Deodorant, plastic bottles, grilled foods, artificial sweeteners, soy products ... Do any of these products really cause cancer?
With so many cancer myths and urban legends out there, why not ask a cancer doctor?
Dr. Sudan can debunk cancer myths while sharing cancer facts that matter, such as risk factors, prevention and the research underway at City of Hope.
Cancer Urban Legends: Separating Fact from Fiction
Featured Speaker:
Nimit Sudan, MD
Dr. Sudan is board-certified in internal medicine, hematology and oncology, and is also certified in acupuncture. Transcription:
Cancer Urban Legends: Separating Fact from Fiction
Melanie Cole (Host): Deodorant, plastic bottles, grilled foods, cellphones, artificial sweeteners, herbs and supplements, is cancer contagious? All of these questions are what we call cancer urban legends, and we’re going to answer that question today, if any of these products and legends are really true. Do they really cause cancer? My guest today is Dr. Nimit Sudan. He is board certified in internal medicine, hematology and oncology at City of Hope. Welcome to the show, Dr. Sudan. Tell us about some of these. Let’s start with cellphones because people are thinking now, Bluetooth and cellphones, holding them up to your head is causing brain cancer. Do these radio waves cause cancer?
Dr. Nimit Sudan (Guest): Well, a lot of cancer myths and cancer legends start on very good data, and when we do bigger studies, we find maybe some of the carcinogens, for example, with cellphones that emit radio waves, you know, when the rubber hits the road, we find actually that some of this is not true or it may not be as bad as what we thought. For example, cellphones do emit radio waves which is part of the spectrum of radiation, and radiation does cause cancer, but the radio waves or radio frequencies that cellphones emit are actually non-ionizing radiation. The tissues can absorb this energy and certainly cancer can occur, but a lot of studies have shown that this is actually not that harmful. A lot of studies have shown that there may be some increase in incidence of cancer, but it’s not enough to say, “Do not use cellphones.” It’s not enough to promote other technologies, which take the cellphones away from your head. With that said, what do I do at home? I have kids and I tell them, “Don’t use cell phones, they cause cancer.” In reality, studies really have not proven that cellphones will cause brain cancer.
Melanie: Okay, so what about contagious. Is cancer contagious?
Dr. Sudan: No, cancer is not contagious. Other than a few instances, I tell my patients, “There’s nothing you did that could have caused this, there’s nothing you did that could have prevented this.” For example, breast cancer. There’s not much in life any woman ever did that cause this. Now, a lot of this is family history. A lot of this is the environment. A lot of it is aging, etcetera. A lot of other reasons why cancers occur, but a cancer is not contagious. I sit in a cancer center with lots of patients who have cancer. It is not contagious. I’m not afraid I’m going to get cancer from a neighbor or friend or a patient. That truly is a myth. There are some exceptions to that. There are some viruses that can cause cancer. If you get the virus, you can get cancer. I suppose if you stretch it, that’s really the only exception to that rule. Even that is really stretching it.
Melanie: So if you have surgery to remove a cancer or a biopsy or something, does that then spread the cancer through your body? Also, women hear that mammograms, because of that compression, that if you did have a breast tumor, it’s going to break it open and spread it through your body. Is that true?
Dr. Sudan: Some of what you’re saying is partially true. Mammograms, just like cellphones, have radiation. It’s really that radiation that causes cancer. If a woman starts getting mammograms at age 20 and stops at age 80, that’s a lot of radiation over a lifetime. That was the debate several years ago. When should women start getting mammograms, at what age? Is 32 young? Are we exposing women to too much radiation over their lifetime? Should we start at 50? Should we start at 40? It’s not the actual compression, but it’s actually the cumulative dose of radiation throughout their lifetime. As far as biopsies and surgeries, most of the time when the patient goes in for surgery and the cancer is more advanced than before surgery, it’s because we really didn’t see it on CAT scans. The CAT scan is a picture. Any imaging is a picture. When you take a picture, there are certain details you don’t see. Sometimes, when a patient has pancreatic cancer and we just see a mass in the pancreas, we open them up and then we see little tiny cancer nodules on the liver that just was not seen on the CAT scan. It wasn’t the surgery that caused it to spread that fast. There are certain exceptions. There are certain cancers we do worry that if we biopsy, maybe we can see the tract where the needle is. For the most part, that’s not the case. For day to day, most of the cancers that I deal with, I have no concerns that either surgery or a biopsy will spread the cancer.
Melanie: Okay. So, Dr. Sudan, what about things like artificial sweeteners or grilled foods? We’ve heard that grilled foods and smoky foods, smoked turkey, smoked salmon, that these smoky foods and grilled foods with the char on them, can also contribute, that they’re carcinogenic.
Dr. Sudan: Yeah, now we’re walking into an area where certainly grilling foods and smoking, they are carcinogens that end up on your food. But, again, it’s the same thing. For the most part, when we do the studies, we don’t find there’s a huge increase or any increase in cancer. When you grill food, there’s a lot of char that may be left over on the grill itself from the last time if you don’t clean well and some of that gets on your food. Again, for the most part, these things do not and have not been shown in studies that increase cancer. There are compounds on the foods that are carcinogenic, but again, these have not shown an increase in incidence with people who eat grilled foods.
Melanie: What about standing behind the bus out on the street? Is smog just as cancerous as if you were smoking a cigarette?
Dr. Sudan: Well, that’s a good question. Again, smog, smoke, secondhand smoke, grilling foods, they all have similar carcinogens. Depending on where you live, there may be certain industries that there were smoke stacks, etcetera that put a lot of carcinogens in smoke and chemicals in the air. Again, I think some of that you have to take into account where you live and what the actual carcinogens are. There are towns that I have been in that I look around that has industry. I grew up in the Midwest. There are small towns that are just based on the auto industry and there may be a factory there that makes a certain compound or a chemical for plastic or what have you. Now, if you’re working in that factory, you need to wear protection because the concentration of chemicals there are very high. Outside, it’s not as high. Now, again, I told you I have kids. What do I do at home? Would I live in a clean city or a city with lots of smog? I would prefer a clean city. I think some studies are not powered enough, meaning, they’re not big enough to really show a difference in harm. Sometimes, things like secondhand smoking or smog is really hard to study. You have to study millions and millions of people over decades. Those kinds of studies are actually very hard to do.
I think a lot of studies have shown no significant increase in cancer incidents with smog and even secondhand smoking, but when it comes to my family, my kids, I would prefer to live in a clean city without secondhand smoke.
Melanie: In just the last few minutes, Dr. Sudan, please tell the listeners some cancer facts that are true and that do matter. We only have a minute or two, but just share some really interesting and very important information, the best advice you would give somebody on hopefully preventing or dealing with cancers.
Dr. Sudan: We do know a few things. For example, smoking causes cancer, so stop smoking. If your lifestyle is better, we can lower the incidence of a lot of different cancers. For example, diet and exercise, the usual mantra of any physician, will lower your incidence of cancer. For example, eating less red meat and more fiber will lower your incidence of colon cancer. I think living a healthy, active lifestyle with a good diet will help. Now these days, cancer treatment and prevention has gone night and day in the last 10 years. It has progressed so much. So much research is being done. Fifteen, twenty years ago, cancer usually was a death sentence. We found cancer too late, we didn’t have a good screening method, and the treatment wasn’t that great. Today, we find cancer early. We cure a lot of people with cancer. Even people we can’t cure, we can treat and keep them around for a long, long time sometimes. The treatment of cancer is changing. It’s not the old chemotherapy where you’re in the hospital and sick and throwing up for weeks. These days, we have pills, we have antibodies. If you sit in my waiting room in our cancer center here in City of Hope, I bet you couldn’t even tell half of the people are getting treatment for cancer. Things have come a long way. I urge patients and people, I urge everybody, to make sure they’re up-to-date, they see their family doctor to get screening and not be afraid to seek treatment if they indeed have cancer.
Melanie: That’s great information and really great advice. Thank you so much. You’re listening to City of Hope Radio. For more information, you can go to cityofhope.org. That’s cityofhope.org. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for listening
Cancer Urban Legends: Separating Fact from Fiction
Melanie Cole (Host): Deodorant, plastic bottles, grilled foods, cellphones, artificial sweeteners, herbs and supplements, is cancer contagious? All of these questions are what we call cancer urban legends, and we’re going to answer that question today, if any of these products and legends are really true. Do they really cause cancer? My guest today is Dr. Nimit Sudan. He is board certified in internal medicine, hematology and oncology at City of Hope. Welcome to the show, Dr. Sudan. Tell us about some of these. Let’s start with cellphones because people are thinking now, Bluetooth and cellphones, holding them up to your head is causing brain cancer. Do these radio waves cause cancer?
Dr. Nimit Sudan (Guest): Well, a lot of cancer myths and cancer legends start on very good data, and when we do bigger studies, we find maybe some of the carcinogens, for example, with cellphones that emit radio waves, you know, when the rubber hits the road, we find actually that some of this is not true or it may not be as bad as what we thought. For example, cellphones do emit radio waves which is part of the spectrum of radiation, and radiation does cause cancer, but the radio waves or radio frequencies that cellphones emit are actually non-ionizing radiation. The tissues can absorb this energy and certainly cancer can occur, but a lot of studies have shown that this is actually not that harmful. A lot of studies have shown that there may be some increase in incidence of cancer, but it’s not enough to say, “Do not use cellphones.” It’s not enough to promote other technologies, which take the cellphones away from your head. With that said, what do I do at home? I have kids and I tell them, “Don’t use cell phones, they cause cancer.” In reality, studies really have not proven that cellphones will cause brain cancer.
Melanie: Okay, so what about contagious. Is cancer contagious?
Dr. Sudan: No, cancer is not contagious. Other than a few instances, I tell my patients, “There’s nothing you did that could have caused this, there’s nothing you did that could have prevented this.” For example, breast cancer. There’s not much in life any woman ever did that cause this. Now, a lot of this is family history. A lot of this is the environment. A lot of it is aging, etcetera. A lot of other reasons why cancers occur, but a cancer is not contagious. I sit in a cancer center with lots of patients who have cancer. It is not contagious. I’m not afraid I’m going to get cancer from a neighbor or friend or a patient. That truly is a myth. There are some exceptions to that. There are some viruses that can cause cancer. If you get the virus, you can get cancer. I suppose if you stretch it, that’s really the only exception to that rule. Even that is really stretching it.
Melanie: So if you have surgery to remove a cancer or a biopsy or something, does that then spread the cancer through your body? Also, women hear that mammograms, because of that compression, that if you did have a breast tumor, it’s going to break it open and spread it through your body. Is that true?
Dr. Sudan: Some of what you’re saying is partially true. Mammograms, just like cellphones, have radiation. It’s really that radiation that causes cancer. If a woman starts getting mammograms at age 20 and stops at age 80, that’s a lot of radiation over a lifetime. That was the debate several years ago. When should women start getting mammograms, at what age? Is 32 young? Are we exposing women to too much radiation over their lifetime? Should we start at 50? Should we start at 40? It’s not the actual compression, but it’s actually the cumulative dose of radiation throughout their lifetime. As far as biopsies and surgeries, most of the time when the patient goes in for surgery and the cancer is more advanced than before surgery, it’s because we really didn’t see it on CAT scans. The CAT scan is a picture. Any imaging is a picture. When you take a picture, there are certain details you don’t see. Sometimes, when a patient has pancreatic cancer and we just see a mass in the pancreas, we open them up and then we see little tiny cancer nodules on the liver that just was not seen on the CAT scan. It wasn’t the surgery that caused it to spread that fast. There are certain exceptions. There are certain cancers we do worry that if we biopsy, maybe we can see the tract where the needle is. For the most part, that’s not the case. For day to day, most of the cancers that I deal with, I have no concerns that either surgery or a biopsy will spread the cancer.
Melanie: Okay. So, Dr. Sudan, what about things like artificial sweeteners or grilled foods? We’ve heard that grilled foods and smoky foods, smoked turkey, smoked salmon, that these smoky foods and grilled foods with the char on them, can also contribute, that they’re carcinogenic.
Dr. Sudan: Yeah, now we’re walking into an area where certainly grilling foods and smoking, they are carcinogens that end up on your food. But, again, it’s the same thing. For the most part, when we do the studies, we don’t find there’s a huge increase or any increase in cancer. When you grill food, there’s a lot of char that may be left over on the grill itself from the last time if you don’t clean well and some of that gets on your food. Again, for the most part, these things do not and have not been shown in studies that increase cancer. There are compounds on the foods that are carcinogenic, but again, these have not shown an increase in incidence with people who eat grilled foods.
Melanie: What about standing behind the bus out on the street? Is smog just as cancerous as if you were smoking a cigarette?
Dr. Sudan: Well, that’s a good question. Again, smog, smoke, secondhand smoke, grilling foods, they all have similar carcinogens. Depending on where you live, there may be certain industries that there were smoke stacks, etcetera that put a lot of carcinogens in smoke and chemicals in the air. Again, I think some of that you have to take into account where you live and what the actual carcinogens are. There are towns that I have been in that I look around that has industry. I grew up in the Midwest. There are small towns that are just based on the auto industry and there may be a factory there that makes a certain compound or a chemical for plastic or what have you. Now, if you’re working in that factory, you need to wear protection because the concentration of chemicals there are very high. Outside, it’s not as high. Now, again, I told you I have kids. What do I do at home? Would I live in a clean city or a city with lots of smog? I would prefer a clean city. I think some studies are not powered enough, meaning, they’re not big enough to really show a difference in harm. Sometimes, things like secondhand smoking or smog is really hard to study. You have to study millions and millions of people over decades. Those kinds of studies are actually very hard to do.
I think a lot of studies have shown no significant increase in cancer incidents with smog and even secondhand smoking, but when it comes to my family, my kids, I would prefer to live in a clean city without secondhand smoke.
Melanie: In just the last few minutes, Dr. Sudan, please tell the listeners some cancer facts that are true and that do matter. We only have a minute or two, but just share some really interesting and very important information, the best advice you would give somebody on hopefully preventing or dealing with cancers.
Dr. Sudan: We do know a few things. For example, smoking causes cancer, so stop smoking. If your lifestyle is better, we can lower the incidence of a lot of different cancers. For example, diet and exercise, the usual mantra of any physician, will lower your incidence of cancer. For example, eating less red meat and more fiber will lower your incidence of colon cancer. I think living a healthy, active lifestyle with a good diet will help. Now these days, cancer treatment and prevention has gone night and day in the last 10 years. It has progressed so much. So much research is being done. Fifteen, twenty years ago, cancer usually was a death sentence. We found cancer too late, we didn’t have a good screening method, and the treatment wasn’t that great. Today, we find cancer early. We cure a lot of people with cancer. Even people we can’t cure, we can treat and keep them around for a long, long time sometimes. The treatment of cancer is changing. It’s not the old chemotherapy where you’re in the hospital and sick and throwing up for weeks. These days, we have pills, we have antibodies. If you sit in my waiting room in our cancer center here in City of Hope, I bet you couldn’t even tell half of the people are getting treatment for cancer. Things have come a long way. I urge patients and people, I urge everybody, to make sure they’re up-to-date, they see their family doctor to get screening and not be afraid to seek treatment if they indeed have cancer.
Melanie: That’s great information and really great advice. Thank you so much. You’re listening to City of Hope Radio. For more information, you can go to cityofhope.org. That’s cityofhope.org. This is Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for listening