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Posts with tag factors
Posted Jul 6th 2007 10:00AM by Kristina Collins
Filed under: Breast Cancer, Prevention, Clinical Trials, Research, Environment
The Sister Study is a clinical trial that is now enrolling patients to determine what environmental factors and genes play a part in developing breast cancer.
Researchers want to find what causes breast cancer, and through understanding this they can work to prevent the disease altogether. There are some known factors to contribute and or prevent the development of breast cancer -- diet, exercise, hormone therapy, breast-feeding and smoking. However, the prevalence of the disease suggest there are other factors at play that we are not aware of at this time.
Women who fit the following criteria are urged to enroll in the Sister Study and join the fight against this disease:
- A sister related by blood, alive or deceased, diagnosed with breast cancer.
- Ages 35 -74 years.
- Living in the United States or Puerto Rico.
The Sister Study is being conducted by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and will be evaluating women from all backgrounds, occupations, races and ethnicities to attempt to identify environmental and genetic factors that may be associated with affecting the risk of breast cancer.
Posted Jun 28th 2007 4:00PM by Vicki Blankenship
Filed under: Bladder Cancer, All Cancers, Research
The National Cancer Institute shows studies have found the following risk factors for bladder cancer.
1. Age - The chance of bladder cancer goes up as you get older and is rarely found in anyone under 40 years old.
2. Tobacco - Cigarette smokers are three times more likely than non smokers to develop bladder cancer.
3. Occupations - People who work in these professions or who handle these products have a higher risk of developing bladder cancer. Rubber, chemical, leather, textile, printers, painters, machinists, metal workers, hairdressers, and truck drivers.
4. Infections - Certain parasites increase the risk of bladder cancer.
5. Race - Whites get bladder cancer twice as often as African Americans and Hispanics. The lowest risks are Asians.
6. Gender - Men are three time more likely to develop bladder cancer which may be because of the above occupational risks.
7. Chlorine - By products of chlorine are being closely studied.
8. Saccharin - The artificial sweetener has shown to cause cancer in animals and is being studied closer for the risks on humans.
If you have blood in your urine, pain during urination, or frequent urination or the feel the need to urinate often, please discuss your concern with a doctor. Early detection of bladder cancer has been a proven factor in the survival rate of this disease.
Posted May 16th 2007 8:00AM by Jacki Donaldson
Filed under: Skin Cancer, Cancer by the Numbers
We're still basking in the hot sun, bronzing our bodies in tanning beds, and playing outdoors without slathering on the sunscreen. What will it take, I wonder, for our society to catch on, to take real steps toward preventing skin cancer?
It seems education isn't enough. Most of us know by now all it takes is one bad sunburn to increase our risk of skin cancer, yet we continue to collect burn after burn after burn. Perhaps like all habit-forming behaviors -- think smoking -- it takes something tragic in our lives to inspire change. When someone we know gets lung cancer after a lifetime of smoking or someone we know develops melanoma after years of sunbathing, maybe we get the hint. Maybe
Now, I know you don't personally know this young woman -- she calls herself
Miss Melanoma -- but I suggest you read her
story. And I recommend you take what happened to her -- she lost part of her foot to melanoma and is currently battling a spread of the disease -- and allow it to really sink in, allow it to motivate you to take cover from the sun, before something like this happens to you. Because it can.
Continue reading Cancer by the Numbers: Melanoma
Posted Apr 26th 2007 4:30PM by Kristina Collins
Filed under: All Cancers, Clinical Trials, Research, Environment, Diets
A half a million volunteers are being sought out by the American Cancer Society (ACS) that are willing to let researchers watch them for twenty years to see if they develop cancer.
Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the United States. The idea behind this large study is to compare it to other big studies in Europe and Asia, who are searching for environmental and lifestyle factors that cause cancer.
The group will recruit men and women between the ages of 30 and 65 who have never been diagnosed with cancer. The volunteers will give blood to be tested and answer questionnaires at various times over the next twenty years.
Eugenia Calle, managing director of analytic epidemiology at the American Cancer Society, said in a statement "This type of study involves hundreds of thousands of people, with diverse backgrounds, followed for many years, with collection of biological specimens and assessments of dietary, lifestyle and environmental exposures".
Posted Apr 18th 2007 11:00AM by Jacki Donaldson
Filed under: Research, Diets, Cancer prevention foods, Daily news, Head and Neck cancer
If your mom was one to harp on you about eating your vegetables, it was likely because she knew how good veggies are for the body. Moms everywhere now have research on their side.
A large study of 500,000 American retirees has shown that increasing consumption of fruits or vegetables is enough to reduce the risk of head and neck cancer. Specifically, eating six servings of fruit and vegetables per day per 1,000 calories cut the risk of these cancers by 29 percent compared to eating one and a half servings.
"It may not sound like news that vegetables protect from cancer, but there is actually some controversy in the literature," says Dr. Alan Kristal, associate head of the cancer prevention program at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.
Clearly, diet plays a role in cancer. Experts believe that up to two-thirds of all cancer cases stem from lifestyle factors such as smoking, lack of exercise, and diet. So keep crunching those carrots and growing those green beans. You'll make your momma proud.
Posted Apr 13th 2007 9:00AM by Jacki Donaldson
Filed under: Breast Cancer, Diets, Daily news, Thought for the Day
Daily consumption of red meat increases the risk of breast cancer. Daily consumption of red meat doesn't increase the risk of breast cancer. Ahhh. Which one is it?
In a
previous post, I cited research that supported the increased risk. And now I've come across something new.
Think about this:
A nutritionist from New Zealand is disputing research, published in the British Journal of Cancer, claiming that women who ate more than100g of meat each day had the highest risk of developing breast cancer.
Jim Mann, a professor in human nutrition and medicine at Otago University, says the study failed to consider other factors which may increase the risk of breast cancer. And he assures women it's still safe to eat about 80g of red meat a day.
Posted Apr 6th 2007 12:50PM by Kristina Collins
Filed under: Breast Cancer, Services, Cancer Pre-vivors
Do you want to know your risk for developing invasive breast cancer? If so, you can use an online interactive tool for measuring your five year risk and also your lifetime risk of developing the disease.
There are seven questions to answer to calculate your risk. It should not be used by women who already have had a breast cancer diagnosis. This tool has been used successfully in clinics for women with a strong family history of breast cancer.
Keep in mind that other factors also affect the risk of developing breast cancer that are not accounted for by the online tool. Women who do not get mammograms will have a lower chance of having their breast cancer detected.
Posted Feb 26th 2007 9:00AM by Jacki Donaldson
Filed under: Breast Cancer, Chemotherapy, Opinion, Daily news
Some scientists believe that surgery to remove a breast tumor may actually help the cancer spread and have recently reported that this same belief may be the exact reason black women are more likely to die of breast cancer.
There is apparently a widespread belief in parts of Africa and the United States that removing a tumor hastens death.
"I must say that I am sure there is more to this than just a myth," said Michael Retsky of Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, who shares his opinions in the
International Journal of Surgery.
Retsky still urges any woman with breast cancer to have her tumor removed. And he says chemotherapy is such standard practice for any cancer threatening to spread. It's a safety net of sorts to catch the cells that get away. So if surgery causes cancer to spread, then in theory, chemotherapy should stop the spread.
Retsky, who is not suggesting any change in clinical practice, thinks the subject needs far more research.
American Cancer Society experts, who tend to question this theory, agree.
"Whether or not the theory is correct, I have difficulty with the logic that they employed to get there," said oncologist Dr. Len Lichtenfeld of the American Cancer Society who says women should never delay treatment for breast cancer.
Retsky believes that perhaps surgery, by wounding the body, causes it to produce growth factors that fuel the growth of other, tiny tumors. Or maybe a primary tumor secretes some sort of factor that holds the other tumors in check. When the main tumor is removed, the smaller tumors grow.
But it could be that surgery does not cause a spread at all – and that any belief of this nature has no connection with breast cancer tendencies in black women. It may be that black women just have a genetic predisposition for more aggressive forms of the disease.
Posted Jan 31st 2007 9:00AM by Jacki Donaldson
Filed under: Breast Cancer, Drug, Daily news, Cancer Survivors
An Arkansas woman claiming the hormone replacement drug Prempro caused her breast cancer just won her legal battle against Wyeth, the maker of the drug.
Mary Daniel was awarded $1 million in compensatory damages thanks to a Philadelphia jury decision stating Wyeth acted with malice or reckless disregard for selling Prempro -- the drug Daniels took for 16 months to relieve hot flashes. The next step for Daniels, whose husband will receive $500,000, is a hearing to consider punitive damages.
Wyeth's lawyer argues that Prempro -- a combination of estrogen and progestin -- is still prescribed to women and suggests Daniel's breast cancer was caused by other risk factors, such as family history of the disease.
Posted Jan 4th 2007 9:00AM by Jacki Donaldson
Filed under: Throat Cancer, Non-toxic alternatives, Daily news
There is something to be said for the power of prayer. On the morning the lump in my breast was removed, a friend rallied more than 80 friends from our local MOMS Club to say a prayer for me -- at the exact time I was wheeled into an operating room. I know nothing of the prayer they said for me, but I do know I emerged from surgery with my breast intact and with the knowledge that my cancer had not spread to my lymph nodes.
I don't know for sure what role prayer played in my good fortune -- but I don't discount that it is in some way responsible for the fact that I am alive today.
But there are other obvious factors responsible for my survival -- like chemotherapy, radiation, physical therapy, targeted drug therapy, and counseling. So I don't think prayer alone saved me. I think it took a balance of varied forces to save my life -- a balance one Ohio man was not able to achieve.
The children of Darrell Perry are filing suit against their aunt, Darlene Bishop -- Perry's sister and an evangelical preacher -- who claims both she and Perry were cured of cancer through prayer.
Perry was not cured and died a year and a half ago from throat cancer. And Bishop now reveals she was never diagnosed with breast cancer -- like she claimed at one time -- but was merely worried she may have had the disease. Yet the message in her book
Your Life Follows Your Words speaks loud and clear in its message -- that prayer can cure cancer.
Perry's children says their aunt is lying and exploiting their father for her own financial gain. They have filed two suits -- one accusing her of mismanaging and misusing Perry's estate and the other alleging wrongful death for convincing Perry to pray rather than seek medical help.
Posted Dec 16th 2006 1:18PM by Dalene Entenmann
Filed under: Breast Cancer, Prevention, Research, Environment, Daily news
A variation of a virus that infects common household mice might be responsible for one-third of the breast cancer cases occurring in the US, according to research presented at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium as reported by
WedMD.
The mouse mammary tumor virus (MMTV), is spread like a cold virus from person to person, although the researchers are not certain if this virus is spread by sneezing or food contamination, or other means of transmission.
Mt. Sinai School of Medicine's Dr. James F. Holland is quoted as saying, "In Asia, the virus plays a very small role in causing the disease. The human breast cancer virus may explain why breast cancer rates differ throughout the world." The house mouse in question is not commonly found in Asia.
For so long, we have been told that the Asian diet pyramid, when compared to the Western diet pyramid, was one of the contributing factors in higher breast cancer cases for US women, and lower breast cancer cases for Asian women. It might well bea contributing factor still, as diet is firmly established as a cause for increasing the risks of all cancers. However, we cannot ignore that the researchers found the common house mouse virus present in the breast cancer tissue samples in 30-40 percent of the women from North America, Europe, and Australia.
That virus plays a role in the development of some cancers is a known, and it brings up interesting questions as to what leads to cancer, and potentially some explanations for the incidence of breast cancer for women who practice what is traditionally considered a healthy lifestyle and have none of the risk factors. Cancer is complex. As time goes on, I believe we are all going to sit back and be surprised at some of the causes for cancer as they are discovered.
Posted Nov 23rd 2006 10:00AM by Jacki Donaldson
Filed under: Breast Cancer, Cancer Survivors
I think I was the only one who truly believed the lump in my breast was cancer. No one else -- my mom, my sister, my husband, my doctors -- believed I was a candidate for this disease. I was young, had no family history, had no known risk factors. It just wasn't likely, even after an ultrasound revealed something suspicious.
The surgeon who performed my biopsy was in the same camp. It was probably nothing.
November 2004
On November 23, I had a biopsy. A large needle was placed in my breast and a piece of the lump was pulled out. The doctor had a hard time getting a piece, however, because it moved around so much. He said this was a good sign -- the movement. He sent the tissue to pathology and told me to call his office the next afternoon for the results.
Posted Nov 8th 2006 5:00PM by Kristina Collins
Filed under: Pancreatic Cancer, Prevention, Diets
Researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden studied diets of almost 80,000 men and women between 1997 and 2005. They found that drinking syrup based drinks and adding large quantities of sugar in their coffee or tea could lead to a higher risk of developing cancer of the pancreas.
The institute said in a statement "The researchers have now been able to show that the risk of developing pancreatic cancer is related to the amount of sugar in the diet". Out of the 80,000 men and women studied 131 eventually developed pancreatic cancer. The risk was 70 percent higher for those who added sugar to their drinks about five times a day.
The chance of developing pancreatic cancer is relatively small but it is important to learn about the risk factors of the disease.
Posted Oct 20th 2006 9:00AM by Jacki Donaldson
Filed under: Breast Cancer
There are various risk factors that can contribute to the development of breast cancer. Being female is the single biggest risk factor that on its own puts all women in jeopardy. But there are other risks -- many beyond our control and some more significant than others -- that can help explain why some women are diagnosed with the most common cancer in women in the United States. And why others are not.
Continue reading Awareness of breast cancer risk is a must, every month
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A bundle of scientific reports indicate more than 200 chemicals, found in the air and in consumer products, cause breast cancer in animal tests.
