Battling Cancer

This is a bit of old news. However, I think this is worth posting, if only to inform people on films about cancer that they should see. And I am not referring only to “The Bucket List“  which starred Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman.

There is actually a film festival focusing solely on documentaries about cancer - the first one ever! And it was held last August 2008 with an astonishingly large number of entries - over 250 from 40 different countries. Reel Lives - the Cancer Chronicles Film Festival took place during the World Cancer Congress in Geneva last summer. The film festival was organized by the International Union Against Cancer (UICC), the leading international non-governmental organization dedicated exclusively to global cancer control.

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Lingerie is probably on almost every woman’s Christmas wish list. Next to jewellery, it’s a popular (and affordable) gift from men to the women they love. The brassiere or short for bra is especially an important part of a woman’s lingerie collection. In recent years, there have been rumors floating around about health risks associated with bras. Let’s see the latest updates.

Chemicals

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The direct link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer is well-established. But what about other types of cancer?

Nicotine is one of the major components of tobacco and can be found in high concentrations in the blood and the urine of cigarette smokers. Although not considered a full-blown carcinogen that promotes tumor development, it is however suspected to have a growth-enhancing effect on existing cancer cells. This post looks at recent research on the link between nicotine and different types of cancer.

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This week, cancer experts gathered in National Harbor, Maryland for the Seventh Annual International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research of the American Association for Cancer Research (ACCR). The meeting runs from November 16 to 19.

In this news round up post, I’m featuring presentations on cancer prevention and lifestyle risk factors from the conference. More →

Bacteria develop resistance to antibiotics. And tumor cells develop resistance to chemotherapeutic drugs. This resistance to chemotherapy is the leading cause of death in cancer patients.

There’s some good news though. Researchers at the University of California at Riverside may just have found the way to beat chemotherapy resistance in a very simple way - by sticking to a healthy diet!

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Those of us who suffer from them know the symptoms - runny eyes and nose, coughing, and itching. I am talking about allergies. Some of us are allergic to food, some to particles in the air such as dust and pollen, some to certain chemicals.

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News from the lab side

Grow your own prostate
American researchers were able to create a whole prostate organ from stem cells. This has been demonstrated in the lab using mouse stem cells. “The ability to recreate this organ should help researchers better understand how prostate cancer starts and possibly even help them to grow replacement prostate tissue in the laboratory.” The prostate is not the first to be generated this way. Scientists have already successfully created blood, skin, as well as the mammary gland from single mouse stem cells. More →

The prognosis for cervical cancer has greatly improved over the years. However, it comes with a heavy price - the loss of the uterus via hysterectomy.

Hysterectomy is a surgical procedure of removing uterus of a woman as a consequence of cancer. About 600,000 hysterectomies are performed in the US each year. With hysterectomy comes the consequence that a woman can longer bear an offspring in her body for nine months. However, with the recent developments in reproduction medicine, a woman without a uterus can still have a “genetic offspring” from her own eggs which can be fertilized in vitro and borne by a surrogate mother.

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Last month, October, was the pink month, dedicated to Breast Cancer Awareness. All over the world, pink is the color used to remind us of cancer, those who are suffering and have suffered.

However, the color pink will turn deadly with the new edition of Virginia Slims scheduled to be released early next year. And a slap in the face of anti-cancer advocacy groups. In this joint statement by the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Heart Association, American Lung Association, American Medical Association and Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, the mother company of Virginia Slims, Philip Morris is criticized for showing

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