Health Updates » Featured

Colorectal cancer most common

health-updates.org — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 02:36:16 +0000

Taiwan recorded 73,293 new cancer cases in 2006, with the largest number being colorectal cases, according to the latest cancer incidence report released yesterday by the Department of Health=.

The figures mean that on average, a new cancer patient was being diagnosed in the country every 7 minutes, 10 seconds in 2006, up slightly from the average of 7 minutes, 38 seconds in 2005, when 68,907 new cases were recorded, according to Chao Kun-yu, deputy chief of the DOH’s Bureau of Health Promotion.

The report showed that for the first time, colorectal cancer replaced liver cancer as the most common type among new cases recorded in a single year.

Compared with 2005, the number of new colorectal cancer cases rose by 644 to 10,248 in 2006, and liver cancer or intrahepatic bile duct cancer was found among 10,092 people – a jump of 176 cases.

Chao attributed the increased prevalence of colorectal cancer among Taiwanese to increasingly unhealthy dietary habits, such as high consumption of red meat and fat and low fiber intake.

Although people between ages 50 and 69 are advised to have fecal occult blood tests every two years to help early diagnosis of colorectal cancer, DOH statistics indicate that only 11 percent of that age group received the tests in 2008 or 2007, he said.

The third highest number of new cases in 2006 were cancers of the lung, trachea or bronchus, totalling 8,748, followed by breast cancer among women, 6,895 cases; and cancer of the mouth, oropharynx or hypopharynx, 5,352 cases, according to the report.

Rounding out the list of top 10 most common types of cancer in 2006 were stomach cancer, with 3,794 new cases; prostate cancer, with 3,073 new cases; skin cancer, with 2,457 new cases; cervical cancer, with 1,828 new cases; and uterine cancer, with 1,159 new cases.

In terms of age-adjusted incidence rate, an average 50 per 100,000 women were diagnosed with breast cancer in 2006; 37.44 per 100,000 people were diagnosed with cancer of the liver or intrahepatic bile duct cancer; and 37.35 per 100,000 people were found to have colorectal cancer.

The report revealed that in Taiwan, the risk of cancer among men was 1.4 times higher than among women.

Because of an almost exclusively male habit of chewing betel nuts, the age-adjusted incidence rates of esophageal cancer and oral cancer among men were 15.6 times to 10.4 times higher than among women in 2006, the report stated.

However, women were found to develop cancer at an earlier age than men, with the median age at diagnosis being 59 among women and 65 among men.

Colorectal cancer most common:

Traffic Triples Heart Attack Risk

health-updates.org — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 02:30:57 +0000

Whether you drive, take the bus, or bicycle, being in heavy traffic triples your risk of heart attack within one hour.

Air pollution from car fumes is the likely culprit, suggest Annette Peters, PhD, and colleagues at the Institute of Epidemiology, Helmholtz Center, Munich, Germany.

In a previous study, Peters and colleagues found that a sizeable proportion of heart attacks — about 8% — could be attributed to being in traffic.

To follow up, the researchers interviewed 1,454 people who survived heart attacks. In the hour before their heart attack, many of the survivors had been in heavy traffic.

Analysis of the data showed that these heart-attack-vulnerable people were 3.2 times more likely to suffer a heart attack if they’d been in heavy traffic in the previous hour.

“One potential factor could be the exhaust and air pollution coming from other cars,” Peters says in a news release. “But we can’t exclude the synergy between stress and air pollution that could tip the balance.”

Making it less likely that stress was involved was the fact that patients didn’t have to be driving; the risk was the same whether they were driving or taking the bus.

Traffic appeared to be five times more dangerous to women than to men in the study, although the relatively small number of women in the study (325) may have made this calculation less accurate.

To nail down the true culprit, Peters and colleagues are working with University of Rochester researchers to determine exactly what it is about traffic that raises heart attack risk.

In that study, 120 healthy volunteers are driving to work and running errands wearing heart monitors, while other instruments measure their exposure to air pollution and to noise. The data and findings from this trial are not yet available.

Traffic Triples Heart Attack Risk

Pfizer Cancer Drug Shows Benefits, Shares Rise

health-updates.org — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 02:28:06 +0000

A late-stage clinical study of Pfizer Inc’s (PFE) Sutent was halted early after the drug showed significant benefit in patients with a rare form of cancer, the drugmaker said on Thursday, sending its shares up 3.5%.

An independent committee monitoring the study recommended halting it after concluding that patients on Sutent stayed free of disease progression for longer than those on placebo plus best supportive care.

The patients in the study had advanced pancreatic islet cell tumors, a rare cancer with limited treatment options, according to Pfizer.

Sutent is currently approved for treating both advanced renal cell carcinoma and gastrointestinal stromal tumors.

Pfizer Cancer Drug Shows Benefits, Shares Rise

Nano-treatment to torpedo cancer

health-updates.org — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 02:15:56 +0000

Nanotechnology has been used for the first time to destroy cancer cells with a highly targeted package of “tumour busting” genes.

The technique, which leaves healthy cells unaffected, could potentially offer hope to people with hard-to-treat cancers where surgery is not possible.

Although it has only been tested in mice so far, the researchers hope for human trials in two years.

The UK study is published online by the journal Cancer Research.

The genes were wrapped up in microscopic nano-particles which were taken up by cancer cells, but not their healthy neighbours.

Once inside, the genes stimulated production of a protein which destroys the cancer.

The researchers say the technology could potentially be particularly relevant for people with cancers that are inoperable because they are close to vital organs.

They hope it will eventually also be used to treat cancer that has spread.

‘Exciting step’

Lead researcher Dr Andreas Schatzlein, from the School of Pharmacy in London, said: “Gene therapy has a great potential to create safe and effective cancer treatments but getting the genes into cancer cells remains one of the big challenges in this area.

“This is the first time that nanoparticles have been shown to target tumours in such a selective way, and this is an exciting step forward in the field.

“Once inside the cell, the gene enclosed in the particle recognises the cancerous environment and switches on. The result is toxic, but only to the offending cells, leaving healthy tissue unaffected.

“We hope this therapy will be used to treat cancer patients in clinical trials in a couple of years.”

Traditional chemotherapy indiscriminately kills cells in the affected area of the body, which can cause side effects like fatigue, hair loss or nausea.

It is hoped that gene therapy will have fewer associated side effects by targeting cancer cells.

Dr Lesley Walker, of the charity Cancer Research UK, said: “These results are encouraging, and we look forward to seeing if this method can be used to treat cancer in people.

“Gene therapy is an exciting area of research, but targeting genetic changes to cancer cells has been a major challenge.

“This is the first time a solution has been proposed, so it’s exciting news.”

Nano-treatment to torpedo cancer

A step closer to reading the mind

health-updates.org — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 02:13:40 +0000

Scientists say for the first time they have understood someone’s thoughts by looking at what their brain is doing.

The hippocampus is widely known to be integral to memory, but researchers say they now see just how images are stored and recalled in this part of the brain.

Wellcome Trust scientists trained four participants to recognise several virtual reality environments.

Discernible patterns in brain activity then signalled where they were, they wrote in the journal Current Biology.

Neurons in the hippocampus, also known as “place cells”, activate when we move around to tell us where we are.

The team, based at University College London, then used specialised scanning equipment which measures changes in blood flow in the brain.

This allowed them to examine the activity of these cells as the participants – all young men with experience of playing videogames – moved around the virtual reality environment. The data was then passed through a computer.

“We asked whether we could see any interesting patterns in the neural activity that could tell us what the participants were thinking, or in this case where they were,” said Professor Eleanor Maguire.

Are you lying?

“Surprisingly, just by looking at the brain data we could predict exactly where they were in the virtual reality environment. In other words we could ‘read’ their spatial memories.”

“By looking at activity over tens of thousands of neurons, we can see that there must be a functional structure – a pattern – to how these memories are encoded.”

But they stressed that the prospect of genuinely reading someone’s most intimate thoughts – or working out if they were lying – was still a long way off.

Their participants were all willing subjects who allowed their brains to be trained and monitoring to take place.

“It would be very easy not to co-operate, and then it wouldn’t work,” said Demis Hassabis, who developed the computer programme to read the data. “These kind of scenarios would require a great technological leap.”

It is brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s which could stand to benefit from such research.

“Understanding how we learn and store memories could aid our understanding of conditions in which memory is compromised and potentially help patients in the rehabilitation process,” said Professor Maguire.

Professor Clive Ballard, director of research at the Alzheimer’s Society, said: “This exciting development will boost our understanding of the hippocampus, a key area affected in Alzheimer’s disease and the most important part of the brain for memory.

“Learning more about how the brain works could help us work out which types of nerve cells are lost in Alzheimer’s.”

Rebecca Wood, of the Alzheimer’s Research Trust, said the research was “fascinating”.

She said: “Understanding how memories are formed may help researchers discover how this process goes wrong in diseases like Alzheimer’s.”

A step closer to reading the mind

Robin Williams To Undergo Heart Surgery

health-updates.org — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 17:37:20 +0000

Robin Williams has postponed the remainder of his comedy tour so he can undergo heart surgery.

Concerns were raised about Williams’ health on Wednesday when he was ordered by doctors to take a week of rest after complaining of shortness of breath.

Reports on today suggested the comedy actor has been admitted to a Miami hospital to undergo tests, prompting his spokesperson to confirm Williams is putting work on hold to be treated for a heart condition.

The representative reveals he will “undergo surgery for an aortic valve replacement.”

A statement from 57-year-old Williams adds, “I’m so touched by everyone’s support and well wishes. This tour has been amazing fun and I can’t wait to get back out on the road after a little tune-up.”

Williams has been on the Broadway-bound 80-city tour since September and has played shows in 11 cities over the past three weeks.

His spokesperson insists he plans to be back onstage in the autumn.

Robin Williams To Undergo Heart Surgery

Million Woman Study Links Alcohol Use to Cancer in Women

health-updates.org — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 11:51:45 +0000

In seeming contradiction to previous studies where findings supported the benign or beneficial effects of alcohol consumption, a current study by researchers at the University of Oxford in Great Britain has linked even minimal alcohol use and cancer in women. The type of alcohol consumed was irrelevant.

The so-called Million Women Study of middle-aged women in the United Kingdom found that low to moderate consumption of alcohol increased the risk of and might be responsible for 13 percent of breast, liver, rectal and certain digestive tract cancers.

Researchers determined that only one glass of wine a night might raise the risk of cancer in women.

While prior studies indicated that moderate alcohol consumption could be good for heart health, it now appears that cancer risks from consumption may outweigh the possible cardiovascular benefits.

Oncologists endorsed the findings saying that they had promoted a healthy lifestyle for some time as primary means of reducing cancer risk.

According to the Million Women Study, for every additional drink regularly consumed per day, the increase in incidence up to age 75 years per 1000 for women in developed countries is estimated to be about 15 excess cancers per 1000 women up to age 75.

Million Woman Study Links Alcohol Use to Cancer in Women

China approves food safety law: state media

health-updates.org — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 11:49:58 +0000

China on Saturday approved a long-awaited food safety law, state media reported, in a bid to end repeated scandals involving dangerous food products in the country.

The law has been in the works since October last year after a huge scandal erupted over contaminated milk which killed at least six children and sickened nearly 300,000 others in China.

“The law will see the establishment of a monitoring and supervision system, a set of national standards on food safety, a recall system, and severe punishment for offenders,” the official Xinhua news agency said.

China’s huge and poorly regulated food industry is regularly hit by scandals involving unsafe foods which harm public health and result in product recalls both at home and abroad.

In September, the tainted milk scandal — one of the biggest to hit the industry — caused a huge outcry, leading to China-made dairy product recalls and bans across the world.

A court in January sentenced the head of Sanlu — the dairy firm at the heart of the scandal — to life in prison for “manufacturing and selling fake or substandard products.”

Two others were sentenced to death over the incident, which saw the industrial chemical melamine added to watered-down milk to make it appear higher in protein.

Xinhua gave no further details of the content of the food safety law, but according to a previous report by the state-run agency, it would make health authorities directly responsible for approving additives in processed foods.

The agency also said it would prevent food safety authorities from issuing inspection exemptions to major food producers, as happened in the tainted milk scandal.

The law was passed by the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, China’s top legislature.

China approves food safety law: state media

Rapid HIV evolution avoids attack

health-updates.org — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 11:49:56 +0000

HIV is evolving rapidly to escape the human immune system, an international study has shown.

The Nature study highlights just how tough it could be to develop a vaccine that keeps pace with the changing nature of the virus.

The researchers showed HIV was able to adapt rapidly to counter human genes controlling immune system molecules that can target it for destruction.

However, they stressed this would not affect the impact of anti-HIV drugs.

HIV has already killed 25 million people, and an estimated 33 million are currently infected.

However, HIV does not kill all people at the same rate. On average, without treatment it takes 10 years for the infection to progress to Aids, but some people develop the disease within 12 months, while others do not do so for more than 20 years.

The rate of progress is tied to genes which control production of key immune system molecules called human leucocyte antigens (HLAs).

Humans differ in the exact HLA genes they have, and even small differences can have a big impact on how quickly Aids develops.

The researchers examined HIV genetic sequences and HLA genes in over 2,800 people in countries, including the UK, Australia, South Africa, Canada and Japan.

‘Escape’ mutations

They found mutations that enabled HIV effectively to neutralise the effect of a particular HLA gene were more frequent in populations with a high prevalence of that specific gene.

For example, a HLA gene called B*51 is particularly effective at controlling HIV – unless the virus is carrying an “escape” mutation in its genetic make-up.

The researchers found that in Japan, where the B*51 gene is common, two-thirds HIV-positive people without the gene carry HIV armed with the “escape” mutation.

In contrast, in the UK, where the gene is much less common, just 15%-25% of this group of patients are infected with HIV which carries the same key mutation.

Lead researcher Professor Philip Goulder, of the University of Oxford, said similar effects were seen for every HLA gene examined.

He said: “This shows that HIV is extremely adept at adapting to the immune responses in human populations that are most effective at containing the virus.

“This is high speed evolution that we’re seeing in the space of just a couple of decades.

“The temptation is to see this as bad news, that these results mean the virus is winning the battle.

“That’s not necessarily the case. It could equally be that as the virus changes, different immune responses come into play and are actually more effective.

“The implication is that once we have found an effective vaccine, it would need to be changed on a frequent basis to catch up with the evolving virus, much like we do today with the flu vaccine.”

Big challenge

Jo Robinson, of the HIV charity Terrence Higgins Trust, said: “HIV is a complex virus which is constantly changing.

“This kind of research suggests that if we’re able to create a vaccine that works against HIV, the virus will always be one step ahead.

“In that case we’d be in a situation where we need to constantly update the HIV vaccine, a bit like we see with a different flu vaccine each year.”

Keith Alcorn, of the HIV information service NAM, said: “These findings indicate the enormous challenge involved in developing a vaccine against HIV.

“People need to be aware that the research required to develop a successful vaccine may take decades, during which the virus will continue to evolve, as this research shows.”

Rapid HIV evolution avoids attack

Man Gave Sperm 3 Times, Believes He May Be Octuplets’ Dad

health-updates.org — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 14:14:10 +0000

A man who may be the biological father of Nadya Suleman’s octuplets says he is willing to help the single mother of 14, even though he is not certain it was his donated sperm that she used to become pregnant.

In an exclusive interview airing this Monday on “Good Morning America,” the possible father said Suleman brought him to the clinic at which she received in vitro fertilization to donate sperm, and that he made donations on two other occasions. He now believes Suleman was married at the time.

Tune in to ABC News’ “Good Morning America” Monday, Feb. 23 to learn the identity of the man who possibly fathered the Suleman octuplets.

Suleman has denied that the man is the father, but he said his multiple sperm donations are cause for a paternity test.

The donor said he was “shocked [and] surprised” when he first learned that Suleman, who he said he dated from 1997 to 1999, had delivered octuplets on Jan. 23.

“[I] just really want to know if these are [or] these are not my kids,” said the man, who was in his early twenties when he started dating Suleman.

Regardless of the children’s paternity, the man said he is willing to help Suleman raise the children because he does not believe she can handle it on her own.

“Either which way, you know, know that if she needs it I’ll lend a helping hand,” he said.

The man said that at the time she first approached him about donating sperm, Suleman told him that she had cancer and was unable to conceive without the help of a doctor.

The man said he twice made donations at home. In at least one instance, he said, Suleman kept the sperm sample warm by placing the cup containing the sample between her breasts.

“I just remember her saying when I donated that the doctor told her that she had to keep it warm by putting it between her — between her breasts — just to keep it warm, keep it room temperature until she took it in,” he said.

Though he said they dated for three years, the man now believes Suleman was married at the time.

ABC News has learned through San Bernardino Superior Court Records that Suleman, 33, divorced her husband, Marcos Gutierrez, in January 2008.

The divorce document indicates “no children of the marriage,” suggesting that Gutierrez was not the father of Suleman’s previous six children.

When asked if Suleman, who lives with her parents and collects food stamps, could handle raising another eight children, the possible biological father said, “No.”

Suleman made headlines in late January when news that she delivered eight viable babies was heralded as a medical marvel.

In the days that followed the Jan. 23 delivery, critics raised a host of questions about the single mother who had previously given birth to six other children, all of whom had been conceived through artificial insemination, and about her ability to financially support 14 children.

Suleman is unemployed and lives in a three-bedroom home with her parents, who have publicly criticized their daughter’s decision to have so many children.

Property records show Suleman’s mother, Angela, owns the home and is $23,225 behind in her mortgage payments. The house could be sold at auction beginning May 5.

Suleman told NBC that she does not intend to go on welfare. Earlier this month, her then-publicist said Suleman already receives $490 a month in food stamps and child disability payments to help feed and care for her six other children.

At least one of those children is believed to have autism.

Critics also have attacked a fertility doctor for implanting eight embryos in Suleman’s womb during her attempts to get pregnant.

“I’m really angry about that,” Angela Suleman told RadarOnline. “She already has six beautiful children. Why would she do this? I’m struggling to look after her six. We had to put in bunk beds, feed them in shifts and there’s children’s clothing piled all over the house.”

Suleman and her parents have not publicly named the sperm donor or the fertility doctor who implanted her with the embryos.

Earlier this month, Suleman told NBC’s “Today” that a single doctor helped her conceive all 14 children.

While she did not reveal the identity of the doctor, a 2006 report by television station KTLA shows a grateful Suleman praising the work of Beverly Hills physician Michael Kamrava, who runs a fertility practice. In the report, he says that he used a controversial procedure that he claims makes it much easier to implant women with embryos.

Since the birth of the octuplets — who were born nine weeks premature at Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Bellflower, Calif. — a number of fertility experts and bioethicists have criticized Suleman and her physician for dangerously implanting so many embryos.

“Anyone who transfers eight embryos should be arrested for malpractice,” said University of Pennsylvania bioethicist Arthur Caplan.

Studies have shown that the tendency toward premature delivery and low birth weight in multiple-birth babies puts them at greater risk for a variety of complications, including respiratory problems at birth, cerebral palsy, birth defects, sensory disorders and even death. These risks increase as the number of babies in the multiple birth increases.

A California-based nonprofit called Angels in Waiting has offered Suleman round-the-clock care and a place to stay with her 14 children. It would cost about $135,000 a month to provide the 12 caretakers necessary for the children, money that would have to come from public donations.

Man Gave Sperm 3 Times, Believes He May Be Octuplets’ Dad

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