| Take control of your health
You can't control genetics or the guy on the bus who sneezes on you, but many factors that affect your health are well within your control. Here are some simple and surprising ways to improve your and your family's health in 2008. Get more vitamin D One of the hottest topics in medicine these days is vitamin D, says Dr. Kenneth Cooper, the father of aerobics and the founder of the Cooper Aerobics Center in Dallas. Insufficient levels of vitamin D was named as a key factor in osteoporosis in a July article in the New England Journal of Medicine. "More women will die from complications of osteoporosis of the hip than from breast cancer, and you can't just take calcium and expect it to prevent osteoporosis unless you have sufficient vitamin D," Cooper says. Insufficient vitamin D is clearly linked to colon cancer, and may be linked to prostate cancer, ovarian cancer and breast cancer, Cooper says.
Breast Cancer Genes Also Raise Men's Risk for Malignancy
FRIDAY, Dec. 14 (HealthDay News) -- Men whose mothers, sisters or daughters test positive for a breast cancer-causing mutation in the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes may also have the mutation and be at increased risk for cancer, a new study finds. Most of those men are unaware of the danger, noted researchers at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, who examined how families discuss genetic test results. Men with a mutation in the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes have a 14 percent lifetime risk of developing prostate cancer and a 6 percent lifetime risk of developing breast cancer, the study authors said. "Despite these health implications, we have found a lack of understanding of genetic test results among men in these families," study lead author Dr Mary B. Daly, senior vice president for population science at Fox Chase, said in a prepared statement.
Soy-Tea Combo May Thwart Prostate Cancer
ISLAMABAD: The same two foods that many scientists believe reduce the risk of breast cancer in women may also protect men from prostate cancer. That’s the conclusion of a new Harvard University study that looked at the power of tea and soy to inhibit the growth of prostate tumors in mice. Unlike other studies that examined the food’s individual effects on tumor growth, the new research focused on the power that came from the combined effect of tea and soy together. "I think the most important finding is that consumption of both soy and tea has a synergistic effect," says study author Jin-Rong Zhou, adding that each appears to reinforce the power of the other to fight cancer. The study appears in the February issue of The Journal of Nutrition. Zhou says he got the idea to test the soy-tea combination when statistical data showed that China had one of the lowest prostate cancer risk profiles in the world.
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