December 3rd, 2011
Some Common Cancer Symptoms
In an age where some of the things we simply have a habit of doing the wrong way can seem to cause cancer in people, and even though there are things that a person can do to prevent these symptoms, some of these things are only containable and curable through the right means of research and treatment. It can be hectic keeping up with all of the modern cures and treatments for cancerous growth, and if you have any of the following symptoms, you are advised to get in contact with your physician of choice as soon as is available to you.
Some telltale signs of cancer include but aren’t limited to a lump or thickening in the breast or testicle, changes found in a wart or mole, a skin sore or persistent sore throat that doesn’t seem to heal properly, changes in bowel or bladder habits, a persistent cough or even coughing up blood, constant indigestion or trouble swallowing, unusual bleeding or vaginal discharge, and chronic fatigue. However, these symptoms are the most common, and can be signs of other ailments as well but can’t be overlooked either.
Other cancers have more specific symptoms include blood in the urine or pain upon urination with bladder cancer, fractures in bones and bumps or bruises that persist with bone cancer, changes in vision along with fits and convulsions with brain cancer, enlarged lymph nodes under the arm in the case of breast cancer, rectal bleeding and abdominal cramps with colorectal cancer, dull ache or pain in the back or side with kidney cancer, enlarged lymph nodes in neck and persistent cough for months with lung cancer, and lumps or ulcerations in mouth or around the lips with oral cancer.
There are others as well that need to be included with those above like; abnormal vaginal bleeding and digestive discomfort with ovarian cancer, yellowing of the skin and upper abdominal pain with pancreatic cancer, dull ache in the pelvis or back and the bladder retaining urine with prostate cancer, discomfort or pain in the abdomen along with vomiting blood or blood in the stool with stomach cancer, and a painful urination or pain during intercourse with uterine cancer. This is not a comprehensive list of cancers or symptoms, but if any of these symptoms appear to be similar to your own, then contact your physician immediately.
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March 16th, 2012
foundationbeyondbelief.org In addition to the advice in this video, you can also help fight cancer and other diseases by running a program called Folding@home on your PC. Folding@home is a distributed computing project run by Stanford university that uses the idle processing power of millions of PC’s for disease research. You can download the program here: folding.stanford.edu To join the atheist/agnostic/freethinker folding team, enter #182116 in the "team" box during setup. folding.stanford.edu Todd Stiefel is one of the great humanitarian philanthropists of the Humanist/Atheist/Freethought Community. His family has announced that it will match up to half a million dollars of donations to The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) for their Light The Night Walks fundraising effort. Please join us all in this cause and show the world what Humanism really stands for. Foundation Beyond Belief (FBB) is proud to announce that we are now a "Special Friend" team partner with The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) for their Light The Night Walks Music in the public domain, curtesy of MusOpen.org Photo of Christopher Hitchens by Andrew Rusk from Toronto, Canada video created by Scott Burdick – scottburdick.com
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March 16th, 2012
(HealthDay News) – Screening men for prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels significantly reduces their risk of death from prostate cancer, but not their overall risk of death.
Fritz H. Schröder, MD, from the Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam, Netherlands, and colleagues re-analyzed mortality after an additional two years of follow-up in a European study of 162,388 men (aged 55–69 years) who had been randomized to screening for PSA levels or no screening.
After a median of 11 years of follow-up, the researchers found a significant relative reduction in the risk of death from prostate cancer in the screened group of 21%, or 29% after correcting for selection bias and noncompliance. The relative reduction was even greater in the final two years of follow-up, at 38%. The absolute mortality reduction was 0.1 deaths per 1,000 person-years. However, there was no significant difference in all-cause mortality between the two groups.
“Despite the reduction in the rate of death from prostate cancer, screening had no effect on all-cause mortality,” Schroder and colleagues conclude. “More information on the balance of benefits and adverse effects, as well as the cost-effectiveness, of prostate-cancer screening is needed before general recommendations can be made.”
Several authors disclosed financial relationships with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.
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March 16th, 2012
Posted on: 6:37 pm, March 15, 2012, by Nina Sparano
DENVER — New guidelines released today give women choices for cervical cancer testing that depend on their age. The PAP test was once recommended for all women annually but now major medical groups have changed their recommendations from annually to every 3 to 5 years.
“I think it is important for you to keep going to the doctor every time to make sure you’re okay and the only way you can figure that out is going to the doctor on a regular basis,” says Leticia Arredondo of Denver.
Many women we spoke with say despite the new study, changing their habit of annual screenings feels risky.
“I go every year just because that’s what I’m taught. That’s what I’ve always done and I don’t feel comfortable changing it,” says another Denver woman who wanted to remain anonymous.
Major medical groups like the U.S. Preventative Task Force and The American Cancer Society say Pap Smears should begin at age 21. No earlier and should not be performed more often than every three years in healthy women.
Women over the age of 30, every 5 years. The study also says women over age 65 can stop getting screened if they’ve previously had normal Pap smears, since their risk of getting cervical cancer is extremely low.
“It`s almost always cause by HPV so if you test negative for that you are highly unlikely to get cervical cancer and because it`s such a slow growing cancer testing every year is probably too frequent,” says Dr Kristen Lund, OBGYN at Denver Health Medical Center.
However, putting more space in between your cervical cancer screenings does not excuse you from your annual exam.
“Just because we don`t do a Pap test does not excuse you from coming to see me every year because you are not just a cervix, you have a heart, lungs, ovaries and breasts and none of those things are texted with a pap test.
According to medical experts, annual cancer screening could result in false positives which may lead to unnecessary procedures that can be harmful.
More information: http://www.cancer.org/index
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March 13th, 2012
Paul Joseph Watson hosts the Thursday, March 1 edition of Infowars Nightly News. Co-host Aaron Dykes talks with Foster and Kimberly Gamble about their documentary. THRIVE is an unconventional documentary that lifts the veil on what’s REALLY going on in our world by following the money upstream — uncovering the global consolidation of power in nearly every aspect of our lives. Weaving together breakthroughs in science, consciousness and activism, THRIVE offers real solutions, empowering us with unprecedented and bold strategies for reclaiming our lives and our future. www.thrivemovement.com www.infowars.com www.prisonplanet.tv [Order your copy today at… www.infowarsshop.com Your Price: $20.00
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March 13th, 2012
NEW DELHI — India effectively ended Bayer’s monopoly on a patented cancer drug Monday, licensing a much cheaper generic under a unique law aimed at keeping costs affordable.
In a decision likely to upset Western pharmaceuticals, the patent office approved Natco Pharma Ltd.’s application to produce the kidney and liver cancer treatment sorefinib.
Bayer Corp. – a subsidiary of the German pharma giant in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – markets sorefinib as Nexavar for about $5,600 a month in India under a 2008-2020 patent, making it “not available to the public at a reasonably affordable price,” the patent office ruled.
“A right cannot be absolute,” it said. The office can force companies to grant licenses to generics in cases of public emergency or where they can show patented products are priced out of reach.
Natco said its version would cost Indian patients $175 a month.
It was the first case of compulsory licensing under India’s unique patent laws passed in 2005. Under the license Natco must pay 6 percent in royalties to Bayer.
Western pharmaceutical companies have been pushing for stronger patent protections and rules to clamp down on a $26 billion Indian generics industry they say is overstepping intellectual property rights. Aid groups counter that Indian generics are a lifesaving resource for patients in poor countries who cannot afford Western prices to treat diseases like cancer, malaria and HIV.
“We are disappointed about this decision,” Bayer spokeswoman Sabina Cusimano said from Berlin, adding that the company was considering a legal challenge. “We will see if we can further defend our intellectual property rights in India.”
Natco’s general manager said the drug was needed by about 8,800 cancer patients in India today.
“This is a victory for Indian patients and for India’s generic manufacturers, which are under attack,” Madineedi Adinarayana said by telephone from the company’s offices in Hyderabad.
Bayer’s patent “was not working as a patent in India,” he said, and predicted “many more such cases will follow.”
A patent must be at least 3 years old before a generics company can apply for a compulsory license. Still, many Indian companies have been reluctant to push for compulsory licenses where they might jeopardize agreements to manufacture other drugs for wealthy Western drug companies.
Analysts and patient advocacy groups said the ruling could have wider implications for the pharmaceutical business worldwide.
“This is a rare instance where a general compulsory license has been issued, not bound by government use provisions or those requiring to show ‘extreme urgency’ or ‘emergency,” said Dr. Amit Sengupta of the People’s Health Movement. The license given to Natco “without encumberances means a possible opening of opportunities for using compulsory licenses to promote competition.”
Lawyer Anand Grover for the Cancer Patients Aid Association, who was not involved in arguing the Nexavar case, said the ruling should force foreign drug companies to be mindful of Indian market realities. “It would be interesting to see whether multinationals will change their practices” in developing countries, he said.
India’s generics industry has been a focus in recent months with several Western pharmaceutical giants saying the 2005 Patent Act fails to guarantee investors’ rights.
Swiss drug maker Novartis AG is now in the final stages of a Supreme Court case to overturn India’s patent rejection on another cancer drug, Gleevec. That case revolves around a different legal provision allowing India to block “evergreening” – or patents and extensions based on minor changes to existing treatments.
Lawyers, generic drug makers and aid groups like Medecins Sans Frontieres and Oxfam have also warned that ongoing free-trade talks between India and the European Union are threatening India’s generics production with discussions about tightening intellectual property protections and making it easier for pharma giants to sue India’s government, drug manufacturers and distributors. They say the EU’s suggesting a clause to ensure nothing limits India’s ability to produce and export lifesaving medicines is not enough of a guarantee.
___
Follow Katy Daigle on Twitter at http://twitter.com/katydaigle
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March 13th, 2012
CLEVELAND – A wish comes true for a local boy who met his hero on Monday night at Quicken Loans Arena.
Dylan Christian, 12, spent time with WWE superstar John Cena, who was in Cleveland for the WWE Raw SuperShow.
Cena stepped out of the ring to meet Dylan, who was recently diagnosed with cancer for the fourth time.
The seventh-grader from Conneaut already lost an eye to the disease and his mom died following a cancer diagnosis a few years ago.
“He’s waited, counted down the days to be able to come and meet John Cena,” said Dylan’s dad, Brian. “I thank everybody that helped him and prayed for him and helped him get here. It’s truly amazing and I’m glad he was able to meet him.”
Cena is a 6’1”, 250 pound champion who holds numerous WWE titles, but for Dylan, he’s a hero.
“He’s honest and he tells the truth and he shows respect about himself,” said Dylan.
His dad, grandfather and best friend joined him at The Q with 15,000 fans for the sold out show.
In his meeting with John Cena, the attention was solely on Dylan.
“We all have things that we draw from and things that keep us positive and that’s no matter where you are in life and I’m a true believer in positive thinking,” said Cena.
“Just the fact to see him smile and not just be sleeping, is, well, it’s a blessing and John brought such a major smile to him, he’ll never forget and I know I won’t,” said Roy Allums, Dylan’s grandfather.
John Cena is hoping to see Dylan again at WrestleMania XXVIII on April 1 in Miami, Florida.
He’s offering the family round-trip tickets, but whether Dylan can go will depend on his health.
Right now, his family is taking it one day at a time.
*Click here to read more about Dylan’s fight.
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March 10th, 2012
03/09/12 Marco Island, Florida – The world-famous Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in Belgium is funding a Phase 1/2 clinical test of a cancer vaccine. This complex carbohydrate blocks galectin-3s.
Briefly, galectins-3s are proteins that have the ability to recognize and attach themselves to specific sugar molecules. This sugar-binding characteristic is typical of all lectins and is essential to our bodies’ functioning, but galectin-3s, for some reason, are also involved in all manner of disorders. Galectin-3s are integrally involved in strokes, heart disease, cancers, inflammation and fibrosis in its many health-destroying forms.
One of the bad things that galectin-3s does is attach to T-cells. T-cells are the white blood cells or lymphocytes that fight disease and communicate information about threats to the immune system.
The “T” in T-cells, by the way, stands for thymus. That’s because T-cells are born in your bone marrow but then migrate to the heart-shaped thymus, located behind the sternum in the center of your chest. There, they mature and are programmed for specific purposes.
This programming is based in part on information about any disease in your body that is contained in the thymus. That information is relayed to the thymus by other T-cells that circulate through your body. This complex information transfer process is not static. It evolves as the body tests different approaches to fighting threats.
In theory, this thymus-regulated immune process should be able to deal easily with cancers. Unfortunately, cancers can escape routine detection and destruction by T-cells by making a deadly fog or shield of galectin-3s. They attach to the T-cells that approach the cancer, triggering cell suicide in the cancer-fighting lymphocytes. As a result, the T-cells are prevented from doing battle with the cancer cells and cannot report back to the thymus. The cancer, in turn, evolves like a malignant intelligence — hidden behind the galectin-3 death fog.
The Ludwig Institute, the world’s largest and one of the most respected cancer research organizations, tested one of these carbohydrate drugs in cultures of cancer cells mixed with T-cells. As expected, the cancer cells quickly shut down the T-cells with galectin-3s. Into this mix of doomed T-cells and cancer cells, the galectin-3 blocking drug was added. Immediately, the T-cells were rejuvenated and began killing cancers.
Cancer vaccine therapies are one of the hottest areas of biotech research today. At least a hundred organizations, I hear, are currently looking for vaccination therapies that train T-cells to more effectively fight cancers. This is only logical, since prior anti-cancer therapies have been, by definition, toxic. Both chemotherapy and radiation therapy harm the patient. The trick is to harm the cancer more, but it is not an optimal solution. Prior to new approaches to cancer, the best possible scenario was to reduce side effects and damage. In fact, the drug in question does that, but the industry is far more interested in nontoxic approaches to fighting cancer.
Ludwig, for example, is investing in clinical trials because they believe, as I do, that the immune system, and therefore vaccines, will work far better when T-cells are protected from galectin-3s. If it works with Ludwig’s particular vaccine, however, it will work with any cancer vaccine. This opens up a vast market.
The important thing to keep in mind regarding this trial is that the galectin-3 blocker would improve the vaccine result even if it didn’t actually interact with the immune process to increase the vaccine’s efficacy. Through the course of my research, I’ve learned that cell culture tests showed that this drug resurrected T-cells so that they killed cancers.
This means that the drug on its own could be a very potent cancer killer. I predict that it will be, in fact. Given periodically, I believe it will work prophylactically to prevent cancers.
Regards,
Patrick Cox,
for The Daily Reckoning
Patrick Cox brings two decades of experience in software, public policy, medical economics and biotechnology to the Agora Financial table. He is editor of the Breakthrough Technology Alert and Technology Profits Confidential, as well as a contributor to the Penny Sleuth. Cox, who spent his early childhood on the Crow Indian Reservation in Montana, studied at Boise State University and has written for USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times and Reason Magazine. Cox has also been featured in The Baltimore Sun and CNBC Business Magazine.
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March 10th, 2012
Around March 2010, my wife all of a sudden stopped having sex with me. I accepted some of the lamest excuses ever. One day, in November 2010, I came home and she told me she was leaving me for the man she truly loved and she would take over the house.
I moved into my old bedroom at my parents’ house. About 5 weeks later, I was diagnosed with cancer, and it had spread. A below the knee amputation, seven rounds of chemotherapy, and another surgery later, I was basically half-dead in my childhood bedroom with my parents and sister taking care of me daily. Luckily I had a great salary insurance policy and the paychecks kept coming in like always yet no mortgage, no rent, utilities, etc. All of a sudden, I had over a year of paychecks pretty much unspent, along with what I had before saved, and while I was feeling better, I still thought I was done for. You can guess where a guy with a barrel full of disposable cash that hasn’t gotten laid in nearly two years is gonna go. That’s right, Las Vegas. I planned to play lots of poker while staying at a top notch joint where the concierge surely knew where to obtain the high-priced top talent for an in-room visit.
Fast forward to January 2012. I got to Vegas late on the first night so I planned to seek out well-compensated companionship the next night when I was rested. I was playing poker and there were two ladies at the table. For the first time since I was diagnosed with cancer, and against my doctor’s wishes, I was boozing it up. I didn’t care really about anything. The subject of how I lost my leg and why I needed the prosthetic came up, and I answered that I didn’t want to talk about it.
A little while later, I got up to hit the bathroom and when I came out, one of the ladies at the table was standing there waiting for me. She asked me, “So, how did you lose your leg? You lost it in the military didn’t you?” Sensing an opportunity, I answered “Yes.” She then asked who I was in Vegas with and I told her I was all alone and, this being Vegas, she offered me a “sympathy lay.” I immediately accepted of course and next thing you know we were up in my room and I had to use the bathroom again. (damn cancer medication).
When I came out of the bathroom, she asked me “So, how did you really lose your leg?” I didn’t really answer and she held up my cancer medication (which I had stupidly left out on the table and never even thought about) and said “I am an oncology nurse and I know this is cancer medication.” She got up to leave and as a guy with a serious woodrow having not gotten laid for nearly two years, I begged her to stay. I then offered to pay her, and she slapped me in the face! She left and that was that. Karma for letting her think I lost my leg in the service, if you ask me. (It wasn’t all bad though, my original plan to obtain high-priced talent went off flawlessly).
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March 7th, 2012
Durado Brooks, MD, MPH, director of prostate and colorectal cancer for the American Cancer Society, discusses the importance of talking to your family about family history of colorectal cancer, and the importance of screening. Please visit www.familyplz.org for tools to help you search and share your family history of colorectal cancer with your doctor and loved ones.
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March 7th, 2012
LONDON (AP) - Women who take estrogen after menopause appear to have a lower risk of breast cancer even years after they quit taking the hormone, according to a new analysis of a landmark study.
The results are reassuring news for women who have had hysterectomies and use the pills to relieve hot flashes and other symptoms of menopause, the researchers and other doctors say. Previous observational studies have suggested a possible connection between estrogen and breast cancer.
The new research found women who had a hysterectomy who took estrogen-only pills for about six years were about 20 percent less likely to develop breast cancer than those who didn’t take the hormone, and the benefit lasted for at least five years. The study was published online Wednesday in the journal, Lancet Oncology.
“If women are suffering from serious menopause symptoms and have had a hysterectomy, then estrogen alone is a reasonable approach,” said Garnet Anderson, of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle and the study’s lead author.
Doctors have long prescribed hormones for women after menopause to relieve symptoms like hot flashes and night sweats. The pills were also believed to be good for bones, the heart and have other health benefits.
In the 1990s, researchers began a large, U.S. funded study, known as the Women’s Health Initiative, looking at the effects of estrogen-progestin combination pills and estrogen-only therapies. The estrogen-progestin part of the study was stopped in 2002 when the combo pill was linked to higher risks for heart attacks and breast cancer. In 2004, the estrogen study was halted after researchers detected stroke and blood clot risks in that group.
Those results shook up conventional wisdom about hormone replacement therapies and led women to stop taking them in droves. Now the advice is to take the hormones to relieve symptoms at the lowest dose possible for the shortest amount of time because of the potential risks.
Estrogen-only pills are recommended for the approximately 25 percent of women in menopause who have had hysterectomies. Other women are prescribed the combo pill: estrogen alone can raise their risk of cancer of the uterus.
In the new analysis, Anderson and colleagues tracked more than 7,600 postmenopausal women aged 50 to 79 who had a hysterectomy. Roughly half took estrogen while the other half took placebo pills for about six years. Most women in both groups had yearly mammograms. The women were followed for about 12 years.
In the group that took estrogen, there were 151 cases of breast cancer versus 199 in those on fake pills. That amounted to a 23 percent lower risk of cancer, researchers said.
In women who developed breast cancer, there were six deaths among those who had taken estrogen compared to 16 in those who took placebos.
The lower risk of breast cancer didn’t apply to women with a family history of the disease or those who previously had benign breast lumps.
Doctors said women should not take estrogen to lower their breast cancer risk since the hormone comes with slightly higher chances of stroke and blood clots. Research published last year found those problems appeared to fade after women stopped taking the pills.
“Estrogen on its own appears to be safe,” said Dr. Anthony Howell, professor of medical oncology at the University of Manchester, who co-authored a commentary in journal.
Scientists aren’t sure why estrogen appeared to lower the risk of breast cancer, but Howell said altering the amount of estrogen in the body might help stop tumor growth, since fluctuating levels could interfere with tumor development.
Other experts weren’t convinced. “It’s inconsistent with the totality of evidence that finds estrogen increases breast cancer risk,” said Valerie Beral, director of the cancer epidemiology unit at Oxford University. She said the analysis was a subset of a larger trial that wasn’t designed to specifically look at breast cancer.
“If you want to take hormone replacement therapy, estrogen-only has a much lesser effect on breast cancer than with progestin,” she said. “But to say it protects against breast cancer is wrong.”
Dr. Peter Bowen-Simpkins, medical director of the London Women’s Clinic and a spokesman for Britain’s Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, said the study was still reassuring news for women who had hysterectomies seeking relief from menopausal symptoms.
“A lot of their suffering could be spared,” he said.
(© Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
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