Cancer: We're in a New Age

Last week we learned that Kay Yow, longtime women's basketball coach for North Carolina State, died of breast cancer. We also learned that Jeanne Peck, a North Carolina activist and Race for the Cure fundraiser, also died of breast cancer. In the same week.

However, we're in an entirely different age now. Doctors and researchers say huge strides have been made in the 20 years since both women were diagnosed, with death rates falling about 40 percent. Women who are diagnosed with the disease today have a much different experience than either Yow or Peck.

Hope grows with this new age. Hope grows because of the strides made in treatment and research.

Cancer: Early Detection Is the Answer

There's a brilliant argument forming in literature about defeating cancer which urges us to rethink our approach. And it's all based on this one compelling argument:

90% of people live if we find cancer early.
10% of people live if we find cancer late.

Wired magazine (January 2009) has a great article about this approach. The article, written by Thomas Goetz, states that we should stop trying to cure cancer, and focus our research and money on detecting cancer. When you consider that the National Cancer Institute spends just 8% of its research funds on early detection, you can see the argument.

Cancer Treatments Are Better When They're Tailored to the Patient

A USA Today article today (January 14, 2009) proved quite interesting in several ways.

First of all, the newspaper featured a pie chart showing the costs of cancer.

$112 billion = Indirect costs of cancer as a result of illness (loss of productivity)
$18.2 billion = indirect costs of cancer because of early death
$89 billion = Direct medical costs.

The main thrust of the article is that tailoring cancer to fit a person's genetic makeup is more efficient that just blindly handing a cancer patient a prescription.

For instance, treating a colorectal cancer patient with the drug called Erbitux costs more than $61,00 for a typical treatment with 24 doses, according to a study presented Tuesday at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in San Francisco.

Over the past year, several studies have shown that Erbitux works in patients with a certain genetic mutation, a mutation which occurs in 36% to 46% of tumors. Giving Erbitux to only those patients without the mutations would save the country up to $604 million per year.

Researchers are continuing their work, hoping to find markers for other cancer drugs as well.

Sleep a Cold, Feed a Fever

The Archives of Internal Medicine, as reported in USA Today (February 13, 2008), relates that preventing the common cold may be as easy as getting more sleep.

A study took 153 healthy volunteers and locked them up in a hotel room for five days. They were intentionally exposed to a cold virus. Researchers had interviewed the volunteers each day for the previous two weeks, noting what time they went to bed, what time they got up, how much time they spent awake during the night and whether they felt rested in the morning.

The findings show that volunteers who slept less than 7 hours a night were three times more likely to catch a cold than those who regularly slept 8 hours or more or who slept fitfully.

Antibiotics: Not Always Your Friend

I went in to see my doctor two weeks ago. I had a nasty bug that wouldn't go away.

"Please give me antibiotics," I said. That's always been the treatment that works for such things. She really didn't want to, arguing that doctors have been advised by all the studies that antibiotics can do as much harm, or more, than good. And that antibiotics are often prescribed when they don't need to be.

A USA Today article yesterday kind of summed it up. (USA Today, January 12, 2009)

They have a nifty little chart that made my blood run cold.

Would you beg your doctor for drugs that:
* Have a 5% to 25% chance of causing diarrhea?
* Land at least one in every 1,000 users in the emergency room?
* Help only about one in 4,000 patients avoid a serious complication?
* Do nothing to relieve your symptoms?

The message, in a nutshell: There's a very small chance this antibiotic will help you, but a much bigger risk that it will hurt you. This is according to Jeffrey Linder, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School.

So, what happened in my case? My doctor said that she realized it was during the holiday season and that I may not be able to get back in to see her any time soon. It was Thursday. She said, "If this doesn't clear up by the weekend, go ahead an take them," and gave me a prescription. I filled the prescription and waited.

It got worse. I took the pills. But I'll think more about it next time.

Mouthwash Can Increase Risk of Cancer

A dental health study claims that mouthwashes containing alcohol can cause oral cancer, raising the risk by nine times.

The Melbourne, Australia study reports that the alcohol in mouthwash, called acetaldehyde, "increases the permeabiilty" of the mucus membrane to other carcinogens, such as nicotine.

Top-selling mouthwashes contain as much as 26 percent alcohol.

To see the news.scotsman.com article, click here.

Manufacturers for Listerine, which is an alcohol-based mouthwash, denied the claim.

Black Raspberries May Inhibit Cancer Growth

According to a story by the United Press International, findings were published in the Cancer Prevention Research journal which suggest that anthocyanins, a class of flavonoids found in black raspberries, inhibited cancer growth in the esophagus of rats.

To read the whole story, go to the UPI.com health website.

Vitamins Not Found to Prevent Cancer

There's been a lot of press lately about the failure of vitamin supplements to prevent a multitude of cancers. Bad news for all of us.

USA Today (January 7, 2009) summarized the results:

What The Studies Have Found

Vitamins C, E: Did not prevent prostate cancer or cancer in general

Vitamin E, selenium: Did not prevent prostate cancer; vitamin E actually increased prostate cancer risk, and selenium raised risk of diabetes, though the findings could be a result of chance.

Beta carotene, vitamins C, E: Did not prevent cancer.

Folic acid, B vitamins: Did not prevent breast cancer or other cancers.

Vitamin D, calcium: Did not prevent breast cancer.

Vitamins C, E: Did not prevent heart disease in men; vitamin E increased stroke risk.

Vitamins B-12, folic acid: Did not prevent heart disease.

The Devastation of a Bad Habit

What do you do about a friend who smokes?

We've known each other, what, maybe 15 years. We've been friends for probably 7 years or so. I've cajoled. I've badgered. None of that helped.

I'm taking a different tack now. I'm at the point where I occasionally ask where she is with the program, and then listen to her when she says she hasn't taken the next step of calling the doctor. She did call the doctor a few years ago, got a nicotine patch, got the schedule of the support group. She ended up using the patch sporadically but then did not attend the support group meetings. You can guess how successful that venture was.

She has a family history of cancer. I believe her father died of lung cancer, and her mother succumbed to another type of cancer. That would scare the hell out of me. No, it does scare the hell out of me. I worry about my friend.

She's getting older. The smoking is taking its toll, in a very personal way. Still, the message is not getting through to her.

Perhaps she'll read this and know how much her friends and family worry about her, perhaps it'll give her the message that she can start again on the program with the help of her doctor. We can only hope.

New Online tool for Colorectal Cancer

News-Medical.net posted a story concerning a new online tool for calculating colorectal cancer risk in men and women age 50 or older which was launched today, based on a new risk-assessment model developed by researchers at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health.

This new tool may assist health care providers and their patients in making informed choices about when and how to screen for colorectal cancer and can be used in designing colorectal cancer screening and prevention trials. An article describing the new risk-assessment model and a second article describing its validation appear online December 29, 2008, in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. The risk assessment tool is available on the NCI Web site at www.cancer.gov/colorectalcancerrisk, and people using this tool should work with their health care providers to interpret the results.

Cole Slaw Recipes

We've been talking about cabbage, and how its cruciferous nature is powerful enough to ward off cancer. Here are some cabbage cole slaw recipes, thanks to Ruth Adar:

Sweet Southern Slaw

2 cups shredded cabbage (amount very flexible!)
1 small can pineapple "niblets" drained (or a can of pineapple chunks, chopped up a bit)
approx 1/4 cup ready made poppy seed dressing (enough to coat the other ingredients)

Combine all ingredients; toss. Allow to sit for 30 min before serving. Cabbage will wilt slightly, which is what you want.

If you are going to take it somewhere, you can mix the whole thing in a ziplock bag.


Blueberry Slaw

2 cups shredded cabbage
1/4 cup fresh blueberries
1/8 cup slivered almonds
2 apples, chopped
Poppy seed dressing to coat the other ingredients.

Combine all ingredients; toss. Allow to sit for 30 min before serving. All amounts are approximate.



Greek Slaw

2 cups shredded cabbage
handful of shredded carrots
1 minced green pepper
crumbled feta cheese
handful black olives, whole or sliced in half
3/4 cup olive oil
4 Tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 mashed anchovies (anchovy paste)
1/2 teasp oregano (fresh if possible) (minimum -- add more if you like)
1/2 teasp basil (fresh if possible) (this is a minimum -- add more if you like)
fresh ground pepper to taste

Whisk together olive oil, vinegar, anchovy paste, oregano, basil, pepper. (You can substitute any oil and vinegar or Italian dressing for the oil and vinegar).
Combine other ingredients in a bowl, toss with the dressing, allow to sit for 30 min before serving.
Serve with hard-boiled eggs.
(Note: this recipe is rather high in sodium.)

New Year's Resolutions

Someone asked me yesterday, so what are my New Year's resolutions?

Actually, nothing new.

I intend to more fully explore nutrition and exercise, those things I've been blogging about in 2008. My research into vegetables and fruits and their value has inspired me to find new ways of incorporating them into my diet (which isn't an easy task for a Meat Lover).

Last night for our New Year's Eve dinner, we had two different kinds of salads. I'm really getting into cabbage, and trying to eat more of it.

I also intend to keep track of my prescriptions, to make sure I have enough of each medication (for blood pressure, cholesterol, and diabetes) to last through the month.

And I will continue to monitor my glucose level once a day, and use that feedback to control my sugar intake.

I wish all of you good health for 2009!