check the findings before trying to build on them for drug development.

Result: 47 of the 53 could not be replicated. He described his findings in a commentary piece published on Wednesday in the journal Nature.

"It was shocking," said Begley, now senior vice president of privately held biotechnology company TetraLogic, which develops cancer drugs. "These are the studies the pharmaceutical industry relies on to identify new targets for drug development. But if you're going to place a $1 million or $2 million or $5 million bet on an observation, you need to be sure it's true. As we tried to reproduce these papers we became convinced you can't take anything at face value."

The failure to win "the war on cancer" has been blamed on many factors, from the use of mouse models that are irrelevant to human cancers to risk-averse funding agencies. But recently a new culprit has emerged: too many basic scientific discoveries, done in animals or cells growing in lab dishes and meant to show the way to a new drug, are wrong.

The government of Switzerland has a long history of neutrality, and therefore, reports from this government on controversial subjects need to be taken more seriously than other reports from countries that are more strongly influenced by present economic and political constituencies. Further, when one considers that two of the top five largest drug companies in the world have their headquarters in Switzerland, one might assume that this country would have a heavy interest in and bias toward conventional medicine, but such assumptions would be wrong.

In late 2011, the Swiss government's report on homeopathic medicine represents the most comprehensive evaluation of homeopathic medicine ever written by a government and was just published in book form in English (Bornhoft and Matthiessen, 2011). This breakthrough report affirmed that homeopathic treatment is both effective and cost-effective and that homeopathic treatment should be reimbursed by Switzerland's national health insurance program.

Unknown to most consumers cyanide is found in a wide range of vitamins and foods in a form known as cyanocobalamin. Fortunately the cyanide has a very low potential to do harm because it is organically bound to cobalamin (vitamin b12).

Cyanocobalamin is actually found in 99% of the vitamins on the market which contain B12, as it is relatively cheap (recovered from activated sewage sludge or produced through total chemical synthesis), and stable (non-perishable). Despite its wide usage it is not an ideal form of vitamin b12, as the cyanide must be removed from the cobalamin before it can perform its biological indispensable role within the body. While there is plenty of research on the value of cyanide-bound vitamin B12, it does have potential to do harm in a minority population.

In fact, when a person is poisoned with cyanide, as sometimes happens following smoke inhalation, and they are rushed to the emergency room, what do they give them to remove the cyanide? Hydroxocobalamin -- a natural form of vitamin b12 -- which readily binds with the cyanide, becoming cyanocobalmin (which sequesters the cyanide and puts it into a form ideal for detoxification and elimination), which is then rapidly excreted from the body via the lungs and kidneys.

Those with a higher body burden or higher cyanide exposure, such as smokers, are less likely to be able to effectively detoxify the additional cyanide they consume through their diet or supplements, making the seemingly benign levels found in some vitamins and foods a real problem.

Let's hope you're not reading this column while munching on a chicken sandwich.

That's because my topic today is a pair of new scientific studies suggesting that poultry on factory farms are routinely fed caffeine, active ingredients of Tylenol and Benadryl, banned antibiotics and even arsenic.

"We were kind of floored," said Keeve E. Nachman, a co-author of both studies and a scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Center for a Livable Future. "It's unbelievable what we found."

He said that the researchers had intended to test only for antibiotics. But assays for other chemicals and pharmaceuticals didn't cost extra, so researchers asked for those results as well.

"We haven't found anything that is an immediate health concern," Nachman added. "But it makes me question how comfortable we are feeding a number of these things to animals that we're eating. It bewilders me."