http://www.urmc.rochester.edu/news/story/index.cfm?id=3182

Low vitamin D levels among women with breast cancer correlate with more aggressive tumors and poorer prognosis, according to a new University of Rochester Medical Center study highlighted this week at the American Society of Breast Surgeons meeting in Washington, D.C.

The study is one of the first to examine vitamin D and breast cancer progression. Previous research has focused on vitamin D deficiency and the risk of cancer development. The URMC epidemiology study associates sub-optimal vitamin D levels with poor scores on every major biological marker that helps physicians predict a patient’s breast cancer outcome.

“The magnitude of the findings was quite surprising,” said lead researcher Luke J. Peppone, Ph.D., M.P.H., research assistant professor of Radiation Oncology at the URMC James P. Wilmot Cancer Center. “Based on these results, doctors should strongly consider monitoring vitamin D levels among breast cancer patients and correcting them as needed.”

Considering the ‘warnings’ about sun..(where most Vit. D comes from healthily) women are in a Vit D deficiency ‘pandemic’…imo..something to consider.

After a medical catastrophe in February that’s had me bed-bound ever since, my android pad has probably saved me from a breakdown. Then, quite by accident, I realised that my motor functions and hand-eye coordination were improving dramatically, especially considering I’m having no active treatment, just pain relief.

Then it hit me. Of course marathon sessions of Angry Birds and Bubble Bobble are going to improve those functions. So thanks to my need for distraction I’ve actually been accidentally productive!

I hope you continue to do well.

@Janet – realising, a few years ago, that I didn’t have to face every awful thing with a smile, and everything from homelessness to dead relatives as being “For a reason, part of God’s plan for you”, was an enormous weight lifted from me.

Now that I’m allowed to be angry, allowed to question things and be upset at horrible things that are happening, I’m actually much happier!
Because I’m not being forced into keeping a permanent grin on my face, I don’t have that simmering resentment I used to have. I can actually be truly happy, even through some pretty terrible situations, because I know I have an outlet, an escape vent.

It’s so much easier being allowed to own all your emotions, rather than being forced into a perpetual Pollyanna state!

I’ve commented before on Ehrenreich’s book, and the author (or his co-blogger) knows of it and knows her I believe, or his co-blogger does. I was very gratified to read Bright Sided as have experienced the shunning that comes with not being part of the “no negativity, ever” crowd. The book, for those who haven’t read it, goes beyond the breast cancer experience of the author and gives a compelling history of the whole positive (read magical) thinking movement in the US. I have found a lot of this nonsense going on even when I get a mammogram. The rooms are all softly lit (and pink), with special locker rooms you don’t get anywhere else you go for a test. Some very caring type sits with you in a big armchair and practically holds your hand while simply explaining a mammo! I find it insulting and have started telling them to just get on with it.

@AlbanyLynne

Thank you for sharing your insights. I often think I’m nearly the only non-medical person who reads this blog–or who comments anyway. It’s great to hear of a real-life result from a reader. Sometimes I think its all a lot of preaching to the choir, so thanks for letting everyone know of your experience. Hey! I lie in bed and play with my iPad all the time for no reason at all, so don’t begrudge yourself that.

I learned from SBM that it is all wishful thinking to believe that my thoughts could affect the outcome of my cancer.

Instead of thinking positively, I was able to concentrate on making all of my treatment appointments (which is quite a challenge). I believe that getting all the treatments was probably the most important thing for me to do.

I was able to “enjoy” (well, as much as possible!) the chemotherapy treatments by bringing my iPad and emailing friends, instead of wasting time visualizing the chemotherapy running through my body, killing the cancer cells. And, on the many days I was too tired or too nauseous to do anything, I simply would lie in bed, playing with my iPad or dreaming in the sunshine. Perhaps not the most productive way to pass the time, but, not so bad.

I was greatly relieved to not have to think positively (really, chemotherapy makes it hard to think at all!). Because all I wanted to do was survive, and each day was a struggle to just get up, take a shower, get dressed, eat, and spend the rest of the day in bed.

There’s a new documentary called Pink Ribbons Inc.. It’s about the corporate hijacking of breast cancer activism and fundraising.

It features a group of women with stage IV breast cancer, many of whom blame themselves for the recurrence of their cancer, who say things like “I thought I’d done everything I was supposed to, I tried to stay positive”. The women tell of how breast cancer support groups actually shunned them for having terminal cancer, because they wanted to stay positive in order to “beat” the disease, and the stage IV women’s mere presence was too negative.

That wasn’t in one support group, but groups all over the state (California I believe) and in online support groups. So women are already so scared that not staying upbeat will kill them, that they’re willing to chase away any reminder that it’s actually out of their control, even if that means freezing out dying women.

Barbara Ehrenreich, in the excellent book Bright-sided: How positive thinking is undermining America, tells of her experience during her breast cancer treatment, of the pressure to stay cheerful during treatment, no matter what happened. She speaks of directly receiving the message that “negativity kills”, and of the sense that one should almost revert to a state of perpetual childhood, a state of unwavering trust, to the extent that women were encouraged to colour with crayons and play with teddy bears.

Easily overlooked in these multivariate analyses is that income is as strongly related to circadian rhythm as the coping variables are.

Easy to see why, especially in an American study. It’s a pity that “Poverty associated with negative outcome in patients diagnosed with breast cancer” just isn’t “sexy” enough to get pageviews.

Should this have been:

Looking past the authors’ dubious labeling of the scale, none of these items seem particularly maladaptive when occurring in the days after diagnosis of breast cancer.” ?

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Can you suggest some decent studies linking circadian rhythms with tumor growth?