Department of Surgery
“So far, studies suggest that people eating more calories earlier in the day are less likely to develop metabolic diseases, such as diabetes and heart disease, than those eating more calories later in the day.” – Dr. Yikyung Park It’s that time of year where the calendar still says “spring,” but the weather and the […]
If you’ve finally reached that age when you’re officially an adult and starting to branch out on your own for work, school or another adventure, you’ve likely received a lot of advice from the older adults in your life. Some of it you may have sought out. Most of it, probably not. And, yes, as […]
The holidays are here, and that means a calendar filled with family, friends and festivities. And as wonderful as that can be, it can also make it challenging to stick to the regular routines that help keep us healthy. To help you have the physical and mental freshness to fully enjoy the season, try […]
By Graham A. Colditz We have a love affair with sugary drinks in the U.S. And it may, quite literally, be killing us. About 25,000 deaths each year are linked to drinking beverages like full-sugar sodas, sports drinks and energy drinks. It’s a startling number, especially for something so common that we often don’t give […]
A large new study has found that regularly eating whole grains may significantly lower the risk of liver cancer. The study, published online in JAMA Oncology, followed 125,000 men and women for an average of 24 years, gathering information on participants’ diet at regular intervals over that time. The researchers found that those who ate […]
by Hank Dart A new study out of France highlights another possible reason to avoid eating too many highly processed foods: They may increase the risk of cancer. The paper, published yesterday in the British Medical Journal, followed close to 105,000 adults for an average of 5 years. Along the way, participants were asked to regularly […]
by Hank Dart In my many years of writing about and promoting healthy behaviors, I’m happy to say that I’ve at least tried to put into practice just about everything I’ve espoused. Of course, like many people, my success at doing so can be uneven. Some behaviors I do pretty well with – like exercise, […]
At today’s annual symposium of the Boston Nutrition Obesity Research Center (BNORC), CNiC’s Dr. Graham Colditz delivered a plenary session talk reviewing BNOCR’s 25-year contribution to the science on obesity and cancer. A past associate director of the Center, Colditz also paid tribute to groundbreaking nutrition researcher, George Blackburn, who passed away in February 2017 […]
by Hank Dart Even in the middle of the roiling media cycle we’re in, diet has still managed to break through and make headlines the past couple weeks. Probably the biggest recent story was the release of a paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association that found that around 40 – 50 percent […]
Editor’s note: This post originally appeared as a Health Beyond Barriers podcast on Minds Eye Radio. It was produced in English, Spanish, Bosnian, Vietnamese, and Arabic through a collaboration with LAMP, Language Access Metro Project. By Hank Dart Whole grains. For something so often recommended as part of a healthy diet, they can seem pretty […]
by Katy Henke When it comes to leading a healthy lifestyle, let’s just say that Americans have a lot of room for improvement. That’s according to a recent study published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings that found that only 2.7 percent of U.S. adults practice four key behaviors that can improve health and lower the risk […]
by Hank Dart Though coverage of the Iowa caucuses has eclipsed most other media stories this week, there was still some important health news Monday about a large study finding that a high-fiber diet early in life may lower the risk of later adult breast cancer. The study, part of the long-running Nurses’ Health Study II, […]
It’s been another big year of cancer prevention news, and it started with a real splash way back in January with a headline-grabbing study in Science attributing most cases of cancer to simple “bad luck.” Not surprisingly, we disagreed with that conclusion, and our post responding to the study – and the stories it generated […]
by Graham Colditz, MD, DrPH Obesity is an established cause of postmenopausal breast cancer, with the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) estimating that approximately 10 percent of postmenopausal breast cancer is due to excess weight (1). Overweight and obesity also increase the risk of mortality after diagnosis. One large analysis combining data from […]
by Hank Dart We’re in the middle of it now. The holiday season – that wonderful and stressful five-week stretch from Thanksgiving to New Year’s where at every turn, there seems to be food. And not just everyday food, but food of such amounts and enticing types that it can feel nearly impossible at times […]
By Yikyung Park, ScDA recent report on red and processed meat and cancer risk, written by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) of the World Health Organization (WHO), sent shockwaves worldwide. After reviewing existing evidence, the report concluded that processed meat consumption is a cause of cancer and red meat consumption is probably […]
by Graham Colditz, MD, DrPH Article originally appeared in the Washington University – Institute for Public Health Blog When it comes to cancer, there are few topics as supercharged as diet. A quick search of “diet and cancer” in Google News alone returns over 3 million stories. And yet, however large these numbers are, they […]
[If you are viewing the mobile version of this post on a desktop, click here for desktop version.] A large proportion of colon cancer is preventable with healthy lifestyle choices, even without taking into account the benefits of screening. That’s the finding in a new analysis from the large Nurses’ Health Study released in print […]
By Yikyung Park, ScD Editor’s note: Not surprisingly, the recently released report from the Dietary Guidelines for Americans Advisory Committee was met with both praise and scorn. Many in the medical and health fields lauded the report for its innovative approach to considering both the food environment and sustainability, as well as for its healthy […]
Creative Commons photo (cropped): Flickr/zingersbs by Hank Dart A new study released last week in the journal Human Reproduction has found that regularly drinking sugar-sweetened beverages – like sodas and fruit drinks – may cause girls to start their menstrual periods at earlier ages. The study, a spin off of the long-running Nurses’ Health […]
Creative Commons photo: Flickr/CatDancing (cropped) We’ve written a lot recently about the importance of breast cancer prevention starting early in life, both here on Cancer News in Context and in a guest post on the American Association for Cancer Research blog, Cancer Research Catalyst. Though most breast cancer research focusses on women in midlife and […]
By Graham A. Colditz, MD, DrPH It is time to bring our focus back to lowering the risk or reducing the onset of new cases of breast cancer at all ages. Worldwide incidence of the disease is rising as societies across the globe modernize, which brings with it higher rates of breast cancer risk factors, […]
Photo: Flickr/thomashawk It probably comes as no surprise, but mom was right: We really shouldn’t eat so fast. Apart from the noise and the mess and the ill-effects on dinner table conversation, wolfing down food may have ill-effects on health as well. A detailed new analysis in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition shows that […]
Photo: Flickr/abraj This week I had the privilege of addressing the American Cancer Society CEOs Against Cancer at their annual meeting that this year was held at Washington University in St. Louis. As a member of the panel addressing worksite wellness, I was able to briefly summarize the strong evidence that worksite wellness programs can […]
Photo: Flickr/Mike65444 An article posted earlier this week on the New York Times website stated that the link between diet and cancer risk was, in essence, a “myth.” And while links between diet and cancer are not as strong as those with some other chronic diseases, like heart disease, the article’s conclusions demonstrate a lack […]
Earlier this month, we posted about recent findings linking nut consumption with a lower risk of benign breast disease in young women. Further confirming the power of nuts, new results from a large study published in the New England Journal of Medicine reports that men and women who are frequent nut eaters (7 or more […]
Tara Parker-Pope wrote an interesting post yesterday on the New York Times’ Thanksgiving Help Line about the commonly thrown around stat that the average person consumes 4500 calories in the course of Thanksgiving Day. In the piece, she works at length itemizing what 4500 calories would actually look like – choosing many fat and sugar-laden […]
This week was full of news about meat. The week started with news from the Department of Agriculture that US red meat consumption is expected to be lower in 2012 than it was in 2007. Of course, global meat consumption isn’t down, which means the US is continuing the trend we started with tobacco of […]
In Sunday’s New York Times, the editors ask prominent economists to weigh in on how to face the economic challenges ahead of us in 2012. Richard Thaler, of the University of Chicago, who wrote (with Cass Sunstein) Nudge, the best selling book on behavioral economics argues that employers have the opportunity to tackle one of […]
At the recent Breast Cancer Research Foundation scientific symposium held in New York City and Memorial Sloan-Kettering on October 25, I summarized evidence on lifestyle approaches for breast cancer prevention. Let me briefly review the evidence presented in this talk. You might ask how can we assume that breast cancer is preventable? Evidence comes from […]
Ask women what they think is the biggest threat to their health, and most will answer “breast cancer.” And even though lung cancer and heart disease kill more women each year, their concern is well placed. Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women in the US — about 230,000 American women are diagnosed […]
Photo: courtesy practicalowl If you tracked the health news last week, you may be suffering a bit of whiplash from all the double takes of unexpected headlines: “Mammograms plummet among women under 50” (MSNBC); “Study questions value of salt reduction in healthy people” (Boston Globe); and “Heart-healthy omega-3’s not healthy for prostate” (US News and […]
It’s been a trend developing for a number of years: the rising prominence of chronic disease across the globe. Where diseases like heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and cancer were once the main health concerns of more affluent countries, they’ve now taken over top spots in developing nations as well – signaling both a shift away […]
It is a good morning exercise for a research scientist to discard a pet hypothesis every day before breakfast. It keeps him young.-Konrad Lorenz This week’s news brought a story that remind me that sometimes, the best science involves letting go of previously held hypotheses. Access to quality, health food, particularly fruits and vegetables, is […]
For a long time, the CNiC team has talked about 8 ways you can prevent cancer. This week, we’re proud to announce our 8 ways to stay healthy AFTER cancer. With over 12 million cancer survivors in the US alone, addressing the chronic health needs of cancer survivors is a priority. Readers will notice that […]
For a long time, the CNiC team has talked about 8 ways you can prevent cancer. This week, we’re proud to announce our 8 ways to stay healthy AFTER cancer. With over 12 million cancer survivors in the US alone, addressing the chronic health needs of cancer survivors is a priority. Readers will notice that […]
In what in many ways is a definitive study on the topic, a very large analysis of 1.46 million adults further confirms that overweight and obesity significantly increase the risk of mortality (study). The analysis by Berrington de Gonzalez and colleagues, which appears in the New England Journal of Medicine today, pooled together data from […]
As anyone who’s ever been on a diet knows: taking the pounds off can be hard, but keeping the pounds off can be even harder. The main reason for this simply seems to be that it’s just easier to keep up with a new exercise and diet program over the short term than it is […]
There is a fascinating little study out this week in the journal Appetite, which was also highlighted in a piece in The Economist. What the study found was that dieters, when they felt they were given a larger piece of pizza than other people were for lunch (pieces were actually the same), were more likely […]
In previous posts, we’ve talked about implementing the weekday vegetarian plan or moving from your farm share box to a meal plan. For those who don’t have a big pile of recipes in the kitchen (or who are at work trying to figure out what to make for dinner that night), the internet is a […]
There was a very nice piece this morning on NPR’s Morning Edition building on a study released earlier this month that found that being persistently overweight from young adulthood on can have a profoundly negative social and economic impact on individuals – this in addition to the already well-documented health effects of overweight and obesity (NPR story) […]
Most of the CNiC team is pretty good about practicing the cancer prevention tips we offer up, but last week’s “weekday vegetarian” post (link) got me thinking, and this week, I implemented the weekday vegetarian program in my house (well for dinners at least, and my own lunches). For those of you thinking about giving it a […]
Related post: Putting “weekday veg” into practice A lot of us tend to have an all or nothing approach to life, but oftentimes charting a course down the middle can have a lot to offer as well. In fact, the goal of most public health efforts are modest changes that when spread out over the […]
Soy foods have been studied a great deal for their potential protection against a range of chronic conditions, including breast and prostate cancer, heart disease, osteoporosis, and menopausal symptoms. It’s not known exactly how a diet rich in soy results in such benefits. It could be due to some of the individual components of soy, […]
Last week, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) called on the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to mandate a maximum level of sodium in food (IOM report). They did this because high sodium intake contributes to high blood pressure, which is a contributor to heart disease and stroke. The average person in the US takes […]
At the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), I presented a review of evidence relating childhood and adolescent exposures to lifetime cancer risk (see slides from presentation here http://bit.ly/d2SY2s). One of many “meet the expert” sessions, this offered an opportunity for those in the audience to hear a synthesis of evidence […]
It seems like everywhere you turn these days products are touting how much soy protein they have. In some ways this is understandable as more and more evidence shows that soy can have important health benefits, like lowering the risk of breast cancer, prostate cancer, and heart disease as well alleviating symptoms of menopause. Unfortunately, […]
The headlines this week about fruits and vegetables doing little, if anything, to lower cancer risk may entice you to reach for a candy bar rather than a carrot (study), but there’s still plenty of good reasons to keep working on your 5 or more each day. Most importantly, there’s still very good evidence that eating […]