REPORTING POINT 08/12
HEALTH NEWS
“Live healthy...Live well”
Dedicated
to providing pertinent information on health, fitness, and nutrition to foster
a culture of wellness among Southwest Airlines flight crews and their families.
by Larry Kline
email:
livehealthy-livewell@cox.net
Cancer Prevention In Your 40S - As we age, our metabolism decreases,
especially as we reach age 40. Making
healthy food choices and staying active every day can help keep off unwanted
pounds that may raise the risk of cancer. University
of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, 11/11.
Depression And Vitamin D - because depression affects one in 10 adults in the US and low
levels of Vitamin D have been linked to depression, researchers suggest that
screening for vitamin D levels in depressed patients and perhaps screening for
depression in people with low vitamin D levels might be useful. Vitamin D
levels are now commonly tested during routine physical exams, and they are
accepted as risk factors for a number of other medical problems such as
autoimmune diseases, heart and vascular disease, infectious diseases,
osteoporosis, obesity, diabetes, certain cancers, and neurological disorders
such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, multiple sclerosis, and general
cognitive decline. Mayo
Clinic Proceedings, 01/12.
PSA TESTING DEBATE – in 2011, 30 million men in America had a PSA
test, a routine screening for prostate cancer for men over 50. The test is considered the most effective way
to detect the disease, which kills 34,000 men each year. Last fall the U.S. Preventive Services Task
Force kicked off one of medicine’s most contentious debates when it drafted a
recommendation that healthy men should no longer get the test.
PSA, or prostate-specific antigen,
is a protein produced by the prostate gland that at high levels may - but does
not always – indicate the presence of cancer.
Since an infection or enlarged prostate can cause high PSA levels, an
elevated reading does not always reflect cancer. Many men with a reported high level of PSA
will opt for a biopsy, a procedure in which a needle removes small samples of
the gland to test for cancerous cells. The needle-biopsy can cause pain,
bleeding, and an increased risk of antibiotic-resistant infection. If a biopsy finds cancer, nearly 90 percent
of men will undergo radiation, surgery, or androgen deprivation therapy, all of
which can lead to impotence and/or incontinence. A single PSA test cannot distinguish between
the common type of prostate cancer, which grows so slowly that it is rarely
fatal, and the aggressive form, which can kill men within five years. The Task Force report essentially stated that
the treatments often prompted by PSA screening may be more harmful than the
disease itself.
The Task Force’s recommendation
against PSA testing has ignited a fiery debate between those who support the
panel’s conclusion and the scores of patients and doctors who credit the test
with saving lives. Many doctors agree
that though the data may not always be analyzed correctly, a PSA test is still
the best way to find the disease before it becomes problematic. (Most types of
prostate cancer are 100 percent treatable when detected early.)
Prostate cancer is the second-most
fatal cancer in men. Deaths from the
disease have fallen by a third since 1992, a statistic credited to early cancer
detection through screening. Before the
Task Force’s recommendation, most medical organizations recommended that men
receive their first PSA test at 50 and then get annual screenings each
subsequent year.
One of the main problems with PSA
screening is that a high number does not always mean that a man has cancer,
while a low one does not always indicate that he is cancer-free. The American Cancer Society reports that
nearly 75 percent of men who receive
a borderline PSA test end up with a negative biopsy. The test’s potential for false positives is
well-known as men may receive a high PSA number with a prostate infection or an
enlarged prostate. The numbers produced
on the PSA test just are not conclusive.
Once believed that PSA readings below 4 nanograms per milliliter were
normal; a recent study now shows that cancer can be present at lower levels
causing the National Cancer Institute to state that there is no normal PSA
number.
When Professor Richard Ablin
discovered prostate-specific antigen in 1970, he intended it as a tool to find cancer
in a patient after a malignant prostate was removed. He did not expect that it would be used to detect
the disease in men with no history of cancer.
Physicians adopted the PSA test and began including it in patients’
routine blood work in lieu of the traditional detection practice of manual
rectal exams (the DRE). Although still
performed, they usually detect only cancer large enough to be considered
advanced. Since the FDA approved the PSA
test in 1986, prostate cancer has become the second most commonly detected
cancer in men, but Ablin contends the statistic is misleading. Most diagnoses occur after age 70, and
because it takes a period of years to die from untreated types of slow-growing
prostate cancer, chances are that the majority of afflicted older men will die
from another ailment.
With so much conflicting advice,
what should you do? Some urologists have
come up with a compromise strategy, recommending that men have a baseline PSA
test in their 40s. If their levels are
low, they would not be screened anymore, while men with elevated levels should
continue to be screened.
A patient diagnosed with
slow-growing prostate cancer should opt for a new type of care called active
surveillance, for which he would have annual biopsies. If a biopsy shows that the cancer is becoming
more aggressive, then he can undergo surgery or radiation. But there are drawbacks to this
approach. The more biopsies a man gets,
the higher his risk of erectile dysfunction.
While the current debate over PSA
testing is intense, experts hope that a new form of screening will make the
controversy moot in five to ten years.
At the Prostate Cancer Foundation’s 2011 scientific retreat, 17
different organizations presented new bio-technologies that could replace PSA
testing. Expecting to hit the market
within two years, genetic blood tests that can distinguish between aggressive
and nonaggressive cancers. A new genetic urine test currently used in
conjunction with PSA screening may prove to be very effective. Men’s Journal 01/12.
7 Bad Habits that Steal Your Sleep:
- Avoid caffeine after lunch. Caffeine lingers in your system
for up to 12 hours, so that after-lunch coffee can leave you wide-eyed at
bedtime. Switch to decaf after midmorning, and try chamomile tea or warm milk
in the evening. Both will help you get your sleep.
- Downsize those big dinners. Large dinners take hours to
digest, making it hard to fall asleep. Make lunch your main meal of the
day, and limit dinner to fewer than 500 calories. Skip spicy foods and MSG
for less heartburn, indigestion, and too-vivid dreams.
- Work out early. Regular workouts can help you sleep better, but
exercising within 3 to 4 hours of bedtime can actually mess with sleep.
Shoot for morning, afternoon, or early evening workouts.
- Skip the nightcap. Booze pulls a bait-and-switch
when it comes to sleep. It makes you drowsy so you nod off, then it makes
you wakeful and restless throughout the night. Skip alcohol within 2 hours
of bedtime.
- Turn off the TV. Glowing screens from electronics, such as TV,
computers, and even your e-reader, signal your brain to stay alert. Power
down an hour before bed.
- Kick the habit. Like caffeine and alcohol, nicotine is a stimulant.
- Don't work in bed. The stress of going over
spreadsheets and other work-related tasks makes it hard to fall asleep. If
you work on your laptop, you're getting a double-whammy of stimulation
because you're in bed and in front of a glowing screen. Real Age, 1/23/12.
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