Breast Cancer: Melatonin Helps to: Prevent Cancer, Avoid Drug Resistance, Stop Metastasis

By Richard L. Hansler

By printing the abstracts of technical studies, the author provides the evidence that melatonin helps prevent breast cancer and helps avoid resistance to chemotherapy drugs. Melatonin also helps keep cancer cells from changing to the type that can spread and develop metastases. You will learn how both maximizing natural melatonin and supplementi

• Language: English
• Publisher: Richard Hansler
• Release date: Jan 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781088017005

Book preview

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My thanks go first to my wife, Wanda, for her patience and support as I continue writing books about how light affects health and how melatonin may protect from breast cancer. I also want to thank my children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren for their support in encouraging me to continue what I love to do, well past the age when most people retire.

Next, I want to thank my partners in Photonic Developments LLC that sponsor the LowBlueLights.com website, Dr. Edward Carome, Dr. Martin Alpert, Vilnis Kubulins, and Daniel Carome. We are building a business that helps people improve their sleep and health. Tens of thousands of people are now enjoying better sleep and health as a result of buying our products.

Special thanks go to my daughter, Susan Thomsen, for editing this book and to her husband, Mark Thomsen, for designing the cover.

PREFACE

(PLEASE READ)

Why write another book about breast cancer?  In 2008, I wrote a book entitled, Great Sleep! Reduced Cancer.  Since then, there has been rapid progress in understanding the basic physiological processes that contribute to breast cancer. The exciting results concerning the benefits of melatonin need to be made available to the people who can benefit from this knowledge. 

Blind women have about half the incidence of breast cancer as women with normal vision.  This amazing fact was discovered by Dr. Hahn in 1992. Did the Komen Breast Cancer Society let their volunteers learn about it? Not that I know of.  Did the American Cancer Society do a massive study of blind women? Not that I know of.   Studies in Norway and Sweden confirmed that blind women have a lower risk of breast cancer.

In 2010, Dr. Schernhammer did a study in which she looked at the incidence of breast cancer for totally blind women and compared it to blind women who still had perception of light that controlled their circadian rhythm. The totally blind women had about half the incidence of breast cancer as the blind women with some light perception that reduced melatonin production.

According to the World Health Organization, there are about 685,000 deaths globally each year due to breast cancer.  If all women could maximize their melatonin the way the blind women automatically do, then about 340,000 lives would be saved each year... One of them could be yours.

Lifestyle changes can optimize melatonin production. The first step is to get up each morning at about the same time and expose your eyes to bright light.  Daylight is the best, but lacking that, a brightly lit bathroom or kitchen can do the job of resetting your circadian rhythm. There is evidence that exposing the eyes to bright light throughout the day will reduce the effect of evening light that tends to suppress melatonin. To avoid suppressing melatonin in the evening you can use light bulbs that don't make blue light or wear glasses that block blue light. It is primarily the blue rays in white light that suppress melatonin.

For your best health, plan to sleep seven or eight hours a night. Keeping your bedroom cool, dark, and quiet will help you to achieve excellent sleep. 

Some very recent studies suggest that supplementing with oral melatonin tablets is another way to reduce the risk of breast cancer and other cancers as well. 

Throughout this book, you will note references to PubMed.  One of the best investments by the U.S. federal government has been in the establishment of a medical database known as PubMed.  Each of the millions of abstracts in the database has an identifying number (12345678). When appropriate, I will use that number to provide a way for the reader to get to the original abstract and in many cases to the full paper. The database is found at Pubmed.gov.

Classification of breast cancers:

ER status: ER positive (ER+) means the breast cancer has estrogen receptors. ER negative (ER-) means the breast cancer doesn’t have estrogen receptors. If an estrogen receptor is present, estrogen will stimulate growth.

PR status: PR positive (PR+) means the breast cancer has progesterone receptors. PR negative (PR-) means the breast cancer doesn’t have progesterone receptors.

HER2 (human epidermal growth factor receptor 2) A protein involved in the growth of cells. Around 15–20 percent of breast cancers have higher than normal levels of HER2 (known as HER2+) which helps the cancer to grow.

Triple negative breast cancer: The name given to breast cancer that is: Estrogen receptor negative (ER-), Progesterone receptor negative (PR-), and HER2 negative.

Table Of Contents

Chapter 1: The Circadian Rhythm

Chapter 2 How Blue Light Controls The Circadian Rhythm (The Importance Of Melanopsin)

Chapter 3: Evidence Of Breast Cancer Prevention From Studies Of Blind Women

Chapter 4: Shift Work Increases The Risk Of Breast Cancer

Chapter 5: Avoiding Blue Light In The Evening Enhances Sleep

Chapter 6: Part Time Cancers

Chapter 7: Evidence That Melatonin Slows Tumor Growth (Benefits Of Reducing Blue Light At Night)

Chapter 8: Possible Benefits Of Daytime Exposure To Blue Light

Chapter 9: Genomics - Understanding Breast Cancer Risks And Treatment

Chapter 10: Melatonin Reduces Risk For Breast Cancer Metastasis

Chapter 11: Melatonin Reduces Drug Resistance And Improves Cancer Treatment

Chapter 12: Drug Conjugates Fight Breast Cancer

Chapter 13: Immunotherapy For Breast Cancer Treatment

Chapter 14: A New Way To Test If Melatonin Reduces The Risk For Breast Cancer

Chapter 15: The Bottom Line

CHAPTER 1

The Circadian Rhythm

All living things have a built-in clock. Actually, every cell in the body has a built-in clock. The clock consists of a tiny portion of DNA that acts as the timekeeper. The entire double helix of the DNA resides in the nucleus of every cell and is made up of about 22,000 genes. It provides the instructions for producing a