By David Liu. PHD
Brain diseases linked to low cancer risk
Jane A Driver of Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA published a review titled "Understanding the link between cancer and neurodegeneration" saying that brain diseases have been associated with reduced risk of cancer.
Driver says in the review published recently in Journal of Geriatric Oncology says epidemiological studies have linked Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease with reduced risk of cancer.
The researcher says that evidence suggest that cancer shares a number of biological pathways with common neurodegenerative diseases of aging like Alzheimer's disease.
Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease are not outcomes of healthy aging. They are disease that are believed to affect millions of people in the United States. Cancer is the number killer in the U.S.
Genes shared by both types of diseases are involved in biological processes like activation and deregulation of the cell cycle.
Dietary Zinc deficiency fuels esophageal cancer development
A new study posted online on Dec 19, 2011 in the journal Oncogene suggests that dietary zinc deficiency fuels growth of esophageal cancer.
The study led by C Taccioli and colleagues says in their report that dietary zinc deficiency may boost risk of esophageal cancer, which is promoted by inflammation.
The authors say their early studies show short-term (six weeks) zinc deficiency in rats was found to induce overexpression of the proinflammatory mediators S100a8 and S100a9 in the esophageal mucosa.
In the current study, the researchers found rats that experienced long term zinc deficiency (21 weeks) along with exposure to low doses of the environmental carcinogen called N-nitrosomethylbenzylamine (NMBA) had a chance of 66.7 percent to develop esophageal squamous cell carcinoma or simply called esophageal cancer.
The researchers found supplementation of zinc reversed an inflammatory signature leading to the development of esophageal cancer.
Zinc is found rich in oysters, toasted wheat germ, veal liver, sesame, seeds and tahini, low fat roast beef, roasted pumpkin and suqash seeds, dried watermelon seeds, dark chocolate and cocoa powder, lamb (mutton), and peanuts.
How many women are needed to receive mammography screening for how many years to save one woman
Valerie Beral of University of Oxford and colleagues published an article in the Journal of Medical Screening saying that "The randomised evidence indicates that, in high income countries, around one breast cancer death would be prevented in the long term for every 400 women aged 50–70 years regularly screened over a ten-year period."
American Cancer Society recommends that women over 40 should receive mammography screening while a U.S. government agency says that women under 50 do not benefit from the procedure.
Few women understand that mammogram screenings per se can increase risk for breast cancer. Foodconsumer.org reported early that
If mammogram screenings are performed once a year, the accumulative risk for a 10-year period goes as high as 10 percent. Women aged 40 to 50 years old are particularly sensitive to x-rays. One to two percent of women are silent carriers of the A-T (ataxia-telangiectasia) gene and they are particularly sensitive to x-ray radiation. Some estimates indicate that up to 20 percent of all breast cancers in the U.S. may be affected by mammogram screening.
Radiation based screenings cause cancer
Amy Berrington de González of Division of Cancer Epidemiology & Genetics, National Cancer Institute estimated that in the U.S., the lifetime cancer risk from mammography screening every 3 years is 0.3 to 0.6 per 1,000 women.
Berrington's study was published in the Journal of Medical Screening.
Other types of screenings based on x-ray that also increase cancer risk include CT assessment of coronary artery calcification, CT colonography and lung CT.
The author says CT assessment of coronary artery calcification every 5 years in men ages 45 to 70 can cause 0.6 to 1.4 cancers in 1,000 men and 0.7 to 2.4 cancers in 1,000 women age 55 to 70.
CT colonography every 5 years can cause 2.6 to 2.7 cancers in 1,000 men ages 55 to 70 and 1.9 to 2.0 in 1,000 women ages 55 to 70.
Lung CT every year can cause 1.4 to 3 cancers in 1,000 men ages 50 to 70 and 2.9 to 8.0 cancers in 1,000 women ages 50 to 70.
All screenings together can result in a lifetime risk for cancer 5.8 to 12.8 cancers in 1,000 women and 4.7 to 7.0 cancers in 1,000 women.
The data means that in 1 million women who receive all these screenings, about 9,000 cancers will develop because their exposure to x-ray used in the screenings. In 1 million men who receive all these screenings, 6,400 cancers will develop because of exposure to x-ray used in the screenings.
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