death

A Study Finds Smoking’s Toll On Your Body and Health Worse Than Previously Thought

Source: nytimes.comAuthor: Denise Grady However bad you thought smoking was, it’s even worse. A new study adds at least five diseases and 60,000 deaths a year to the toll taken by tobacco in the United States. Before the study, smoking was already blamed for nearly half a million deaths a year in this country from 21 diseases, including 12 types of cancer. The new findings are based on health data from nearly a million people who were followed for 10 years. In addition to the well-known hazards of lung cancer, artery disease, heart attacks, chronic lung disease and stroke, the researchers found that smoking was linked to significantly increased risks of infection, kidney disease, intestinal disease caused by inadequate blood flow, and heart and lung ailments not previously attributed to tobacco. Even though people are already barraged with messages about the dangers of smoking, researchers say it is important to let the public know that there is yet more bad news. “The smoking epidemic is still ongoing, and there is a need to evaluate how smoking is hurting us as a society, to support clinicians and policy making in public health,” said Brian D. Carter, an epidemiologist at the American Cancer Society and the first author of an article about the study, which appears in The New England Journal of Medicine. “It’s not a done story.” In an editorial accompanying the article, Dr. Graham A. Colditz, from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, said the new findings showed [...]

Charlotte Parker2015-02-12T11:56:41-07:00February, 2015|Oral Cancer News|

The End-of-Life Paradox

Source: The Huffington Post It seems that whenever Marian visits her dad, he wants to go over certain things: where his will is located, where to find his stocks and bank book, and even where to find the charcoal suit that he wants used when he is laid out in his casket. To Marian, such conversations are morbid, distressing and perplexing. At 82, her father is relatively healthy, independent and maintains an active life. Why does he always seem to focus on death -- especially when she is around? Often adult children experience what I call this end-of-life paradox. Their older parents want to speak about the logistics of death in detail. Or, maybe they want to review end-of-life care plans contained in advance directives, just at the time when it is most difficult emotionally and spiritually for their adult child to listen to such conversations. The end-of-life paradox results from the different places the generations are in their own spiritual development and how each makes sense both of life and death. Older persons recognize that even if they are active and healthy, they are nearing the end point of life. Victor Marshall, a sociologist, used the term "awareness of finitude" to describe the appreciation for the life cycle that older people may exhibit. Death is perceived as closer. This does not mean that they expect to die immediately, but rather that they realize that death is part of life. They are reluctant to plan too far into the future. [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2011-05-09T10:34:40-07:00May, 2011|Oral Cancer News|

Cancer will kill 13.2 million a year by 2030: U.N.

Source: www.medscape.com Author: Reuters Health Information Cancer will kill more than 13.2 million people a year by 2030, almost double the number who died from the disease in 2008, the United Nations' cancer research agency said on Tuesday. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) also said that almost 21.4 million new cases of the disease will be diagnosed annually in 2030. Launching a new database on global incidence of cancer in 2008, the latest year for which figures are available, the IARC said the burden of cancer was shifting from wealthier to poorer nations. "Cancer is neither rare anywhere in the world, nor confined to high-resource countries," it said in a statement. In total, 7.6 million people died of cancer in 2008 and there were an estimated 12.7 million new cases diagnosed. Around 56% of new cancer cases worldwide in 2008 were in developing countries and these regions also accounted for 63% of all cancer deaths, the data showed. IARC director Christopher Wild said the data represented the most accurate available assessment of the global burden of cancer and would help international health policy makers develop their responses. The most commonly diagnosed cancers worldwide in 2008 were lung cancer, with 1.61 million cases, breast cancer, with 1.38 million, and colorectal cancers, with 1.23 million. The most common causes of cancer death were lung (1.38 million), stomach (0.74 million) and liver cancers (0.69 million) The projection for annual death rates of 13.2 million and annual diagnosis of 21.4 million [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2010-06-04T16:30:39-07:00June, 2010|Oral Cancer News|

Uninsured have higher mortality from head and neck cancer than insured

Source: professional.cancerconsultants.com Author: staff Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh have reported that patients with “Medicaid/uninsured and Medicare disability were at increased risk of death after the diagnosis of squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (SCCHN) when compared with patients with private insurance.” The details of this study were published online on November 20, 2009 in Cancer.[1] Unfortunately, underinsured or uninsured patients are reportedly at risk for impaired access to care, delays in medical treatment, and in some cases, substandard medical care. A recent article in the journal Cancer suggests that patients who are uninsured or those who receive Medicaid benefits may be at greater risk for developing postoperative complications and dying after surgery for colorectal cancer. Researchers from the Division of Cancer Prevention and Control and the Kentucky Cancer Registry have previously documented survival differences in patients with and without private health insurance. These findings were reported in the October 13, 2003 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine. The current study evaluated outcomes of 1,231 patients with head and neck cancer treated at the University of Pittsburgh. Patients were divided into those with Medicaid and uninsured status plus those with Medicare disability versus patients with private insurance. The hazard ratio for survival was 1.50 for patients defined as Medicaid/uninsured versus private insurance. The hazard ration for survival of Medicare disability patients was 1.69 compared with patients with private insurance. These increased rates of death were presented and then corrected for competing risk factors such as alcohol [...]

Oral Cancer Foundation News Team - A2009-11-28T07:28:18-07:00November, 2009|Oral Cancer News|