Patients Diagnosed With Certain Types Of Cancer Living Longer Than Ever

Patients Diagnosed With Certain Types Of Cancer Living Longer Than Ever

By Kurtis Bright

 

Survival Rates Up To Ten Years After Diagnosis Are Now Common

There is just so much bad news out there--seemingly more every day. So every now and then it’s nice to come across something that is genuinely heartening, some nugget of news that is unequivocally positive.

Here goes: for people who develop a few common types of cancer, survival rates  are now routinely running to a decade or more following diagnosis.

There was a time when a diagnosis of cancer implied a rush to get one’s affairs in order; today the question is no longer “How long do I have, doc,” so much as “How long do you want?”

For those suffering skin cancer, breast cancer and prostate cancer, huge majorities can now expect to live for a minimum of ten years following their diagnosis, according to the latest government surveys.

The likeliest group to still be going strong a decade after diagnosis is those diagnosed with skin cancer, of whom a whopping 89 percent were able to live long enough to reach that milestone, according to figures provided by the U.S. government Office for National Statistics.

For women diagnosed with breast cancer, more than 80 percent of them now survive an additional ten years following their first diagnosis.

A man who suffers from prostate cancer has a ten-year survival rate nearly as high, with 79.9 percent coming in at the decade mark after being diagnosed.

On the other end of the spectrum, there are certain types of cancer diagnoses that still bring very bad news indeed, when it comes to the long-term survival rate of patients. For pancreatic cancer sufferers, only 5.7 percent of those diagnosed survive an additional ten years. And when it comes to lung cancer, the rate is slightly less dire, but still not very hopeful at 9.8 percent. Brain cancer patients only survive to ten years after diagnosis 11.9 percent of the time.

However, the overall improvement in the statistics suggest that ongoing research, treatment possibilities, and earlier diagnoses are all contributing factors resulting in an incremental increase in life expectancy after diagnosis for certain types of cancer but not others.

An example is that 96.4 percent of women diagnosed with breast cancer between 2009 and 2013 lived for at least a year after they were diagnosed, whereas 86.7 survived an additional five years. This constitutes the highest rate recorded to date.

It remains a fact that any kind of cancer is still very bad news, of course. However, at least we can take some small comfort in the demonstrable fact that it isn’t an immediate death sentence anymore.

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Breakthrough Study Shows Reduced Recurrence Of Breast Cancer In Women On Mediterranean Diet

Breakthrough Study Shows Reduced Recurrence Of Breast Cancer In Women On Mediterranean Diet

By Kurtis Bright

Surprise, Surprise: A Diet Heavy In Fresh Fruit And Veg, Nuts, Fish And Whole Grains Is Better For You

Even with so many negatives in the world, it is undeniable that this is a great time to be alive--at least when it comes to the cornucopia of medical paradigm shifts that are taking place right before our eyes.

We seem to have new revelations on the benefits of marijuana every day, for example. And these days kratom is joining venerable marijuana as a widely accepted aid to humans suffering a variety of ailments.

But one healthy choice that has been known for decades now in the West, and much longer in Europe continues to produce amazing results: the Mediterranean diet.

In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past 40 years, the Mediterranean meal plan leans heavily on fresh plant-based foods like fruits and vegetables, as well as whole grains and nuts. It also replaces butter with olive oil and limits red meat while emphasizing fish, and it has long been a staple of the diet section in bookstores, as well as fodder for celebrity chat shows.

And the latest study seems to show that there may well be a connection between eating a Mediterranean diet and reducing your chances of the recurrence of breast cancer.

Presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the researchers’ study followed 307 women who had previously faced early-stage breast cancer but who were then in remission. The study split the women into two groups, one of which was given a regular western diet (199 women); the other group was given a Mediterranean diet (108 women).

The women were tracked for three years, and what they found was stunning: all 11 women who had a relapse were eating a Western diet, none of them were on the Mediterranean diet.

Of course, this is a very small sample size. The study must be replicated in order to prove the results conclusive. But if nothing else, it is an undeniably promising first step, providing further evidence that a diet heavy in red meat, refined grains and sugar is not as healthy as a Mediterranean diet.

“The preliminary results of this small study suggest that a Mediterranean diet could lower the risk of breast cancer returning,” said Professor Amie Purushotham, senior clinical adviser for Cancer Research UK. “We'd need much longer follow-up than three years to confirm the diet’s impact.”

But yet further evidence that they are on the right track is a similar study that was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Internal Medicine. This study included 4,000 women, and it produced similar results: those participants who followed the Mediterranean diet and switched to olive oil had a 68 percent reduced risk of breast cancer.

The latest work should be taken as something promising if not certain, another building block in the edifice of evidence showing that diet and lifestyle choices can and do have a powerful impact on everything that happens to our bodies--including cancer. This effect, we’re seeing more and more, is not just limited to direct cause and effect linkages like obesity and type 2 diabetes.

The Mediterranean diet is just one more way we can take control of our health and change long-term outcomes for ourselves.

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Drink Your Coffee, Young Man: A Cup of Joe Isn't Considered Evil Anymore

Drink Your Coffee, Young Man: A Cup of Joe Isn't Considered Evil Anymore

By Kurtis Bright

Despite It’s Bad Rep, Science Says Coffee Has Plenty of Benefits

Those of us hooked on the black bean beverage can take heart: the bad news about coffee seems to finally be ending. Science now tells us that there are actually a ton of great benefits you get from drinking a regular cup of joe.

It’s been decades now that we’ve heard of vague misgivings from the medical community about coffee and the effects it might have on our health: kids were supposed to stay away from it because it might stunt their growth, there were fears it could lead to heart attacks, it was thought to contribute to hypertension.

However the latest studies say none of this is backed up by solid science.

Perhaps our distrust of coffee came from a vestigial Puritanism: that nagging North American sense that anything that makes you feel good must be evil. But these days the evidence continues to accumulate showing that not only is coffee not bad for you, it actually seems to have positive health benefits.

For instance, even if you prefer not to deal with the jitters of caffeinated coffee, the latest tests show that coffee of any sort has tremendous anti-oxidant powers. It can also improve your health in other ways:

• Performing at your peak- Even a small amount of coffee just prior to a race or other physical exercise can boost athletic performance. Cyclists who drank 150 milligrams of coffee an hour before a cycling test performed better than a placebo group, and also better than a group that drank decaf.
• Elevate your mood - For the hardest of hardcore java junkies: a National Institutes of Health study showed that people who downed four cups of coffee per day are 10 percent less likely to be depressed. (Good God, there's no TIME to be depressed when you're on that much caffeine! Too much to do!) Another study out of Harvard demonstrated that as little as two cups per day can significantly reduce the chances of suicide. The hypothesis is that caffeine works as a mild antidepressant, activating neurotransmitters like dopamine. Any coffee lover can attest to these effects--or the lack thereof, if you've ever been deprived of coffee for some reason.
• Reduced risk of heart disease - This is about as distant as we can get from the 1950s-era fears that the mildly stimulating effects of coffee might be damaging to the heart. The journal Circulation published a study that actually shows that three to four cups daily results in a LOWERED risk of heart disease. The authors believe that caffeine improves blood flow and the function of the blood vessels.
• Diabetes risk lowered - A study published in the European Journal of Nutrition demonstrated that for every two cups of regular coffee a person consumes per day, their risk for type 2 diabetes decreases by 10 to 12 percent. The greatest risk mitigation was in people who already had a healthy BMI.
• Improved brain function - Who wouldn’t like a brain that works better? One study followed participants who were 65 years of age and older who had experienced some mild cognitive loss. For those who drank three or more cups of coffee per day, these cognitive changes did not proceed on to Alzheimer’s.

They say 'everything in moderation,' and it is true that there have also been recent studies that show that caffeine-related anxiety is a real thing. So if you get nervous or over-anxious on too much java, for god’s sake cut down a bit. Or switch to half decaf, half regular.

But the mythos that the mild stimulant of caffeine and coffee itself are something physically threatening needs to finally be put to bed.

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Foster Care Sucks, According To Science

Foster Care Sucks, According To Science

By Kurtis Bright

Study Involving 900,000 Children Proves What We All Knew: Foster Care Is Terrible For Kids

People have long suspected that children who end up in the foster care system face long odds when it comes to achieving a rich and fulfilling life--or even simple happiness. There are of course countless movies and stories that use the stock trope of a horrible foster care environment in some fashion or another: evil foster parents, cruel siblings, terrible home conditions--the list is endless.

However this imagery isn’t only confined to the imaginations of Hollywood screen writers. A recent study, perhaps the first of its kind,  confirms what many have long suspected: foster care is terrible.

A team of sociologists from the University of California at Irvine found that not only were mental health problems such as depression and anxiety strikingly common in foster children, so were physical ailments like asthma and obesity.

The survey looked at over 900,000 children and the results were shocking--at least to anyone who is unfamiliar with the foster care system in the US: foster children were seven times more likely to be depressed, six times more prone to behavioral problems, and five times more like to suffer from anxiety than kids from the general population.

It was interesting to note that the foster kids’ scores were clearly differentiated even from general population kids who came from all kinds of family situations: children from traditional families with a mother and father, as well as single-parent and even economically disadvantaged homes all had a leg up on foster care kids.

One more notable statistic found in the study was that kids in foster care were three times more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD. In these times of overdiagnosing and overmedicating, we are starting to become aware of the degree to which ADHD is used as a catch-all easy diagnosis employed to corral--and subsequently drug--children who perhaps don’t fit the mold or have unaddressed underlying emotional problems.

It’s troubling that this is the first time such a scientific study of the plight of foster children has been conducted, as noted by the study’s authors.

“No previous research has considered how the mental and physical well-being of children who have spent time in foster care compares to that of children in the general population,” said Kristin Turney, study co-author.

Aside from the fact that no one has bothered to do a study like this on foster children, what’s perhaps even more disturbing is that the list of problems facing hundreds of thousands of children in the foster care system just goes on and on.

Hearing or vision problems are three times more likely for them. And they are more likely to develop speech problems. And then there’s the asthma and obesity.

“Foster care children are in considerably worse health than other children,” Turney added, suggesting that doctors and other health care professionals take care to note the living arrangements of kids and monitor their health carefully if they are in foster care.

Another idea: maybe it’s time we rethink they way we do foster care altogether, if the result is sick, unhealthy, unhappy children.

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