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DOG scans may test for breast cancer someday.
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They aren’t officially called DOG scans (yet anyway) and they are not available for people yet – but there is more research that shows that dogs can detect various cancers – including breast cancer! Dogs can smell 10,000 to 100,000 times better than people.
I love dogs and have always been fascinated with this topic ever since I first heard about it!
Back in 2004 a study was done in England where they showed that dogs could be trained to detect bladder cancer. They were correct in 41% of the cases – way greater than by chance. And – one person who was believed to be cancer free the dogs kept indicating had cancer – after further testing he turned out this person did have kidney cancer.
Previous research has also shown that dogs can detect some skin cancers.
In recent research to appear in the March 2006 issue of Integrative Cancer Therapies there is now evidence that dogs can also be trained to detect lung and breast cancers in the breath of people. People with cancer tend to have small amounts of chemicals such as alkanes and benzene derivatives in their breath. In this recent study people with and without cancer gave breath samples that were captured in a tube for the dogs to sniff.
The dogs were able to detect 99% of the lung cancer and 88% of the breast cancer samples. Five dogs were trained for this experiment which also involved 55 people with lung cancer, 31 with breast cancer and 83 people with no known cancers. The dogs were Labrador retrievers and Portuguese water dogs.
What do you think – will dogs eventually be used to detect cancer or will new technologies be developed that use the same techniques dogs do to detect it? And long will it take before either way is widely available for people? I hope sooner than later – but these kind of things generally take a long time. 5-10 years maybe?
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- Breast cancer – detection and treatment updates
January 17, 2006
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Osteopenia
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Osteopenia is a medical condition characterized by a low bone density. It is related to osteoporosis, but without as much bone loss. People who have ostepenia have are very likely to eventually get osteoporosis if they don’t take steps to prevent it.
So what causes ostepenia? The answer to this question isn’t fully known, but some things are known to contribute to the development of it. These include smoking, diet and a sedentary lifestyle.
Heredity is also involved – if members of your family have had ostepenia or osteoporosis you are at risk too. Caucasian women have the greatest risk of developing it and African American women have the lowest risk. Petite, small boned women are at greater risk too. Low levels of calcium and vitamin D in the diet can also contribute to it.
You can have your bones tested for ostepenia by having a dexa scan to measure your bone mineral density. Will your insurance pay for it? I don’t know. If you are over 65 or post-menopausal it most likely will. If you are someone like me – high risk, but younger, I don’t know. I haven’t contacted my insurance company to find out. I’ve heard it can cost less than $250 to have the dexa scan done, so if you can afford to spend that much then you could have it done even without health insurance paying for it.
So what if you have the scan and find out that you do have ostepenia? Treatment includes things like diet modification, increasing physical activity – especially weight bearing exercise, and prescription medications. If you are diagnosed with ostepenia you should talk to your doctor about all your options.
You can learn more about ostepenia at this site: http://www.osteopenia3.com/osteopenia.html.
(Technorati Tags: ostepenia, osteoporosis, women, exercise, bone)
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January 13, 2006
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Kids need all the nutrition help they can get!
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Kids today are eating more and moving around less – and now they are starting to have serious health problems related to obesity!
Minorities and kids living in poverty are being hurt even more by this trend. For example: almost 1 of 4 Latino children in the US is overweight!
In many schools across the US there are even vending machines selling junk food – potato chips, soda and more! No wonder kids are gaining too much weight – the schools teach them one thing in the classroom and then don’t set the right example.
Many schools are now trying to figure out how to tackle the problem. Some have resorted to recording all the students heights, weights and BMI’s and storing all this information in a database.
On the positive side, some schools are now trying to ban the sale of soda and other junk food in schools.
But this problem isn’t restricted to just the US either! In Vietnam there is a problem with ‘Kids eating too much, exercising too little’. The problem has spread to Britain, Ireland, Australia and many other places around the world.
Even in China where 2/3 of the people in rural areas are malnourished, 580 million people are deficient in vitamin A and 3% of the urban population are anemic – 7.1 percent of adults are obese! But China is planning a public nutrition improvement program into its 11th Five-Year Plan to help with its problem ‘especially concerning children’.
So what can parents do? Or is the problem so big that parents are powerless
When your kids are young and at home you can exert some level of control over what they eat. But its hard to control what your kids eat when in school, especially if the school sells junk food to them.
And what about all those sugar coated cereals and other junk food commercials targeted to kids – during the shows kids watch the most? Even if you don’t let your kids see those commercials – what happens when your child spends time with other people and they are all eating candy and potato chips? Or they feed them french fries from a fast food place? Once they’ve had a taste of the high salt, fat and sugar in those foods it will be hard to keep them from wanting more.
How do you instill good nutrition habits in your child when the society around them keeps teaching them just the opposite? Or is it even possible?
– Please share the strategies you have used or some that you think might work!
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January 12, 2006
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Want to be more fit this year?
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Many women hope to lose weight and be more fit this year. Not an easy goal to accomplish is it? Finding time to exercise can be very difficult.
Exercising at home helps with the time problem – a little anyway!
Treadmills are expensive but a very good way to exercise! They now even make some with little TV’s built in so you can watch while you walk or run. Personally, I just watch our regular TV while using ours. But, since treadmills take up a lot of space you may not have room to put it where you can see the TV while using it. The built in TV’s can help then if you need to put it in a room that otherwise wouldn’t give you much to look at while exercising.
A great review of different treadmills can be found at Treadmill Doctor. Or if you want to learn more general information about treadmills first – try the articles on this site: Treadmill Buying Guide.
If you can’t afford a treadmill, can’t make it to a gym and live somewhere with weather that makes it too difficult to walk outside, you may want to consider a stationary bicycle. They are also a great way to exercise, but don’t cost as much as treadmills.
If you are not sure how to get started, buying a book about fitness is a good place to start. Last year I bought two of the Dummies books – ‘Fitness for Dummies’ and ‘Strength Training for Dummies’. Both of these books are very good and explain what you need to do. The ‘Fitness’ one goes through cardiovascular exercise, strength training and stretching type exercises. The other has a little bit of repetition from the first (they were written by the same people) but does go into more detail about different exercises you can do to get stronger.
But what about when you are away from home? Well, many hotels now have gyms and improving them quite a bit.
Some have lots of cardiovascular equipment to choose from including treadmills, stationary bicycles and elliptical trainers – sometimes yoga and tai chi classes are even available!
Hyatt hotels, as an example, have been upgrading many of their gyms. Many now have newer equipment – some even have separate TV screens for each of their cardiovascular machines!
Westin Hotels & Resorts and Holiday Inn Selects have also make many recent upgrades. Many have made deals with companies like Nautilus and Reebok to improve their gyms.
So whether you are at home or away – there are ways to make time for exercise!
Or am I full of it? I can imagine a mom of young children shaking her head thinking I don’t know what I’m talking about – between laundry and cooking and everything else involved with taking care of a family maybe it isn’t so easy?
Kids or not – have you been able to find the time to exercise regularly?
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- 3 Exercises Every Woman Should Do
January 10, 2006
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Smoking and breast cancer
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More evidence linking smoking to increases in breast cancer was presented in the November issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings. In this study it was shown that women who smoke before their first baby have a 20% increase in risk of getting breast cancer than those who have never smoked or who started smoking after having their first baby.
The study led by Janet Olson, Ph.D. used data from the Iowa Women’s Health Study (IWHS), which was made up of 41,836 women, aged 55 – 69.
I’ve noticed in the past few years many teenagers starting to smoke, especially women. What do you think – do they not realize the risks involved or are they choosing to ignore them?
(Technorati Tags: smoking, breast cancer, women, health)
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