Guidelines needed for optimal vitamin D supplementation in cancer patients

Source: www.medscape.com Author: Roxanne Nelson A growing amount of research suggests that vitamin D may be beneficial to cancer patients. In addition, laboratory, ecologic, and epidemiologic studies have shown some evidence that higher levels of vitamin D might lower the risk for colon, breast, endometrial, and prostate cancers. But although the "evidence is intriguing," an editorial published online April 6 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology speculates about how oncologists should disseminate this information in clinical practice. Editorialist Pamela J. Goodwin, MD, from the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute, Mount Sinai Hospital and Princess Margaret Hospital, in Toronto, Ontario, offers some suggestions to oncologists who are being asked to advise their patients about whether they should take vitamin D supplements. She emphasizes that her suggestions are of an interim nature. "As results of ongoing and planned research become available, many unanswered questions will be resolved, and more definitive recommendations that can be embraced by oncologists will be forthcoming," she notes in her editorial. Low Levels Noted in Breast Cancer Patients Interest in vitamin D has risen exponentially, Dr. Goodwin explains. The total number of published studies relating to vitamin D more than doubled from 1990 to November 2008, articles relating to cancer and vitamin D nearly tripled, and those specifically relating to breast cancer and vitamin D increased almost 6-fold. The editorial was prompted by a report, published in the same issue of the Journal, that, at baseline, 74% of premenopausal women with breast cancer who received adjuvant chemotherapy and participated [...]

2009-04-17T11:53:20-07:00April, 2009|Oral Cancer News|
Read More

Study links drinking hot tea to throat cancer

Source: www.scoop.co.nz Author: Megan Anderson Hot tea drinkers are being warned to slow down and cool down, after a recent study has linked drinking hot liquids to an increased risk of throat cancer. Oesophageal cancers kill more than 500,000 people per year. The Iranian study, published in the British Medical Journal, found that drinkers of hot tea (65-69 degrees celsius) and very hot tea (over 70 degrees celsius) were more at risk of developing oesophageal cancer. Risk of cancer was also increased with fast, hot tea drinkers, especially those who drank their tea under four minutes. Drinking tea in under two minutes increased the risk of cancer five-fold. The study, begun in the 1970s, investigated the Golestan province of Iran, in which cases of oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma cancer (OSCC), the most common form of throat cancer, were extremely high. While tobacco and alcohol are known causes of OSCC and other oesophageal cancers, in the Golestan province tobacco consumption and drinking rates were low. While it is common in western countries for OSCC to occur more frequently in men than women, this pattern was absent in the province, where rates of cancer were similar for both sexes. These anomalies were detected also in Linxian, China. Earlier studies of OSCC in Golestan had pointed to the common and widespread practice of drinking extremely hot tea as a possible cause. Drinking hot tea, without milk, is the norm throughout Iran and the Middle East. In the Golestan region it is common for [...]

2009-04-05T11:07:08-07:00April, 2009|Oral Cancer News|
Read More

More evidence links alcohol, cancer in women

Source: apnews.myway.com Author: staff A study of nearly 1.3 million British women offers yet more evidence that moderate alcohol consumption increases the risk of a handful of cancers. British researchers surveyed middle-aged women at breast cancer screening clinics about their drinking habits, and tracked their health for seven years. A quarter of the women reported no alcohol use. Nearly all the rest reported fewer than three drinks a day; the average was one drink a day. Researchers compared the lightest drinkers - two or fewer drinks a week - with people who drank more. Each extra drink per day increased the risk of breast, rectal and liver cancer, University of Oxford researchers reported Tuesday in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. The type of alcohol - wine, beer or liquor - didn't matter. That supports earlier research, but the new wrinkle: Alcohol consumption was linked to esophageal and oral cancers only when smokers drank. Also, moderate drinkers actually had a lower risk of thyroid cancer, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and renal cell cancer. For an individual woman, the overall alcohol risk is small. In developed countries, about 118 of every 1,000 women develop any of these cancers, and each extra daily drink added 11 breast cancers and four of the other types to that rate, the study found. But population-wide, 13 percent of those cancers in Britain may be attributable to alcohol, the researchers concluded. Moderate alcohol use has long been thought to be heart-healthy, something the new research doesn't address [...]

2009-02-24T23:14:27-07:00February, 2009|Oral Cancer News|
Read More

Row erupts over oral cancer paper authorship

Source: www.theaustralian.news.com.au Author: Guy Healy An international expert on oral cancer withdrew from joint authorship of a paper that drew a link between the disease and the Listerine mouthwash made by his university laboratory's corporate sponsors, it has been claimed. The research paper's co-authors say Newell Johnson, whose Griffith University laboratory was funded by pharmaceutical firm Pfizer, Listerine's recent owner, decided not to put his name to the research paper, which made headlines across the world with its finding that alcohol-based mouthwashes were implicated in oral cancer. Professor Johnson says he was never an author. The claim about his involvement and withdrawal, made by Australian co-authors Michael McCullough of the University of Melbourne and Camile Farah of the University of Queensland, adds a new dimension to the controversy ignited by the paper, published in the Australian Dental Journal last December. In January UQ's head of dentistry Laurence Walsh came to the defence of mouthwashes, arguing they might prevent oral cancer, but later conceded that Listerine's present owner, Johnson & Johnson, had sponsored some of his workshops. The paper found the risk of oral cancer was increased by prolonged use of alcohol-based mouthwashes and highlighted six Listerine products. Professor McCullough said the research paper or literature review sprang from a 2007 meeting of the three researchers at a conference in Amsterdam. "After a session on the role of alcohol in oral cancer, we ended up deciding that we would formally write this article and review it between the three of us," [...]

2009-02-19T05:17:09-07:00February, 2009|Oral Cancer News|
Read More

Coffee may protect against oral cancers

Source: www.reuters.com Author: Megan Rauscher New research indicates that drinking coffee lowers the risk of developing cancer of the oral cavity or throat, at least in the general population of Japan. The consumption of coffee in Japan is relatively high, as is the rate of cancer of the esophagus in men. To look into any protective effect of coffee drinking, Dr. Toru Naganuma of Tohoku University, Sendai, and colleagues, analyzed data from the population-based Miyagi Cohort Study in Japan. The study included information about diet, including coffee consumption. Among more than 38,000 study participants aged 40 to 64 years with no prior history of cancer, 157 cases of cancer of the mouth, pharynx and esophagus occurred during 13 years of follow up. Compared with people who did not drink coffee, those who drank one or more cups per day had half the risk of developing these cancers, Naganuma's group reports in the American Journal of Epidemiology. They note that the reduction in risk included people who are at high risk for these cancers, namely, those who were current drinkers and/or smokers at the start of the study. "We had not expected that we could observe such a substantial inverse association with coffee consumption and the risk of these cancers," Naganuma commented to Reuters Health, "and the inverse association in high-risk groups for these cancers as well." The researchers conclude in their article, "Although cessation of alcohol consumption and cigarette smoking is currently the best known way to help reduce the [...]

2009-01-07T07:13:14-07:00January, 2009|Oral Cancer News|
Read More

Oral cancer patients could be diagnosed earlier, study suggests

Source: www.sciencedaily.com Author: staff Worldwide, more than 500,000 new cases of cancer of the mouth are diagnosed each year. The majority of these cancers are found too late, causing many people to die within five years of finding out they have cancer. There exists much information addressing issues related to the patient who has undergone surgery or chemotherapy but little information related to early diagnosis and referral. A new article in the Journal of Prosthodontics describes the epidemiology of oral cancer and the diagnostic tools currently available to prosthodontists to ensure that their patients are diagnosed at the earliest possible time. Although the need for prosthodontics was expected to decline with the promotion of preventive measures, it is actually increasing with the aging population. The highest risk of developing oral cancer is in adults over 40 who use both tobacco and alcohol. However, these cancers can develop in anyone, so annual prosthodontist visits are increasingly important. The majority of oral, head and neck cancer are initially diagnosed in a late stage, which has a five year prognosis of less than 50 percent. If these tumors are found in their earliest stage, the five year prognosis is 95 percent. All dentists, including prosthodontists, are specifically trained to detect these tumors in an early stage. Only 28 percent of patients reported ever having had an oral cancer examination. Patients who have lost their teeth must be specifically counseled about returning for prescribed, regular recall examinations. They may wrongly think that, as they [...]

2008-12-11T09:46:03-07:00December, 2008|Oral Cancer News|
Read More

Smoking and drinking linked to throat and stomach cancer

Source: uk.reuters.com Author: Michael Kahn Drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes appear to increase the risk of certain common throat and stomach cancers, Dutch researchers reported on Monday. The findings, presented at an American Association for Cancer Research meeting in Washington, underline other health recommendations for people to follow a healthy lifestyle and drink and smoke only in moderation. "It appeared that current smokers have the highest risks, and former smokers have an intermediate risk compared with never smokers," Jessie Steevens, an epidemiologist at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, said in a statement. The incidence of stomach cancer has fallen dramatically in the United States and western Europe over the past 60 years but the disease remains a serious problem in much of the rest of the world, where it is a leading cause of cancer death, according to the Mayo Clinic. Oesophageal, or throat, cancer is a form of cancer that starts in the inner layer of the oesophagus, the 10-inch-long tube that connects the throat to the stomach. The researchers followed more than 120,000 Dutch residents for more than two decades to investigate risk factors for oesophageal adenocarcinoma and gastric cardia adenocarcinoma -- a type of stomach cancer -- as well as oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma, which resembles head and neck cancer. Other studies have linked oesophageal cancer in general to drinking and smoking, but Steevens and colleagues wanted to refine the risk of the different types of the tumours. They found that for oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma -- [...]

2008-11-19T18:43:46-07:00November, 2008|Oral Cancer News|
Read More
© - The Oral Cancer Foundation - Head & Neck Cancer IRS 501(c)3 Charity - 3419 Via Lido #205, Newport Beach, CA 92663 | Disclaimer / Privacy Policy
Go to Top