Suzanne Somers wages war on conventional cancer treatments
Gina Roberts-Grey Oct 20th 2009 at 12:30PM
http://www.walletpop.com/blog/2009/10/20/suzanne-somers-wages-war-on-conventional-cancer-treatments/
What's new?
Are Bioidentical or natural hormones right for you?
By Colette Bouchez
Actress Suzanne Somers says she owes her ageless good looks and boundless energy to natural bioidentical hormones. Now OPRAH WINFREY says natural estrogen and other bioidentical hormone therapy has helped her as well. Could they be your answer?
Some doctors question the treatment - citing a lack of medical evidence attesting to long term safety - with some believing it eventually prove even more dangerous than traditional HRT.
Here's a look at the natural estrogen and the bioidentical hormone therapy controversy ....
But are these women right? Many say they are not - and that their advice is dangerous.
In fact, one group of doctors – a panel of seven noted physicians, 3 of whom were quoted in the Somers book – say her promises far exceed what we know about these treatments. They sent a letter to Somers and her publisher claiming the book is misleading, inaccurate, and downright dangerous for women to follow.
http://www.yourmenopause.com/AgelessSuzanneSomers.html
That's why the woman publishes the kind of material she publishes. To stir controversy and sell more books. Nothing wrong with that.
What is the truth about alternative cancer treatments?
That's the outstanding question.
Wendy Williams had Somers as a guest a few days back, Nov. 11.
http://www.wendyshow.com/2009/11/11/suzanne-somers-columbus-short/
While watching particularly closely as Somers walked on stage and greeted Wendy, we noted Somers did not really look well - though always striking, hair and facial features, her face looked puffy.
youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckSpiWO4Mj8&feature=youtube_gdata
Throughout the interview, Wendy made every attempt to coddle her style, her beauty as an up and coming actress 20-years ago, and her successful publishing and product success and entrepreneurship.
But throughout, sitting next to Wendy Williams, Somers looked puffy in the face, and neck, especially. It couldn't have been the camera angle as many other women have sat in the same position at the same angle.
Not a criticism, just wondering what affect some 60 pills a day the actress admitted to consuming has on her own health.
Yes she survived cancer. The courage alone gives her a youthful glow.
What was commendable about Somers was the fact she did not try to hide her look from the public. Entering the studio in a black outfit that first, because it's black, looks slimming, until one sits down, the shoulder drop showed the thickness of her neck and shoulders, the sleeve length hid her arms, (thankfully she wasn't as rude as Wendy was recently) but the skirt length showed the condition of part of her thighs. Brave woman.
Not to be demeaning, but we know Somers must do some amount of exercising, so she's not un-fit, it's that she can't hide the puffiness and we wonder what is it to be attributed to if not lack of health?
No amount of makeup could hide the bloated features and yet of course Somers is to be commended for putting herself out there.
Reality TV video
http://www.reality-tv-network.com/wendywilliams/11112009-suzanne-somers-columbus-short
Still we need to learn everything we can about Somers' claims about approaches to health over these many years.
We're also disappointed with Wendy Williams after reviewing some material provided by Gerald Posner in a lengthy article at The Daily Beast.
We have liked Wendy Williams (following along just a month or 2 late night) because she does have a unique interviewing technique. She gets each and every guest so comfortable with her own charm and charisma and each one certainly reveals more about what might remain personal and hidden under any other line of questioning than Wendy's.
But this interview didn't seem to go like many others. What didn't Wendy ask?
She asked how many pills Somers takes every day. "Are you still taking 60 pills a day?" Wendy Williams asked.
There's a long list of things we'd have expected Wendy Williams to ask, but she didn't. It's doubtful anybody else but Wendy could have asked as she did Joan Rivers, what is real and what isn't?
What have you had done, and what haven't you had done. But she didn't.
It was as if Wendy Williams had been given a script of what she could and could not ask.
While we don't expect Wendy Williams (Turner) to dig to the heart of a controversial issue, or get into the issue of the Big Pharmas, vs oh naturale, we do expect her to ask point blank number 1 question.
If you're taking so many daily blood tests like you said, ooo that must hurt, and you find where you have nutritional deficits, and so you take 60 pills daily, how you doin Suzanne, lady, cause you look unhealthy?
And the real Wendy Williams would point. Face, neck, shoulders, thighs, etc. as she has done before with several guests, including pulling at a person's hair to see if it's an extension. Joan Rivers pulled hers out.
So over, Wendy Williams, too bad, it looks from a bit of research, Somers needs to meet up with Gerald Posner and/or The Daily Beast for a few questions.
If you can't meet face to face with critics who have a good bit of informational basis to challenge you, who can believe what you're telling us face to face on Larry King Live or even Wendy Williams is the truth?
60 pills, and what else?
Net the Truth Online
Intro to Fast and Easy
Michael Galitzer, M.D.
http://www.ahealth.com/content/education_research/published_excerpts/fast_and_easy.php
Life Extension Promo
http://www.vitalimagemedspa.com/assets/pdf/Breakthrough_by_Suzanne_Somers.pdf
Gerald Posner
Does Suzanne Somers Cause Cancer?
The former actress has one of the nation’s top books, touting secret cancer cures. But these methods, reports Gerald Posner, may actually increase the disease risk. Specifically, Posner reveals how:
Her book promotes a regimen that many doctors believe causes cancer rather than cures it.
This regimen might have contributed to her own bout with cancer.
Several doctors and experts she uses as the basis for her book have medically checkered backgrounds.
Cancer is a recurring thread and marketing tool for her wide-ranging business interests.
One outside expert, based on his examination of 30 years of photographs, believes she had plastic surgery, which would undercut her reputation for health through alternative medicine. ..
The Suzanne Somers Wonder Drug
Somers’ core message revolves around the use of bioidentical hormones as wonder drugs. In Knockout, she writes that they fix “sex drive, inability to sleep, weight gain, bloating, body itches, mood swings, hot flashes, and memory loss… [and] also restores quality of life.” Bioidenticals, she writes, are “a good idea if you want to stay alive for twice as long as your body intended.”
So what makes bioidenticals different from hormones packaged and sold by major pharmaceutical firms?
According to doctors I spoke with, nothing.
“Bioidentical is a pseudo-scientific term used by Somers and others only as a marketing gimmick,” says Dr. Adriane Fugh-Berman, an Associate Professor in Complementary and Alternative Medicine at Georgetown’s School of Medicine. “Bioidentical hormones are not natural products; they are synthesized in a laboratory. Bioidentical preparations use exactly the same pharmaceutical hormones that are used in branded hormone preparations.”
Page continued...
That differentiation—or lack thereof—is critical. In 2002, one of the largest-ever medical studies, The Women’s Health Initiative, concluded that estrogen and progesterone, the hormones used by Somers and millions of menopausal aged women, increased the risks of cancer and death rates. In other words, Somers “cure” might in fact be a cause.
The former actress addresses this issue preemptively in Knockout. “The report was speaking of synthetic hormones,” writes Somers. She therefore concludes that bioidenticals are safe and natural, noting that they aren’t made by pharmaceutical companies but instead in non-FDA regulated compounding pharmacies as part of customized preparations.
“I’m no friend of the drug companies Somers criticizes,” says Fugh-Berman, who has been a paid expert witness against hormone giant Wyeth, testifying for plaintiffs who had breast cancer. But her own extensive research on bioidenticals found no evidence that they act any differently or are any safer than the conventional hormones tested in the Women’s Health Initiative. “This is critical to understand,” Fugh-Berman told me. “There’s actually every reason to believe that bioidentical hormones will have the same risks when it comes to heart disease, blood clots, and breast cancer.”
Somers cites “over 40 studies showing that bioidentical hormones are safe” but they are all observational studies, not a single one meets the standards for a clinical determination of a drug’s safety profile. Many of the hormones, she says, have been used with great results in Europe for years. She omits, says Fugh-Berman, “that European studies have shown increased cancer risks. Somers is simply far more dangerous in her pop and inaccurate descriptions of hormones than most any doctor.”
“It’s pretty scary,” says Dr. Rahul Parikh, a California physician who writes Salon’s popular Vital Signs column. “Bioidentical hormones are a multi-billion dollar business and there’s no science to back them up.”
What infuriates physicians even more than Somers’ unproven claims of safety and health benefits is that in Knockout she proclaims that bioidentical hormone replacement is protective against cancer. She writes that “[they] offer protection against breast cancer, but no one has connected the dots,” and that using testosterone “can protect and prevent cancer, especially prostate cancer.”
“It’s exactly the opposite,” says Fugh-Berman. “Estrogen alone can cause uterine cancer. That risk can be reduced by adding a progestagen, but that increases the risk of breast cancer. Somers thinks they are safe despite the fact that she developed breast cancer while on them, and later developed endometrial hyperplasia (abnormal uterine cell growth), which led to a hysterectomy. Both are known side effects of hormone therapy.” Parikh adds that human growth hormone, which Somers injects daily, has also been linked to increased cancer risks.
“That she possibly aided and abetted her own cancer should have destroyed her credibility,” says Dr. Nanette Santoro, the Director of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility at New York’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine. “The real miracle is her ability to continue to pitch her theories.”
Somers blames her breast cancer on other medications, including birth control pills she took for many years. But she admits that her hysterectomy was likely due to an incorrect dosage of bioidenticals.
“Imagine, that with all her money, and with access to the best bio-identical doctors and compounding pharmacies, she can’t get it right.” asks Dr. Steven Petak, President of the American College of Endocrinology. “How can an average person hope not to have problems?”
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-11-09/does-suzanne-somers-cause-cancer/
Under the Mistletoe: Suzanne Somers' Breast Cancer Treatment
By Jeanie Lerche Davis
WebMD Health NewsApril 4, 2001 -- Actress Suzanne Somers recently revealed that she has opted to treat her breast cancer with Iscador, a drug made from a mistletoe extract.
Somers followed the advice of her physician and underwent surgery to remove a cancerous lump and then radiation therapy to treat any remaining cancer. She is taking Iscador to boost her immune system, says Sandi Mendelson, her publicist.
"Ms. Somers is absolutely adamant that she is not advocating this treatment for anyone," Mendelson says. "It's a totally personal decision. She really urges women to consult their own doctors before pursuing any alternative treatments."
Good advice -- to talk with your physician, says Toncred Styblo, MD, a breast cancer specialist and surgical oncologist at Atlanta's Emory University School of Medicine.
http://www.webmd.com/news/20010404/under-mistletoe-suzanne-somers-breast-cancer-treatment
MSN topic coverage Suzanne Somers
http://specials.msn.com/A-List/Suzanne-Somers.aspx?cp-searchtext=Suzanne%20Somers&form=msnhal
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