Dear Healthy Friend,

Labradors, daschunds, boxers, bulldogs, maltese poodles... These are just some of the breeds that we keep as pets. They're loyal, lovable and form part of our families... But there's another reason why man's best friend, could really be, well, man's best friend...

Keep reading to find out why...

In the name of good health,

Taryn Strugnell
Managing Editor of Nutrition & Healing

P.S. White blood cells are a vital part of our immune systems... Their role is to defend the body against infection by germs, so when these levels dip, we are more prone to infection... Dr Wright gives us a natural way to boost these numbers...

The dogs that can sniff out prostate cancer…
Jenny Thompson
Director, Health Sciences Institute

I've had some pretty remarkable dogs in my life. One that even understood "right" and "left" - even though I never trained him on it. But I think even he'd be impressed with this Belgian Malinois (it's a breed of German shepherd widely used in law enforcement to sniff out bombs and drugs).

Two French researchers trained the Belgian Malinois to detect the difference between urine samples from men with prostate cancer and samples from healthy men.

This plan isn't as far-fetched as it sounds. Researchers know that some types of tumours discharge compounds with distinct aromas. And dogs have previously been successful in identifying bladder, skin and lung cancers.

After a year of training, researchers put the dog through 11 tests. In each test, the dog was presented with six urine samples - five from healthy men and one from a man with confirmed prostate cancer.

The dog found the cancer sample in eight tests. And in one of the three tests that he chose a "healthy" sample, the man who submitted that sample was soon diagnosed with prostate cancer.

So if I'm doing my maths right, the dog has about an 82% prostate accuracy rate.

As we've mentioned in Health Bytes before, elevated PSA levels indicate the possibility of prostate cancer.

But PSA levels can rise and fall based on factors other than cancer. Nearly two-thirds of all single PSA tests that indicate cancer end up being false positives (and, again, compare that to less than a 20% fail rate for the pooch!). That's a lot of unnecessary biopsies, unnecessary risk and unnecessary heartache for patients.

Having the dog sit on the side for a minute, researchers are finally figuring out how to harness PSA.

In a new study, an Austrian team found that a series of PSA tests taken over four years can predict prostate cancer much more accurately and may also reveal the severity of the cancer.

This couldn't be more important for men - especially older men who have no need for overly aggressive treatment of slow-growing prostate cancer.

Hopefully, future research with dogs will follow the same track. Knowing dogs can identify prostate cancer is an important first step. But I'm not sure dogs are up to the big test: Detecting the difference between slow-growing cancer and more aggressive, life-threatening cancer.

Get an immune system boost during chemotherapy

Q: My sister has been going through chemo for several months and her white blood cell count has taken a major hit. Is there anything you can suggest to help build it back up?

Dr Wright: Keeping a normal white blood cell count is one of the very basic necessities for good health. Your body uses white blood cells to fight off viruses, bacteria and all sorts of potentially harmful foreign invaders. If your levels fall, you're much more prone to illness. Chemotherapy and radiation are probably the most well-known offenders causing low white cell counts, but levels can fall for any number of reasons. But researchers have found that lithium can increase white cell numbers again in people whose levels fell due to radiation and/or chemotherapy (and even if the person continues those treatments).

Lithium achieves these effects by stimulating the stem cells in bone marrow, which then turn into platelets and white blood cells. I've observed that low dose lithium (5-10mg twice daily) usually raises a low count to normal even if radiation and chemotherapy aren't the culprits.