A publication in Environmental Health Perspectives this month challenges a long-held assumption about tobacco and infections.

People assumed that the reason smokers get a lot of respiratory infections was because the smoke was suppressing their immune systems.

As usual, Paul Cacciatore at H*O*P*E blog comes through with an excellent review of the new paper, published 12/09 in JNCI, the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

http://healthinfoispower.wordpress.com/2010/01/07/elevated-proteins-may-...

Disclaimer: JNCI is not affiliated in any way with the National Cancer Institute. Crazy! I know this because I called NCI and asked them all about this and...well that's another topic for another post.

So I had the bright idea to call Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel. Part of the power trio of Emanuel brothers this seems to be a guy who can get things done in Washington. He has met with Barack Obama to advise him on health care reform written books on the subject etc. I thought I could appeal to him about this JNCI issue. Basically I think the journal of our National Cancer Institute should be free for all American taxpayers to access. We paid for that research and writing and we should get to read it for free. It would be like NOAA making you pay to get the weather data.

(reproduced from Medscape.com original link: http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/703926) June 4 2009 (Orlando Florida) — It has been nearly 10 years in coming but at last there is a positive result with a vaccine approach to follicular lymphoma. Two other phase 3 clinical trials have failed but the one that succeeded was reported during a plenary session here at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) 45th Annual Meeting.

Where is the thyroid gland and what is it’s function? The thyroid gland is shaped like a butterfly and sits just below the voice box and in front of the trachea (wind-pipe). It resides under thin muscle layers in the midline central neck just above the sternum and moves with swallowing as it is attached to the trachea. The thyroid gland is a central organ in the body that secretes thyroid hormones and as such regulates our body’s metabolism energy level and various other functions.

Gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST) is a critical cancer of the gastrointestinal tract. It is also known as soft tissue sarcomas. The prevalence of GIST is likely to be 4 500 - 6 000 new cases per year in the US. Surgery is the normal treatment of local GIST. GIST tumors more often recurs in as many as one of two patients after its initial removal. Repeated GISTs are frequently more persistent than primary tumors with relapses related with lower survival rates. Gleevec is the lone treatment recognized to delay the recurrence of this aggressive cancer.

Researchers have long reported that at least half of American adults are suffering from the deficiency of Vitamin D and speculation has indicated that this deficiency can lead to illnesses from osteoporosis to cancer of the colon and breast. Recently new research has asked whether Vitamin D can avert breast cancer. Earlier studies carried out between the years 1986 and 2000 have highlighted that Vitamin D could protect against cancer.

Prior research had suggested that Selenium and vitamin E either taken alone or in combination could potentially lower a man’s risk for prostate cancer.   Now a more recent randomized clinical trial found just the opposite: not only do these supplements not prevent prostate cancer; they may actually put people’s health at risk. Vitamin E and selenium are antioxidants that exist in relatively small amounts in food.

by Philip Wrenn A new report has found that a mastectomy is advisable when breast cancer recurs following a lumpectomy. This is due to the fact that survival rates are increased as opposed to cases where another lumpectomy is performed.   "We were surprised to find that so many women in our study -- almost a quarter of them -- had received another lumpectomy rather than a mastectomy " noted Dr. Steven L. Chen of the University of California Davis Cancer Center in Sacramento.

It was presumed that those women who were forty and younger having been diagnosed were more likely to see a recurrence however that isn't the case says Dr Aruna Turaka from the department of radiation oncology at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia. Her new study presented Wednesday at the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology annual meeting in Boston found that the presumption was incorrect. From the U.S.