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LIFESTYLES
New!!!
Study:
Rundown Neighborhoods Raise Risks of Disabilities
New!!!
Cooking
Healthy For Radiant Health
Exercise
Better than Drugs for Preventing Heart Disease?
The
Summer Trend Endangering Our Children!
Health Benefits of Moderate Drinking May not Apply to
African-Americans
Vitamins & Minerals: Their Health
Benefits and Best Sources in Food
Many Black Women Don't Get
Enough Vitamin D
Traffic-related injuries and deaths
disproportionately affect African Americans
Exercise may curb blood pressure risk in blacks
Blacks watch more TV than any
other groups
Lifestyle changes
could help black diabetics
Should
You need an Organ Transplant, Would You as An African American Get It Soon
Enough?
Top 10 Weight Loss &
Fitness Myths
Are African Americans Wary
about Hospice Care?
Healthy Diet and Exercise
Could Slow Prostate Cancer
By Dr. Carl Gilbert
A study published in The Journal of Urology
by researchers from the Departments
of Physiological Science, Medicine and Urology, University of California-Los
Angeles, Los Angeles, California,
suggests that high-fiber diets and exercise could slow prostate cancer cells
growth by 30 percent.
The researchers tested serum of two groups of
participants: a short-term category of 13 overweight men age 42 to 73 and a
long-term group of 8 men whose age varies between 38 and 74 and who had eaten
well and exercised regularly during a period averaging 14 years. The
participants in the short-term group were maintained on an 11-day regimen of
meals containing less than 10 percent of calories from fat, 15 to 20 percent
from protein and 70 to 75 percent from starch. Their exercise consisted of
brisk and slow paced walking. Their serum ( a blood derivative) was
combined with prostate cancer cells then then analyzed.
Prostate cancer cells exposed to serum from
the long-term group of men on the other hand demonstrated in the labs a 40
percent reduction in prostate cancer cell growth when compared to baseline
samples from the short-term group of men.
In view of those results, the UCLA team has
begun a new clinical trial to evaluate new nutritional programs that prostate
cancer victims may use to fight the advance of the disease.
Source: The Journal of Urology 2001
September;166(3):1185-1189
Cigarettes More of a Risk for Black Americans
NEW ORLEANS (Reuters Health) - African-American smokers may breathe in more tobacco smoke from cigarettes than other smokers do, which could help explain their higher lung
cancer rates, according to a report presented.
Researchers from the American Health Foundation in Valhalla, New York, said their investigation found that black study participants had significantly higher levels of cancer-causing tobacco byproducts in their blood and urine than a comparable group of white study participants.
``This suggests that exposure to tobacco smoke is higher in blacks than in whites, which could explain the higher lung cancer rates,'' lead investigator and foundation
researcher Joshua Muscat told Reuters Health.
He presented his study, which was partly supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health (news - web sites), at the
annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research.
The foundation surveyed 167 black and 186 white smokers in the Westchester, New York area, asking them how many cigarettes they smoked each day, and what type of cigarettes they smoked. The participants were also asked about smoking-related behaviors, such as how deeply they inhaled and how much of
each cigarette they smoked.
Both blacks and whites began smoking at about age 16, and had smoked an average 15 to 17 years. Blacks reported smoking fewer cigarettes per day than whites, but tended to
prefer cigarettes with higher nicotine and tar per cigarette.
A greater number of blacks smoked mentholated cigarettes, Muscat said.
But, none of these factors seemed to explain why blacks have higher tobacco byproduct levels in their bodies, he noted.
Muscat and his colleagues believe that blacks are doing something different in their smoking behavior--perhaps inhaling more deeply or taking more puffs per cigarette--that may lead to a higher concentration of cancer-causing substances.
There was no difference in smoking behaviors between blacks and whites in this initial study, but the smokers reported their own actions. Muscat said smokers might not be conscious of how they actually smoke.
To get a better handle on the behaviors, the foundation has begun a study where smokers are watched by observers in the lab. There, researchers can scientifically measure length of puffs and other behaviors that might influence levels
of cancer-causing substances found in cigarettes.
"Doc, I don't want surgery for
my cancer because air may get to it and make it worse." Myth or
Fact?
By Carl Gilbert, M.D.
While working first as an intern, then a surgical resident and
now as a surgeon in private practice, I've heard on several occasions many of our
brothers and sisters expressing their fear of a recommended cancer operation because of
the belief that 'if air gets to the cancer, this can spread or get worse'.
This belief seems to be more widespread in the African
American communities than in any other ethnic groups. I concede, though,
that each ethnic group harbors some form of beliefs, superstitious or not,
certain stereotypes when facing a
disease, especially if the disease carries a potentially dramatic or dismal
outcome. Medical or surgical literature is filled with those croyances
(French for beliefs) relegated at some point to folk medicine as medical science
continues on its progress course. For example, there was a time when a
swollen wound was thought to be full with wind; when disease was believed to
be a divine punishment; or when pus was induced in a wound to facilitate
healing.
The belief that air can cause spread of a cancer seems to
have originated from the view of Hippocrates - a Greek doctor born in 460 BC
who has been honored as the "father of medicine". He wrote
that "it is best not to treat hidden tumours. Such patients, if
treated, soon go under, but otherwise they can live long." Another
roman doctor by the name of Celsus in the year AD 30 blamed other doctors for
using burns to treat cancer because in his view "through burning, the
tumour is activated and grows faster until the patient dies". But
the progress of medical science over the years has shown that surgery and
radiation treatments, when used appropriately and with good judgment,
constitute the cornerstone of any modern treatment of cancer.
Therefore 'air', or 'open a hidden cancer' are not the
direct causes of cancer spread. Many times, when a patient has been
through surgery because of a cancer, the stage of the disease would be so
advanced that the surgeon did not have any choice but to "open and
close". Which should lead us to the logical conclusion that the
patient's death was closer than we thought - short of the surgery.
The African American communities have had a higher rate of
cancer deaths because of those delays in diagnosis and treatment. A situation
that has been present since slavery times. History tells us that when
slaves were getting sick on the plantations, the contract doctors assigned to
those plantations would be called by the slave owners only when the cases were
severe or had reached an irreversible course. It was therefore natural
for the parents (most of the times uneducated about scientific medicine) of
those sick slaves to assume that the intervention of the man of science had
accelerated the demise of their loves ones. Thus, the persistence
through the years of this cultural belief that air during surgery can spread
cancer. After all, oxygen found in the air we breathe might be good for
cancer cells, according to a theory developed by Dr. Otto Warburg of Germany,
a two times Nobel Prize winner.
A myth not a fact, that is how we characterize the cultural
belief found in the African American communities that "if air gets to a
cancer during surgery it can cause the cancer to spread." Early
detection of cancer is the key, and surgery plays an important role in the
cure of cancer. The same Hippocrates also recognized this as a fact when
he wrote that "if an operation is considered necessary, one should act at
the beginning."
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10 ways to
prolong your life on this Earth
The 20th century saw a dramatic
50% increase in Americans' life expectancies, as well as a ''spectacular''
decline in deaths among US children, according to a report in the December
issue of Pediatrics.
But it is well known this increase
in Americans life expectancies - regarded as a``triumph of public health and
biomedical research'' - has not been, generally speaking, well demonstrated among the minority populations.
Therefore, African Americans and other populations at risk need to do a lot
more to change the numbers, in order to close the gap.
A lot of times simple ways are all
it takes to (directly or indirectly) change things around. Dr. Michael
F. Roizen, author of RealAge: Are You as Young as you Can Be? tells
what we can do to enjoy a longer and healthier life:
-
Put more laughter in your
life. Depending on frequency, laughter may add 1.7 to 8 years to your
life. By laughing more, you reduce stress, anxiety, and tension, and
make your immune system younger.
-
Own a dog and walk it. That
will add 1year to your life. Dogs are stress reducers, and they
help lower both blood pressure and cholesterol. And you get good
exercise walking them.
-
By eating plenty of
tomatoes you
will add 2 to 8 years more to your life thanks to a powerful antioxidant,
called lycopene. Antioxidants seem to reduce the risk of many
cancers, including breast cancer.
-
Have sex at least twice a
week. You add 1.6 to 8 years to your life. The
benefits: sex decreases stress, helps you maintain a strong relationship
with your partner, and has been linked to longevity.
-
Floss and brush daily earn you
6.4 years more on your life. Gum disease and periodontal disease
can age the immune and arterial systems.
-
Be a life-long learner.
You will add then 2.5 years to your life. Mental
aging is decreased by higher levels of education and mind stimulation.
-
Build and maintain social
networks make you gain up to 30 years on your life.
Those who live with others have the support of others. The sociable
person lives longer, happier due to reduced stress levels.
-
Get at least 7 hours of sleep
a night. That will add 3 years to your life.
According to studies, mortality risk is reduced in women who regularly
sleep this amount of time. Sleep also boosts the immune system and
attention span.
-
Get some sun exposure. This adds 1.7 years to your life.
Vitamin D is activated in your system. Which in turn will slow aging
of the cardiovascular and immune systems, and improve your mood. Too
much sun promotes aging - and can cause skin cancer.
-
Live within your means. By so
doing you add 8 years to your life.
Because feeling out of control financially can cause unnecessary aging due
to stress.
Meditation: A lifesaver for African Americans with elevated
blood pressure?
