Certain foods really can reduce your risk of cancer, American Cancer Society indicates

Many cancers potentially can be prevented by changing your diet, according to the American Cancer Society. 

A story by Nikki Campo in editions of The New York Times early this week indicates that "scientists have a good idea of what foods you should avoid to reduce your risk of cancer, such as red and processed meats, 'fast' or processed foods, alcohol, and sugary drinks."

Johanna Lampe

However, the piece says, "knowing what to at isn't always straightforward," according to Johanna Lampe, a cancer prevention researcher at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle.

One problem, Lampe says, is that many nutrition studies rely on people to accurately remember what they consumed up to a year ago. Another is that it's tricky to understand how single foods may influence your health when they're part of a larger diet.

The Times story also quotes Nigel Brockton, vice president of research at the American Institute for Cancer Research in Washington, D.C., as saying that although no single food can prevent cancer on its own, following a healthy diet does seem to reduce the risk.

Campo's article lists foods "that experts say are worth adding to your plate." They include broccoli "and its cruciferous cousins" — such as brussels spouts, cauliflower, and cabbage; tomatoes and tomato-based products; black and kidney beans as well as other types of legumes such as chickpeas, dry peas, and lentils; nuts, especially walnuts; strawberries, blueberries, cranberries, pomegranates, and black raspberries; and garlic.

More information on disease prevention ideas can be found in Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer, a VitalityPress book that I, Woody Weingarten, aimed at male caregivers.

Mix of cancer, Covid put people of color at great risk of complications, hospitalizations, death

Docs say people in low-income communities are subject to advanced cancers because of pandemic-caused delays in diagnosis and treatment.

According to a recent story in The Washington Post by Laurie McGinley,  the combination of Covid and cancer is a menacing mix for those people of color.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention worries, the article states, expect the dangerous combo to worsen "with the pandemic grinding on," with stats showing African Americans and Hispanics being "about twice as likely as White people to die of Covid" and Black cancer patients being "particularly high risk for complications and hospitalizations."

Black people, the Post story says, "had lower survival rates for many cancers compared with White people even before pandemic."

Dr. Kashyap Patel

McGinley's piece quotes oncologist Kashyap Patel, chief executive of Carolina Blood and Cancer Care Associates, as saying that "Covid put cancer and health-care disparities on steroids. I have never seen this many people presenting at Stage 3 and 4," the worst possible stages.

 Jennifer S. Haas, a primary care doc at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, was also quoted: "People have been trying to ignore symptoms for a year because they didn't want to come in."

The result? An unusually high number of advanced stomach cancers and esophageal malignancies "over the past several months."

Why are people of color so susceptible? Because of, the story notes, "higher rates of underlying conditions such as diabetes or hypertension; a lack of health insurance or access to a primary-care physician; and jobs that can cause health problems."

Says Haas, it's a particularly bad situation "if you work in an environment without air purification or filtration."  

According to McGinley's story, doctors say "many of those most acutely affected are women, whose family responsibilities and financial stress make it difficult to focus on their own health."

Debra Patt, executive vice president of Texas Oncology and a breast cancer specialist in Austin, elaborates in the article: "They have sacrificed themselves to deal with the needs of the family: "Are my children getting schooling, how do I take care of the older adults in my life, how do I manage everything?"

Long after the pandemic subsides, she worries, some patients will be struggling with advanced cancer. "The effects of this will go on for years," she's quoted as saying.

Perhaps the lesson from the pandemic is that "maybe we shouldn't expect everyone to come to doctors' offices," the story again quotes Haas, who reportedly says that more at-home testing would increase screening.

More information about the problems medical delays can cause may be found in "Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer," a VitalityPress book that I, Woody Weingarten, aimed at male caregivers. 

Can you beat the odds of contracting disease?

Cancer prevention can be bettered by narrowing screenings, doing a Mediterranean diet, tracking genes

Smarter prevention is helping more Americans beat the odds of getting cancer.

That's the gist of a story by Marygrace Taylor in a Parade magazine some time ago — a story that's subdivided into categories that detail smarter screening, knowing your genes, eating Mediterranean, favorably using social media and eliminating from your lifestyle such an impediment to good health as tobacco.

Under the headline "The People vs. Cancer," the article notes that the overall cancer death rate is continuing to drop.

Referring to lung cancer, the piece contends there's growing evidence that "across-the-board testing might not be beneficial." Instead, it suggests, screening for those most at risk might be best.

Parade then quotes Dr. Peter Mazzone, Cleveland Clinic pulmonologist, to the effect that "the goal is to find ways — other than age and smoking history, to identify high-risk patients."

Mazzone had co-authored lung cancer screening guidelines with the American College of Chest Physicians for low-dose chest CT scans.

By specifically utilizing tests such as breath or blood tests that look for certain biomarkers, experts can minimize the harm done to patients (such as unnecessary biopsies), Taylor writes.

Genetic testing, on the other hand, can be enhanced by those who track their family's health history.

The story cites Dr. Charis Eng, director of the Center for Personalized Genetic Healthcare and chair of the Cleveland Clinic's Genomic Medicine Institute, who maintains that tracing a family tree should include determining who had what:

"The most important things are what's the diagnosis, age when diagnosed, family history and familial clustering of a disease."

It's also important to know, she told Parade, how a given disease presented itself. Such as "if a family member has been diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer, we think there might be BRCA1 or BRCA2 [mutated gene] in the family."

Eating well, Taylor also indicates, can be a big preventive.

That may mean loading up "on whole grains, fruits and vegetables, nut and beans, olive oil and lean protein like fish." The writer, alluding to a Current Nutrition Reports review, notes that "a Mediterranean-style eating plan has been shown to protect against several types of cancer, including colon, prostate, stomach, esophageal, liver and endometrial cancers."

That diet in postmenopausal women, she adds, also was shown in a Dutch study to "slash the risk for certain breast cancers by up to 40 percent."

The story also quotes Jennifer McDaniel, a registered dietitian and co-author of Prevention Mediterranean Table, as saying that the cancer-fighting effect might also be due to what's not on the diet — foods like processed grains, white bread and rice, red meat and full-fat dairy products.

Why? McDaniel says that eating that way may support a healthy body weight and lower inflammation levels, which in turn help prevent some cancers.

Want to learn about other possible ways to avoid disease? Check out "Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer," a VitalityPress book that I, Woody Weingarten, aimed at male caregivers.

Problems can pop up years after treatments

Warning: Breast cancer therapy such as chemo, radiation can hike risk of heart disease

Can lifesaving breast-cancer treatments raise your chances of dying from a heart disease?

Possibly.

A recent story in The Washington Post by Laurie McKinley cites an American Heart Association warning to women with breast cancer that "lifesaving therapies like chemotherapy and radiation can cause heart failure and other serious cardiac problems, sometimes years after treatment."

The AHA suggests, however, that rather than avoid the treatments patients should "take steps to prevent or minimize the cardiac risks" by exercising regularly and sticking to a healthy diet.

According to McKinley's dispatch, the caution, published in the journal Circulation, includes the conclusion that "breast cancer survivors who are 65 and older and were treated for their cancer are more likely to die of cardiovascular problems than breast cancer."

Nearly "48 million women in the United States have some kind of heart disease, compared to 3.3 million women with breast cancer," the Post piece asserts, adding that the AHA "said an unprecedented number of women are surviving the disease yet face a risk of developing heart problems, in part because of their cancer treatments."

Dr. Laxmi Mehta

Dr. Laxmi Mehta, who led the writing of the report and is a cardiologist at Ohio State University, is quoted as saying that "it's important for people to know that the heart needs to be taken care of before, during and after treatment."

And Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, is paraphrased as noting "it isn't unusual for a breast-cancer patient who underwent chemo years earlier to wake up one day with swollen ankles and shortness of breath, symptoms of congestive heart failure," but when such a patient ends up hospitalized, "doctors tend to look for signs of a heart attack or pulmonary embolism while overlooking breast cancer treatment as a possible culprit."

That's a problem, he indicates, "because heart failure caused by a chemo drug like doxorubicin [which once was called adriamycin] is treated differently than heart failure from a heart attack."

The report says some studies have shown that "dexrazoxane can reduce the risk of heart damage in patients getting high doses of doxorubicin for advanced breast cancer" and that some heart damage, including the kind cased by Herceptin, can sometimes be reversed.

The Post article also reveals that some doctors worry that the AHA report might discourage women with high-risk cancer — especially those with HER2-positve and triple negative breast cancer — from getting aggressive treatment.   

More details about the risks of radiation and chemotherapy can be found in "Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer," a VitalityPress book I, Woody Weingarten, aimed at caregivers.

Study's data splits docs over one-dose treatment

Risk of recurrence is debated because of less costly radiation therapy that's easier to take

Should a breast cancer patient opt for radiation that costs less and is more convenient when it might double or triple the small risk of recurrence?

That's what's currently being debated in the medical community regarding those in the early stages of the disease.

According to a story last week in the Wall Street Journal by Melinda Beck, a single dose of intra-operative radiation therapy, usually shortened to IORT, normally is given while lumpectomy surgery is happening.

The procedure reportedly has fewer side effects than conventional radiation with treatments that last five days a week for five to seven weeks.

Critics, the story says, claim a study shows the risk of recurrence in women treated with IORT is 3.3% rather than 1.3% over a five-year period.

But critics of the critics say the risk is small and worth it — and some point to a potential conflict of interest because many radiation centers take in huge amounts of revenue through the extended treatments.

Dr, Anthony Zietman

According to the article, Dr. Anthony Zietman, radiation oncologist at Boston's Massachusetts General and a Harvard professor, wrote an editorial in the International Journal of Radiation Oncology this month that said a single treatment, "depending on your perspective…is either a significant threat or a quantum leap forward."

The cancer industry debate has intensified because of the release of data stemming from the Cleveland Clinic study of 1,000 patients who've undergone IORT at 19 U.S. centers. 

Radiation has allowed lumpectomies to surpass mastectomies in popularity, with 60 percent of new patients now choosing the former. But its side effects include fatigue, skin blistering and, although infrequently, damage to hearts, legs and rib cages.

Because elongated radiation "can be disruptive for women who work, care for children or live far from radiation," Beck's article says, "about one-third of women who begin radiation don't finish their prescribed courses, studies show."

IORT started in Europe in the late 1990s but has grown in acceptance, with 260 medical centers worldwide now offering the treatment.

Want to know more about lumpectomy versus mastectomy, or about radiation treatments? Check out "Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer," the VitalityPress book I, Woody Weingarten, aimed at husbands, boyfriends, fathers, sons and brothers who are caregivers.