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This week in health and science – 9/21/07
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Catherine from women 4 hope gave Three Tips For Healthy Living this week. Two of the tips I talk about quite a bit myself – nutrition and exercise. But she also brings up another good one I wouldn’t have thought about: “Give yourself some “me” time each and every day, even if you think you don’t need it.”. Being alone sometimes is definitely something I need!
The Women’s Hair Loss Project is a web site for women who have lost or are losing their hair to share their stories. I haven’t lost mine – but I know some women in my family lose quite a bit as they get older. Plus sometimes stopping birth control pills can result in hair loss! I hadn’t realized that before!
Tara from Aetiology wrote about Streptococcus agalactiae (“GBS”) recently which is “one of the most common causes of meningitis in newborns”. I had never heard of before, but then I’ve never had a baby. Tara also wrote about the recent Facebook fiasco where they deleted all pictures of women breastfeeding their babies. What the hell is wrong with people anyway?
Ruth at Eating Fabulous wrote about two foods I really like recently: spinach and pumpkin pie! I eat spinach nearly everyday! Either in a salad or steamed. If it protects me from ovarian cancer too, that’s even better! The pumpkin post just made me hungry! I’d love to try that pumpkin butter, too bad they add sugar to it. I guess it wouldn’t be sweet enough by itself – but if it was sweetened with fruit juice that might be good. And by the way Ruth – I’m from the town that Popeye came from!
Angioplasty celebrated its 30th birthday recently! Before then “1 in 4 heart attack patients died, today over 95% survive!” – from A Hearty Life.
The Cheerful Oncologist reports some good news – “The US Senate is looking at a bill that would force pharmaceutical companies to disclose any payments or gifts they make to doctors.”. I honestly couldn’t tell if The Cheerful Oncologist himself is for or against it though, but it sounds like a good idea to me.
And lastly – there is a site about HPV testing that you may would to visit soon: theHPVtest.com “offers information regarding HPV and cervical cancer, as well as testimony from cancer survivors and an opportunity to sign up for an OBGYN appointment reminder. You can also sign up to receive a free “Choose to Know” bracelet.”
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September 14, 2007
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This week in health and science – 9/14/07
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As usual ramunas at Cancer Genetics has some informative posts about tests to determine the best breast cancer treatment for a given patient including predicting a patient’s response to hormone-suppressing therapy, the cancer’s sensitivity to chemotherapy and whether a patient is at high or low risk of the cancer recurring after surgery (3 Genomic Tests for Therapy Decisions). In another post a test called the Mammostrat is discussed which can “classify patients into high, moderate, or low-risk categories for disease recurrence”.
Dr. Val did a good job of explaining the news story that came out recently claiming that “Human-Animal Embryo Experiments” were going to be allowed. I thought to myself, ‘I bet what is really going on makes sense and is not a big deal and that the headline was written by someone just trying to get attention’. Apparently I was right – all they are really wanting to do is use “animal egg shells (without the nucleus that contains the majority of their DNA) as mini incubators for human stem cells”. She explains it all here: Britain Allows Human-Animal Embryo Experiments
There was a post this week at Eye on FDA about how food is inspected and about how there are proposals in Congress that would require more frequent inspections. Apparently “federal officials inspect companies growing and processing salad greens an average of just once every 3.9 years”! That’s scary news for someone like me who eats a lot of spinach! Read more: Receipe for Reform – Is Food the Next Frontier?
There is now more research concluding that cell phones do not cause cancer. I never believed they did. I wonder if we will keep hearing more about it or if people will be convinced now?
In heart health news – I’ll admit I’m suprised to hear this: Women Are Less Likely To Make Lifestyle Changes That Favor The Heart. I really would have guessed that women more than men would try to stay healthier. I wonder if its because traditionally it was believed that men were more likely to have heart disease so women take it less seriously?
At Eating Fabulous it was reported that peanut butter is being used to combat malnutrition in Malawi (sub-Saharan Africa). That’s great – but I wonder if many people there are allergic to peanuts? Do they have access to emergency medical treatment if their kid has an allergic reaction to it?
In other heart news “researchers at Children’s Hospital Boston have developed pulmonary-valve replacements for infants and children which could grow as the child grows older“. I had no idea they needed to be replaced as kids grew. And I knew someone who needed a valve replaced in highschool, but may she was big enough at that time.
That’s all for this week – yes I’ve been busy and haven’t posted much recently.
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September 10, 2007
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Breast cancer news – (9/10/07)
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A while back a study was published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention that showed an association between breast cancer risk and a western style diet in Asian women. Asian women have traditionally had lower rates of breast cancer, but their rates have been increasing. This study revealed two overall diet patterns – one consisting of a high amount of meat and candy, dessert, bread and milk termed ‘meat-sweet’. The other has mostly vegetables, soy-based products and freshwater fish and is called ‘vegetable-soy’. The researchers found that the ‘meat-sweet’ pattern was significantly associated with increased risk of estrogen-receptor-positive (ER+) breast cancer among overweight postmenopausal women.
A new gene was found to be associated with breast cancer by researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center. It is called FOXP3 and is located on the X chromosome – one of only 2 genes linked to cancer so far found there. In mice it was discovered that when the FOXP3 gene is silenced 90% of the them spontaneously developed cancerous tumors. In humans it was found that around 80% of the cancer tissues they studied didn’t express FOXP3 at all. They also discovered that FOXP3 represses the HER-2/ErbB2 oncogene which is associated with a more aggressive form of breast cancer.
The President of the International Menopause Society suggests that the connection between breast cancer incidence and use of hormone therapy needs to be looked at more closely in Breast cancer and hormone therapy — A looking-glass mirror?. He concludes with “breast-wise, in women younger than 60, HT (particularly estrogen-alone) is safe”.
In the Journal of the National Cancer Institute there was a study in July from the The Netherlands showing that “breast cancer detection may increase when mammograms are reviewed by both a radiologist and a mammographic technologist“. Specifically they found that “breast cancer detection rate increased 6.8% when the mammograms were read by two technologists and two radiologists”.
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Related Posts:
- Menopause – HRT, hot flashes and twins
- Breast cancer update – 7/12/07
- Women’s Health Weekly Review: May 18 – May 24