40 Percent of Cancers Are Preventable
Thursday, September 2nd, 2010About 40 percent of cancers could be prevented if people stopped smoking and overeating, limited their alcohol, exercised regularly and got vaccines targeting cancer-causing infections, experts say.
To mark World Cancer day on Thursday, officials at the International Union Against Cancer released a report focused on steps that governments and the public can take to avoid the disease.
According to the World Health Organization, cancer is responsible for one out of every eight deaths worldwide — more than AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined. WHO warned that without major changes, global cancer deaths will jump from about 7.6 million this year to 17 million by 2030.
In the report from the International Union Against Cancer, experts said about 21 percent of all cancers are due to infections like the human papillomavirus, or HPV, which causes cervical cancer, and hepatitis infections that cause stomach and liver cancer.
While the vaccines to prevent these cancers are widely available in western countries, they are almost nonexistent in the developing world. Nearly 80 percent of the world’s cervical cancer deaths are in poor countries, according to the agency.
In Western nations, experts said many of the top cancers like those in the lungs, breasts and colon might be avoided if people changed their lifestyle habits.
Coffee May Stop Liver Disease
Thursday, October 22nd, 2009Coffee May Stop Liver Disease
Researchers have found another good reason to go to the local espresso bar: Several cups of coffee a day could halt the progression of liver disease, a study showed Wednesday.
Sufferers of chronic hepatitis C and advanced liver disease who drank three or more cups of coffee per day slashed their risk of the disease progressing by 53 percent compared to patients who drank no coffee, according to the study, led by
For the study, 766 participants enrolled in the Hepatitis C Antiviral Long-Term Treatment against Cirrhosis (HALT-C) trial all of whom had hepatitis C which had not responded to treatment with anti-viral drugs were asked to report how many cups of coffee they drank every day.
The patients were seen every three months during the 3.8-year study, and liver biopsies were taken periodically to determine the progression of liver disease.
“We observed an inverse association between coffee intake and liver disease progression,” meaning patients who drank three or more cups of java were less likely to see their liver disease worsen than non-drinkers, wrote the authors of the study, which will be published in the November issue of Hepatology.
The researchers put forward several ways in which coffee intake might protect against liver disease, including reducing the risk of Type 2 diabetes, which has been associated with liver illness; or by reducing inflammation, which is thought to cause fibrosis and cirrhosis of the liver.
Even caffeine, the chemical that gives a cup of coffee its oomph, came under the spotlight, having been found in previous studies to inhibit liver cancer in rats.
But drinking black or green tea, which also contain caffeine, had little impact on the progression of liver disease, although there were few tea drinkers in the study.
According to the World Health Organization, 3 million to 4 million people contract hepatitis C each year.
Seventy percent of cases become chronic and can cause cirrhosis or liver cancer.