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Posts with tag journal
Posted Sep 5th 2007 7:00AM by Jacki Donaldson
Filed under: Prevention
I'm a fan of journaling and over the years, I've done lots of it. I've mostly journaled my thoughts, feelings, and emotions, though. I'm thinking I need to start journaling my symptoms.
I'm always at a loss when I finally talk to a doctor about symptoms. "How long have you felt like this?" my doctor might say. "Oh, I don't know, maybe a few days," would be a typical response."
Once I've been sick for a few days, the timing and longevity of my symptoms just blur into one another. But they really are important and tracking them in writing can help chart the course for diagnosis, especially when it comes to disease. Take ovarian cancer. Symptoms can include bloating, pressure, even pelvic and abdominal pain, all of which may seem pretty benign if temporary. But jot them down -- be sure to include dates of occurrence -- and you may see that trends begin to surface.
Continue reading Feeling under the weather? Start a symptom journal
Posted Aug 27th 2007 6:00AM by Jacki Donaldson
Filed under: Thought for the Day, Surgery
What do you think is the best way to choose an experienced and quality surgeon? Some researchers think it's by reputation. That's how I got mine. A friend told me who he'd use if his wife or mother developed breast cancer and then more and more people began recommending the same surgeon. It seemed logical I'd use him too. And I'm glad I did.
A study published in the January 20
Journal of Clinical Oncology reveals that women who actively choose their surgeons by reputation are more likely to be treated by experienced surgeons in hospitals with comprehensive cancer programs. Reputation even beat out accepting referrals from other doctors or health plans.
Posted Aug 23rd 2007 10:00AM by Jacki Donaldson
Filed under: Research
As soon as I was diagnosed with breast cancer, I started reading, researching, and investigating. I hunted down every bit of information I could find about the disease that had somehow tunneled through my breast tissue. What I found kept me in the know. I felt informed and in control -- and a bit skittish too.
My doctor once told me to stop reading. It was causing me too much worry, too much unnecessary stress. And while I didn't stop reading altogether, I did cut down on my Internet research. Since
anyone can post
anything on the Internet, it can be an iffy source of information. So iffy that some doctors -- like mine -- have expressed concern.
Doctors may be able to breathe a sigh of relief, though. According to a study published in the April issue of the
International Journal of Medical Informatics, using the internet generally convinces patients that their doctors are right on track with their medical opinions.
Source:
MAMM magazine, May/June 2007
Posted Aug 23rd 2007 7:00AM by Jacki Donaldson
Filed under: Breast Cancer, Research, Daily news
Researchers are reporting that a new vaccine designed to treat breast cancer appears to be safe in women with advanced disease. It showed signs of slowing down tumor growth too.
The
Neuvenge vaccine, made by Dendreon Corporation -- maker of the Provenge prostate cancer vaccine -- targets the aggressive Her-2 positive form of breast cancer, which affects 20 to 30 percent of breast cancer patients. Using immune cells from a cancer patient's own body, Neuvenge is a tailor-made therapy.
Reports about Neuvenge, published in the
Journal of Clinical Oncology, indicate the vaccine did not cause any serious side effects and of the 18 women who participated in the Phase I study, there was a reduction in the size of a tumor in one patient. In three other women, the disease seemed to stabilize for as long as a year.
Continue reading Neuvenge breast cancer vaccine appears safe, effective
Posted Jul 18th 2007 9:00AM by Jacki Donaldson
Filed under: Breast Cancer, Prevention, Diets, Cancer prevention foods
I'm always skeptical about the connection between certain foods and cancer. There's just so much back and forth -- the lycopene found in tomatoes
prevents cancer and then
it doesn't, for example -- that I don't base any life decisions solely on so-called cancer prevention foods. I simply do what is best for my health. If it happens to keep cancer at bay, then I consider it a bonus.
I eat fruits and vegetables because I know they're good for me. It was nice, while it lasted, to think I was also cutting my risk of cancer recurrence but when it comes down to it, fruits and veggies are better than sweets and candies and junky carbohydrates. So they'll remain a staple in my life -- even though a large, seven-year study published in today's
Journal of American Medical Association dashes all hopes that a diet low in fat and jam-packed with fruits and vegetables prevents the return of breast cancer.
Five daily servings of fruits and veggies are recommended in the United States. This is more than most Americans get yet still doesn't make a difference for those trying to minimize their chances of breast cancer recurrence.
Continue reading Want to prevent breast cancer? Fruits and veggies won't do it
Posted Jun 21st 2007 2:20PM by Vicki Blankenship
Filed under: Prevention, All Cancers, Liver Cancer, Research, Cancer prevention foods
Can coffee reduce the risk of liver cancer? According to findings published in the medical journal Gastroenterology it can. "Data on potential beneficial effects of coffee on liver function and liver diseases have accrued over the last two decades," states Drs. Susanna C. Larsson and Alicja Wolk, from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm.
11 studies involving 2,260 liver cancer patients and 239,146 individuals without liver cancer showed that for every 2 cups of coffee per day, the investigators observed a 43 percent reduced risk of liver cancer. Coffee contains large amounts of antioxidants, such as chlorogenic acids that have an inhibitory effect on liver cancer.
Posted May 18th 2007 2:40PM by Martha Edwards
Filed under: All Cancers, Blogs, Cancer Pre-vivors
Thumbing through my teenage journals, I find pages upon pages of rants directed at my parents, my little brother, the popular kids in school and how utterly unfair and tragic it is that I wasn't allowed to watch
Melrose Place. So it makes me feel pretty shallow and petty to read something like
this, about an 18-year-old who writes about how much he wants to survive his battle with cancer in his online journal.
He began writing his innermost thoughts after he was diagnosed with Alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare cancer that affects muscles, tendons and connective tissue. The strain of treatment caused him to all but lose his voice and without a way to get his words out, he started writing them down.
His writing is stunningly articulate and supremely heartbreaking but also full of wisdom and somewhat hopeful, even though his chances of survival are slim. To anyone who takes their life for granted too often, I offer this, in his words:
"The way I see it, we're not entitled to one breath of air. We did nothing to earn it, so whatever we get is bonus. I might be more than a little disappointed with the hand I've been dealt, but this is what it is.... I don't believe you can ask for any more, but if I could ask for something, it would be to be able to go outside into the glorious spring air, feeling healthy and blissfully clueless as to how lucky I was for it, if only just for an hour."I am moved beyond words.
Posted May 17th 2007 9:00AM by Jacki Donaldson
Filed under: Prostate Cancer, Research, Vitamins and nutrients, Daily news
It's been suspected that taking too many vitamins may spike men's risk of dying from prostate cancer. On Wednesday, the biggest study yet to link high-dose multivitamins and prostate damage was published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Government scientists have been looking at the diet and health of almost 300,000 men. One third reported taking a daily multivitamin. Five percent were heavy users, marked by use more than seven times per week. Within five years of the study's launch, 10,241 men had been diagnosed with prostate cancer. About 1,476 had an advanced form of the disease. And 179 died.
It seems heavy multivitamin users were nearly twice as likely to get fatal prostate cancer as men who never took the pills. Yet, oddly, researchers found no link between multivitamin use and early-stage prostate cancer. It could be that vitamins have little effect until a tumor appears -- and then it spurs growth.
More studies are on the horizon for this topic, which is becoming more and more pressing.
Posted May 11th 2007 6:00AM by Jacki Donaldson
Filed under: Skin Cancer, Prevention, Research, Daily news, Thought for the Day
We're not even 11 days into Skin Cancer Awareness Month, and already my awareness about the disease has been raised several times.
Today, I learned that measuring the amount of melanin in a strand of hair can predict a person's risk for melanoma. It's all detailed in the May 15 issue of the
American Journal of Epidemiology. And the study leading to this new conclusion -- that the amount of melanin in hair indicates an individual's skin type -- is quite interesting.
Think about this:
Researchers involved in a large skin cancer trial measured 2,3,5-pyrroletricarboxylic acid (PTCA) levels of 98 subjects with melanoma and 98 subjects without melanoma. They found the subjects with a PTCA concentration below 85ng/mg had more than four times the risk of developing melanoma.
Continue reading Thought for the Day: Cancer risk measured by strand of hair
Posted May 8th 2007 10:00AM by Jacki Donaldson
Filed under: Pancreatic Cancer, Research, Daily news
New research may one one day help in the diagnosis and prognosis of the nation's number four cancer killer of men and number five cancer killer of women. The killer: pancreatic cancer.
Findings from an Ohio State University study show pancreatic cancer cells may leave signs in gene-related molecules called microRNAs.
Published in
The Journal of the American Medical Association, this study examined pancreatic tissue from 65 people with the disease and 42 people with chronic inflammation of the pancreas, called chronic pancreatitis.
Continue reading Molecule pattern may serve as pancreatic cancer marker
Posted May 5th 2007 10:00AM by Jacki Donaldson
Filed under: Breast Cancer, Drug, Research, Daily news
On Tuesday, researchers announced that a three-drug cocktail may help women with HER2-positive breast cancer better than any other drug used on its own. About one quarter of women with breast cancer make up this HER2 category.
Tests on mice revealed using the three drugs along with breast cancer drug tamoxifen helped wipe out tumors altogether. And the tumors did not come back. This is the first time mice were cured of a very aggressive human breast tumor. Incidentally, when a single drug was used, tumors returned within several weeks.
The three wonder drugs used in this study -- all are monoclonal antibodies that precisely target certain aspects of tumors -- are the experimental drug pertuzumab; trastuzumab, also known as Herceptin; and gefitinib, or Iressa.
Published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, this study supports the notion that HER2-positive tumors eventually become resistant to one drug and attacking them on several fronts seems to work better.
Posted May 1st 2007 9:00AM by Jacki Donaldson
Filed under: Breast Cancer, Prevention, Research, Daily news, Thought for the Day
It only takes two bottles of wine consumed over the course of one weekend to more than double the risk of breast cancer, according to a Danish study of 17,647 women which breaks down like this: women who drank 22-27 drinks per week had twice the risk for the disease compared to those who drank only one to three drinks.
Think about this:
More than a quarter of participants, age 44 and older, drank more than the recommended 14 drinks per week. One in 10 were binge drinkers -- they had more than four drinks per day. Thirteen percent were weekend bingers -- they had more than 10 drinks between Friday and Sunday. A drink is considered one bottle of beer, wine, or spirit. In Denmark, each unit translate into 12g of alcohol.
Published in the European Journal of Public Health, this study found breast cancer risk is greatest when drinks are consumed in a short period of time. This is because the concentration of alcohol in the blood peaks, making it more harmful to the body.
"What our study suggests is that the total amount of alcohol consumed has a detrimental effect on the risk of breast cancer, but also the drinking pattern seems to have an impact," says lead researcher Dr. Lina Morch.
The bottom line: to reduce the risk of breast cancer, women must limit the amount of alcohol they drink.Posted Apr 26th 2007 10:00AM by Jacki Donaldson
Filed under: Breast Cancer, Drug, Research, Products, Daily news
Back in the news: the link between hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and breast cancer. This time, the connection is seemingly more conclusive than before, when some argued that many factors influence the risk of breast cancer, that HRT could not do the job all on its own.
Now, two separate studies offer up powerful evidence that HRT is linked to tumor growth. Case in point: when use of the therapy drops, so do incidences of breast cancer.
New figures in the
New England Journal of Medicine suggest there have been 16,000 fewer cases of breast cancer nationwide since mid-2002, when women stopped taking their hormone pills following the federal Women's Health Initiative announcement connecting the therapy with increased risk of breast cancer, stroke, and heart attack.
Many did not want to believe HRT was to blame for so many breast cancer diagnoses. And maybe it's not the actual cause of the disease, but the fuel for tumors trying to grow.
These new findings do not appear to be a statistical fluke, says one doctor. Numbers have been computed and re-computed, and the message is clear: HRT is strongly implicated as the guilty party. There is just no other culprit, says a statistician at the National Cancer Institute.
Wyeth, maker of Premarin and Prempro -- two forms of hormone therapy -- continues to caution women against drawing any conclusions about HRT and breast cancer. There still may be broader explanation for the decline in cases, say their spokespeople.
Posted Apr 24th 2007 10:00AM by Jacki Donaldson
Filed under: Breast Cancer, Research, Daily news
A new study of mice implanted with human breast cancer cells shows the spread of the disease to the lungs -- a common metastasis site -- is caused by the abnormal activation of four specific genes working together.
The study, published in the journal
Nature, indicates that shutting off the genes one by one can slow the growth and spread of this cancer. But turning off all four at one time almost completely stops the process. In mice anyway.
These genes are no strangers to researchers who have known for some time about their existence and functions. They just know more about them now.
The four genes work together at every step of the metastatic process to allow a breast tumor to develop blood vessels, let tumor cells enter the vessel walls and lungs, and permit them to pass out of the lung vessels and resume growth. New analysis shows that blocking these genes significantly reduces the tangle of blood vessels, making it harder for cancer cells to escape.
Researchers, who say the four genes are among 18 they associate with breast cancer metastasis, report that one implication of this study is clear: combined use of drug therapy may be more effective at inhibiting the activity of multiple gene targets.
Posted Apr 23rd 2007 2:12PM by Vicki Blankenship
Filed under: Alternative Therapies, All Cancers, Research, Environment
The idea of music as a healing influence which could affect health and behavior is at least as old as the writings of Aristotle and Plato. The American Music Therapy Association (AMTA) promotes a vast amount of research exploring the benefits of music as therapy through publication of the Journal of Music Therapy, Music Therapy Perspectives and other sources. A substantial body of literature exists to support the effectiveness of music therapy.
You don't have to have a particular music ability to benefit from music therapy. No particular style of music is more therapeutic than any other. You just need to enjoy your experience. Music will lower stress and help you relax. It has been proven that it reduces acute and chronic pain. Even during child birth. It can elevate moods to counteract depression and it can counteract apprehension or fear.
So today just sit back and listen to some music, do some drumming or percussion rhythms, hum some tunes, blow on a flute or harmonica even if you don't know any particular songs. Be creative. Take advantage of the sunshine and beautiful weather and just step outside and listen to the birds, the wind, and the rhythm of mother nature. The stand by of anything else is to plug in a favorite CD and close your eyes and just let it sink in.
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