Note: The contents of this blog are for informational purposes only and should not be construed as medical advice or substitute for professional care. For medical emergencies, dial 911!
David L. Katz, MD, responds to a reader in the September 2007 issue of The Oprah Magazine about the merits of eating soy in relation to preventing cancer. His response causes me to pause even more about jumping on any diet bandwagon.
Katz says we should eat soy foods -- just not too much because the evidence linking soy to breast cancer, for example, is mixed.
In comparing soy-eating Japanese women with American women who eat very little soy, researchers find lower rates of breast cancer in the Japanese women. But in a test tube, soy's plant estrogens can speed cancer cell growth. Maybe soy behaves differently in the body than it does in a tube. Or maybe soy has both negative and positive effects on breast cancer. Perhaps it's not soy at all. It could be that the populations eating soy are benefiting from not eating something else, like meat -- the saturated fat found in red meat has been linked to higher cancer rates. Replacing steak with something else may be the protective key.
Researchers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston say exercise helps combat breast cancer. Not the first time we've heard this fact. But these same researchers have something new to say -- about the reason physical activity lowers the risk of breast cancer recurrence.
Jennifer Ligibel, MD, of Dana-Farber, reports that exercise lowers levels of the hormone insulin in the bloodstream. This is significant because there appears to be an association between relatively high levels of insulin, seen in obese and sedentary people, and an increased risk of breast cancer recurrence and breast cancer-related death.
"We know that women who are overweight at the time of breast cancer diagnosis have a higher risk of recurrence than lean women, but the reasons for this have not been clear," said Ligibel.
President Bush is keeping up with his colon cancer screenings. Good thing -- because five small growths were found and removed during his latest scan on Saturday.
The polyps found inside his large intestine were all less than one centimeter in size and did not appear suspicious. Still, they were sent to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., to be microscopically examined for signs of cancer. Polyps can turn into cancer, so finding them early is the best way to prevent the disease and improve the odds of surviving it. It takes 48 to 72 hours for pathology reports to come back, but the majority of polyps this size are unlikely to be cancerous.
Bush is no stranger to polyps. In 1998, after a similar scan, two polyps were found. In 1999, two more surfaced. And while none were found during his 2002 screening, he has become a prime candidate for regular examinations. For the general population, colonoscopy tests are recommended every 10 years.
I'm always skeptical about the connection between certain foods and cancer. There's just so much back and forth -- the lycopene found in tomatoes prevents cancer and then it doesn't, for example -- that I don't base any life decisions solely on so-called cancer prevention foods. I simply do what is best for my health. If it happens to keep cancer at bay, then I consider it a bonus.
I eat fruits and vegetables because I know they're good for me. It was nice, while it lasted, to think I was also cutting my risk of cancer recurrence but when it comes down to it, fruits and veggies are better than sweets and candies and junky carbohydrates. So they'll remain a staple in my life -- even though a large, seven-year study published in today's Journal of American Medical Association dashes all hopes that a diet low in fat and jam-packed with fruits and vegetables prevents the return of breast cancer.
Five daily servings of fruits and veggies are recommended in the United States. This is more than most Americans get yet still doesn't make a difference for those trying to minimize their chances of breast cancer recurrence.
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) is launching a three-year pilot phase of a new program that will help bring state of the art care to patients in community hospitals across the country.
The NCI Community Cancer Centers Program (NCCCP) is designed to encourage the collaboration of private practice medical, surgical, and radiation oncologists. Building on this expanded network, the NCCCP will explore ways of sharing information, via electronic medical records, to further enhance patient care. Evidence from a wide range of studies suggests that cancer patients diagnosed and treated in a setting of coordinated multi-specialty care and clinical research may live longer and have a better quality of life.
The pilot program will research new and enhanced ways to assist, educate, and better treat the needs of under served populations -- including elderly, rural, inner-city, and low-income patients. As well as racial and ethnic groups with unusually high cancer rates.
Former Green Bay, New England, and Cleveland football player Joe Andruzzi has just completed the first of a 12-step series of chemotherapy treatments for Burkitt's lymphoma, a form of non-Hodgkins lymphoma.
Andruzzi, married and dad to four children, was released by the Browns on May 2 so he and his family could move to New Jersey. Then last week, Andruzzi began experiencing abdominal pain and other symptoms. He consulted with the Browns' medical staff, underwent a colonoscopy, learned an abnormality was found, and then headed to Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston where he was diagnosed with Burkitt's.
The cure rate for Burkitt's -- a rapidly growing, rare form of cancer that strikes only 100 people in the United States each year -- is about 80 percent if patients receive intensive therapy, according to the National Cancer Institute. The other patient survival factor is the stage of the disease. Andruzzi's stage has not been publicly reported.
A new and official report shows cancer is the leading cause of death and disability in Australia.
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare reveals that cancer is taking more lives -- about 19 percent -- than cardiovascular disease, currently at 18 percent. Cancer is the now to blame for Australia's burden of disease, according to the report, and the disease doesn't appear to be slowing anytime soon. Burden of disease refers to not only mortality but also takes into account impact of illness and disability. Essentially, this means cancer takes away from healthy life years.
It seems strange, say researchers, but new evidence from Johns Hopkins shows that cancer cells seem to gain momentum when they switch to a low-energy oxygen mode.
"There must be a strong advantage to cancer cells to stop using a highly efficient process in favor of one that generates much less energy," according to researcher Gregg Semenza whose findings appear in the May 8 issue of Cancer Cell.
Usually, cancer cells are powered by mitochondria and they use oxygen to create energy. But researchers found when studying Von Hippel-Lindau syndrome (VHL), a genetic disorder causing tumors throughout the body, that VHL switches on a gene that makes cells favor glucose and not oxygen.
A cancer cell's appetite for glucose is very strong and so researchers, scientists at the National Cancer Institute, and pharmaceutical experts are further exploring this phenomenon so it can be useful in cancer therapy.
It's been suspected that taking too many vitamins may spike men's risk of dying from prostate cancer. On Wednesday, the biggest study yet to link high-dose multivitamins and prostate damage was published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Government scientists have been looking at the diet and health of almost 300,000 men. One third reported taking a daily multivitamin. Five percent were heavy users, marked by use more than seven times per week. Within five years of the study's launch, 10,241 men had been diagnosed with prostate cancer. About 1,476 had an advanced form of the disease. And 179 died.
It seems heavy multivitamin users were nearly twice as likely to get fatal prostate cancer as men who never took the pills. Yet, oddly, researchers found no link between multivitamin use and early-stage prostate cancer. It could be that vitamins have little effect until a tumor appears -- and then it spurs growth.
More studies are on the horizon for this topic, which is becoming more and more pressing.
On Tuesday, researchers announced that a three-drug cocktail may help women with HER2-positive breast cancer better than any other drug used on its own. About one quarter of women with breast cancer make up this HER2 category.
Tests on mice revealed using the three drugs along with breast cancer drug tamoxifen helped wipe out tumors altogether. And the tumors did not come back. This is the first time mice were cured of a very aggressive human breast tumor. Incidentally, when a single drug was used, tumors returned within several weeks.
The three wonder drugs used in this study -- all are monoclonal antibodies that precisely target certain aspects of tumors -- are the experimental drug pertuzumab; trastuzumab, also known as Herceptin; and gefitinib, or Iressa.
Published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, this study supports the notion that HER2-positive tumors eventually become resistant to one drug and attacking them on several fronts seems to work better.
Back in the news: the link between hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and breast cancer. This time, the connection is seemingly more conclusive than before, when some argued that many factors influence the risk of breast cancer, that HRT could not do the job all on its own.
Now, two separate studies offer up powerful evidence that HRT is linked to tumor growth. Case in point: when use of the therapy drops, so do incidences of breast cancer.
New figures in the New England Journal of Medicine suggest there have been 16,000 fewer cases of breast cancer nationwide since mid-2002, when women stopped taking their hormone pills following the federal Women's Health Initiative announcement connecting the therapy with increased risk of breast cancer, stroke, and heart attack.
Many did not want to believe HRT was to blame for so many breast cancer diagnoses. And maybe it's not the actual cause of the disease, but the fuel for tumors trying to grow.
These new findings do not appear to be a statistical fluke, says one doctor. Numbers have been computed and re-computed, and the message is clear: HRT is strongly implicated as the guilty party. There is just no other culprit, says a statistician at the National Cancer Institute.
Wyeth, maker of Premarin and Prempro -- two forms of hormone therapy -- continues to caution women against drawing any conclusions about HRT and breast cancer. There still may be broader explanation for the decline in cases, say their spokespeople.
Results of two studies, sponsored by the Adjuvant Breast Cancer (ABC) Trials Collaborative Group, conclude that adding chemotherapy to the estrogen-blocking drug tamoxifen improves survival for those with early-stage breast cancer. The same studies reveal preventing the secretion of estrogen from the ovaries does not offer much benefit for most women.
Researchers studied 1991 patients, ages 28 to 81. All had received five years worth of treatment with tamoxifen therapy with or without standard chemotherapy. Some premenopausal women were also treated with ovarian removal (ablation) or suppression, a technique used to stop the glands from secreting hormones.
While early results, appearing in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, fell short of statistical significance, chemotherapy still reduced the overall risk of death by 17 percent, mostly for women younger than 50 and especially for premenopausal women not treated with ovarian ablation or suppression.
Daniel Sieberg, science and technology correspondent for CBS News and blogger for Tech Talk recently went searching for online sites offering help and hope for those seeking insight into the world of cancer.
Sieberg went about his search by typing into Google the word cancer. Thrown back at him were more than 250 million results. Overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information and misinformation, Sieberg sifted and sorted through everything that faced him -- and he narrowed down the results to his favorite five.
Sieberg is right on with his picks, and while I personally would have included The Cancer Blog as a source loaded with accurate, reliable, and inspiring information, I still commend Sieberg for so effectively hunting down some very good cancer resources. For what it's worth, I happen to highly recommend them myself.
President Bush, in a recent press release, declared April Cancer Control Month. It's a month for educating Americans about cancer, for raising awareness about treatments, for renewing the commitment to fighting this deadly disease.
Bush makes no mention in his release of the millions he just cut from the National Cancer Institute budget and how this might hinder this month's initiative, but he does offer a few relatively inexpensive ideas for individuals who wish to minimize their risk of developing the disease that remains the country's second leading cause of death.
"Individuals can reduce their risk of developing cancer by practicing healthy eating habits, exercising, limiting sun exposure, avoiding tobacco, knowing their family history, and getting regular screenings from the doctor," he writes.
Bush goes on to honor those lost to cancer and commends the strength of the 10 million people in the United States surviving the disease. He extends his gratitude for medical professionals, researchers, family members, and friends who support cancer patients. And he closes with a little history -- and his very own proclamation.
"In 1938, the Congress of the United States passed a joint resolution (52 Stat. 148; 36 U.S.C. 103) as amended, requesting the President to issue an annual proclamation declaring April as 'Cancer Control Month.'
NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim April 2007 as Cancer Control Month. I encourage citizens, government agencies, private businesses, nonprofit organizations, and other interested groups to join in activities that will increase awareness about the steps Americans can take to prevent and control cancer.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-ninth day of March, in the year of our Lord two thousand seven, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-first."
This is a big question for those in the field of cancer immunotherapy, treatment based upon the concept of adjusting the immune system to reject and destroy tumors.
The National Cancer Institute along with a company called NewLink Genetics are looking to get FDA approval to start clinical trials of a drug that restricts a natural mechanism for immune suppression.
This enzyme named IDO, has been shown to help the fetus avoid rejection by the mother's immune system. This discovery led scientists to suspect and later prove that tumors express IDO.
Will suppressing IDO in humans help the immune system to seek out and kill cancer cells? This is what these scientists want to find out.
Doctor Mellor, a pediatric oncologist, says "What (cancers) do, we think, is make a protective cocoon so the immune system does not attack the tumor, so that gives you the therapeutic opportunity. If you stop IDO from blocking the response, you should allow the response, so now the specificity of the immune system is brought to bear directly on tumor cells"
David L. Katz, MD, responds to a reader in the September 2007 issue of The Oprah Magazine about the merits of eating soy in relation to preventing cancer. His response causes me to pause even more about jumping on any diet bandwagon.
Researchers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston say exercise helps combat breast cancer. Not the first time we've heard this fact. But these same researchers have something new to say -- about the reason physical activity lowers the risk of breast cancer recurrence.
President Bush is keeping up with his colon cancer screenings. Good thing -- because five small growths were found and removed during his latest scan on Saturday.
I'm always skeptical about the connection between certain foods and cancer. There's just so much back and forth -- the lycopene found in tomatoes 
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) is launching a three-year pilot phase of a new program that will help bring state of the art care to patients in community hospitals across the country.
Former Green Bay, New England, and Cleveland football player Joe Andruzzi has just completed the first of a 12-step series of chemotherapy treatments for Burkitt's lymphoma, a form of non-Hodgkins lymphoma.
A new and official report shows cancer is the leading cause of death and disability in Australia.
It seems strange, say researchers, but new evidence from Johns Hopkins shows that cancer cells seem to gain momentum when they switch to a low-energy oxygen mode.
It's been suspected that taking too many vitamins may spike men's risk of dying from prostate cancer. On Wednesday, the biggest study yet to link high-dose multivitamins and prostate damage was published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
On Tuesday, researchers announced that a three-drug cocktail may help women with HER2-positive breast cancer better than any other drug used on its own. About one quarter of women with breast cancer make up this HER2 category.
Back in the news: the link between hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and breast cancer. This time, the connection is seemingly more conclusive than before, when some argued that many factors influence the risk of breast cancer, that HRT could not do the job all on its own.
Results of two studies, sponsored by the Adjuvant Breast Cancer (ABC) Trials Collaborative Group, conclude that adding chemotherapy to the estrogen-blocking drug tamoxifen improves survival for those with early-stage breast cancer. The same studies reveal preventing the secretion of estrogen from the ovaries does not offer much benefit for most women.
Daniel Sieberg, science and technology correspondent for CBS News and blogger for 
President Bush, in a recent press release, declared April Cancer Control Month. It's a month for educating Americans about cancer, for raising awareness about treatments, for renewing the commitment to fighting this deadly disease.
This is a big question for those in the field of cancer immunotherapy, treatment based upon the concept of adjusting the immune system to reject and destroy tumors.
