No Evidence Breast Self-Exams Cut Cancer Deaths

(HealthDay News) -- Updated findings from an analysis of existing research continue to suggest that the oft-touted monthly breast self-exam may actually do more harm than good.

There is no evidence that the practice actually decreases deaths from breast cancer while it may actually double the number of unnecessary biopsies in women who do the exam compared with women who don't.

"At present, screening by breast self-examination or physical examination [by a trained health worker] cannot be recommended," two of the study authors, Jan Peter Kosters and Peter Gotzsche of the Nordic Cochrane Centre, stated in the review.

The current review, published in the most recent issue of The Cochrane Library, updates and corroborates information from a 2003 review of studies.

The American Cancer Society revised its guidelines five years ago based on emerging evidence and no longer recommends monthly breast self-exams. The monthly exam is now considered "an option" for women starting in their 20s.

The current review included two studies of almost 400,000 women in Russia and China. Women who did self-exams had 3,406 biopsies compared with only 1,856 biopsies in the group that did not do the exams. Differences in biopsy rates did not translate into differences in breast cancer mortality.

The China study found that rates of mastectomy and lumpectomy (or "breast-conserving" surgery) were similar regardless of whether women were doing self-exams or not.

As always, however, women who detect any change in their breast need to consult a doctor.

More information
Visit the National Cancer Institute for more on breast cancer.

Hormone Replacement May Raise Women's Gallbladder Risk

(HealthDay News) -- A postmenopausal woman who uses hormone replacement therapy (HRT) may boost her risk for gallbladder disease, researchers say, although the risk appears to vary depending on how she receives the hormones.

"For women who are using HRT, their risk of gallbladder disease is less if they use a patch or gel form of HRT rather than the tablet form of HRT," noted Dr. Bette Liu, a clinical epidemiologist at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.

"There is evidence that is developing that the patch may have less negative effects than the pill. We need to make sure that we're talking about the menopausal hormone therapy patch, not the birth control patch -- there may be less adverse effects than when taking estrogen by mouth," said Dr. Patricia J. Sulak, professor of obstetrics/gynecology at Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine and an obstetrician/gynecologist with Scott & White.

According to Sulak, who was not involved in the study, hormone therapy can be taken non-orally in several ways, including gels (rubbing it on), the patch and even spraying it on.

Not only are patches and gels given at lower doses, but they bypass having to be metabolized through the liver, thus reducing any effect on the gallbladder, the authors explained. The gallbladder stores bile produced in the liver, and less estrogen collected in the bile could explain the reduced risk, the team noted.

The findings were published this week in the online edition of the British Medical Journal.

HRT is still taken by large numbers of women to relieve the symptoms of menopause -- despite evidence of various health risks, including heightened odds for breast cancer and stroke.

The risk of developing gallbladder disease also increases when a woman hits menopause, and experts have long known that HRT contributes to this risk. To date, however, no one has analyzed whether the risk varies depending on how HRT is administered. A recent study did find that the risk of blood clots was lower in women taking HRT via skin patches as opposed to pills.

In the new study, Liu and her colleagues looked at data on more than one million women who had participated in the Million Women Study in England and Scotland. The mean age of participants was 56, and they were followed for an average of six years.

Women currently using HRT were 64 percent more likely to be hospitalized for gallbladder disease, but they were only 17 percent more likely to be admitted if they were using gels or patches.

Higher doses of estrogen were associated with a higher risk than lower doses. The risk also decreased the longer the woman had been off of HRT, although there was still some risk a decade after discontinuing.

The risk seemed mainly confined to estrogen. Adding progesterone did not have a significant impact on the risk of gallbladder disease.

Estrogen implants involved a level of risk that fell between those faced by users of oral HRT and those faced by users of patches or gels.

Among women using HRT, one cholecystectomy (removal of the gallbladder) could be avoided for every 140 women using transdermal therapy rather than oral therapy over a five-year period, the team found.

According to the study, about 1.1 percent of middle-aged women in the U.K. who have never used HRT will end up having a cholecystectomy. That proportion rises to 1.3 percent among women using patches or gel and to 2 percent for women taking HRT in pill form.

"Most people will do fine with pills, but some patients who are prone to gallbladder disease or even blood clots may do better with the patch," Sulak said. "Not all women can tolerate the patch, however. They may have skin reactions, or the patch won't stay on."

More information
There's more on hormone replacement therapy at the Women's Health Initiative.

Balancing Your Hormones Without Drugs... You Can Feel Good Again $19.95 [ learn more ] Hormone imbalance can be reversed! Look and feel better than ever, just take the time to learn about yourself and read the information contained in this just released e-book about reversing hormone imbalance. Are you ready to finally look and feel great? If so... read on... - E-Book Version.(BH)

Boob News Roundup: The Power of the Mighty Breast

By Anne Krueger

We’ve long known that a nice pair of tatas can stop traffic. (Although this doesn’t always work as well as expected. When a Dayton, Ohio, hitchhiker exposed her breasts June 13 she nearly caused a fender-bender, but the only car that stopped to pick her up was the cops. They gave her a ticket for jaywalking.)

But did you know that those mighty mammaries (or the frippery that tries to contain them) can also stop a plane, help elect a president, solve America’s energy problems—even save lives? It’s true: The news last week was full of breathtaking tales about the power of boobage and bras. Here, just a few of them.
Read More

When Cups Do Not Runneth Over: The Breast Implant Debate

By Anne Krueger

1984 was a good year for my girls. My boobs were still small enough that I could go braless, but big enough that no one would mistake me for a boy. It’s one of the few times I actually liked my breasts (aside from a brief stint as a cocktail waitress in 1977 and when I was breast-feeding, adventures best saved for future posts). The rest of my life has been filled with mammary dissatisfaction, and apparently I’m not alone.

When we asked Health.com visitors what they would most like to change about their breasts, they responded:
Breast size: 47%Breast shape: 31%The fact they sit somewhere near my belly button: 22%

Unlike me, lots of women are doing more than just whining about the state of their bosom: In 2007 breast augmentation moved to the top spot on the list of the most popular cosmetic surgeries for women, up 6% from the year before. Nearly 400,000 women in the U.S. had a boob job last year at an average cost of $4,000 a pop—and the numbers are expected to keep pushing up. Read More

Heart Hormones Beat Back Cancers in Mice

(HealthDay News) -- New research offers early evidence that hormones produced by the heart to control both blood pressure and volume could be harnessed to treat -- and possibly cure -- a wide range of cancers.

Following a month of intravenous treatment with any of four human cardiac peptide hormones, mice engineered to develop human pancreatic and breast cancer experienced dramatic results:

On average, 54 percent of those with breast cancer and 37 percent of those with pancreatic cancer were cured, without tumor recurrence or treatment side effects.

Even tumor shrinkage among non-cured mice was striking, with size reductions of 90-plus percent. And a more detailed analysis, hormone-by-hormone, revealed even stronger anti-cancer properties among certain hormones. In such best-case scenarios, the most effective hormones provoked full tumor elimination -- without surgery, chemotherapy or any other additional treatment -- in two-thirds of the mice with breast cancer and 80 percent of the mice with pancreatic cancer.

"This raises hope for turning cancer -- even when not fully cured -- into a chronic disease," said study author Dr. David L. Vesely, director of the department of molecular pharmacology and physiology at the University of South Florida's Cardiac Hormone Center, in Tampa.

Vesely is scheduled to present his findings April 9 at the Experimental Biology annual conference in San Diego. The findings were originally published in the journal in vivo last year.

"For 350 years, the heart has been thought of simply as a pump," Vesely said. "But we now know it makes hormones that lower your blood pressure and get rid of salt and water. So, first we took four of them that all come from the same gene, and looked at them in laboratory cell cultures, and found that they essentially eliminated 97 percent of exposed cancer cells within 24 hours."

With funding largely from the U.S. Veteran's Administration, the research team then grew human cancer cells in 1-month-old male and female mice, focusing first on pancreatic cancer, which Vesely described as the "worst of all," given the fast pace of its development, its poor treatment track record, and a mean survival rate of just four months.

Nearly 34,000 Americans are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer each year, and 32,000 die of the disease annually.

Some of the pancreatic cancer mice received a saline solution, while others were exposed to a month-long regimen of one of four cardiac hormones: long acting natriuretic peptide (LANP), vessel dilator (VDL), kaliruretic peptide (KP), or atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP).

ANP was found to provide the best anti-cancer effect, eliminating tumors in four of five treated mice. Among those not fully cured, VDL provided the best cancer reduction -- bringing exposed tumors down to just 2 percent of their largest size.

After a year, the researchers found that all the cured mice remained cancer-free. Based on the fact that the normal life span for a mouse is about one year, Vesely and his colleagues concluded that all the treated mice ended up dying of old age, not cancer.

Vesely, who noted that his wife died of breast cancer about five years ago, then turned his focus to that cancer.

He said that in similar mouse experiments, treatments with VDL and KP hormones both produced a 67 percent tumor elimination rate.

"We never expected results this good, of course," he said. "And I don't want to get too carried away here. But if this works in humans, it would be spectacular. Because, of course, one out of every two families [experiences] cancer."

Human trials -- funded by the private San Diego-based firm Kalos Therapeutics -- are to begin within 12 to 18 months. If all goes well, Vesely predicted that a hormone treatment could become available within three years.

However, Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, deputy chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society, cautioned that while the notion of a heart hormone cancer treatment has a "seductive" appeal, much more research is required.

"Unfortunately, in general, we see a lot of experiments that seem promising in test tubes and animals but for whatever reason don't translate into anything that has treatment benefit," he said. "And specifically, in this case, we're talking about normal hormones already in circulation in our body, and normal receptors on cancer cells.

"So, in a perhaps simplistic, but nonetheless important, way, the question then arises: Why do people get cancer in the first place if this hormonal mechanism is so effective?" Lichtenfeld said. "And I do not see that the researchers clearly suggest an underlying rational mechanism to explain why this would happen and work in humans.

"So, I understand here that a researcher has lost a wife and a mother to cancer, and I know it's personal," he acknowledged. "And I've certainly learned to never say never. But it would take considerably more replication of this work before I could say this theory will gain traction."

More information
For additional information on current cancer treatment options, visit the American Cancer Society.

Balancing Your Hormones Without Drugs... You Can Feel Good Again $19.95 [ learn more ] Hormone imbalance can be reversed! Look and feel better than ever, just take the time to learn about yourself and read the information contained in this just released e-book about reversing hormone imbalance. Are you ready to finally look and feel great? If so... read on... - E-Book Version.(BH)

BSD Medical Participates on Invitation at International Conference on Hyperthermic Oncology and Medicine in India

BSD Medical Corporation (AMEX:BSM) today announced that Richard A. White, Vice President of International Sales, along with some of the leading researchers in hyperthermia therapy, spoke and participated in a panel discussion as invited guests at the International Conference on Hyperthermic Oncology and Medicine held at the Mahavir Cancer Center in Patna, India February 16-17.

The two-day meeting was devoted entirely to the use of hyperthermia therapy in treating cancer. The panel upon which Mr. White and international scientists from the field participated was centered upon strategies to bring hyperthermia therapy to developing countries. At the meeting the invited scientists spoke on the clinical support for the use of hyperthermia therapy in treating cancer, as largely performed on BSD Medical's hyperthermia systems.

The conference received strong attention from the Indian Government, as Her Excellency, the President of India, Shrimati Pratibha Devisingh Patil opened the conference. The President said, "Cancer can be controlled if diagnosed well in time, however, in India, about two-thirds of cancer patients are diagnosed at the advanced stage when it becomes more difficult to treat."

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Dr. Nagraj Huigol, the National Secretary of the Association of Hyperthermic Oncology and Medicine (in India), stated that "Hyperthermia could be beneficial even for those suffering from resistant cancers. In fact a combination of the conventional mode of treatment and hyperthermia could create wonders if handled aptly." Dr. Nagraj appealed to the central and state governments to set up prominent medical centers for the benefit of those cancer patients who have lost all hope.

More than 800,000 people in India are diagnosed with cancer every year, and more than 400,000 die from the disease annually. Of these, lung cancer (250,000 cases), cervical cancer (126,000 cases) and breast cancer (80,000 cases) are the most prevalent. About 70% of the cases are diagnosed when the cancer is in an advanced T3 or T4 stage, where the use of hyperthermia therapy may be particularly implied for some cancers.

About BSD Medical Corporation
BSD Medical Corp. is the leading developer of systems used to deliver hyperthermia therapy for the treatment of cancer. Hyperthermia therapy is used to kill cancer directly and increase the effectiveness of companion radiation treatments. Research has also shown promising results from the use of hyperthermia therapy in combination with chemotherapy, and for tumor reduction prior to surgery. For further information visit BSD Medical's website at http://www.bsdmedical.com/ or BSD's patient website at http://www.treatwithheat.com/.

Statements contained in this press release that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements, as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties detailed in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Source: Business Wire

Chemotherapy After Breast Cancer Surgery Effective for Older Women, Too

HealthDay News) -- It's clear that chemotherapy after breast cancer surgery increases survival rates. But many older women aren't being offered this potentially lifesaving treatment.
But, age shouldn't be a deciding factor -- an older woman's general health appears to be a better predictor of positive results after chemotherapy, according to a study published recently in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

"Age alone should not be a contraindication to the use of optimal chemotherapy regimens in older women who are in good general health," the study authors said.

About half of all breast cancers in the United States occur in women older than 65. Past studies have shown that chemotherapy after breast cancer surgery increases the odds of disease-free survival in women between the ages of 50 and 69. But little information has been available for treating women over 70, the study authors said.

One important concern is that older women may experience more toxic side effects from chemotherapy. That's because the kidneys often function less effectively with age, and there's not as great a bone marrow reserve for generating new blood cells in older people.

"There's always been a concern that older women with breast cancer might be under-treated," said Dr. Yelena Novik, an oncologist at New York University Medical Center in New York City. "In clinical trials, the proportion of women over 70, and especially over 75, is very small, so it's hard to know the benefits and the risks. It's understood that older women are more likely to have other medical problems, such as heart disease, hypertension and diabetes, so the question is, should they be offered the same treatment as younger women?"

To answer that question, researchers from cancer centers around the country reviewed data from four previous trials that included almost 6,500 women with lymph-node positive breast cancer. Five hundred and forty-two of the women in the studies were over 65, and 159 were over age 70.

Each of the studies looked at various doses and regimens of chemotherapy, including regimens considered to be potentially more toxic than the others.

A number of factors influenced survival rates, including smaller tumor size, fewer positive lymph nodes, having more chemotherapy, and using the breast cancer drug tamoxifen. Age alone, however, didn't appear to influence survival rates, the study authors found.

Women over 65 were more likely to die of causes other than breast cancer. And they were slightly more likely to die as a result of the treatment than younger women were. Overall treatment-related mortality was 0.5 percent, and 1.5 percent for those women over 65.
"What this study basically showed is that we shouldn't prejudice our treatment decisions based on chronological age," said Dr. Jay Brooks, chairman of hematology and oncology at Ochsner Health System in Baton Rouge, La. "We have a lot of very healthy, older individuals, and to simply preclude someone from taking potentially lifesaving therapy because they've reached some chronological age is just wrong. Would you tell someone who's 68 with coronary vessel disease not to get a bypass?"

Both Novik and Brooks said that recent advances in tailoring breast cancer treatments to the individual patient have likely made the age disparity less of an issue.

"We're hopefully getting smarter in understanding cancer behaviors, which gives us better insight into which drugs to use," Novik said.

Brooks advised older women with breast cancer to "sit down and talk with their doctor about what their individualized risk of recurrence is. We have good tools to offer individualized treatment options, whatever your age."

More information
To learn more about chemotherapy treatment for breast cancer, visit the American Cancer Society.

Breast Is Best for Reducing Stress

(HealthDay News) -- Breast-feeding is considered a great way for a mother to form a close bond with her infant. And now there's evidence to suggest it may also help kids be more resilient to stress.

Researchers in Sweden and the United Kingdom examined data on almost 9,000 children born in Great Britain in 1970. Relevant information was collected at birth and again at ages 5 and 10 from parents, teachers, health-care workers and midwives.

Teachers were asked to rate the kids' anxiety levels on a zero-to-50 scale at age 10. And parents were asked about major life events -- including divorce or separation -- that occurred when their children were between 5 and 10 years old.

Not surprisingly, children whose parents had divorced or separated were more likely to have high anxiety. But what the researchers found striking was the difference in stress levels between breast-fed and bottle-fed kids. Breast-fed children were significantly less anxious than kids who hadn't nursed at their mother's breast.

Lead author Scott Montgomery, an associate professor at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, said the research team was interested in examining whether there are any specific early-life exposures that make children better able to cope with stress later in life. The study attempted to replicate animal studies that showed close physical contact between a mother and her offspring may have a positive impact on the development of the offspring's stress response, he said.

"The best marker of maternal physical contact in the first month of life that we could find among the research information at our disposal was breast-feeding," Montgomery said.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that healthy women exclusively breast-feed their infants for at least the first six months of life and continue breast-feeding "for at least the first year of life and beyond for as long as mutually desired by mother and child."

Breast-feeding offers many health and development benefits for baby, says the National Institute of Child Health & Human Development. Kids get the right balance of nutrients to support optimal growth, fatty acids to promote brain development and protection against many childhood illnesses. And there are important emotional and physical benefits for moms as well.

"There is no question that breast-feeding is better for the health of mothers and children," said Nicole Else-Quest, an assistant professor of psychology at Villanova University in Pennsylvania, "but it is less clear how breast-feeding affects the mother-child relationship." Breast-feeding may help to establish an early bond, she added, but "it is only one of many ways to do so."
As for why there might be differences in stress between breast-fed and bottle-fed kids, Else-Quest said it is difficult to speculate "given that many factors influence the decisions to breast-feed in the first place."

The research team considered factors that might affect a child's reaction to stress and ability to cope, such as maternal depression, parental education levels, social class, and smoking habits. Even after accounting for those factors, breast-fed children were less anxious than their peers. In addition, bottle-fed children whose parents divorced were more anxious than breast-fed kids.
Yet the study findings don't prove that breast-feeding itself reduces anxiety. It may be a mark of close, early physical contact, the researchers noted.

"A child without such regular contact may perceive greater danger reacting to stress -- indicating a potentially dangerous situation -- with a more reactive and less well-controlled stress response," Montgomery said.

It's also possible, he added, that mothers who breast-fed simply have a better relationship with their child.

"The parent-child relationship influences the child's health and development in many ways," Montgomery said. "A good relationship with parents is important, and this relationship begins in infancy, so good early contact with the child is important."

The study findings were published in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood.

More information
The National Institute of Child Health & Human Development has the latest research on breast-feeding.

Breast Cancer Genes Also Raise Men's Risk for Malignancy

(HealthDay News) -- Men whose mothers, sisters or daughters test positive for a breast cancer-causing mutation in the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes may also have the mutation and be at increased risk for cancer, a new study finds.

Most of those men are unaware of the danger, noted researchers at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, who examined how families discuss genetic test results.

Men with a mutation in the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes have a 14 percent lifetime risk of developing prostate cancer and a 6 percent lifetime risk of developing breast cancer, the study authors said.

"Despite these health implications, we have found a lack of understanding of genetic test results among men in these families," study lead author Dr Mary B. Daly, senior vice president for population science at Fox Chase, said in a prepared statement.

The researchers interviewed 24 men with a first-degree female relative who tested positive for a BRCA1 or BRAC2 mutation. All the women said they told their male relative about the test results, but only 18 of the men remembered that they were told.

About half the men (7) who did remember being told the test results didn't believe that they also had an increased risk of cancer. Only 5 of the men correctly assessed their chance of having a BRCA1 or BRCA 2 mutation.

"We devote a significant amount of time learning how best to communicate genetic test results to women, but this study shows we also need to help them communicate the information to their male family members who may be impacted by the test results," Daly concluded.

The study was expected to be presented Friday at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.

More information
The U.S. National Cancer Institute has more about cancer genetics.

Precancerous Lesions Raise Cervical Cancer Risk

(HealthDay News) -- Women who have had advanced precancerous lesions of the cervix are still at risk for invasive cancers up to 25 years later, Swedish researchers report.

Currently, the American Cancer Society recommends that women who have had precancerous lesions called severe dysplasia/carcinoma in situ (CIS) continue getting Pap tests for 10 years after treatment. But, based on this study, these guidelines may need to be changed, said Debbie Saslow, the society's director of breast and gynecologic cancer, who was not involved with the research.

Saslow added, however, that even though these women continue to be at risk for developing cervical or vaginal cancer, the risk is low. "Women who have been treated for advanced precancer do need to remain vigilant," she said.

"This paper is going in my file for when we update our guidelines in the next two years," Saslow added. "We will see if we want to stick with 10 years or go to a much wider interval."

The study was led by Dr. Bjorn Strander, a senior consultant with the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Sahlgren's Academy at the University of Gothenburg. The researchers collected data on 132,493 women who had a diagnosis of severe dysplasia/CIS between 1958 and 2002. The statistics came from the National Swedish Cancer Register.

The researchers found 881 women had developed cervical cancer, and 111 had developed vaginal cancer more than one year after the initial diagnosis. This was almost seven times higher than expected, the researchers said.

Women with a diagnosis of severe dysplasia/CIS were more than twice as likely to develop cancer compared with the general female population. The women were also twice as likely to develop invasive cervical cancer after diagnosis of CIS if that diagnosis was made between 1991 and 2000, compared with the same diagnosis made from 1958 to 1970. This increased risk might be due to changes in treatment over that period, particularly because fewer hysterectomies are being done as part of treatment for CIS, the study authors said.

Strander's team also found a particularly high risk for women over age 50, and this risk continued to increase with age. "The risk after treatment hardly decreases at all after treatment and is still sustained after more than 25 years," he said.

"While well-screened women after 50 to 60 years of age are very well protected from cervical cancer and have little, if any, further use of screening, this does not apply to women who have been treated for grade 3 CIS," Strander said. "They need, and should have, long-term follow-up, perhaps lifelong," he said.

The results are published in the Oct. 26 edition of the British Medical Journal.

More information
For more on cervical cancer, visit the American Cancer Society.

Health Tip: Breast Self-Exams

(HealthDay News) - Women should give themselves a breast exam each month, beginning at age 20. This exam should be performed at about the same time every month.

Here are suggestions on what to look for during breast self-exam, courtesy of the American Academy of Family Physicians:

• Any changes in an existing lump or a new lump that you haven't felt before.
• Abnormal thickening of the breasts.
• Discharge from the nipples that is bloody or sticky.
• Differences in the skin on your nipples, especially dimpling or puckering of the skin.
• An increase in size of one breast.
• One breast that hangs lower than the other.

Any of these warnings signs should be evaluated by a medical professional as soon as possible.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Alcohol Intake on Cardiovascular Health Reviewed

News Author: Laurie Barclay, MD
CME Author: Charles Vega, MD

The latest American Heart Association guidelines caution people not to start drinking alcohol if they do not already drink alcohol, according to a review of the advantages and disadvantages of alcohol intake on cardiovascular health published in the August 23 Online First issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

"Accumulating scientific evidence indicates that light to moderate drinking done on a daily basis may significantly reduce the risks of coronary heart disease (CHD) and all-cause mortality," write James H. O'Keefe, MD, FACC, and colleagues from the Mid America Heart Institute in Kansas City, Missouri. "In contrast, excessive alcohol intake and binge drinking are toxic to both the heart and overall health and are the third leading cause of premature death among Americans.

The purpose of the present review is to:
1) outline the specific benefits and risks of alcohol, and the threshold of intake at which drinking becomes a health danger rather than an advantage;
2) detail the mechanisms whereby alcohol confers cardioprotection; and
3) discuss the ideal quantities, drinking patterns, and beverages, and which individuals are most likely to benefit."

Research to date has shown J-shaped relationships between alcohol consumption and several adverse health outcomes, including all-cause mortality, CHD, diabetes, hypertension, congestive heart failure, stroke, dementia, and Raynaud's phenomenon.

Some cardioprotective benefits have been demonstrated for light to moderate alcohol consumption (up to 1 drink daily for women and 1 or 2 drinks daily for men). Most studies have shown that light to moderate drinking is associated with risk reductions for CHD of approximately 30% to 35%.

Alcohol consumed in moderation seems to have an antiatherosclerotic effect, with decreased incidence of peripheral arterial disease and decreased atherosclerotic burden shown by coronary angiography, computerized tomography-detected coronary calcium, and carotid ultrasound.
Like exercise, alcohol consumption seems to be most cardioprotective when done daily and in moderation. However, increasingly excessive consumption is associated with proportional worsening of outcomes.

Because of the beneficial effects on high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, insulin action, and inflammation, light to moderate alcohol intake may be particularly helpful for patients with abnormal glucose metabolism and/or insulin resistance. Light to moderate alcohol intake may be associated with reductions in the prevalence and incidence of diabetes, and a large meta-analysis with 12-year follow-up showed a 30% reduction in new diabetes in those who consumed 1 to 2 drinks daily.

The cardiovascular benefits associated with alcohol consumption protection are thought to be mediated by improvements in insulin sensitivity and HDL cholesterol. The major protective component seems to be the ethanol itself, and not the other ingredients found in different types of alcoholic beverages.

In a meta-analysis incorporating data from more than 1 million participants, consumption of 1 drink daily by women and 1 or 2 drinks daily by men was associated with an 18% reduction in total mortality, but daily intakes of more than 2 drinks in women and 3 drinks in men were associated with dose-dependent increased mortality.

Although low-dose, daily alcohol consumption has been linked to better health than less frequent use, binge drinking increases cardiovascular events and mortality, even in otherwise light drinkers.

"Alcohol should not be universally prescribed for health enhancement to nondrinking individuals owing to the lack of randomized outcome data and the potential for problem drinking," the study authors note. "Alcohol (ethanol) consumption is analogous to the proverbial double-edged sword, and perhaps no other factor in cardiovascular (CV) health is capable of cutting so deeply in either direction depending on how it is used."

Guidelines from the United Kingdom suggest that middle-aged or elderly men and postmenopausal women who drink seldom or never might consider the possibility that light drinking would benefit their health. On occasion, the reviewers have made a similar recommendation to patients who do not smoke and who have no personal or family history of substance abuse and no history of depression or bipolar disorder. However, they argue that light to moderate drinking should not be universally recommended to the general public or even to patients with cardiovascular disease.

As an analogy, they point out that observational data and findings from randomized trials using surrogate endpoints suggested that hormone replacement therapy for women and antioxidant vitamins improved cardiovascular outcomes, whereas later randomized trials with larger samples led to the opposite conclusions. They note that no randomized trials of alcohol for improving clinical outcomes have yet been performed. In observational studies, residual unmeasured confounding factors could be contributing to apparent benefits that seem to be associated with light to moderate drinking.

The investigators further note that heavy drinking has caused significant individual and societal problems and morbidity. In the past 15 years, the rates of alcohol abuse and binge drinking have been increasing, according to the findings of some studies. Alcohol abuse causes 100,000 deaths each year in the United States, and it has been deemed the third largest preventable cause of death.

Excessive alcohol consumption has been associated with increased risks for all-cause mortality, motor vehicle crashes, stroke, cardiomyopathy, cardiac dysrhythmia, sudden cardiac arrest, suicide, cancer (particularly of the breast and gastrointestinal tract), cirrhosis, fetal alcohol syndrome and sleep apnea.

"Sobering statistics warn that moderate daily drinking is a slippery slope that many individuals cannot safely navigate," the study authors conclude. "The latest American Heart Association guidelines caution people not to start drinking if they do not already drink alcohol, because it is not possible to predict in which people alcohol abuse will become a problem. Until we have more randomized outcome data, and tools for predicting susceptibility to problem drinking, it would seem prudent to encourage physicians and patients to focus on more innocuous interventions to prevent CHD."

J Am Coll Cardiol. Published online August 23, 2007.
2007;50:1009-1014.

Most Asian Men Have Better Prostate Cancer Survival Rates

(HealthDay News) -- Your prognosis for surviving prostate cancer may depend on your racial and ethnic background, a new study suggests.

Asian men have better survival rates than white males, while South Asians have the worst survival rates, according to results of a study of men living in California.

"Nearly all Asians do far better when they get prostate cancer," said study lead author Dr. Anthony Robbins, of the California Cancer Registry in Sacramento. "But Indian men didn't do as well as other Asian men, and they did worse than all other men, including blacks and whites," he added.

The reasons for these racial and ethnic differences in prostate cancer survival aren't known, Robbins said, adding, "We just couldn't explain it."

Not only couldn't the researchers explain the finding, they were left with an apparent paradox. The Asian men were usually older and had more advanced disease at the time of diagnosis, Robbins said. "Based on their risk factors, you would think they were going to do worse," he said.

In the study, Robbins and his colleagues collected data on 116,916 men (108,076 whites and 8,840 Asians from the six largest represented Asian ethnicities -- Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, South Asian, and Vietnamese) diagnosed with prostate cancer. The researchers compared prognostic factors and survival rates among the men.

The researchers found that for Asians, risk profiles were worse compared with whites. For example, Asians were more likely to have more advanced disease and use non-curative therapies. But, for Asians -- except for South Asians -- survival rates were equal to or better than rates for whites.

Japanese-American men were 34 percent less likely to die from prostate cancer compared with whites. But South Asian men -- those from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Bhutan -- were 40 percent more likely to die from the disease, Robbins said.

The study was published online Monday in the journal Cancer.

Some of the factors that may influence the findings include diet, exercise and genetics, Robbins speculated.

"Doctors that are seeing patients for prostate cancer need to be aware that these differences can be used as factors in planning the patient's treatment and telling the patient what their survival might be," Robbins said.

Dr. Durado Brooks, director of prostate and colorectal cancer at the American Cancer Society, thinks this study demonstrates the need to better understand how different racial and ethnic groups respond to diseases.

"This study points out the potential misleading conclusions we can come to when we use these large groups to lump different subpopulations into," he said.

"If you lump in the South Asian subgroup with other Asians, as is traditionally done, you totally miss the fact that these folks have a strikingly higher chance of dying from prostate cancer," Brooks said.

Brooks said the study finding can provide a basis for research to try to understand why these differences exist between populations.

Prostate cancer is the most common type of cancer to strike American men, other than skin cancer, according to the American Cancer Society, which estimates there will be about 218,890 new cases of prostate cancer in the United States in 2007, and about 27,050 men will die of the disease. Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in males. While one in six men will get prostate cancer during his lifetime, only one man in 34 will die of the disease. The death rate for prostate cancer is declining, due in large part to earlier diagnoses, the society said.

Another paper in the same issue of the journal also found racial differences among women who survive breast cancer; with black women having poorer survival regardless of the stage of the disease.

It is known that black women had larger tumors and are more likely to have invasive breast cancer. But the study, lead by Dr. Alfred Neugut from Columbia University Medical Center and Russell McBride from Mailman School of Public Health, found that mortality among black women was up to 56 percent higher than whites.

Neugut's team says that the disparities in survival were surprising and suggest that non-clinical factors, such as access to and quality of care, may play a part.

More information
For more on prostate cancer, visit the American Cancer Society.

Breast Cancer Vaccine Shows Promise

(HealthDay News) -- U.S. scientists say they've developed a breast cancer vaccine that stimulates a powerful immune system response to tumor cells.

In mice, the "synthetic peptide" vaccine stimulated an anti-tumor T-cell response that identified and prevented the spread of breast cancer cells. T-cells are white blood cells that play an important role in immune response.

A team at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., tested the vaccine on female mice that had the cancer-producing oncogene HER-2/neu. The mice received the vaccine at the early stage of tumor development.

The vaccine either slowed or stopped the progression of breast cancer in all the mice, the team reported Tuesday at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in Los Angeles.

Because synthetic peptides alone do not usually trigger a strong immune response, the vaccine was given in combination with a "Toll-like receptor" stimulant, which mimics the way invading bacteria would spur the immune system into action.

"We found that we could train the immune system to recognize these synthetic peptides as dangerous foreign agents of the HER-2/neu gene by mimicking what the bacteria would do in your body. The body responded by killing everything that expressed HER-2/neu in high amounts," study author Dr. Pilar Nava-Parada said in a prepared statement.

Using this approach, it would likely take only one immunization to build an immune system response powerful enough to destroy a tumor.

To date, attempts at creating effective cancer vaccines have produced mixed results. This and other new studies suggest that scientists are moving closer to creating viable cancer vaccines, the Mayo researchers said.

More information about breast cancer.

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Male Breast Cancer Deadlier for Blacks

Male Breast Cancer Deadlier for Blacks

(HealthDay News) -- Black men are more likely than white men to die of breast cancer, concludes a study that urges more research into racial disparities in male breast cancer.

Male breast cancer accounts for less than 1 percent of all breast cancers and less than 1 percent of all cancers in men, according to background information in a news release about the study.

In 2006, about 1,700 men were diagnosed with breast cancer in the United States, and the disease killed about 400 men.

The incidence of male breast cancer has been rising, increasing about 60 percent between 1990 and 2000.

In the study, researchers at Columbia University, New York City, studied 510 men over age 65 who were diagnosed with stage 1-3 breast cancer between 1991 and 2002.

Five-year survival rates were about 90 percent for the 456 white men in the study and 66 percent for the 34 black men.

The findings are reported in the March 20 issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

"Racial disparities in outcomes in women with breast cancer have been well studied. This study shows that similar racial disparities exist for men. While male breast cancer is rare, understanding the factors that black men and women with breast cancer have in common may help us understand the reasons for these disparities," study senior author Dr. Dawn L. Hershman, an assistant professor of medicine and epidemiology at Columbia's Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center, said in a prepared statement.

"These findings support more investigation into the clinical and biologic factors that contribute to racial disparities in male breast cancer. While many different factors are likely to be involved in the disparity, this study provides some clues that lower access to standard treatment may be an important one," Hershman said.

More information
The American Cancer Society has more about male breast cancer.

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Researchers Seek More Women for 'Sister Study' of Breast Cancer

(HealthDay News) -- So far, more than 33,000 American women have joined the Sister Study, a research effort to uncover the causes of breast cancer.

But the study is still looking for another 17,000 more women to reach its enrollment target of 50,000 women by the end of 2007, according the U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS).

The study is enrolling women, aged 35 to 74, whose sisters were diagnosed with breast cancer. The women who join the study must never have been diagnosed with breast cancer. The 10-year observational Sister Study was launched in October 2004.

"Many women have heard about the Sister Study, but they haven't signed up yet, and we really need them now," principal investigator Dale Sandler, chief of the epidemiology branch at the NIEHS, said in a prepared statement.

"Doctors know very little about how the environment may affect breast cancer, that is why the Sister Study is so important. We hope women will make that call today," Sandler said.

The Sister Study, which is available in English and Spanish, doesn't require a major time commitment from participants. When they enroll, they answer questions about diet, job, hobbies, and things they've been exposed to throughout their lives. Later, they'll be asked to give small samples of blood. urine, toenail clippings and house dust.

More information
You can learn more by going to the Sister Study Web site, which is also available in Spanish.

Sauna Therapy and Healing

Fever
A fever is the body's highly evolved attempt to destroy invading organisms and to sweat impurities out through the skin Fever is an effective natural process of curing disease and restoring health, heat therapy, or hyperthermia, represents a way to create fever to call out his natural healing process.

Heat Therapy
The Secret of Hyperthermia, or heat therapy, is that cancer cells are vulnerable to high temperatures. Heat the cancer cells and they can be easily destroyed, especially if the tumor lies close to the skin surface. In the process, patients can reduce or even eliminate the need for radiation.

The Principle
The principle behind hyperthermia is simple: heat cancer cells and they can be killed easily. Direct killing of cancer cells begin to occur when the cancerous tissue reaches about 104 F to 105.8F. Only a relatively small rise in body temperature can make a huge difference says Dr. R Atkins who includes heat therapy in his cancer protocols.

Unlike normal tissue, tumors have poor blood flow relative to their metabolic needs and cannot dissipate the heat, so they tend to get hotter than the surrounding area. Rapidly dividing cells (i.e., cancer cells) are more vulnerable to the effects of heat. Normally, part of the damage caused by radiation is repaired by the cancer cells, enabling some to survive; however, heat foils this self-repair ability. Taken together, these facts tend to make tumors more vulnerable to heat treatment than normal cells. Hyperthermia is now approved in the U.S. for treatment of breast cancer recurrence.

Detoxification
Practitioners of alternative medicine have long recognized hyperthermia as a useful technique in detoxification therapy because it releases toxins stored in fat cells. Hyperhtermia can be used to remove fat-stored chemicals such as pesticides, PCBs, and drug residues from the body. Only recently ha conventional medicine caught up with this practice and begun to incorporate hypertheria in the orthodox treatment protocols for cancer.

more info at:
http://www.dreddyclinic.com/integrated_med/ozone_oxygen.htm

Scientists Probe Radiotherapy-Linked Brain Changes

(HealthDay News) -- Researchers believe certain brain changes may be linked to the dementia experienced by many cancer patients after whole-brain radiation treatment.

Each year, about 200,000 people in the United States receive whole-brain radiation, which is used to treat recurrent brain tumors as well as to prevent breast cancer, lung cancer, and malignant melanoma from spreading to the brain.

About a year after whole-brain radiation treatment, up to 50 percent of patients develop progressive learning and memory problems.

In their research with rats, a team at Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, N.C., found that whole-brain radiation caused compositional changes in brain cell receptors for the neurotransmitter glutamate.

A neurotransmitter carries signals between brain nerve cells. The changes in these receptors appear to be associated with cognitive problems.

"By identifying exactly how radiation causes these side effects, our hope is that we can find a way to prevent or reverse them," study lead author and research fellow Lei Shi explained in a prepared statement.

The findings were presented Monday at the annual meeting of the Radiation Research Society, in Philadelphia.

"There is growing concern about the cognitive consequences of whole-brain radiation. Our findings suggest that very subtle changes may be critical and that glutamate receptors may be one of those changes," Wake Forest senior researcher Judy Brunso-Bechtold, professor of neurobiology and anatomy, said in a prepared statement.

More information
The U.S. National Cancer Institute has more about whole-brain radiation.

Why Are Kids Entering Puberty Before They Enter School?

A report was presented at the annual Pediatric Academic Society meeting describing how a preschool-age girl and her kindergarten-age brother began growing pubic hair.

This was not an isolated case; in 2004, there was similar cluster of five children, and previous clusters in outbreaks occurring along the lines of disease epidemics or environmental poisonings.

In 1979, there was an outbreak of breast enlargement among hundreds of Italian schoolchildren, most likely caused by estrogen contamination of beef and poultry.

Most commonly, these outbreaks traced to accidental drug exposures. But some physicians worry that children are at higher risk of early puberty due to the increasing availability of classes of drugs, cosmetics and environmental contaminants called endocrine disruptors.

In the case of the two children described in the report, their testosterone level was nealy100 times the normal amount. The cause was traced to a concentrated testosterone skin cream being used by their father. The children absorbed the testosterone through normal skin contact with their father.

Sex hormones like testosterone are particularly potent because they are easily absorbed through the skin and resist degradation. Other known triggers of early puberty have included a shampoo that contained estrogen and placental extract, shampoos containing lavender and tea tree oils, and industrial pollutants.

New York Times October 17, 2006

Older Women Not Getting Proper Breast Cancer Treatment

(HealthDay News) -- Many older women with breast cancer are being under-diagnosed and under-treated, especially in community hospitals, researchers report.

The problem is taking on added urgency because breast cancer is becoming more common as the U.S. population ages. Almost 50 percent of women with breast cancer are 65 and older, and 35 percent are older than 70. And 77 percent of deaths from breast cancer involve women over 55, the researchers noted.

Yet many older women appear to be under-diagnosed and under-treated, perhaps because they may have other serious life-threatening medical conditions. In addition, there's confusion about when or if to screen older women for breast cancer. Some guidelines suggest that women stop having mammograms at 70, while others offer no upper limit.

In the report, published in the October issue of the Archives of Surgery, Drs. David A. Litvak and Rajeev Arora of Michigan State University looked at the medical records of 354 women aged 70 and older who were diagnosed with breast cancer in a community hospital between 1992 and 2002.

The doctors found that 46 percent of the women had breast cancer that could be detected during a physical examination. In addition, even though 72 percent of the women had mammograms, the tests were mostly administered to verify the results of the physical exam. In fact, mammograms found only 54 percent of undiagnosed breast cancers.

For 70 percent of the women, the cancer was in the early stages. But 36 percent of the women and 56 percent of those 80 or older were never examined to see if the cancer had spread to the lymph nodes.

In terms of treatment, the doctors found that about 50 percent of the women had breast-conserving surgery. However, the rates of women getting chemotherapy, radiation and hormonal therapy after surgery were lower than expected and lowest among the oldest women.

And many women who were candidates for adjuvant therapy, including those whose cancer had spread to lymph nodes, were not given this additional therapy. Of the 20 percent of women whose cancer had spread to the lymph nodes, only 29 percent received chemotherapy.

Moreover, only 17 percent of the women 80 or older whose cancer had spread received chemotherapy. This rate was significantly lower than for women under 80, noted Arora and Litvak, who is now at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Orange County, Calif.

"There are misconceptions by the public and the medical community that it's OK to omit certain diagnostic tests or treatments in older patients," Litvak said. "Older people are in a special category, which means that we have to be careful about how we treat them and how we approach their cancer."

Litvak and Arora believe that older patients should receive a geriatric assessment that would help estimate life expectancy and predict tolerance to cancer treatment. In addition, screening programs should be based on an individual geriatric assessment.

"The bottom line is that we really have to start individualizing the care of older patients," Litvak said. "It doesn't make sense to have a cap on mammograms for age. It should be based on the patient's overall health and their life expectancy. The same is true for treatment."

"Most older patients tolerate and benefit from the same treatments that younger patients get," Litvak added. "You just have to be careful about how you give it."

One expert thinks not enough is known about the risks and benefits of treating breast cancer in older women.

"This is not a surprising finding," said Dr. Alan Astrow, director of hematology/oncology at Maimonides Medical Center in New York City. "But we really don't know how best to treat older women with breast cancer."

For example, Astrow said, it's not known if withholding chemotherapy from older women shortens life. "Most oncologists feel that the side effects of chemotherapy in women over 80 would outweigh the benefits," he said.

Astrow thinks studies are needed to determine the value of breast cancer treatment for older women. "It could have an important public health impact," he said. "If, in fact, we are under-treating, and under-treating leads to worse outcomes, then that's something we really need to address because it affects a large number of women."

More information
The American Cancer Society can tell you more about breast cancer and older women