Cancer Society promotes good diet

March 11 -- WASHINGTON (AP) - The American Cancer Society, worried about a nation that does too little exercise and grows more obese, is putting a new emphasis on exercise as a way to reduce the risk of getting sick and dying of cancer. The five-year update of the society's nutrition and activity guidelines says the evidence now is convincing that exercise reduces risk of colorectal and breast cancer.
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Internet technology-based patient education: The CHESS Program
Oncology Issues 16(6):10-12, 2001, Association of Community Cancer Centers - Cancer management is complex, costly, technology dependent, and long-term, extending from prevention to end-of-life care. The need for guided education of patients with cancer is greater than ever. Explaining treatment may require numerous discussions with several doctors, nurses, and clinical research associates. In light of these complexities -- and with the increasing acceptance of electronic communication -- thoughtful decision making requires that we adopt new strategies in patient education.
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Comedian Milton Berle dies at 93
LOS ANGELES March 28 (AP) - It was 1948 when a nearly middle-aged funnyman who had grown up in vaudeville decided to take a chance on a new entertainment medium. Neither television nor Milton Berle would ever be the same. The commedian whose pioneering comedy-variety show changed the face of television, died Wednesday at home. Berle, who was 93, had been diagnosed with colon cancer last year and had recently been under hospice care.
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Overhyped strategy for cancer treatment is taking a scientific tumble
U.S. News - April 1 - The media frenzy began with a breathless front-page article in the New York Times. Judah Folkman's lab at Harvard Medical School had made large tumors in mice shrink down to tiny specks by injecting them with a protein fragment called endostatin. The results were so dramatic that Folkman's phones were immediately flooded with calls from desperate cancer patients, begging for this seemingly miraculous drug. Back in 1971, he had first proposed the novel idea of fighting cancer by preventing the growth of new blood vessels that sustain tumors. Now, another group of researchers is reporting that they have found absolutely no tonic effect from endostatin treatment. The new studies have reopened old questions about the therapy, in key clinical trials, and set the scientific community abuzz, as evidenced by a long article in the journal Science last week.
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Folic acid seen as deterrent to colon cancer
WASHINGTON (Reuters) March 19 - Women who have a family history of colon cancer can reduce their risk by taking vitamins containing folic acid, researchers say. Popping a multivitamin with folic acid every day erased the roughly doubled risk found in women who had a parent or sibling with colon cancer, the team at Harvard University said in a study released last week.
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Study shows calcium may reduce colon cancer risk
WASHINGTON (March 19) - Among people with low-calcium diets, even a modest increase in the nutrient seems to lower the risk of some types of colon cancer by about half, researchers report. In a study appearing Wednesday in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, researchers at Harvard evaluated the diet and colon cancer history of 135,000 men and women in two large health surveys. They found that those who consumed 700 to 800 milligrams of calcium daily significantly reduced their risk of left-side colon cancer by 40 to 50 percent.
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Newly indentified protein linked to cancer cell survival
ScienceDaily Magazine - Vanderbilt University Medical Center - March 18 - A team of Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center investigators have identified a new secreted protein and its receptors that appear to give a cancer cell the ability to fuel its own growth and present a potential target for anti-cancer drugs. Secreted proteins are released from one cell to transmit a signal to another cell instructing a particular behavior such as cell growth, migration or survival. These proteins cannot act alone; they must act through a receptor or receptors on the receiving cell, so discovery of the receptor is also important. This protein has been renamed Interleukin 24 (IL-24), with the approval of the Human Genome Nomenclature Committee, because the investigators' work demonstrates relationship to the family of proteins known as interleukins. The Vanderbilt-Ingram team has found IL-24 and two receptors expressed in colon cancer cells, making it the first interleukin to be found along with its receptors in tumor cells.
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Judge Judy holds court on colorectal cancer
USAToday - March 18 - Before Judith Sheindlin became known to millions of TV viewers as "Judge Judy," she spent more than two decades presiding over New York City's family court. Until her mother finally was diagnosed with colon cancer, none of her family members would go to a doctor "unless you're at death's door."
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Dietary changes can lower colon cancer in high-risk familiesa
BOSTON -- cancerfacts.com -- Mar. 14, 2002 -- People who have a parent or sibling with colon cancer can reduce their own chances of developing the disease by boosting their intake of folic acid and limiting their alcohol consumption, according to a new study. The findings of the research team led by Dr. Charles Fuchs of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard School of Public Health confirm a small but growing body of evidence that dietary and behavioral changes can reduce the risk of some cancers in people who may have an inherited tendency to develop them.
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Food as a cancer therapy
BusinessWeek Online - March 14 - Researchers are renewing their quest to find links between diet and the disease that'll claim more than 500,000 American lives this year
It probably won't surprise anyone with a basic understanding of nutrition that a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains can help people stay healthy. But what should we eat to stave off cancer? To date, despite more than 3,000 formal, in-depth studies of the relationship between disease prevention and eating right, we still don't have a clear answer. Scientific evidence suggests that perhaps 20% or more of the 555,000 cancer deaths expected in the U.S. in 2002 will be related to poor diet and nutrition. With U.S. cancer rates climbing and the toxic side effects of chemotherapy weighing heavily on so many patients, doctors are putting a sharper focus on preventing the disease. A proper diet could decrease everyone's risk of contracting many of the most common types of cancer, researchers now believe, including colon, breast, and prostate tumors, -- especially when the healthy fare is accompanied by the right mix of vitamins and supplements.
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BW Online | March 14, 2002 | Food as a Cancer Therapy
BW Online, March 24 - Researchers are renewing their quest to find links between diet and the disease that'll claim more than 500,000 American lives this year.
It probably won't surprise anyone with a basic understanding of nutrition that a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains can help people stay healthy. But what should we eat to stave off cancer? To date, despite more than 3,000 formal, in-depth studies of the relationship between disease prevention and eating right, we still don't have a clear answer.
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American Cancer Society says exercise reduces risk
WASHINGTON (March 11, 2002, AP) - The American Cancer Society, concerned about a nation growing more obese, is putting a new emphasis on exercise as a way to reduce the risk of getting sick and dying of cancer. The five-year update of the society's nutrition and activity guidelines says the evidence now is convincing that exercise reduces risk of colorectal and breast cancer.
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Cancer rates higher near industry sites
The West Australian - March 9 - The Health Department has released figures which show higher cancer rates among people living near the Kwinana industrial strip and refining and mineral export operations in the South-West. But the department says the data contains no reliable indication that environmental cancer risk factors are present, so there is no cause for concern. Statistics gathered between 1996 and 2000 show cancer rates higher than the State average in Kwinana, Rockingham, Mandurah, Harvey and Pinjarra.
Colon cancer was higher in all the areas, with lung and bladder cancers also more common in Rockingham and Kwinana.
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Cuban cancer drug shows promise, Biotech agent targets head, neck tumors' molecular roots
HAVANA, NBC News, March 8 -- Cuban researchers this week reported early but notable success with a biotech drug that attacks advanced cancer of the head and neck regions. In preliminary trials, the novel agent, called Theracim h-R3, enhanced conventional radiation therapy to radically shrink and even completely eradicate tumors. Specifically, Theracim h-R3 inhibits an epidermal growth factor receptor known as HER-1. Up to 90 percent of patients with head and neck cancer have too much HER-1, he said, causing cancer cells to reproduce out of control and spread through the body. Dr. Roy Herbst, a molecular oncologist at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, said that HER-1 “is a good target” for an anti-cancer drug. By blocking HER-1, which has been implicated in head and neck, colon, pancreatic and other tumors, a drug should theoretically slow down, even reverse, cancer’s course.
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University Of Maryland researchers use "artificial intelligence" for first time to diagnose colon tumors
ScienceDaily Magazine - 2/26/2002 - University Of Maryland Researchers Use "Artificial Intelligence" For First Time To Diagnose Colon Tumors
Using highly sophisticated computer programs that mimic human intelligence, researchers at the University of Maryland Greenebaum Cancer Center in Baltimore have devised a new method to differentiate and diagnose several types of colon tumors. The method, which uses "artificial neural networks," or ANNs, to analyze thousands of genes at one time, could ultimately help doctors to identify the cancers earlier and spare some patients from unnecessary, debilitating surgery, says Stephen J. Meltzer, M.D., professor of medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Dr. Meltzer is the senior author of a study to be featured on the cover of the March issue of Gastroenterology, the journal of the American Gastroenterological Association.
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Wheat may be vital in battle against cancer, other diseases
Source: Kansas State University (http://www.ksu.edu/)
MANHATTAN - ScienceDaily Magazine - Feb. 22 - A new weapon has been discovered in the battle against disease: whole grain wheat. According to Kansas State University biochemist Dolores Takemoto, new research is showing that wheat contains powerful antioxidants which are key to its ability to prevent colon cancer, and possibly diabetes and heart disease.
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Study sheds doubt on cancer drugs, Experiment explains why hyped agents may not work
Feb. 21 -- A hot new class of drugs that literally suffocate tumors may not work as well as had been hoped because tumors can learn to live with starvation, a Canadian researcher said on Thursday. The drugs are called angiogenesis inhibitors and they prevent tumors from growing little blood vessels to feed themselves. Reporting in the journal Science, Kerbel and colleagues said that tumors can evolve to live under starvation conditions, thus evading the effects of the drugs.
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Doctors may miss second colon cancer, closer care may help find cancer sooner
WebMD -- Feb. 19, 2002 -- A new study suggests that colon cancer patients may not be getting the best care possible. Researchers say that current care may allow a second colon cancer to grow unnoticed.
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Second colorectal cancers often develop despite follow-up tests
Feb. 19 - (American College of Physicians-American Society of Internal Medicine) -- The incidence of second primary colorectal cancer is high despite regular surveillance colonoscopy after treatment of the initial cancer, a new analysis of data from three studies found.
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Different tracer detects early prostate, other cancers
SEATTLE -- cancerfacts.com -- Feb. 16, 2002 -- A new imaging agent may help doctors more accurately diagnose prostate cancer in the early stages of disease. The new agent is a radioactive tracer that is more readily taken up by prostate cancer cells to produce a better x-ray image.
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Personal cancer treatment in works

The Asahi Shimbun - Feb. 14 - Cancer patients could be offered tailor-made treatments based on their individual genetic makeup if recent clinical trials prove successful. The three-year study, being conducted by researchers from the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, involves 1,000 patients at eight national university hospitals and medical institutions specializing in cancer treatment. They include the hospital affiliated with the Cancer Institute in Tokyo, as well as the hospitals of Sapporo Medical University, Kyoto University and Kyushu University.
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Tool gives better look at intestinal problems
Pitsburgh Post-Gazette - Feb. 13 - The camera-in-a-capsule is a way for doctors to get a look at the interior of the small intestine, which has defied conventional examination.
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