Published: Friday March 26, 2010 MYT 2:43:00 PM
Excercise, diet can cut breast cancer risk by 30%
BARCELONA (Spain): Up to a third of breast cancer cases in Western countries could be avoided if women ate less and exercised more, researchers at a conference said, renewing a sensitive debate about how lifestyle factors affect the disease.
Better treatments, early diagnosis and mammogram screenings have dramatically slowed breast cancer, but experts said the focus should now shift to changing behaviors like diet and physical activity.
"What can be achieved with screening has been achieved. We can't do much more," Carlo La Vecchia, head of epidemiology at the University of Milan, said in an interview. "It's time to move on to other things."
La Vecchia spoke Thursday at a European breast cancer conference in Barcelona.
He cited figures from the International Agency for Research on Cancer, which estimates that 25 to 30 percent of breast cancer cases could be avoided if women were thinner and exercised more. The agency is part of the World Health Organization.
His comments are in line with recent health advice that lifestyle changes in areas such as smoking, diet, exercise and sun exposure can play a significant role in risk for several cancers.
Dr. Michelle Holmes of Harvard University, who has studied cancer and lifestyle factors, said people might wrongly think their chances of getting cancer depend more on their genes than their lifestyle.
"The genes have been there for thousands of years, but if cancer rates are changing in a lifetime, that doesn't have much to do with genes," she told The Associated Press in a phone interview from Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women.
In Europe, there were about 421,000 new cases and nearly 90,000 deaths in 2008, the latest available figures. The United States last year saw more than 190,000 new cases and 40,000 deaths.
A woman's lifetime chance of getting breast cancer is about one in eight.
Obese women are up to 60% more likely to develop any cancer than normal-weight women, according to a 2006 study by British researchers.
Many breast cancers are fueled by estrogen, a hormone produced in fat tissue. So experts suspect that the fatter a woman is, the more estrogen she's likely to produce, which could in turn fuel breast cancer.
Even in slim women, experts believe exercise can help reduce the cancer risk by converting more fat into muscle.
Yet any discussion of weight and breast cancer is considered sensitive because some may misconstrue that as the medical establishment blaming women for their disease.
Tara Beaumont, a clinical nurse specialist at Breast Cancer Care, a British charity, said her agency has always been careful about giving lifestyle advice.
She noted that three of the major risk factors for breast cancer - gender, age and family history - are clearly beyond anyone's control.
"It is incredibly difficult to isolate specific factors.
Therefore women should in no way feel that they are responsible for developing breast cancer," she said.
Yet Karen Benn, a spokeswoman for Europa Donna, a patient-focused breast cancer group, said it was impossible to ignore the increasingly stronger links between lifestyle and breast cancer.
"If we know there are healthier choices, we can't not recommend them just because people might misinterpret the advice and feel guilty," she said.
"If we are going to prevent breast cancer, then this message needs to get out, particularly to younger women."
That means avoiding becoming overweight as an adult.
Robert Baan, a cancer expert with the international cancer research agency, said it isn't clear if women who lose weight can lower their risk to the level of a woman who was never fat.
The American Cancer Society Web site says the connection between weight and cancer risk is complex.
It says risk appears to increase for women who gain weight as adults, but not for women who have been overweight since childhood.
The cancer society recommends 45 to 60 minutes of physical activity five or more days a week to reduce the risk of breast cancer.
Drinking less alcohol might also help. Experts estimate that having more than a couple of drinks a day can boost the risk of breast cancer by 4 to 10 percent.
After studies several years ago linked hormone-replacement therapy to cancer, millions of women abandoned the treatment, leading to a sharp drop in breast cancer rates.
Experts said a similar reduction might be seen if women ate healthier and exercised more.
Holmes, the Harvard expert, said changing diet and nutrition is arguably easier than tackling other breast cancer risk factors.
In the 1980s and 1990s, breast cancer rates steadily increased, paralleling a rise in obesity and the use of estrogen-containing hormones after menopause.
La Vecchia said countries like Italy and France - where obesity rates have been stable for the past two decades - show that weight can be controlled at a population level.
"It's hard to lose weight, but it's not impossible," he said. "The potential benefit of preventing cancer is worth it." - AP
Showing posts with label health. Show all posts
Showing posts with label health. Show all posts
Friday, March 26, 2010
Monday, January 11, 2010
Menonton TV mungkin memendekkan Usia Anda
TV Watching May Shorten Your Life
Too much sitting raises your risk of dying from heart disease, researchers say By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter
MONDAY, Jan. 11 (HealthDay News) -- Every hour spent watching TV each day may increase your risk of an early death from cardiovascular disease by as much as 18 percent, Australian researchers say.
What's on the television is not the problem; it's the time spent sitting while watching.
"This research provides another clear link between too much sitting and death from disease," said lead researcher David Dunstan, head of the Physical Activity Laboratory at the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute in Victoria.
"The findings have serious implications for Americans and Australians when you consider that aside from sleeping, watching television is the behavior that occupies activity of four hours viewing a day," he added.
The good news is research has shown that moving the muscles frequently throughout the day is one of the most effective ways of managing weight and protecting against disease, Dunstan added.
"We tend to underestimate the value of incidental, non-sweaty activity throughout the day when we are either not sleeping or exercising -- the more you move, the greater the benefits for health," he noted.
Dunstan pointed out that while obesity can add to these problems, even normal-weight people can have increases in blood sugar and cholesterol if they sit too much.
The report was released online Jan. 11 in advance of publication in an upcoming print issue of Circulation.
For the study, Dunstan's team collected data on the lifestyles of 8,800 healthy men and women aged 25 years and older. In addition to lifestyle habits, the researchers tested participants' cholesterol and blood sugar levels. Over more than six years of follow-up, 284 people died. Among these deaths, 87 were due to cardiovascular disease and 125 from cancer.
The participants were grouped into three TV-watching categories: those who watched less than two hours a day; those who watched two to four hours a day; and those who watched more than four hours a day.
The researchers found that every hour of daily TV watching increased the risk of dying from any cause by 11 percent. For cardiovascular diseases the increased risk was 18 percent, and for cancer it was 9 percent. Compared with those who watched less than two hours per day, those who watched TV for more than four hours each day had an 80 percent increased risk of dying early from cardiovascular disease and a 46 percent increased risk of dying from any cause.
The association between TV watching and death remained even when the researchers took into account risk factors for cardiovascular disease such as smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, unhealthy diet, excessive weight and exercise.
Although the study was done in Australia, the findings are applicable to Americans, Dunstan said. Average daily television watching is about three hours in Australia and the United Kingdom, and up to eight hours in the United States, where many people are either overweight or obese, he noted.
"What we are now starting to understand is that the risks associated with sedentary behavior are not necessarily offset by doing more exercise," Dunstan said.
"In other words, irrespective of how much exercise you do, if you sit watching television for four hours on a daily basis you still have a substantially increased risk of early death from all causes and a much greater risk of cardiovascular disease," he said.
Experts agreed that to stay healthy you need to keep on the move.
Dr. Gregg C. Fonarow, a professor of cardiology at the University of California, Los Angeles, said that "regular exercise has been consistently demonstrated to result in improved cardiovascular health and lower risk of heart attacks, stroke, diabetes and premature death."
He added that "reducing time spent inactive may be of benefit in reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease and should be considered as part of a comprehensive approach to improve cardiovascular health."
David Bassett Jr., a professor of health and exercise science at the University of Tennessee, said that "when one looks at time trends in physical activity over the past century, it is clear that people are doing more structured, purposeful exercise than before."
However, what has changed is that people are doing less walking, household chores and manual labor than in the past, he said. "We are also spending more time in sedentary activities like television watching, computer use and desk jobs," Bassett explained.
"This study adds to a growing body of evidence that the amount of time spent in sedentary activity, as distinct from the amount of time spent in purposeful exercise, can affect your health," he said.
More information
Too much sitting raises your risk of dying from heart disease, researchers say By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter
MONDAY, Jan. 11 (HealthDay News) -- Every hour spent watching TV each day may increase your risk of an early death from cardiovascular disease by as much as 18 percent, Australian researchers say.
What's on the television is not the problem; it's the time spent sitting while watching.
"This research provides another clear link between too much sitting and death from disease," said lead researcher David Dunstan, head of the Physical Activity Laboratory at the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute in Victoria.
"The findings have serious implications for Americans and Australians when you consider that aside from sleeping, watching television is the behavior that occupies activity of four hours viewing a day," he added.
The good news is research has shown that moving the muscles frequently throughout the day is one of the most effective ways of managing weight and protecting against disease, Dunstan added.
"We tend to underestimate the value of incidental, non-sweaty activity throughout the day when we are either not sleeping or exercising -- the more you move, the greater the benefits for health," he noted.
Dunstan pointed out that while obesity can add to these problems, even normal-weight people can have increases in blood sugar and cholesterol if they sit too much.
The report was released online Jan. 11 in advance of publication in an upcoming print issue of Circulation.
For the study, Dunstan's team collected data on the lifestyles of 8,800 healthy men and women aged 25 years and older. In addition to lifestyle habits, the researchers tested participants' cholesterol and blood sugar levels. Over more than six years of follow-up, 284 people died. Among these deaths, 87 were due to cardiovascular disease and 125 from cancer.
The participants were grouped into three TV-watching categories: those who watched less than two hours a day; those who watched two to four hours a day; and those who watched more than four hours a day.
The researchers found that every hour of daily TV watching increased the risk of dying from any cause by 11 percent. For cardiovascular diseases the increased risk was 18 percent, and for cancer it was 9 percent. Compared with those who watched less than two hours per day, those who watched TV for more than four hours each day had an 80 percent increased risk of dying early from cardiovascular disease and a 46 percent increased risk of dying from any cause.
The association between TV watching and death remained even when the researchers took into account risk factors for cardiovascular disease such as smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, unhealthy diet, excessive weight and exercise.
Although the study was done in Australia, the findings are applicable to Americans, Dunstan said. Average daily television watching is about three hours in Australia and the United Kingdom, and up to eight hours in the United States, where many people are either overweight or obese, he noted.
"What we are now starting to understand is that the risks associated with sedentary behavior are not necessarily offset by doing more exercise," Dunstan said.
"In other words, irrespective of how much exercise you do, if you sit watching television for four hours on a daily basis you still have a substantially increased risk of early death from all causes and a much greater risk of cardiovascular disease," he said.
Experts agreed that to stay healthy you need to keep on the move.
Dr. Gregg C. Fonarow, a professor of cardiology at the University of California, Los Angeles, said that "regular exercise has been consistently demonstrated to result in improved cardiovascular health and lower risk of heart attacks, stroke, diabetes and premature death."
He added that "reducing time spent inactive may be of benefit in reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease and should be considered as part of a comprehensive approach to improve cardiovascular health."
David Bassett Jr., a professor of health and exercise science at the University of Tennessee, said that "when one looks at time trends in physical activity over the past century, it is clear that people are doing more structured, purposeful exercise than before."
However, what has changed is that people are doing less walking, household chores and manual labor than in the past, he said. "We are also spending more time in sedentary activities like television watching, computer use and desk jobs," Bassett explained.
"This study adds to a growing body of evidence that the amount of time spent in sedentary activity, as distinct from the amount of time spent in purposeful exercise, can affect your health," he said.
More information
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Diabetes Rates May Double Worldwide by 2030
Semakin ramai mengidapi penyakit kencing manis...
Diabetes Rates May Double Worldwide by 2030
WebMD Health NewsApril 26, 2004 -- The number of people with diabetes will double worldwide by 2030, according to new estimates from researchers at the World Health Organization (WHO) and several European universities.
Although the U.S. is expected to experience a far more rapid increase in diabetes rates, the study suggests the greatest relative increases will be in the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, and India.
That's because researchers say deaths due to infectious diseases as well as maternal and infant deaths in developing countries are expected to continue to drop in the next 30 years. Meanwhile, as diabetes rates climb in these areas, deaths due to related diseases, such as heart disease, will increase and account for a larger proportion of deaths in developing countries.
According to the study, published in the May issue of Diabetes Care, the top 10 countries with the highest number of estimated diabetes cases for 2000 and 2030 are as follows:
2000
2030
Rank
Country
People with diabetes (millions)
Country
People with diabetes (millions)
1
India
31.7
India
79.4
2
China
20.8
China
42.3
3
U.S.
17.7
U.S.
30.3
4
Indonesia
8.4
Indonesia
21.3
5
Japan
6.8
Pakistan
13.9
6
Pakistan
5.2
Brazil
11.3
7
Russian Federation
4.6
Bangladesh
11.1
8
Brazil
4.6
Japan
8.9
9
Italy
4.3
Philippines
7.8
10
Bangladesh
3.2
Egypt
6.7
Diabetes Epidemic Growing Ahead of Schedule
The study shows that the three countries with the most people with diabetes are expected to remain India, China, and the U.S. But researchers predict an even higher increase than the CDC predicted in 2001.
The CDC study projected that the number of Americans diagnosed with diabetes would reach 29 million by 2050, but this study estimates there will be more than 30 million Americans with diabetes as early as 2030. Researchers say the new estimate is based on the fact that up to 50% of people with diabetes do not know they have the disease, and their projection is based on people with both diagnosed and undiagnosed diabetes.
Researchers say it's unlikely that their projections overestimate the future of the diabetes epidemic because they are based on the prevalence of obesity remaining stable. But obesity rates have been rising substantially in recent years. Obesity is the leading modifiable risk factor for diabetes.
"Even if the prevalence of obesity remains stable until 2030, which seems unlikely, it is anticipated that the number of people with diabetes will more than double as a consequence of population aging and urbanization," write researcher Sarah Wild, PhD, of the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, and colleagues.
"The human and economic costs of this epidemic are enormous," write the researchers. "A concerted global initiative is required to address the diabetes epidemic."
Diabetes Rates May Double Worldwide by 2030
WebMD Health NewsApril 26, 2004 -- The number of people with diabetes will double worldwide by 2030, according to new estimates from researchers at the World Health Organization (WHO) and several European universities.
Although the U.S. is expected to experience a far more rapid increase in diabetes rates, the study suggests the greatest relative increases will be in the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, and India.
That's because researchers say deaths due to infectious diseases as well as maternal and infant deaths in developing countries are expected to continue to drop in the next 30 years. Meanwhile, as diabetes rates climb in these areas, deaths due to related diseases, such as heart disease, will increase and account for a larger proportion of deaths in developing countries.
According to the study, published in the May issue of Diabetes Care, the top 10 countries with the highest number of estimated diabetes cases for 2000 and 2030 are as follows:
2000
2030
Rank
Country
People with diabetes (millions)
Country
People with diabetes (millions)
1
India
31.7
India
79.4
2
China
20.8
China
42.3
3
U.S.
17.7
U.S.
30.3
4
Indonesia
8.4
Indonesia
21.3
5
Japan
6.8
Pakistan
13.9
6
Pakistan
5.2
Brazil
11.3
7
Russian Federation
4.6
Bangladesh
11.1
8
Brazil
4.6
Japan
8.9
9
Italy
4.3
Philippines
7.8
10
Bangladesh
3.2
Egypt
6.7
Diabetes Epidemic Growing Ahead of Schedule
The study shows that the three countries with the most people with diabetes are expected to remain India, China, and the U.S. But researchers predict an even higher increase than the CDC predicted in 2001.
The CDC study projected that the number of Americans diagnosed with diabetes would reach 29 million by 2050, but this study estimates there will be more than 30 million Americans with diabetes as early as 2030. Researchers say the new estimate is based on the fact that up to 50% of people with diabetes do not know they have the disease, and their projection is based on people with both diagnosed and undiagnosed diabetes.
Researchers say it's unlikely that their projections overestimate the future of the diabetes epidemic because they are based on the prevalence of obesity remaining stable. But obesity rates have been rising substantially in recent years. Obesity is the leading modifiable risk factor for diabetes.
"Even if the prevalence of obesity remains stable until 2030, which seems unlikely, it is anticipated that the number of people with diabetes will more than double as a consequence of population aging and urbanization," write researcher Sarah Wild, PhD, of the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, and colleagues.
"The human and economic costs of this epidemic are enormous," write the researchers. "A concerted global initiative is required to address the diabetes epidemic."
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Obesity, Inactivity Keeping Heart Health Stats Down
Buat para pembaca: kita makan berlebihan karbohidrat dan berlebihan kalorie dan kurang exercise, akibatnya kita membahayakan diri kita dan meningkat risiko kena penyakit diabetes, sakit jantung, stroke dll..
awas, jaga pemakanan anda, lakukan senaman yang mencukupi.
bacalah artikel ini.
wan hamidi
Obesity, Inactivity Keeping Heart Health Stats Down
HealthDay Reporter – Thu Dec 17,2009 11:49 pm ET
THURSDAY, Dec. 17 (HealthDay News) -- While physicians and surgeons are getting better at treating heart attacks and other cardiovascular problems, too many Americans are ignoring the basic rules for preventing them, according to new statistics from the American Heart Association.
Topping the list: too little exercise, too much weight.
In fact, 59 percent of adults surveyed last year reported no activity vigorous enough to prompt sweating and a significant increase in breathing or heart rate, according to the update. The findings are published online Dec. 17 in the journal Circulation.
"The things people need to focus on are our weight and our waist," said Dr. Donald M. Lloyd-Jones, chair of the heart association's statistics committee. "Those are driving a lot of other risk factors, such as cholesterol and diabetes."
Tackling inactivity and overweight will be key to turning heart health statistics around said Lloyd-Jones, who is also chairman of the department of preventive medicine and staff cardiologist at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
The American diet also demands more attention, he said. "There is just too much availability of very calorie-dense food," he said. "We're not doing anything to burn off those extra pounds."
Data from 2003-2006 shows that 11.3 percent of children and teenagers were at or
above the 97th percentile in body mass index for their age. That's ominous, because oerweight teens have a 70 percent chance of becoming overweight adults, the report notes.
Preventive measures should be emphasized for younger people, Lloyd-Jones said. "We need to be thinking about this as a life-long problem, not just when you turn 50," he said.
Cholesterol control is ignored by many who would benefit from it most, according to the Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics 2010 update. Fewer than half the Americans with symptomatic heart disease are receiving treatment to lower their blood levels of fats, and only a third of people getting treatment are achieving the target levels of LDL cholesterol, the "bad kind" that clogs arteries.
"Everything is coming together in the worst way -- obesity, inactivity, smoking," said Dr. Clyde W. Yancy, heart association president and medical director of the Baylor Heart and Vascular Institute in Dallas. "In our younger group, instead of seeing improvement, it is getting worse."
One relatively bright spot is better control of high blood pressure, a major cardiovascular risk factor, Lloyd-Jones said. "In the last few years, we have taken a bump up, and that gives us reason to hope, especially in prevention of heart failure," he said.
Other findings:
• Death rates from cardiovascular disease declined about 30 percent between 1996 and 2006, as treatments improved.
• In 2006, 7.2 million in-hospital cardiovascular procedures were performed, a 33 percent increase over the 1996 level.
• The cost of treating cardiovascular disease is expected to rise 5.8 percent in 2010, to $503.2 billion, a figure that lends real urgency to prevention efforts, Lloyd-Jones said.
"So we are spending half a trillion dollars on cardiovascular disease," Yancy said. "And we recognize that, as in our younger population the incidence of sedentary life style, obesity and smoking are going up, that expenditure will continue to rise."
By 2020, the association hopes for a 20 percent improvement in the cardiovascular health of all Americans and a 20 percent reduction in deaths from cardiovascular diseases and stroke.
More information
Cardiovascular risk factors are listed by the American Heart Association.
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