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 […]
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Lessons for Prevention and Public Health from Hurricane Sandy
The magnitude of spending to repair damage from the mega-storm Hurricane Sandy is a useful reminder of how we allocate resources for health. We spend far more on repair or treatment of disease than on prevention. Population health focuses on improving the health of the entire population and reducing inequalities in health between populations. In […]
Adolescent alcohol and physical activity important for breast cancer prevention
Alcohol is a well-documented cause of breast cancer. Risk increases by approximately 7% for each 10 g of alcohol consumed daily by adult women.1-3 That is for each drink of beer wine or liquor, risk increases about 7% more compared to a never drinker. About one third of the population of US women never drinks. […]
Early Life and Later Breast Cancer Risk: “Hey, Mom & Dad”
“Breast cancer” and “youth” are two terms not often linked together. But there’s a growing body of evidence showing that certain factors early in life – like diet, activity, and weight – can have an important impact on a woman’s breast cancer risk later in life. To help parents guide their daughters toward optimal breast health […]
Breast cancer prevention
Overwhelming evidence indicates that the majority of breast cancer can be prevented with what we know now (see slide show: “Integrating Risk Across the Lifespan: The Case of Breast Cancer Prevention“). Let me review some of the justification for this statement. We know that we know from migrant studies that the rates of breast cancer vary […]
Two Tools for Estimating Breast Cancer Risk: Your Disease Risk & Zuum
It’s National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, so what better time to post about our two tools that can estimate a woman’s risk of the disease and provide personalized tips for prevention? Our long-running website Your Disease Risk is a scientifically validated tool that provides a detailed look at the factors that can increase […]
Quiet the din to cut calories at dinner
The New York Times ran a piece (story) this morning on a new study providing further evidence that our surroundings can have an important impact on how much we eat. In the study (study), researchers Brian Wansink and Koert van Ittersum created a quiet, soothing dining area in a fast food restaurant and analyzed whether […]
Advancing biology of “normal DNA” and understanding of tumors all point to prevention
At UICC, World Cancer Congress (August 28, 2012), Dr. Blackburn (http://biochemistry.ucsf.edu/labs/blackburn/) emphasizes that telomere length reflects accumulated stresses and that shortening telomeres are related to increased risk of cancer and other chronic diseases typically associated with aging. Importantly, shortening accumulates across the life course. The growing biologic understanding of this measure of DNA stability turns […]
Preventing colon cancer: Screening works – mortality down 30% nationwide from 1992 through 2009.
The evidence on screening as an effective strategy to reduce colorectal cancer mortality has its roots in studies of fecal occult blood testing (FOBT) that showed a reduction in colorectal cancer mortality1-3. These three independent trials were conducted in the US, England and Scandinavia. Completing the clinical trials of fecal occult blood testing case-control sampling […]
Healthy Eating: Balance and Moderation
Healthy eating gets a bad rap. It’s difficult to know exactly where things went awry, but it’s hard to deny that a lot of people these days associate healthy eating with a too-restrictive, tasteless collection of food rules. Veer too far from bran fiber and distilled water and people half expect a stern dietician to […]
Risk prediction: Lessons from research
Graham A. Colditz, MD, DrPH, chief of the Division of Public Health Sciences and the Niess-Gain Professor in the School of Medicine, made the keynote presentation at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Harvard Cancer Center “Risk Prediction Workshop” on April 27,2012. View Risk Prediction: Lessons from 20+ Years of Research
Spring Toward Cancer Prevention: CNiC in the News
It’s been an active spring for Cancer News in Context staff, particularly so for its executive editor, Graham Colditz, who has had a number of events and published pieces which have grabbed positive media attention. Most recent was a journal article – co-authored with Sarah Gehlert and CNiC contributor Kate Wolin – in Science Translational Medicine, […]
Population Health Sciences. Washington University School of Medicine.
Schroeder has argued that much of our health and wellness is within our reach, and that behavior may account for 30 to 40% of our disease burden. He notes that we can improve our international ranking on many measures of health through simply implementing things we already know. Likewise we recently made the case for […]
Further evidence that alcohol causes breast cancer
The development of breast cancer spans decades. Wellings set forth a model of cellular changes in his seminal papers describing cell changes in normal breast tissue and the progression to advanced benign lesions, ductal carcinoma in situ, and invasive breast cancer 1. Our previous work on adolescent and early adult alcohol intake and breast cancer […]
Risk, Benefits, and Low Use of Chemoprevention for Breast Cancer
Medications proven to prevent breast cancers in women at high risk of the disease have been approved for use in the United States since 1998, but only a surprisingly small percentage of women actually choose to use these drugs. A new Susan G. Komen Perscpectives article – co-written by CNiC staff – explores this […]
The Titanic and The Health Divide
by Hank Dart While tragic events can bring the issue of inequality to the headlines every once in a while, it’s more often a problem that lives under the radar of most people. Yet, as the gaps between rich and poor continue to grow wider and wider and health care coverage remains an important issue, […]
More than half of cancer is preventable now
The media release from the Washington University School of Medicine, yesterday, on our review of the potential to prevent cancer and barriers slowing our progress in acting on what we already know. (For article link here) Colditz, Wolin, and Gehlert collaborate on a number of cancer prevention projects through Siteman Cancer Center Prevention and […]
Preventing Colon Cancer Now.
As we complete April, colon cancer awareness month, the topic of strategies to improve our population risk profile and reduce the cancer burden in our families, our workplaces, our communities and our state, I am reminded of many times we have written and talked on this topic. We have written on physical activity and colon […]
Prevention of Colon Cancer: time for action is now
Recent updated evidence from the United States National Health And Nutrition Survey (NHANES) show that the majority of US adults have more than one modifiable risk factor for colon cancer that needs attention (see article). While screening is advocated for prevention of colon cancer and supported by evidence from randomized controlled trials (1), we have […]
Smoking cessation reduces lung cancer mortality
A new rigorous analysis funded by the National Cancer Institute is published this month in the JNCI. Moolgavkar and colleagues (see report) now estimate that over 790,000 lung cancer deaths have been avoided by cessation from cigarette smoking since the 1964 Surgeon General’s first Report on Smoking and Health was released. This represents only a fraction of […]
“Your Disease Risk” to be Featured in NCI Webinar on Risk Assessment Tools
Don’t miss out. Our award-winning website Your Disease Risk (yourdiseaserisk.wustl.edu) will be a featured part of next week’s NCI webinar: “Communication Science and Online Risk Assessment Tools.” Launched in January 2000, Your Disease Risk has been a steady and trust-worthy source of personalized estimates of disease risk and tips for prevention. Drs Graham Colditz and […]
You Can Prevent Colorectal Cancer
Colorectal cancer kills over 50,000 Americans each year. Lung cancer is the only cancer that kills more people. Both men and women can get colorectal cancer, and it usually strikes those over the age of 50. The good news: Colorectal cancer is one of the most preventable cancers. No matter what your age, there is […]
Cancer capacity building in Guatemala
As part of our current training program at Washington University in St. Louis in collaboration with Instituto Nacional de Cancerología (National Cancer Institute, INCAN, Guatemala) (funded by Fogarty International Center, NIH: 1R24TW008820-01), we have held our third annual scientific meeting in Guatemal. 1,2 Our pilot program trained Washington University and INCAN participants in research methodology, […]
Caution for estrogen therapy
Washington University School of Medicine press releaseApril 5, 2011By Julia Evangelou Strait Graham Colditz, MD, PhD An editorial in the April 6 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association cautions against estrogen-only hormone therapy in women who have had a hysterectomy because of longstanding evidence that it raises the risk of breast cancer. The editorial […]
New division aims to improve public health
Washington University School of Medicine Press ReleaseBy Diane Duke WilliamsApril 5, 2011 Graham Colditz, MD, DrPh Preventing disease and improving public health are the goals of a new division created at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. “Through our research and education efforts, we hope to translate research discoveries into policies that keep […]
Project aims to reduce br
Washington University School of Medicine Press ReleaseJuly 6, 2011By Julia Evangelou Strait Sarah Gehlert, PhD Health-care specialists at the Alvin J. Siteman Cancer Center at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Barnes-Jewish Hospital are working to improve breast cancer care for African-American women living in North St. Louis City, where death rates […]
Weightloss surgery costef
Washington University School of Medicine Press ReleaseJuly 13, 2011By Julia Evangelou Strait TIM PARKER Washington University surgeons perform a bariatric surgical procedure. Bariatric surgery is not only cost-effective for treating people who are severely obese, but also for those who are mildly obese, according to a new study from Washington University School of […]
Cancer disparities
From the Washington University RecordOctober 6, 2010By Lee Phillion Victoria Anwuri (left), project manager for the Program for Elimination of Cancer Disparities (PECaD), and Aimee James, PhD, assistant professor of surgery, look over materials related to their research into health disparities. Each day, 3,400 people in the United States are diagnosed with cancer and another […]
Transdisciplinary Energetics and Cancer (TREC)
Obesity and cancer? Why are we meeting in Philadelphia? These are question not commonly asked on our CNiC blog. Let me explain a little of our new center on obesity and cancer, and link you to our related resources. NCI convened the first meeting of funded centers working together on issues relating energy balance, obesity, […]
(Video) Eight Ways to Prevent Cancer – Exercise
Next up in the Eight Ways to Prevent Cancer video series: Exercise. CNiC’s Dr. Kate Wolin walks us through the huge benefits we get from exercise, including a lower risk of heart disease and diabetes, on top of the cancer benefits many people may not be aware of. The video also highlights the fantastic progress […]
Timing is everything: Renewing the debate on aspirin
This week on the NY Times Well Blog is a discussion of whether the health benefits of aspirin have been oversold (or the health risks underreported). The spark to this renewed discussion is a Cochrane review of the aspirin data. What gets lost in the debate, is how important timing is when considering the health […]
Meat: Not for Dinner Tonight
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 […]
Confronting the challenges of 2012 with salads and stairs
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 […]
Medical interventions to prevent cancer
Much has been written over the past few months on progress against cancer. For example, in the New York Times, Kolata summarizes funding for cancer research and shows the percentage of health research funding spent on cancer treatment research, cancer biology, and cancer causation, with only a small fraction on early detection and prevention (1). […]
Doctors Doing Better but Still Avoiding Talks About Overweight Kids
Though doctors are doing better than they used to, the vast majority are still not telling the parents of overweight kids that their kids are overweight. In a new study in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine (study), researchers asked the parents of close to 5,000 kids aged 2 – 15 years who were […]
(Video) Inequality and Health – Richard Wilkinson on TED
At CNiC, we’re big fans of many of the TED presentations, the way they often communicate complex ideas through the use of effective displays of hard data. One recent TED post we like is a sixteen minute presentation by Richard Wilkinson on the impact of economic inequality on a wide range of issues that relate […]
Smoking cessation: The rapid road to preventing cancer mortality
One third of the 571,000 cancer deaths in 2011 are due to smoking. That is 188,744 men and women will die unnecessarily because of their smoking habits. These are avoidable deaths. Strong evidence supports the benefits of smoking cessation, not just lowering cancer deaths but also reducing deaths form heart disease and total mortality. The […]
Preventing Breast Cancer through healthy growth and high school diet
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 […]
Aspirin prevents colon cancer
We have previously summarized strategies to reduce the risk of colon cancer. Briefly, these include increasing physical activity, avoiding weight gain, reducing red meat consumption, limiting alcohol and following screening recommendations. Aspirin has been regularly recommended by the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) for the prevention of cardiovascular disease in men and women […]
Melody Goodman named to HHS Regional Health Equity Council
Melody Goodman, PhD, assistant professor in the Division of Public Health Sciences, Department of Surgery, Washington University School of Medicine, has been appointed to one of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Regional Health Equity Councils. The 10 Regional Health Equity Councils across the nation are part of the HHS’s National Stakeholder […]
PSA Screening: Task Force Recommends Against Prostate Cancer Test
Despite the widespread use of the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test for prostate cancer, it’s been known for many years that it had murky benefits, especially in the face of its well-demonstrated risks – like impotence, incontinence, and unnecessary surgery. Now, as reported in a very good article in the New York Times, the US Preventive […]
6 Ways to Prevent Breast Cancer
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 […]
Don’t Quit on Quitting: Smoking Cessation Still an Important Focus
John Seffrin, CEO of the American Cancer Society, made the point at last week’s meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative that tobacco control should remain the highest priority in combatting chronic disease. It’s a point we’ve certainly echoed on this blog – that efforts to curb tobacco use shouldn’t be relegated to the second tier […]
Obesity, hormones, and breast cancer
We continue the theme of progress in understanding the causes and potential for prevention of cancer. This understanding has advanced substantially over the 30 years since Doll and Peto published their landmark report. Today I return to obesity, hormones, and breast cancer. Doll and Peto noted that obesity was related to increased risk of […]
Obesity increases risk of multiple myeloma – overwhelming evidence.
In our Prevention Snapshot we refer to data from a thorough analysis reported by Renehan who combined prospective cohort data separately for men (7 studies) and women (6 studies) and observed a significant increase in relative risk of 1.11 for a 5 unit increase in BMI for men 1. This meta-analysis also reported no meaningful variation in […]
Smoking causes bladder cancer
The 2004 report of the Surgeon General on the health consequences of smoking concluded that smoking causes bladder cancer (see details in report). Little surprise then today that another large prospective study following older US adults for approximately 10 years shows smoking is directly related to increased risk of bladder cancer. As women and men […]
Nuts for Nuts
Limiting red meat intake is one of the key messages in our cancer prevention education programs and we’ve talked about it before on CNiC. Red meat significantly increases risk of colon cancer and may also increase risk of lung, esophageal, stomach and pancreatic cancers. But as with many of the things you can do to […]
Obesity, cancer link studied
Washington University School of Medicine Press ReleaseBy Julia Evangelou Strait Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have been awarded a $9.2 million grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to study the relationship between obesity and cancer. The five-year grant will fund the new Transdisciplinary Research on Energetics and Cancer (TREC) […]
The Obesity Epidemic from a Personal Perspective
National Public Radio (NPR) is running a new series of stories over the next few months on the obesity epidemic, called Living Large: Obesity in America. Monday’s piece in the series featured a woman named Kara Curtis and was an amazing profile that detailed on a very personal level what makes the battle against obesity […]
That’s a Wrap: Images of Smoking Way Down in Youth Movies
In what can only be viewed as a positive in the fight against tobacco, a new federal report finds that images of smoking in youth-oriented movies have plummeted since 2005. In movies rated G and PG, the rate of tobacco “incidents” (as the report calls them) fell by over 90 percent (see figure). Even in […]