April 14, 2006, 9:07 AM CT

Estrogen Alone HRT Does Not Increase Breast Cancer Risk

New research is suggesting that estrogen may not be as bad it was thought in terms of breast cancer risk. Scientists have found that estrogen-alone hormone treatment does not increase the risk of breast cancer in postmenopausal women. This result comes from an updated analysis of the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) Estrogen-Alone Trial.

These results are in apparent contrast with previously reported WHI Estrogen plus Progestin Trial, which found an increase in breast cancer if use exceeds 5 years.

These new research findings appear in the latest issue of Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). These researchers followed postmenopausal women who were taking estrogen-alone hormone replacement over a period of 7 years. Over this period, women who were taking estrogen replacement actually had fewer breast cancers compared to those women who were taking placebo.

While women who were taking estrogen-alone hormone replacement had an incidence rate of 28 per 10,0000 participants per year, women who were taking placebo had an incidence rate of 34 per 10,000 participants per year. The difference in rates of breast cancer (6 per 10,000) between the groups was not statistically significant, meaning it could have occurred by chance.

The new analysis also found that participants taking estrogen had 50 percent more abnormal mammograms compared to those women who were taking placebo. Obviously an abnormal mammogram does not necessarily mean cancer as it was shown in the study results.........

Posted by: Emily      Permalink         Source

April 13, 2006, 6:47 AM CT

Diagnosis "Lung Cancer"

I was moving along nicely in my life until February1st. I was told by my doctor that they had found a tumor on my right lung. My next appointment was on February15th with a surgeon.

Operation scheduled for February28th.

I had a "lobectomy". That is the removal of a lobe of the lung.

It all sounds so terrible but I am so fortunate that they were able to operate as most cancers of this kind are diagnosed too late. I did have a lot of problems going into surgery .My liver was severely damaged in 2002,with the discovery of "Cirrhosis". I have high blood pressure, angina, and have had seizures in the past. The odds were 1 in 20 that I would NOT make it,

Well, I made it! I never had any pain after the operation and I was released from the hospital after four days.

I hope that those of you that are having to have surgery can read this and find that not all cancer stories have bad endings.........

Posted by: B.C.      Permalink

April 13, 2006, 0:25 AM CT

Turmeric Could Help Diabetics

Brisbane immunologist Dr Brendan O'Sullivan hopes to put a dent in skyrocketing rates of diabetes in Australia by creating a new treatment for Type 2 diabetes.

The Senior Research Officer and his team at UQ's Centre for Immunology and Cancer Research (CICR) are developing a drug that targets liver cells to prevent their inflammation in obesity -- a common precursor to diabetes.

Dr O'Sullivan has received a three-year $150,000 Smart State Fellowship from the State Government to explore potential diabetes treatments.

Arthritis Queensland and the CICR will also contribute a further $150,000 each during the project.

People with Type 2 diabetes cannot produce enough insulin or do not use the insulin they produce properly.

Insulin is a hormone produced by the pancreas which moves sugar from the food we eat into the body's cells.

Dr O'Sullivan said his technique involved coating treatment drugs in absorbable fat which formed an injectable dose that could last up to one week.

"One of the drugs we're using is curcumin, which is basically the yellow compound that you see in curries, which is an anti-inflammatory compound," Dr O'Sullivan said.

"The idea is to encapsulate that compound and then deliver it to the liver cells to prevent them from producing all these inflammatory compounds".........

Posted by: JoAnn      Permalink         Source

April 13, 2006, 0:20 AM CT

Night Shift May Lead To Family Nightmares

In the current issue of the Journal of Marriage and Family, scientists examine our 24-hour economy and the effect of its need for workers 24-hours a day, 7 days a week. They find that unsociable work times (hours during evenings, weekends, or nights) are associated with poorer mental health in parents and more social and emotional difficulties in children.

Compared with families where both parents work standard daytime hours, families where fathers work nonstandard hours show worse family functioning and more hostile and ineffective parenting. When it is mothers who work these hours, there is also worse family functioning, more hostile and ineffective parenting, and more parent distress. The most problematic family environments occur when both parents work nonstandard hours.

The study compared more than 4,000 dual-earner households with children between 2 and 11 years old. The authors measured child difficulties (e.g. the inability to concentrate or hostility to their peers), family functioning (e.g. emotional involvement and problem solving), parent depressive symptoms, and ineffective parenting. The effects were similar whether the mother or father worked non-standard hours.

But these associations were stronger in households with preschool-aged children compared to those homes with school-aged children. In the past, nonstandard work schedules had been viewed as part of job flexibility that was potentially family friendly. The findings from this research pose a challenge to that assumption. "Work in the evenings, nights, and weekends can make it harder to maintain family rituals, routines, and social activities that are important for closeness," the authors explain.........

Posted by: Janet      Permalink         Source

April 12, 2006, 5:51 PM CT

Looking For Participant For An Online Survey Of Cancer Blogs

Survey

Deborah S. Chung, Ph.D. who is Assistant Professor at University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications has contacted me about an online survey for cancer patients. This is a study about cancer blog use by cancer patients.

The purpose of this study is to describe characteristics of cancer blog users and their motivations for visiting cancer blogs. In addition, this study hopes to assess behavioral changes after using cancer blogs and to draw associations between everyday use of media and use of cancer blogs.

This study will help cancer information seekers and healthcare providers alike understand how blogs as a new communication tool may potentially help cancer patients seek information and/or communication.

The information collected form this survey will be accessible only to the researchers. No personally identifiable information will be collected, and information will be presented in aggregate form. The survey will be collected on a server with SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) capabilities, which is one of the best providers of Internet security available, but there is always a risk that a third party may intercept the survey answers.

There are no foreseeable risks associated to this study. However, if you feel uncomfortable answering the survey questions, you may choose to skip a question or withdraw from the study at any time.........

Posted by: Sherin      Permalink         Source

April 11, 2006, 11:35 PM CT

Advances In Chemotherapy Improve Outcomes In Breast Cancers

Recent advances in chemotherapy have significantly reduced the risk of disease recurrence and death in breast cancer patients whose tumors are not hormone sensitive, as per a research studyby scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and 10 other institutions. The findings will be published in the April 12 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The scientists found that breast cancer patients whose disease had spread to the lymph nodes and was estrogen-receptor-negative (ER-negative) and who were received adjuvant therapys with modern chemotherapy had a much greater improvement in their five-year disease-free survival rate (22.8 percent) than those patients with hormone sensitive tumors (ER-positive) who were treated with the same chemotherapy and tamoxifen (7 percent). The improvement in overall survival rate with the newer chemotherapy regimens was 16.7 percent for ER-negative patients and 4 percent for ER-positive patients.

"Our observations add to a growing body of evidence that breast cancer is not one homogeneous disease, but rather a disease with a number of subtypes and requires a variety of new therapy approaches," said Eric Winer, MD, the paper's senior author and director of Dana-Farber's Breast Oncology Center.

Winer and colleagues conducted a retrospective analysis of three large national breast cancer studies that collectively spanned 20 years and involved more than 6,600 patients to assess the cumulative benefits associated with contemporary chemotherapy regimens. These patients had been enrolled in three consecutive studies for patients with node-positive breast cancer conducted by the Cancer and Leukemia Group B, a National Cancer Institute funded cooperative group. They compared the disease-free and survival rates across the three studies for breast cancer patients with ER-negative tumors who were treated with chemotherapy. They did the same for patients with ER-positive tumors who were treated with chemotherapy and tamoxifen. The scientists then compared the rates between ER-negative and ER-positive breast cancer patients.........

Posted by: Janet      Permalink         Source

April 11, 2006, 11:32 PM CT

New Data On Risks And Consequences Of Seatbelt Non-use

In the nation's first statewide study of its kind, the Injury Research Center of the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee has revealed new data on an old problem. people who don't use seatbelts. The researchers found that unbelted crash occupants who make it to an emergency department alive are more than three times as likely as belt users to die.

The team used data from the 2002 Crash Outcome Data Evaluation System (CODES)* for Wisconsin. They studied 23,920 crash occupants, ages 16 and over, who were treated in hospital-based emergency departments (ED)'s, statewide in 2002, and compared ED outcomes and characteristics of seatbelt users with non users. Their study appears in the March 10, online issue of Academic Emergency Medicine.

"Unbelted crash occupants represented 68 percent of the patients dying in the ED's," says lead author Shane Allen, a third year medical student. "Among motor vehicle crash patients who survived, only 20 percent of surviving unbelted occupants were successfully treated in an ED and discharged. The remainder required hospital admission".

Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for Americans ages two through 33 years. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, crash fatalities in Wisconsin rose from 763 in 2001, to 803 in 2002; while reported seatbelt use in the state dropped from 69 percent in 2001 to 66 percent in 2002.........

Posted by: Janet      Permalink         Source

April 11, 2006, 11:17 PM CT

More Than Half Of Esophageal Cancer Patients Now Survive

In part because the nature of the disease has changed, nearly 50 percent of patients with esophageal cancer that undergo an advanced surgical procedure now survive for five years, not 20 percent as once thought, as per an article reported in the April edition of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. Scientists at the University of Rochester Medical Center contend that earlier diagnoses, more widespread screening and individualized care have made surgery by far the best way to combat esophageal cancer as it is most often diagnosed today.

Whether surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, or some combination of them should be the standard of care has been debated for years. Until recently, surgery has been considered the gold standard, but its role has been questioned by some medical oncologists based on their assumption that surgery comes with a high risk of complications and small chance of survival. In a number of cases today, oncologists will try chemotherapy and radiation first, completely avoiding surgery. Authors of the current study argue that the information used to make those decisions is dated, and that the surgery is the most effective approach in a number of patients.

"Those who argue against surgery for esophageal cancer cite surgical mortality rates of up to 15 percent and low five-year postoperative survival rates of 20 percent to justify their approach," said Jeffrey H. Peters, M.D., Chair of the Department of Surgery at the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) and Surgeon-in-chief of Strong Memorial Hospital. "What's worrying is that therapy decisions are being made based on decades-old experiences with a type of esophageal cancer that most patients no longer have, and on fears about problems with surgery that are no longer a concern. Our study found that the five-year survival of patients after surgical resection for esophageal adenocarcinoma is better than that reported for any other form of treatment," said Peters, co-author of the journal article.........

Posted by: Sue      Permalink         Source

April 11, 2006, 11:10 PM CT

Absence Of Wedding Ring Linked To Parental Neglect

A social psychology expert at the University of Alberta claims that people who do not wear wedding rings are more neglectful of children compared to people who wear them. Further, Dr. Andrew Harrell states that young attractive people who do not wear wedding rings are the most neglectful child caretakers of all.

The director of the U of A Population Research Lab, Harrell made his conclusions after leading an experiment in which 862 caretaker-children combinations were furtively observed in 14 supermarkets in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Caretaker neglect was measured as per how often the caretakers or their charges, estimated to be between one and seven years-old, wandered out of sight or were more than 10 feet away from each other--too far to prevent most accidents.

Harrell found that an average of 14 per cent of the caretakers, with or without wedding rings, lost sight of their charges at least once. However, young attractive female caretakers without rings lost sight of children 19 per cent of the time, and young attractive males lost sight 25 per cent of the time, a "statistically significant" jump, Harrell said.

"Past research suggests that the absence of a wedding ring in North American culture is indicative of a lack of emotional commitment to marriage," said Harrell. "Our research shows that it may also be an indicator of a lack of a commitment to one's family, including care of the children."........

Posted by: JoAnn      Permalink         Source

April 11, 2006, 11:06 PM CT

Teen Dieters Are More Likely To Be Overweight

Adolescents who diet and use unhealthy weight-control behaviors are more likely to be overweight and put themselves at risk for eating disorders in the future, as per new research done at the University of Minnesota.

A study reported in the recent issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association found that adolescents with unhealthy weight-control behaviors were three times more likely to be overweight five years later. In addition, adolescents using unhealthy weight-control behaviors were at an increased risk for out-of-control binge eating, self-induced vomiting, and the use of diet pills, laxatives, and diuretics.

"This study shows that a shift from dieting and drastic weight-control behaviors to long-term healthy eating and physical activity is necessary among adolescents," said Dianne Neumark-Sztainer, Ph.D., study author and professor of epidemiology and community health at the University of Minnesota. "A change in lifestyle is needed to prevent obesity and eating disorders in this population."

Scientists conducted a longitudinal study of over 2,000 adolescents to determine risk for gains in BMI, overweight status, binge eating, extreme weight-control behaviors, and eating disorders after five years. Subjects completed two Project E.A.T. surveys in 1999 and 2004 to determine if those who reported dieting and different weight-control behaviors are at an increased risk for obesity and eating disorders.........

Posted by: JoAnn      Permalink         Source