Category: Uncategorized

Dr. Charles recently posted over at KevinMD on the top 10 cost effective preventive medicine services.1) Aspirin2) Childhood Immunization3) Smoking cessation4) Moderating alcohol intake5) Colorectal cancer screening6) Hypertension screening7) Flu immunization8) Vision screening9) Cervical cancer screening10) Cholesterol screening The exciting thing here is some of these cost effective strategies also relate to cancer and many […]

A British media story today points to later age at first birth as a major cause of increasing breast cancer rates in the UK (see story). This is not news, though increasing knowledge about causes of breast cancer is useful. We have known for decades that the later a women ahs her first birth the […]

In the June issue of the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, University of Minnesota researcher DeAnn Lazovich and colleagues published a study further confirming the dangers of indoor tanning, finding significant increases in the risk of melanoma linked to regular tanning bed use (link).  She summarizes her findings and take-home messages in this nice […]

As national trends have shown us all too clearly, keeping weight in check can be a difficult journey for many of us, and a lonely one at that. Success or failure when it comes to our weight is often pinned to us as individuals. Yet, individual actions are just the culmination of a broader web […]

  “…the prevalence of smoking in the United States hovers at 20%, more than 8 million people are sick or disabled as a result of tobacco use, and smoking kills 450,000 Americans annually.”   In a new Perspective on the New England Journal of Medicine’s site (link), Stephen Schroeder, MD and Kenneth Warner, PhD  make the strong […]

KevinMD has had some great guest posts recently including one by Kenneth Lin (http://commonsensemd.blogspot.com/) on the need (or not) for cancer awareness. Dr. Lin references the recent Facebook campaign that had women posting their bra color to raise breast cancer awareness – which had me wondering whether anyone is really not “aware” of breast cancer […]

Last week we commented on the data from the Nurses’ Health Study II showing that bike riding could reduce weight gain in premenopausal women. This is just one of many strategies available to women to increase exercise or physical activity, control their weight, and reduce their risk of breast cancer. Why do we focus on physical […]

As we turn to summer, cookouts, and more time in the sun, a burning question is whether sunscreen prevents skin cancer. Much media attention has focused on the slow progress made by the FDA to bring US regulations into line with other countries to gain up to date benefits of sunscreen formulation and consumer labeling […]

As someone who spent a lot of childhood summers on a dairy farm (my grandfather’s), I became accustomed to the (superior) taste of freshly picked fruit and vegetables and missed them when I made the move to the big city. I also believe in supporting family farms. When I was single, this meant trekking to […]

Walking has long been the preferred mode of exercise for a good many people, but the results of a new study may have bicycling give it some competition.  The large Harvard study published this week in the Archives of Internal Medicine (study) found that modest amounts of bicycling could help significantly stem weight gain in […]

A detailed analysis of some 1397 children with cancer between ages 0 and 4 evaluated the exposure of mothers to cell phone towers based on residence at birth of the child (see study). These children with cancer were compared to 5588 children born on the same day who were free from cancer. This detailed study […]

In honor of Father’s Day, the New York Times reports that fathers are now just as stressed out as their wives over balancing work and family. As we struggle to deliver 200% at work each day and come home and offer the same to our children and spouses, it can be easy to let the […]

This week the New York Times (editorial) again points to the realization that after 10 years of extensive research that has advanced scientific understanding of human genetics we are still a long way off from quantifiable clinical benefits. Importantly, the value of a family history in clinical practice has received much attention from NIH consensus […]

The US navy announced last week that smoking would no longer be allowed on submarines. As reported in the New York Times (link), the military has a long history with the tobacco industry and was responsible for starting a generation of smokers through the issuance of cigarettes to soldiers in their meals ready to eat […]

With the release this week of the ACS report on Diabetes and Cancer risk, we return to the growing cancer burden caused by obesity and excess weight gain during adult years. We might approach this problem from several angles. First, which cancers are caused by obesity and second, by focusing on diabetes, we might ask […]

New data from long term follow-up of women participating in the STAR trial, a study comparing Tamoxifen and Raloxifene (known as SERMS) for prevention of breast cancer, show strong and persisting benefits of reduced breast cancer risk after stopping therapy (see abstract). This is an important addition to our understanding. Based on follow-up of 18,747 women […]

The Times today reports that the genome (http://nyti.ms/9CqHdl) has deepened understanding of human genetics and opened up the potential for new approaches to treatment of disease. The potential pay off has not yet arrived, however. As the Times story notes, a family history of disease provides a good summary of risk, and also identifies those […]

This is a month packed with travel to meetings for me. It coincided with giving a talk to a group that spends a lot of time on the road planning and organizing meetings about making and offering healthy choices. This got me thinking about the things I’ve learned about healthy eating while making my way […]

New data reported this week in the New England Journal of Medicine show a reduction in incidence of myocardial infarction and improved survival after heart attack (Yeh, et al). This population based study from Kaiser Permanente in Northern California highlights the relatively rapid effect that improvements in the managing of risk factors can have on cardiovascular disease. […]

The implications of health care reform are becoming clearer and point to added benefits for cancer prevention. A paper in last week’s New England Journal of Medicine (link) presented a number of changes that flow from health care reform. In particular, emphasis will be placed on the role of Community Health Centers, which were launched […]

In the movie WALL– E, the human race has become so dependent on energy-saving devices that they’ve devolved over the course of 700 years into large infant-like beings that can only get around on futuristic wheel chairs. The director of the film has denied that this was targeted social commentary, just a way to develop […]

Yesterday at the American College of Sports Medicine Annual Meeting (ACSM) in Baltimore, the new Exercise Guidelines for Cancer Survivors was presented at a panel led by Kathryn Schmitz of the University of Pennsylvania, Melinda Irwin of Yale University, and myself. These guidelines arose out of an expert roundtable hosted by the Siteman Cancer Center […]

Along with flowering plants , green grass, and warmer temperatures, late spring always brings with it a slew of cancer-related headlines out of the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). This meeting is one of high points of the year for sharing the latest findings related to treatment, diagnosis, and sometimes […]

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 […]

Much media attention has focused lately on the links between environmental exposures and cancer risk (see related post), and a new study out this month further confirms the confined effects such exposures seem to have on the risk of cancer. In a new study published this month in the journal Cancer Causes and Control, researchers […]

I’ve had enough awkward cocktail party conversations by this point in my career to realize that once you say you work in cancer prevention, most people think those of us on this side of things live austerely and subsist on nothing but nuts, twigs and grass. I can’t speak for all prevention researchers, but for […]

Often on CNiC we highlight the power of data and how valuable it can be in providing key information about the causes of cancer and the success, or failure, at interventions designed to prevent or treat it. This week, New York State released the first set of maps that allow individuals to map cancer cases […]

  Coverage of the President’s Cancer Panel report this week draws attention to environmental contaminants as a potential cause of cancer (report). While this is an area of much public interest and certainly an important part of comprehensive health policy, it is a strange focus for a report that is meant to influence the nation’s […]

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, […]

Numerous recent media reports highlight the historic progress in women’s health with development and marketing of oral contraceptives. As Collins reported in the New York Times (column), we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the birth control pill. She notes the need for information on contraception and the challenges women had historically obtaining accurate data. Over […]

The New York Times this weekend (story) featured a fascinating article on the role that data and monitoring are increasingly playing in our lives. Among other things, people routinely harness technology to monitor their own physical activity, daily schedules, and diets as well as to identify missed opportunities and potential causes of desirable outcomes. Research […]

While the rates of many cancers have remained stable over the past decade, the rate of some esophageal cancers has been rising, and the main culprit is likely the epidemic of overweight and obesity. Squamous cell cancers of the esophogous , a cancer type largely caused by smoking, have remained stable. But adenocarcinomas of the […]

As reported in the New York Times, San Francisco has launched an important public health campaign to promote vaccination against the hepatitis B virus which causes liver disease and liver cancer (story). This campaign is important for several reasons. Infection is usually silent and the impact on disease is many years after initial infection. Prevention […]

Despite some pretty timid headlines, like “Sigmoidoscopy May Reduce Deaths From Colorectal Cancer,” the results of a UK-based randomized controlled trial seemed pretty resounding and further confirm the importance of regular colon cancer screening tests between ages 50 – 75 (USPSTF recommendations). The studied appeared early-online this Wednesday in the Lancet (study) and tested the […]

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, […]

A new study in this month’s Archives of Dermatology suggests that indoor tanning can be addicting in young adults (study) (1).  While the study was relatively small, with just over 400 participants surveyed, the results seem to bolster the need for moves toward greater regulation of the indoor tanning industry, especially through policies that curtail […]

Lately, with health care reform being the health topic de rigueur, much of the talk about technology in health has been related to electronic medical records. But, as the presentations at the 2010 Society of Behavioral Medicine (SBM) Annual Meeting demonstrate, there is a lot more to using technology to improve health than just electronic […]

In results widely reported this week, a new study has found strong links between the drinking behavior of young women and adolescent girls and their later risk of developing benign breast disease, a marker of future risk for breast cancer (study link) (1). The study, published early online in the journal Pediatrics, surveyed close to […]

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 […]

In Sunday’s New York Times (story), Robert Pear wrote about the many disease prevention initiatives contained in the new health care law recently passed by congress and signed by the president. It’s important to stop and consider the full implications of this.    Importantly, Medicaid will now cover drugs and counseling to help pregnant women […]

A new study published online last week in the British Medical Journal on tanning bed use by youth in the United Kingdom has raised concerns well beyond its shores (full study) (1).     The study surveyed over 9,000 children aged 11 -17 in England, Wales, and Scotland and found that 6 percent of those […]

We know from studies of leukemia and some other cancers that people who were exposed to certain factors (such as to radiation) while in the womb (in utero) can have a greater risk of cancer as children and adults. More recently, interest has shifted from large one-time exposures to carcinogens (such as to atomic bomb […]

A recent study in the British Medical Journal adds further evidence that use of oral contraceptives reduces cancer mortality (full study). In the long term study of over 46,000 women who were followed for up to 39 years, Hannaford and colleagues reported that women who used oral contraceptives (OCs)  had lower mortality from cancers of […]

While stomach (or gastric) cancer is the fourth most common cancer globally (it is the most common cancer in China and nearly half of global cases occur there), it is much less common in developed countries, including the US (where it is not in the ten most common cancer diagnoses). Stomach cancer constitutes less than […]

The anti-diabetic drug metformin is associated with reduced cancer incidence. In a UK based study of 4085 type 2 diabetics who used metformin from 1994 to 2003, investigators compared the incidence of cancer in those diebetics to the rate of cancer in diabetics who did not use metformin. The risk of cancer was reduced by […]

A new study of adolescent diet and subsequent risk of precursor lesions for breast cancer shows that women who had higher intake of fiber earlier in life have lower cancer risk. Data from the Nurses’ Health Study show that women in the highest quintile of adolescent fiber intake had a 25% lower risk of proliferative […]

Several measures that are currently poorly defined in many of our studies that focus on prevention are now a priority for us to achieve the goal of preventing the majority of cancer. These are summarized below and in a recent article (http://bit.ly/aI2jAr) Prevention Questions Cohort Methods issues Which exposure? Refined measures Validation and error correction […]