Note: The contents of this blog are for informational purposes only and should not be construed as medical advice or substitute for professional care. For medical emergencies, dial 911!
A new study which involved a review of more than 500 reports by an international panel from 10 universities and medical schools states that aspartame is safe. According to the study, there is no evidence that the sweetener causes cancer, neurological damage or other health problems in humans. Aspartame is sold under various brand names including Equal and NutraSweet and has few calories.
The panel used data from NHANES to determine the most current levels of aspartame consumption and found that at those levels, aspartame is safe for consumption, is not cancer-causing or capable of causing neurological damage.
I don't consume any aspartame because I don't like the taste, but this is good news for people who do use aspartame for various reasons.
An interesting article at The New York Times about what happens to all that hair that people donate to charities like Locks of Love. According to Locks of Love, as much as 80 percent of the hair donated is unusable for various reasons (too short, processed, grey, wet). The hair that does make it through often ends up being sold, and not being made into wigs for those who have lost their hair due to cancer treatments.
Most of the wigs that Locks of Love do make actually go to children with alopecia areata, an autoimmune disorder, and not cancer patients.
According to Madonna Coffman, president of Locks of Love, the organization receives up to 10 postal bins of hair a day, most destined for the trash. Coffman notes that checks would be "easier," but "Would the donors get out of it what they do? No."
You should think about protecting your pets from secondhand smoke. According to researchers at Oklahoma State University, secondhand smoke has been determined cancer-causing for household pets, such as dogs, cats, and birds
"There have been a number of scientific papers recently that have reported the significant health threat secondhand smoke poses to pets," says Dr. Carolynn MacAllister, an Oklahoma State University Cooperative Extension Service veterinarian. "Secondhand smoke has been associated with oral cancer and lymphoma in cats, lung and nasal cancer in dogs, as well as lung cancer in birds."
The news about smoking just keeps getting worse and worse. When we will get the hint?
If you smoke during pregnancy or as a new mother, be advised that the nicotine being passed through to that infant in the form of breast milk (if you choose that route) may be hindering the sleep patterns of your child.
There's more -- a recent study also indicated that nicotine in breast milk may also be causing naps to be shortened by a third -- which you'll probably see as your child is up more instead of sleeping more at that precious nap time.
The findings form this study lend even more support to giving up smoking during pregnancy or during the breastfeeding years. Lung cancer is not the only 'side effect' -- the health of your child is also in the mix now if you breast feed.
According to the article, the group cites frustration at cancer rates not dropping as quickly as hoped and recent research indicating that being uninsured leads to a delay in cancer detection as factors in its decision. The advertisements are nonpartisan and don't recommend specific solutions to the U.S. healthcare crisis, but they are intended to raise awareness of this issue as we head into the presidential campaign of 2008.
The TV ads for the campaign include one of images of uninsured cancer patients appearing fearful with a narrator saying, "We're making progress, but it's not enough if people don't have access to the care that could save their lives." Another commercial shows a young mother whose family has gone into serious debt because her insurance did not fully cover her cancer treatments.
I think this sounds like a great use of advertising money. Let's hope the campaign increases awareness among all Americans to press our politicians for change.
Apparently, this is not unheard of, as people are often at risk of suicide after receiving bad news. Still, considering all the advances that are happening each day in the medical field, it's a shame that she couldn't stick around to have her hope and health restored. My thoughts go out to her family.
At the University of Florida, where my husband works, spouses can get campus I.D. cards which allow access to recreational centers, swimming pools, a university lake, and more. A few years ago, I stood in line for my card. It was during my chemotherapy treatment for breast cancer, and I wore a blond wig topped with a ball cap. Once at the front of line, a college student employee told me to remove my hat so my photo could be taken.
I couldn't take my hat off -- it covered a partial wig made for use with hats, and the very top was made of soft cotton and no hair. I didn't want to be photographed wearing my clown-like wig. I didn't want to be photographed bald. I wanted to look as normal as possible during a time when I felt nothing of the sort.
I told the I.D. center staff of my situation and although these young people seemed a bit unsettled by my story, they complied. And I now have an I.D. that pictures me, my blond wig, and my pink hat. It looks nothing like me. My post-chemo hair came in dark and curly.
According to an article in the Chicago Tribune, until recently, medical mistakes were rarely discussed and almost never admitted to patients due to physicians' pride and fear of malpractice lawsuits. However, that mindset may be beginning to change, as leading patient safety organizations call for full disclosure of medical errors and some hospitals change to an "honesty is best" policy.
Such organizations working for this change include the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations and the National Quality Forum.
According to a study cited in the article, although all doctors say they want to be honest, fewer than half actually reveal serious errors that they have made. One of the biggest obstacles to disclosure is the fear of lawsuits and more than 30 states have passed 'apology laws' that bar apologies by physicians being used against physicians in court.
However, according to the article, most lawyers and doctors remain fearful and insurance companies usually insist that doctors break off all direct communications with patients after medical mistakes happen.
It seems these days like killer toxins are lurking in every corner of your home, office or school. Here's another finding to fuel your paranoia -- a fire retardant used in many couches called PBDE has been linked to lots of problems, including cancer and autism in children. While PBDEs aren't used in sofas any more, chances are you have an older sofa in your house -- I know I do. What's more, a different fire retardant chemical, called Tris, is replacing PBDEs in furniture, and it's been shown to be just as deadly.
What can we do, aside from building our own furniture, to escape the onslaught of harmful toxins in our home? Or is it something we should even be concerned about in the first place?
It used to be that Mononucleosis was known as the Kissing Disease. We were warned not to play spin the bottle because we could end up missing school from mono, though that was a desirable prospect to some students and we were sure to make a full recovery in a few months. But these days, kissing can lead to so much more than just mono -- this article suggests that HPV can be transmitted simply by kissing, although it's more likely to be spread through oral sex, and this can lead to cancer. Another cause of the rising numbers of cancer? It's thought that smoking cannabis is to blame for some oral cancers, although this is unsubstantiated.
What do you think -- is HPV really a 'kissing' disease?
Triple-negative breast cancer means that the pathology report has shown the cancer to be estrogen receptor negative, progesterone receptor negative, and HER2 negative.
Results published in Clinical Cancer Research found that women with triple negative breast cancer have an increased risk of metastatic disease and death during the first few years after diagnoses, but not after that time period.
A study was conducted among 1,601 breast cancer patients. One hundred and eighty women (11.2%) had triple negative breast cancer.
Mixing antioxidants and sun exposure can be dangerous to your health. A new study, published in the September issue of The Journal of Nutrition, details a French study revealing that antioxidant supplements won't protect women against skin cancer -- and they may actually increase the risk of developing the disease.
A team of French researchers assigned almost 7,900 women and more than 5,100 men to take either an oral daily capsule of antioxidant or a placebo that looked the same. The antioxidants included low levels of vitamins C and E, beta-carotene, selenium, and zinc. What they found: the incidence of all skin cancers was higher in the group of women who took the antioxidant.
While there is one limitation to this study -- it did not take into account sunscreen use and its effect on the use of both antioxidants and the sun -- it does serve as another reason to stay out of the sun.
There are some daily news items that can make on sick to their stomach. One of the latest comes from the country of Australia, where a woman who faked vaginal cancer is going to jail.
Of all the ways to scrounge up money without work, this has to be one of the lamest I have seen in a while. The woman in question solicited -- and received -- thousands of dollars in donations on the basis of a non-existent case of cancer.
The offense count stood at 25, stretching all the way back to 2004, when the woman started receiving donations form charities to help her with her 'cancer.' Disgusting. At least the judge in the case was not amused, as he stated that the woman deserved immediate imprisonment for her criminality. She was then sentenced to 28 months in jail.
Researchers are reporting that a new vaccine designed to treat breast cancer appears to be safe in women with advanced disease. It showed signs of slowing down tumor growth too.
The Neuvenge vaccine, made by Dendreon Corporation -- maker of the Provenge prostate cancer vaccine -- targets the aggressive Her-2 positive form of breast cancer, which affects 20 to 30 percent of breast cancer patients. Using immune cells from a cancer patient's own body, Neuvenge is a tailor-made therapy.
Reports about Neuvenge, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, indicate the vaccine did not cause any serious side effects and of the 18 women who participated in the Phase I study, there was a reduction in the size of a tumor in one patient. In three other women, the disease seemed to stabilize for as long as a year.
On Friday, Walgreen Co. was ordered by a jury to pay $25.8 million to the family of a cancer patient given a medication that caused a stroke and then several years later, death.
Beth Hippely was prescribed Warfarin, a blood thinner, in 2002 while being treated for breast cancer. According to court documents, the prescription she received at a Walgreen's pharmacy was 10 times what it should have been. The overdose caused a cerebral hemorrhage which led to permanent bodily injury, disability, pain, and then death. Hippely, a mother of three, died at the age of 46. Apparently, the error occurred when a 19-year-old pharmacy technician misfiled the prescription.
Hippely's family has been seeking justice for five years.
A new study which involved a review of more than 500 reports by an international panel from 10 universities and medical schools states that aspartame is safe. According to the study, there is no evidence that the sweetener causes cancer, neurological damage or other health problems in humans. Aspartame is sold under various brand names including Equal and NutraSweet and has few calories.
An interesting 
You should think about protecting your pets from secondhand smoke. According to researchers at Oklahoma State University, secondhand smoke has been determined cancer-causing for household pets, such as dogs, cats, and birds
If you smoke during pregnancy or as a new mother, be advised that the nicotine being passed through to that infant in the form of breast milk (if you choose that route) may be hindering the sleep patterns of your child.
The American Cancer Society plans to dedicate its entire $15 million advertising budget this upcoming year 2008 to the consequences of being uninsured in America
Receiving a cancer diagnosis is a huge shocker, and like grief, people respond in different ways. But I hope it's not common for people to respond like
At the University of Florida, where my husband works, spouses can get campus I.D. cards which allow access to recreational centers, swimming pools, a university lake, and more. A few years ago, I stood in line for my card. It was during my chemotherapy treatment for breast cancer, and I wore a blond wig topped with a ball cap. Once at the front of line, a college student employee told me to remove my hat so my photo could be taken. 
According to an 
It seems these days like killer toxins are lurking in every corner of your home, office or school. Here's another finding to fuel your paranoia -- 
It used to be that 
Triple-negative breast cancer means that the pathology report has shown the cancer to be estrogen receptor negative, progesterone receptor negative, and HER2 negative.
Mixing antioxidants and sun exposure can be dangerous to your health. A new study, published in the September issue of The Journal of Nutrition, details a French study revealing that antioxidant supplements won't protect women against skin cancer -- and they may actually increase the risk of developing the disease.
There are some daily news items that can make on sick to their stomach. One of the latest comes from the country of Australia, where a woman who faked vaginal cancer is going to jail.
Researchers are reporting that a new vaccine designed to treat breast cancer appears to be safe in women with advanced disease. It showed signs of slowing down tumor growth too.
On Friday, Walgreen Co. was ordered by a jury to pay $25.8 million to the family of a cancer patient given a medication that caused a stroke and then several years later, death.
