The world mourns the loss of Paul Newman, a great actor, philanthropist and humanitarian. He was the embodiment of the Yiddish word “mensch,” meaning a person of great character, integrity and honor. And while it has been widely reported that his death was due to lung cancer and that he was, formerly, a heavy smoker, whether his lung cancer was caused by smoking is unknown. What is known is that smoking greatly increases one’s risk of lung cancer. But what’s also known is that up to 15 percent of lung cancer deaths occur in people who have never smoked. Moreover, lung cancer in never smokers is, according to the Lung Cancer Alliance, “the sixth biggest cancer killer in the United States.”
Over 215,000 people in the U.S. will be diagnosed with lung cancer in 2008 and the majority will die within 12 months. More people die […]
Original post by natalieb and weightlossopinions.com
Recently, we’ve received a number of inquiries about whether there’s an increased risk of breast cancer in women who drink water from plastic water bottles, especially from those bottles that might have been left in a hot car. The assertion is that the heat in the car causes the plastic bottle to release harmful chemicals into the water, which is then consumed leading to inadvertent ingestion of potential carcinogens. This claim has been the subject of many waves of e-mails that get forwarded around the Internet, but which never come with any background or supporting information.
Some Web sites, like Snopes.com, have debunked these e-mails as nothing more than either a hoax or an urban legend. The origin, they say, is from overblown media reports of a master’s thesis written by a University of Idaho student whose research has never been confirmed and whose findings and conclusions have […]
Original post by admin and weightlossopinions.com
All women go through menopause and some 75 percent of them experience hot flashes, which are also called hot flushes, and are known more technically as vasomotor symptoms. Most hot flashes are mild to moderate in intensity and they typically stop occurring after a time (usually within six months to two years), with or without therapy (although the exact timing cannot be predicted). Some women experience severe symptoms that prompt them to seek treatment. It is also estimated that some 50 to 75 percent of women use some form of alternative treatments for their symptoms, including soy products, herbal products (especially black cohosh), vitamin E and acupuncture. For most of these therapies, there is little scientific evidence to prove they work. In many cases, however, the data are conflicting and many women do report symptomatic relief.
Black cohosh is derived from the plant Cimicifuga racemosa also […]
Original post by admin and weightlossopinions.com
If you have, or know someone who has, estrogen receptor (ER) positive breast cancerm=, you may want to read this article about not eating grapefruit.
It is well-known that something in grapefruit decreases the metabolism of certain drugs, one of which is estrogen. It’s not known exactly how this happens, but it’s known that grapefruit inhibits the activity of an enzyme that is needed to “digest” the estrogen (the enzyme is called CYP3A4, and it is found in the liver and in the intestine). So normally, if you take estrogen (let’s say for post-menopausal symptoms), your body gets rid of it at a certain rate through metabolism by this enzyme. But if you consume grapefruit, which reduces the enzyme’s activity, then less estrogen is metabolized and so more estrogen is still in your body. So if you take estrogen pills you shouldn’t eat grapefruit because it could cause side effects from […]
Original post by admin and weightlossopinions.com
Let’s start with a HealhtTalk pop quiz. True or false: Women with no family history of cancer are at low risk of developing cancer themselves?
Answer: false. While it’s true that having a family history of cancer increases your risk to a small degree, the vast majority of cancers occur in people with no family history of the disease. But in a recent survey, nearly two thirds of women (63 percent) mistakenly answered that lack of family history equates with a low personal cancer risk. That’s the bad news. The good news is that as many as half of all cancer deaths could be avoided through sensible lifestyle habits (not smoking, eating properly, exercising) and getting routine recommended cancer screening (mammography, colonoscopy and pap smears, for breast, colon and cervical cancer respectively).
Next question. Breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in women: true or false? Answer: false. Question - […]
Original post by admin and weightlossopinions.com
If you’re living with breast cancer, chances are you are already familiar with tumor markers, even if you’re not aware that you are! That’s because estrogen and progesterone receptors (ER/PR) and HER-2 (Human Epidermal Growth Receptor 2) are tumor markers with which many breast cancer patients are at least passingly, if not intimately, familiar. And with the recent release of the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s (ASCO) 2007 updated guidelines on tumor markers in breast cancer, as well as their release of a patient brochure on the same subject, it seems timely to take a brief look at this important topic, particularly in regard to new recommendations.
Part of the problem with tumor markers is that they come in a variety of forms, and so there’s no easy way to describe what they are. They are substances (just think of how broad that word is) that can be present on the […]
Original post by admin and weightlossopinions.com
The FDA has approved a new type of chemotherapy for the treatment of advanced breast cancer. Marketed by Bristol-Myers Squibb, Ixempra (ixabepilone) is the first of a new class of chemotherapeutic agents called epitholones that target a protein called tubulin, which is necessary for cells to grow and multiply (which they do in a out of control way in cancer). As cancers progress or recur after treatment with one type of chemotherapy, doctors typically give another type of drug with a different mechanism of action hoping to attack the cancer in a new way. The approval of Ixempra provides such a new type of treatment, and it is the first new type of chemotherapy to be approved in many years.
Ixempra is approved for the treatment of metastatic or locally advanced breast cancer in patients who have already received certain other chemotherapy agents and whose cancer has progressed. It is to […]
Original post by admin and weightlossopinions.com
