Doctor Perspectives on the Medical Headlines
In past issues
- Fish oil and AD
- Say "No" to aspirin / ibuprofen mix
- Battling AD - step by small step
- Fish, the ultimate brain food
- Arthritis Breakthroughs
- Emphysema alternative
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- Gleevec may be heart-toxic
- Naproxen still rules
- Mitral valve surgery
- Cardiac benefits of fish oil not widely acknowledged in U.S.
- Anemia is a risk factor for Executive Function Impairment
- Red wine could help prevent Alzheimer's disease
- Does vitamin D reduce pancreatic cancer risk?
- Pancreatic cancer survival
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New Strategies for Preventing Cancer
Recent meeting unveils some "do-it-yourself" tactics to help thwart the cancer monster.
Recent research is unraveling the promising role that diet, exercise, weight control and lifestyle choices play in keeping us healthy. At the Annual International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research, held by the American Association for Cancer Research last fall, scientists rolled out a number of studies aimed at helping the public forestall or decrease their cancer risk.
Statins as cancer preventives.
It is known that keeping cholesterol in check can reduce a person's risk of coronary heart disease. Researchers have also found that statin drugs used to lower cholesterol also dramatically halve the risk of developing high-grade advanced prostate cancer.
That finding raised other questions: Is lower cholesterol also associated with a lower overall risk of prostate cancer as well as less aggressive cancer? In a controlled study of men in the Health Professional Follow-Up Study who developed prostate cancer, and were matched to those who did not, researchers found that while low blood cholesterol didn't decrease a man's overall risk of prostate cancer, such men did have a lesser risk of high-grade and possibly advanced disease.
Fish, again!
Increased fish and fatty acid intake, important in heart health, also appears to decrease a man's risk of developing another deadly disease- colorectal cancer. Some 22,000 men were divided into four categories based on how frequently they ate four types of fish/shellfish (1) canned tuna, 2) dark meat fish-salmon, sardines, bluefish, 3) shrimp, lobster, scallops and 4) other fish. The groups were followed for 19 years.
"We summed the intake of all four types of fish and found that men who ate fish five times per week or more had a 40 percent lower risk of developing colorectal cancer compared to men who ate fish less than once per week," says lead researcher Megan Phillips, MS, RD.
The role of calcium.
Will eating more calcium-rich foods and taking supplements decrease your risk of developing organ-specific cancers? The NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study assessed calcium intake in about 500,000 men and women, adjusting for risk factors like family history of cancer, body mass, and smoking, among others. "Recent observational studies have found that the effect of calcium on cancer differed by organ sites, being associated, for example, with lower colorectal cancer but higher prostate cancer risk," say the researchers. Therefore, they examined the link between calcium and risk of overall cancer as well as individual malignancies. "Dietary calcium confers a slight protection against overall malignant disease, particularly colorectal cancer in both men and women, and did not increase risk of prostate cancer," they found. In men, total calcium intake also was linked to a significantly lower risk of cancer in the esophagus and pancreas. But in women, calcium intake appeared linked with an increased risk of cancer of the uterus and kidney. The calcium intake in men ranged from 478 mg/day (lowest) to 1530 mg/day (highest), and in women, from 494 mg/day (lowest) to 1881 mg/day (highest).
Benefits of motherhood.
Good news: Having more than one child reduces a woman's risk of lung cancer. Compared to women who never had children, having two offspring reduced the risk of lung cancer by 20 percent; three or more children reduced risk by 40 percent. This protective effect may well be age-related, as it was not observed in women diagnosed with lung cancer prior to age 55.
