Cancer Research

Though an entire $2 billion industry has been built scaring people about the modern world (which has promoted a $35 billion supplement market and a $110 billion Organic industry) we're in a Golden Age. Even the poorest people can afford food, what were once booms and busts of famine and plenty have now leveled off, poverty declines are ahead of U.N. goals, and even centralized energy in developing countries, which could help a billion people, is attainable if western states stop telling poor nations they can only get World Bank help if it's not coal, natural gas, or nuclear.  And we can…

Though the pancreas is an organ with little exposure to sex hormones, one form of pancreatic cancer affects specifically women, often young. How is this possible, even though the pancreas ? This pancreatic cancer, known as "mucinous cyst", has strange similarities with another mucinous cancer, affecting the ovaries. A new paper has a plausible answer. Both tumors originate from embryonic germ cells. While still undifferentiated, these cells migrate to the reproductive organs. On their way, some can mistakenly stop in other organs, bringing a risk of tumor that may occur 30 years…

Breast cancer, leukemia, and lymphoma get outsized funding compared to their mortality while pancreatic cancer, colon, liver, and others far deadlier get shorted, at least by government agencies. The private sector obviously wants to make products to save everyone, even if it's only 1,000 people a year. Why? In the case of lung cancer, it may be because over half of lung cancers are caused by smoking and even more are statistically linked to smokers (second-hand smoke) but it still carries a stigma. Liver cancer may be associated with alcoholics. Both of those are lifestyle diseases and…

Once upon a time, epidemiologists believed bacon caused cancer, as did hot tea, a weedkiller that acts on no human biology, bread, apples, lettuce, mustard, tomatoes, and more. That faraway time was actually last year. You name it, and it is possible for statisticians at the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) to find a chemical in it that links it to cancer. With most foods, it is also possible for other epidemiologists to link them to prevention of cancer.(1) What did epidemiologists once deny causes cancer? The cancer history of your family - genetics.  There is a…

Each year, 1 million men in the U.S. undergo biopsies to determine whether they have prostate cancer because ultrasound imaging cannot clearly display the location of tumors in the prostate gland. Ultrasound has been used to visualize the prostate in order to take a representative sampling of tissue to biopsy but with MRI doctors can see specific lesions in the prostate and only take tissue samples from those spots. Why aren't those two sampling methods used in combination? A multidisciplinary team has found that biopsy guided by magnetic resonance imaging increases the rate of prostate…

With Alex Trebek’s recent announcement that his pancreatic cancer is in remission, many people have wondered if this difficult cancer is now easier to treat. Pancreatic cancer remains a major cancer killer, but advances are happening. As a medical oncologist who specializes in treating and studying pancreatic cancer, I’ll try to provide insights, including some from the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting now underway. Pancreatic cancer and its toll We oncologists, or cancer specialists, call the disease “pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma,” or PDAC. It is a leading cause of…

I work in the field of bioprinting, where the aim is to build biological tissues by printing living cells into 3D structures. Last month I found my Facebook news feed plastered with an amazing story about “the first 3D printed heart using a patient’s own cells”. A video showed a beautiful, healthy-looking heart apparently materializing inside a vat of pinkish liquid. Big news. According to an impact tracking algorithm, the story has been picked up by 145 news outlets, tweeted 2,390 times to 3.8 million followers (as of May 27, 2019). Articles on Facebook have at least 13,000 shares, and…

With summer just around the corner in Europe and America, it's time to think about the risk of too much sun exposure.  One greater hazard has less risk - melanoma - but though it is less common than some other types of skin cancer, it is more likely to grow and spread.  In 2019, an estimated 96,000 new melanomas will be diagnosed and men are far greater impacted than women. About 7,000 people will die, nearly twice as many men as women. It is 20X more common in people of Caucasian descent than people of African descent. Though the average age of diagnosis is 63, it defies…

A pilot study using drug-resistant cancer cells in cell cultures and in mice has found that the compounds kahweol acetate and cafestol in coffee may inhibit the growth of prostate cancer. The results were presented at the European Association of Urology congress in Barcelona and published in The Prostate. Coffee is a complex mixture of compounds and there is evidence that drinking certain types of coffee is associated with a reduction in incidence of some cancers, including prostate cancers. By studying the effects of two compounds found in coffee, kahweol acetate and cafestol, on…

Legendary "Jeopardy" host Alex Trebek recently announced that at age 78 he has been diagnosed with stage IV pancreatic cancer. Then he stated he was confident he was going to beat the odds. Was he just engaging in positive thinking publicly while getting things in order privately? Nearly 80, with stage IV cancer, and in the pancreas? Aren't those all really bleak from a prognosis point of view? Yes, but the thing about statistics is they are predicting the past, they can't account for advancements that are occurring right now, or individual cases. Fifteen years ago, for example, if you had…