Health Spectator

A study recently published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention found an apparent link between consumption of sugary soft drinks and pancreatic cancer. Performed by Mark Pereira and his colleagues at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, the study followed 60,524 participants of the Singapore Chinese Health Study for up to 14 years. Like most such epidemiological studies, however, the study suffers from some inherent flaws and will need to be backed by further research.

This was a first attempt to link consumption of soft drinks and fruit juices—both abundant sources of dietary sugar—to pancreatic cancer in a population of non-European descent. The first 14 years of following the cohort yielded a cumulative 648,387 person-years and 140 pancreatic cancer cases. Individuals who consumed two or more soft drinks per week showed an 87-percent increased risk of pancreatic cancer, the researchers said. Those who consumed fruit juices alone showed no statistically greater risk.

The actual numbers involved are low enough, however, to cast some doubt on their validity. Of the 140 pancreatic cancer cases experienced by the cohort, 18 cases occurred in patients who consumed large quantities of soda, 12 occurred in those who drank soda occasionally, and 110 occurred in non-consumers of the beverage. Thus the claim of an 87% increase in risk of pancreatic cancer through consumption of sugar-sweetened soda is based on slim data.

The data do, however, support the popular theory that sugar feeds cancer cells and encourages formation of cancer tumors.

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This was not supposed to be the debut of Health Spectator. We had thought we’d make our entre with a well-researched update on antioxidants or perhaps an introductory lesson on the complexities of the immune system. Once our piece was researched and written, it might have taken another month or so for the design ideas to be finalized (we think a good first impression is important) had we stuck to the original plan.

But about a week after the news of Elizabeth Edwards’ cancer relapse, we realized this was something we couldn’t let pass. Although we have never med the Edwards personally, we did come surprising close, and while this is not intended to be a “personal” weblog in the sense that you need not expect to read about our lives in it routinely, since our rush to print is provoked entirely by a personal reaction, perhaps it would be prudent to explain.

We lived in Raleigh, North Carolina for about ten years, and were fortunate to have as a next-door neighbor for several of those years Betsy (Elizabeth) Brennan. Betsy was the widow of a prominent local developer and was herself immersed in the local arts, acting as an art agent and hosting occasional art shows in her home. She also was involved to some degree in local politics.

One day Betsy invited us to a dinner party she was planning for a local man she knew who was going to run for the Senate. I wasn’t paying close attention and assumed she was talking about the state senate, but since I was recently unemployed, I really wasn’t in the mood for socializing at a dinner party anyway and declined, despite Betsy’s repeated pleas. The guest of honor also happened to be our backyard neighbor, whom we had never met. Their daughter attended high school with my wife’s son. The night of the dinner party, my wife and I occasionally listened to the subdued merriment from our back porch, but we just didn’t feel up to joining in.

You guessed it. Our neighbor was John Edwards, who ran successfully for the U.S. Senate, achieved national prominence as a presidential candidate having started as an unknown, then nearly became the 47th vice president of the United States.

Shortly after his election, Senator Edwards and his family moved to another section of town, having stayed in the neighborhood until their daughter graduated from the local high school, I believe, and we never met.

I’m sure you all have similar stories of nearly meeting people who soon became nationally prominent, but that is not really the point of this story.

A few years later, my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer. As a matter of fact, we received the diagnosis the morning of September 11, 2001, around 8 am. We had stopped to pay for parking in the lot of the University of North Carolina cancer center, and as the guard raised the gate to let us exit, President Bush came on the radio to announce that the first jet had struck the World Trade Center. My wife and I rushed to downtown Chapel Hill for breakfast and arrived in time to see the second jet strike, then watched in horror as the towers collapsed.

It was the kind of morning you don’t soon forget.

[to be continued]

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Perhaps medical treatments putting cancer into remission are just artificially producing a middle stage of cancer before a more serious metastatic stage begins. That would appear to be one of the implications of a research report appearing in May’s issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

A research team led by Dr. Carlos Arteaga at Vanderbilt University tried suppressing Transforming Growth Factor(TGF)-beta in mice using antibodies. Suppressing TGF-beta stopped the spread of cancer tumors that would otherwise be spread as a result of treatment with radiation or doxorubicin, a chemotherapy agent. Either of these therapies causes TGF-beta to be produced in mice.

What’s more, tests on mice bred for the inability to produce TGF-beta showed similar results: despite the introduction of turmors followed by treatment with radiation and doxorubicin, their tumors did not spread. This research has led Arteaga and his colleagues to speculate that primary cancer tumors use TGF-beta as a signal to cancer cells at other sites in the body.

“We wondered if TGF-beta induced by anti-cancer therapies can serve as a survival signal for tumor cells, thus allowing them to withstand therapy and later recur,” Arteaga said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Arteaga’s team is testing drugs that interfere with TGF-beta to see if they improve survival.

“It probably isn’t just TGF-beta that is having this effect,” the researcher said. Many other compounds, including some immune system signaling chemicals, are also associated with tumor spread and growth.

“TGF-beta may be just the tip of the iceberg,” says Arteaga.

Cancer experts have wondered if the so-called primary tumor—the first and biggest tumor—might somehow suppress the growth of other tumors, and [if] removing or destroying the first tumor might allow other, undetectable, tumors to grow. –newmediaexplorer.org

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Just when vitamin D was beginning to look like the cure-all where cancer is concerned—many studies have proclaimed it instrumental in preventing or slowing cancers of the skin, colon, breast, and prostate, to name a few—a new study announced by the U.S. National Cancer Institute says increased vitamin D consumption does not correlate with reduced cancer mortality. The one exception, according to the study’s authors, may be cancer of the colon.

The study did not involve new research. Rather, it analyzed data for 16,818 subjects who participated in the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, which inducted participants between 1988 and 1994 and followed them through 2000. Participants were given blood tests to establish a baseline at the beginning of their enrollment; it was from these blood tests that the level of vitamin D (as 25-hydroxyvitamin D) was tested against decreased cancer mortality and found to be lacking. In the case of colorectal cancer, however, the study found a 72 percent reduced risk of death when vitamin D levels were sufficiently high.

The study, authored by D. Michal Freedman, Ph.D., of the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md., and colleagues, was published in this month’s Journal of the National Cancer Institute. The authors believe it is the first study to test vitamin D blood levels—as opposed to supplement consumption—against cancer mortality.

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The irony is that some of the shipments were rejected because they were contaminated with an antifungal that protects fish but is not allowed by the FDA because it increases cancer rates in lab animals. Others were rejected because of “suspected” contamination or for other contaminants.

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Swine flu spreads; another American dies

Electron micrograph of swine flu virus.

Although present dangers from swine flu may be less severe than originally feared, victims continue to die from the disease as it spreads across the globe. The latest developments place new cases in Australia, China and Japan, while new deaths linked to the disease have occurred in Costa Rica, Mexico and the United States. A Washington state man was the third confirmed casualty (more…)

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The National Cancer Institute (NCI) recently released updated results of a study that has followed over 25,000 workers since the 1980s. The report, which will appear May 20 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, found that workers employed at plants that used or produced formaldehyde had an increased risk of dying from blood and lymphatic cancers. In fact, those with the greatest exposure to formaldehyde had a 37% increased risk of death from such cancers compared to those with the least exposure. (more…)

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We reported more than a year ago on a study that claimed to show a link between consumption of red meat and various cancers, including breast and colorectal cancers. That study came from the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) in collaboration with its parent institution, the World Cancer Research Fund, and was controversial because of its findings.

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15 swine-flu deaths in U.S. as of May 29

According to Centers for Disease Control (CDC) data released at 11 am, Friday, May 29, the number of H1N1 (”swine flu”) cases in the U.S. is rapidly approaching the 10,000 mark. (see table) In fact, it likely will have reached that level by the time you read this, given the rate at which cases have increased over approximately the past week.

Meanwhile, health officials seem intent upon emphasizing the relatively mild symptoms of this so-called “new” or “novel” H1N1 influenza, as the CDC calls it. At the same time, the U.S. government has entered into a deal to acquire swine flu vaccine for persons it deems most worthy. (more…)

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There is evidence that the polyphenols found in green tea may slow the progression of prostate cancer, according to a study published recently in Cancer Prevention Research,¹ a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR).

According to researcher James A. Cardelli, PhD, professor and director of basic and translational research in the Feist-Weiller Cancer Center, LSU Health Sciences Center, Shreveport, LA, men with prostate cancer who consumed the active compounds in green tea demonstrated a significant reduction in serum markers predictive of prostate cancer progression.
(more…)

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