Researcher at the National Cancer Institute: There are cases in which women arrive so neglected that they even smell

– There are not as many women scientists as men, and you yourself have said that women are still classified as ‘mice’ and men as more serious jobs. Doesn’t that attitude bother you?

– In Lithuania, the discriminatory problem in science is solved, leading in terms of number of scientists. Of course, if we look at how many of those scientists have their own groups, how many of them run the institutes … Our institute is temporarily run by women and this is more of an exception, because generally women are inferior to men in unequal struggle . However, gender inequality in science is being addressed at the EU level. Although some 60 years ago women did not exist in science and just came, research is taken out of its drawer and used to receive the Nobel Prize. It happened to Rosalind Franklin, who is probably not the most famous scientist, although she deserved the Nobel Prize, but it was simply stolen from him. Sure, she was dead when her colleagues received the Nobel Prize, but she deserved it, as she laid the foundation for all molecular biology that exists today, genetics, she was the first to help discover what DNA is like. Women are the driving force behind science, but they have often been forgotten. Especially blacks, and now there’s a lot of talk about NASA scientists who built the entire NASA base and launched humans into space and onto the Moon. It is gratifying that we are already recovering a bit and are beginning to realize that men’s and women’s attitudes are different and that science needs them. There are still problems with leadership positions or, very rarely, with Nobel laureates for women compared to men. And that doesn’t mean that women are doing more or less meaningful research, it’s just a kind of stalemate that remains and male leadership groups are believed to be more important.

– You mentioned that probably the biggest challenge for a scientist is motherhood. Wondering what happens if you decide to have children?

– The good thing is that now there are opportunities for women to return to work earlier. Let’s say that many research centers, even in Lithuania, already have separate rooms where children from an early age can already be cared for by babysitters, while their mother goes to the laboratory and conducts research. Also at the same time, projects are postponed because there is a period when a researcher is considered a young researcher. He then claims various benefits as a young scientist, but with little experience but progressive. It is a reserve for women who, if they take maternity leave, say, two years or more, the age of the young researcher will be the same as they were on maternity leave. So that inequality is fixed. Of course, maybe that disconnection from science will get you out of cancer, because sometimes it is enough to take even longer vacations and when you return it is already difficult to get to work. Science works every day, sometimes it just takes time to catch up with progress, but I don’t see children or motherhood as a big obstacle.

– It is often said that it is difficult for people of the same or similar profession under one roof. Your friend is an astrophysicist, or is it easier or more difficult for two scientists together?

– I wonder when I have someone to speak to in the same language. Because we are from different fields, although we are connected by physics, we do not fly in each other’s work or compete anyway, but only get a very constructive approach to each other. Sometimes we have very long discussions, we solve problems and it is gratifying to be able to speak to a person in the same terms about quantum physics or electron hopping. Of course, that friction sometimes comes from the fact that we are both scientists and we both need to know not only the fact, but also the “why?” And sometimes you tell a man a fact and he asks, and why? It wouldn’t even be interesting to the average person, and that scientific interest, the view that questions have to be asked constantly … Sometimes it makes me angry when testing is necessary. Because that’s the way it is, so you type, but you get the question, but why? What’s behind? And then you think, aha, but I don’t know why either, then you start to get even more interested.

– There is much talk now about burnout, your job is really stressful, how do you allow time to disconnect afterwards? You say you’re still talking to a friend about science at home, so when do you breathe?

– But it’s also a respite. It’s not that thinking scientific all the time is work. Even the books we read are light in content, but with some scientific problem, in scientific terms. Over time, fiction no longer becomes so interesting. Burnout feels like it fluctuates based on occupation because sometimes it seems to be everything at once. We spend our free time more actively so that there is not only a constant mental discharge, but also a physical one, so that the body is in balance. I have spoken with several scientists that the balance of physical and mental work is very important. After all, we sit and think hard all the time, and the most important thing in life is balance.

– When it comes to cancer, many people who, for various reasons, do not promote a healthy lifestyle, often say: “And to whom? After all, healthy people also get cancer and die, who has to limit themselves, has to enjoy life. “Let’s say, cancer is really a lottery, can we protect ourselves with a healthy lifestyle?

– In fact, sometimes there are cases when it seems that a person did everything right, but still fell in love with such an unfortunate ticket. But a person who constantly lives off risk factors (smoking, not moving, eating unhealthy, consuming large amounts of processed carbohydrates and sugars, foods low in fiber or rich in vitamins) does not take care of himself, promotes cancer and eventually destabilizes our body. Cancer cells form in our bodies every day. It is driven by certain environmental or internal factors and sometimes if something in the cell is out of balance and even more so by environmental factors – polluted air, food, water, and our unhealthy lifestyle – then everything looks even worse. The small cancer that develops in the body is regulated by our immune system, but when the balance is out of balance and the cancer outweighs its benefits, then we can already detect it clinically and diagnose that the cancer has started to grow and grow, the body does not facing the problem. A person who does not take care of himself or protect himself will simply deteriorate faster because he will be attacked by many factors, rather than a healthy person being attacked by only a few factors that he cannot avoid (perhaps a genetic predisposition to disease or just a coincidence, as cancer can sometimes occur). as a random genetic mutation).

Some people do not take great care of their health, although today there are many preventive health check-ups, programs like breast, cervical, prostate cancer, etc., a family doctor can order a test every few years and follow up when it is produce changes. But people don’t take advantage of that, especially women in the districts. They don’t go, they don’t apply, they don’t use the budget for those programs. There are cases when a woman with breast cancer arrives, when the breast necrosis has already started, it is just an open wound where the tissue is already dying and even the smell begins to spread from the woman as much as she has already given up her existing disease. Sometimes it is a shame to say that how it happened to me here, and sometimes it is due to negligence, because of the belief that “I don’t want doctors, maybe it will.” We researchers are trying to improve early diagnosis so that cancer can be detected as early as possible when it is still several hundred cells in size, not only occupying an entire organ, but also spreading to other tissues. People just need to pay more attention to how they live and what their health status is.

– For many people, a cancer diagnosis sounds like a death sentence. How have your attitudes changed while working in this field? It is often thought, for example, that doctors wake up even a little emotionally and the illness no longer seems so dramatic. How are you?

– I think cancer is just a disease. It is not a death sentence, it is a disease like all others, with its standard treatment. Due to the decline of doctors, it is natural not to be able to put all the heart in each patient. Above all, I imagine how the doctors working in the pediatric oncology service will feel when a child of several years arrives and has experienced absolutely nothing in his life, and I have to tell him that it will be impossible to cure him. There are such cases. As a result, that emotional distance from the patient is necessary for the doctor himself to function as a human being. Every loss for them is also a bit painful because they may not have been able to do everything, they wanted to save that person, but current medicine has not been able to do that.

Another thing is that some patients may complain that the doctors are cold and in a hurry, but they must also imagine that the doctors are under enormous burdens. Of course, here is such a disease that you want to hear every little detail. I heard from a doctor that she had to talk to a patient for an hour and a half because he had read the literature and it occurred to him that you doctors are just looking for money, leaving the poison. And then you see that a person is responsible, sometimes for inappropriate literature, and they have to fight, interpret and dedicate that time, but it is an hour and a half that they take from another person. Therefore, a doctor does not always have time if he wants to explain, he does not always have the experience and he is responsible in all areas, such as the compatibility of dietary supplements and standard chemotherapy. That’s a lot of information, not all of it is provided, doctors don’t even have time to read about newer, next-generation chemotherapy drugs, let alone talk about whether a vitamin or herbal preparation can be given. It’s just that doctors are of the opinion that if you want to take it, it may not hurt, or vice versa, you better not take it because it might hurt.

If such a disaster happened in my environment, it would first be necessary not to get lost and start to panic, appear rational, calm down, and then ask what to do now? What do doctors offer? Maybe go somewhere to ask for a different opinion, maybe other doctors from another clinic have a different treatment. Decide what strategies we want, because doctors sometimes offer not one treatment strategy, but several, so choose the most suitable one, take a look, maybe even scientific information, delve into what the disease is, how it works. See this disease in a rational way, not depend only on emotions and panic that now everything, if not the disease, will lead to death, it is a cure, it really is. There are people who think that everything is over and that the treatment is even worse than the disease, they refuse treatment and voila. He then travels to India in search of alternative Ayurvedic treatment and comes back with a stage of cancer where doctors can no longer help anyone, only assign morphine to the hospice unit.

– And there are often cases where people go in search of an alternative treatment? Sometimes there are stories of “miracle” cures.

– Because I don’t interact with patients, I only know so much, as doctors sometimes tell exceptional stories. There are all kinds of people, there are people who take vague preparations, send something untested from China, and they may not put anything or poison. Some boil various decoctions of myrtle, poison, burn the throat or stomach. Or go to the clinic for an experimental treatment … There was a fashion to treat cancer with soda: let the edible garden turn into cancer. It is a completely unscientific hypothesis that cancer is not an altered cell, but simply a fungus that has occupied our body, and the fungus is affected by soda. This is completely inconsistent with the known scientific information about what cancer is. And there have been cases where only people have died from side effects because it is not natural, such treatment should not exist at all.

But sometimes people go to experimental clinics, they don’t have any certificates, they aren’t approved by the ministries. Or apply to clinics that simply conduct human experiments, they don’t have any permission to conduct such clinical trials because it is not scientifically sound. There are institutions that loudly proclaim that traditional treatment won’t help and they really know what the cause is and how to treat it with cheaper drugs, and then they delve into the fact that there is no research or scientific justification as to why it should work scientifically.

Another problem is information on the Internet, where you can find a lot of useful information, but you can also find a lot of misleading information, which can sometimes cost a person his life. Of course, there are times when a person goes on a trip, takes Ayurvedic preparations and recovers, and then he comes and says: you offered me chemistry and I started doing yoga, meditation, promoting a healthy lifestyle, I gave up sugar and I I recovered. There are cases when the human body begins to deal with the disease itself, but in units. There are ways we can wake up and strengthen the immune system, it can work for some people, they activate those internal healing forces, the immune system is starting to recognize that it is bad and needs to be attacked, fixed. There are cases of this type, but it will not work for everyone, it will be activated in rare cases and there will be more stories that end with less joy.

When it comes to the importance of emotions for good health, there are unconventional doctors who say that cancer, for example, is caused by pent-up anger. Are these statements more of a smile to you, or is there really some truth to them? After all, does stress suppress the immune system?

– The truth is, in fact, constant stress, especially that chronic, constant, chronic stress causes hormonal changes in the body, because when we experience stress, various hormones are released, and that constant increase in hormones or even other biochemical molecules that are released leads to all the body being unbalanced. Normally, the body lives in homeostasis, which means that all systems are in balance, everything works in a very determined collaboration, but some factors are enough to break everything down. Usually all diseases are caused by something that caused a domino reaction and perhaps not by a single organ, but by the organ system, and the problem is not where one person sees and hurts, but somewhere else where everything our harmonious system is out of balance. .

The same is true with stress, that anger is the same with stress. It is known that stomach pain can be caused by stress and this may actually be scientifically proven. 80% of our intestine is formed. serotonin, which is a hormone of happiness. So if our intestine doesn’t work well, the microflora is disrupted, we feel less happiness, we have more stress, and as a result, for example, the stomach muscles start to contract involuntarily and this is all a vicious cycle that we live in and eventually somewhere it can break. high stress and resulting injuries, oncological diseases, chronic inflammation or various other diseases. Everything in the body is related, at the same time, on an emotional level. What we feel, what we experience, ultimately also responds to us physically, whether they are good emotions that respond positively or bad emotions that can have negative consequences.

– And a healthy diet is enough to obtain all the substances that a healthy body needs, is it necessary to take supplements?

– I have read a study that compares the nutrients of the most common foods that a person eats. There have been comparisons, if I am not mistaken, of the nutritional products of the 1980s and the result of these times: the reductions are drastic, speaking of 80 percent. reduction of some trace elements in the products. Because, in fact, what we buy in stores is derived from a field that is depleted because it is constantly cultivated on it. It can be fertilized with some synthetic fertilizer, but the food we eat is not that rich anymore. Of course, if we eat manure grown on our farm, yes, maybe the benefits will be greater, sure, but if the diet is based solely on what we buy in the stores, then there really is a shortage of ingredients. Another thing is that there are some substances that we cannot obtain due to our eating habits characteristic of our nation or due to the lack of sun. For example, vitamin D is sometimes said to be made in the sun – who do you drink it for? But in fact, if we calculate, we are at such a latitude that even in the height of summer we would have to go out on a daily basis, covering only 20 percent. body, for example, in a bathing suit, 12 hours a day, stand for at least half an hour and wait for a sunny summer every day. How many sunny days do we have during a fairly short summer? It lasts for 3-4 months, and the next time we have a period where the sun is turned at such an angle that the skin no longer produces vitamin D because the angle of incidence of sunlight is no longer suitable for synthesis of vitamin D.

Our diet is also one that is not very rich in fish, especially blue fish, although we have the Baltic Sea, we probably eat much less fish products than the southern nations. This deficiency in both omega-3 acids and vitamin D is significant. The IMI conducted a study and found that nearly 90 percent of people were deficient in vitamin D. especially during the winter. It can be seen that even leading a healthy life but not taking supplements can start to lead to a lack of certain substances. The problem is especially evident if people deviate from those fad diets: vegetarianism, veganism. This is a human choice and sometimes helpful, but one must be a smart vegetarian or vegan and observe oneself, keep track of what is beginning to be lacking, as some trace elements are only derived from animal products, and eventually , the deficiency can lead to, for example, blindness, deafness. , heart attack, stroke, or death. However, perhaps a rare Lithuanian can choose extremely organic, high-quality and high-fiber foods. It is unaffordable for the average person. Sometimes a person’s financial capacity does not allow him to eat properly. And, as I said, food is no longer as valuable as when our grandparents or parents ate it. When it comes to dietary supplements, one should look at what is of the highest quality, as there are all kinds of cases where people send unclear things from where they are not clear, or distribute something from acquaintances and it is not always better. . The consumer must be attentive and observe what he is wearing.