Weight Gain and Breast Cancer in Post Menopause...
A study published in the July 12 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association by A. Heather Eliassen, ScD, et al, found a possible increased risk of breast cancer in postmenopausal women who gained weight during their adult life. The researchers studied women between the ages of 30-55 years who did not have cancer. They were followed for up to 26 years in order to see weight changes since the age of 18 years. The object was to assess the link between weight changes and the risk of breast cancer in women after they reached menopause. At the end of the study period the researchers found that weight gain during adult life, specially after menopause, increased the risk of breast cancer. A weight gain of 4.4 pounds or more throughout their adult life was associated with an increased risk of breast cancer. The risk being from 15% if women used replacement hormones to 24.2% for those that did not. But don't dispair, they also found that weight loss after menopause was associated with a decreased risk of breast cancer, even if the weight was not lost until after menopause. For every 3.1 pounds that were lost, there was a 4% reduction in risk among women. Those that kept the weight off reduced their risk by 8%. So ladies,START YOUR TREADMILLS!
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What's Better For You?
Weight loss through exercise or counting calories?
Exercise Versus Calorie Counting
Well, it seems that if the goal is to lose weight then both give the same results. A very interesting study just published in the December issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine, tried to answer this question, and found a very interesting thing. According to this study, over a year's time it appears that either calorie restriction or exercise give similar weight loss results. However, the important fact that was revealed was that persons that lost weight through calorie restriction had a significant loss of bone mass as well, but the persons that lost the weight through exercise had NO loss of bone mass anywhere in their bodies! Well, you may ask, how can I lose all the weight I need by just exercise? Do I have to run a trillion miles a day? Climb Mount Everest? Swim the Atlantic? No you don't, but you have to do both, so you can counter the bad effects that calorie restriction has on your bones. Let me say this again, the practical approach is a combination of both so you don't lose your bones trying to fit into that size 0. | Decline in breast cancer rates
Great news for women. It looks as if cancer rates have dropped, especially for women over 50 years of age. The news came out of the 29th Annual San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABC). Here researchers showed a 7% drop in disease rates in 2003, something that has never been seen before in a single year! Now the question is why did the rates drop?
What have women been doing right? Well, we think that most of us have been dealing with our hot flashes, temper tantrums and the such, thank you very much, because it seems that the reason for this is that we are leaving our hormone replacement pills where they belong, on the shelf. The lead investigator Peter Ravdin, MD, from the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas, told reporters. "It seems that it was the decrease in the use of hormone therapy, but from the data we used we can only indirectly infer that is the case." Dr. Ravdin also noted, "the tumor growth effect of stopping hormone replacement therapy is very dramatic over a short period of time..." Attendees at the meeting called the findings "fascinating" and "provocative." Another research team reporting in a recent issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology came to similar conclusions (Clarke CA et al. J Clin Oncol. 2006;24:e49-50). "Hormone therapy use dropped 68% between 2001 and 2003, and shortly thereafter we saw breast cancer rates drop by 10% to 11%," lead author Christina A. Clarke, MD, from the Northern California Cancer Center, in Fremont, said in a news release. "This drop was sustained in 2004, which tells us that the decline wasn't just a fluke."
So ladies, take a hint...
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Cholesterol-lowering goes a long way in halting heart disease
American Heart Association Scientific Sessions late-breaking news: DALLAS, Nov. 16 – A combination of diet and low-dose pravastatin reduced the risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) in people with moderately elevated cholesterol, researchers reported at a late-breaking clinical trials session at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2005. In the Management of Elevated Cholesterol in the Primary Prevention Group of Adult Japanese (MEGA) Study, after an average of follow-up of 5.3 years, hypercholesterolemic men and women who received diet and a small dose of the cholesterol-lowering drug pravastatin showed a 33 percent decrease in the incidence of CHD compared to high-cholesterol patients who only received diet treatment. “The drug is beneficial in men and women, and we found that just small lowering of cholesterol levels resulted in significant changes in the risk of coronary heart disease,” said Haruo Nakamura, M.D., Ph.D., MEGA Study chair and an emeritus professor at the National Defense Medical College, Tokorozawa City, Saitama, Japan. MEGA Study is the first prospective, randomized, controlled trial conducted in Japan to evaluate whether adding a cholesterol-lowering drug known as a statin to a person’s diet can prevent risk CHD in everyday clinical practice. In Japan, the incidence of CHD is about one-third lower and stroke is two-fold higher compared to countries where previous randomized trials of statins were conducted. Whether or not the results of clinical studies conducted outside Japan could be extrapolated to Japanese patients with hypercholesterolemia was unknown. The MEGA study used the PROBE (prospective, randomized, open-label, blinded-endpoints)design and randomized patients with hypercholesterolemia 220-270 mg/dL milligrams per deciliter (mg/dL) and no history of CHD or stroke to diet or diet plus pravastatin. The dose of pravastatin used in the MEGA study was 10 milligrams (mg) to 20 mg per day, which is the approved dose in Japan. That dose is lower than the ones used in previous large-scale clinical trials around the world. The participants had borderline to-high to cholesterol, which is commonly seen in clinical practice in Japan and those getting the drug had additional reductions in total cholesterol. In fact, about a third of those in the drug treatment a group continued to have elevated cholesterol above 220 mg/dL of blood. Statins, like pravastatin, are in a class called the HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors that work by interfering with the liver’s ability to produce cholesterol. They are the major cholesterol-lowering drugs used worldwide. This research is striking because recent studies on statins have focused on the possible benefits of higher doses and ever-lower target levels for blood cholesterol, he said. “Our study showed that low-dose pravastatin did indeed reduce CHD risk in a low-risk population, in a manner similar to the statin trials in high-risk populations,” said Nakamura. The study involved 7,832 people; average age 58, and more than half of them were women. They all had cholesterol levels between 220 mg/dL and 270 mg/dL of blood, and followed the National Cholesterol Education Program’s step 1 diet for reducing cholesterol. Half were randomly assigned to get 10 mg per day of pravastatin which was raised to 20 mg in the 19 percent of patients unable to achieve modest cholesterol lowering with the lowest dose, he said. Researchers found 33 percent fewer CHD events: 3.3/1,000 person years in the diet plus pravastatin (10–20mg/day) group compared to 5.0/1,000 person years compared to controls on the diet, Nakamura said. Person years means the total number of people on treatment during the study, so 100 people over 5 years would be 500 person years. At the start of the study, the average total cholesterol was 243 mg/dL and the average low-density lipoprotein (LDL) – the so-called “bad” cholesterol” – was 157 mg/dL. During more than five years of follow-up, mean total cholesterol decreased by 2.1 percent in the control group and by 11.5 percent in patients taking the statin. LDL decreased by 3.2 percent in the diet group and by 18 percent in the diet plus pravastatin group. No clinically significant difference was found between the groups for severe adverse events or cancer, he said. “In Japan, for primary prevention, about a 30 percent reduction in CHD risk can be achieved with 10 mg to 20 mg pravastatin, a reduction similar to that achieved with 20 mg to 40 mg pravastatin treatment in the United States and Europe,” he said. “The results of the MEGA Study suggest that low-risk populations, such as the Japanese, can significantly reduce the risk for CHD sufficiently without aggressive lipid-lowering treatment.” Nakamura said it’s unclear whether these results can be applied to other statins. Co-authors include the MEGA Study group. Research funds were provided by Sankyo Co. Ltd. and Japan's Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare. Statements and conclusions of study authors that are published in the American Heart Association scientific journals are solely those of the study authors and do not necessarily reflect association policy or position. The American Heart Association makes no representation or warranty as to their accuracy or reliability.
Source: American Heart Association | |
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