by Janet Maker, Ph.D. | Sep 19, 2018 | News
Household cleaners, personal care products, perfumes, and other consumer and industrial products emit chemicals known as volatile organic compounds, or VOCs. Researchers led by scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found that as cars have gotten cleaner, tailpipe emissions have gone down. As a result, the researchers estimate that emissions from consumer and industrial products now contribute half of the VOCs that cause air pollution.
by Janet Maker, Ph.D. | Sep 18, 2018 | News
Some studies have found that leaner people diagnosed with several different cancer types have a higher risk of dying than those who, according to their body mass index (BMI), are overweight or mildly obese. Similar findings have been reported in diseases other than cancer, and the phenomenon has come to be known as the “obesity paradox”—the idea that having some excess body fat offers a measure of protection against disease-related death.
by Janet Maker, Ph.D. | Sep 17, 2018 | Diagnosis, News
Many women with benign breast modules or slow-progressing cancer undergo needless procedures because current diagnostic methods cannot differentiate between harmful and benign tumors. An experimental new pill could change that.
by Janet Maker, Ph.D. | Sep 16, 2018 | News
A year ago, the active ingredient in Roundup, the nation’s most widely used weed-killing herbicide, was added to California’s official list of chemicals known to cause cancer.The state’s warning about glyphosate followed a similar caution issued by the World Health...
by Janet Maker, Ph.D. | Sep 16, 2018 | News
Jean-François Côté, a researcher at the Montreal Clinical Research Institute and professor at Université de Montréal’s Faculty of Medicine, studies metastasis, the leading cause of cancer-related death. Recently, his team uncovered a protein that, once...
by Janet Maker, Ph.D. | Sep 15, 2018 | News
Breast cancer is not tied in a pretty pink ribbon. It is filled with anger, pain, side effects. mixed with love and support from those who care and sometimes death. Sexualized ads have no room in this conversation. We need to stop these ridiculous campaigns and use the best ad we have, US! Show the men and women that had breast cancer, show the pain the scars, the truth. Imagine how empowering, validating and real that would be for those who are diagnosed. Maybe if we took the time to remove the sexual connotation of this non-sexual disease and focused on those dying and hurting we could actually get somewhere.
by Janet Maker, Ph.D. | Sep 15, 2018 | News
Cancer is caused by changes to DNA that affect the way cells grow and divide. There are at least 200 forms of cancer, with many subtypes. Identifying the changes in each cancer’s complete set of DNA—its genome—and understanding how these changes interact to drive the disease will lay the foundation for improving cancer prevention, early detection, and tailored treatments.
by Janet Maker, Ph.D. | Sep 14, 2018 | News
Women with aggressive “triple-negative” disease fare much better on a non-standard chemotherapy drug if they have inherited BRCA gene mutations, the results of a trial showed.
by Janet Maker, Ph.D. | Sep 14, 2018 | News, Other New Research
Researchers from the University of Michigan have developed a diagnostic imaging pill enabling the early and more accurate diagnosis of cancerous tumors in breast tissue.
by Janet Maker, Ph.D. | Sep 13, 2018 | News
The FDA has detected significant levels of glyphosate, a commonly used herbicide, in a wide variety of foods — but it’s unlikely the agency will release these findings to the public. According to internal documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by the Guardian and the advocacy organization U.S. Right to Know, in January of last year, FDA chemist Richard Thompson wrote to colleagues:
by Janet Maker, Ph.D. | Sep 12, 2018 | News
It’s a good idea to start with the basics, the very foundation of our lives. There are active things you can do. They’re sensible, and easy.
by Janet Maker, Ph.D. | Sep 11, 2018 | News
But while biology appears to be a factor, it doesn’t tell the whole story, Ramaswamy says. “When you look at this on a state-by-state basis, there are a couple of states that do have much less of that disparity and there are other states that have very stark differences in mortality.” These variations are “related to access and immediate treatment options and appropriate treatment. Because if it’s all just biology, there shouldn’t be a lot of state-by-state difference.” The states with the highest disparities are Louisiana, Mississippi and Wisconsin.
by Janet Maker, Ph.D. | Sep 10, 2018 | News
This structural biology advance is a critical step toward learning more about the role of telomerase in cancers, as well as genetic conditions linked to telomerase deficiencies. It’s also an important milestone in the quest for drugs targeting telomerase in different...
by Janet Maker, Ph.D. | Sep 9, 2018 | News
Studies that are published in medical journals typically take many researchers studying many patients (with a very large budget) to produce their results. Without the assistance of academic medical centers and large groups of patients, alternative therapists cannot hope to do the research that orthodox physicians would find persuasive. Lack of such publications does not prove that a therapy doesn’t work, only that it has not been studied in this rigorous way.
by Janet Maker, Ph.D. | Sep 9, 2018 | Hormones, News
In one of the largest investigations of its kind conducted to date, researchers found that one-third of the women included in the study had low levels of skeletal muscle mass—a condition known as sarcopenia—at the time of their diagnosis. And having low levels of muscle mass was associated with a higher risk of dying compared with women who had adequate muscle mass, the researchers reported April 5 in JAMA Oncology.
by Janet Maker, Ph.D. | Sep 8, 2018 | Chemotherapy, News
Experts say the three tests – Oncotype DX, EndoPredict and Prosigna – will, in future, enable women to have much more personalised treatment. The costs of the tests is not known but it is likely that their manufacturers have significantly reduced the price since January.
by Janet Maker, Ph.D. | Sep 8, 2018 | News
n both women who have no history of cancer or diabetes and in women who have been recently treated for breast cancer, we have seen increases in quality of life and biological changes with walking, and with community-based programs such as Curves, Zumba and Crossfit. We have even found that exercise over a few months can turn genes on and off. Among our women who have been treated for breast cancer, all forms of exercise seem to alleviate both treatment-related symptoms and collateral damage.
by Janet Maker, Ph.D. | Sep 7, 2018 | News
Understanding more about the chemical and genetic makeup of your cancer may help doctors choose the most effective treatment for your specific cancer.
by Janet Maker, Ph.D. | Sep 7, 2018 | News
The government’s failure to properly regulate the spread of herbicides, like Roundup, further underscores the need for consumers to take matters into their own hands and get tested (we used this one). But we shouldn’t stop holding federal officials accountable. To protect our health, and the health of future generations, we must ban glyphosate.
by Janet Maker, Ph.D. | Sep 6, 2018 | News
Many of the most promising investigations into novel cancer therapies focus on the cellular mechanisms at play in cancer formation and progression, and how they can be manipulated in a way that ultimately benefits the patient.
