Fasting Might Boost Chemo's Cancer-Busting Properties Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:30:00 EST - Cancer treatment can be brutal for patients. Many of the tools we have-- chemotherapy , radiation--are big, blunt weapons that deal punishing blows to healthy tissues along with cancerous ones. So the hunt has been on for more and more finely targeted th...
Marc Garnick Answers 6 Key Questions about Prostate Cancer Wed, 08 Feb 2012 08:00:00 EST - The latest findings about the ineffectiveness of PSA testing to screen for prostate cancer has confused many men--and their loved ones. On the one hand is the seeming chance to catch cancer early. On the other hand is the growing realization that many p...
The Great Prostate Debate: Does Screening Save Lives? (preview) Wed, 08 Feb 2012 08:00:00 EST - Last fall the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force dropped a bombshell, arguing that healthy men should stop undergoing a routine blood test as a screen for prostate cancer. An analysis of the best available evidence, it argued, had shown little or no long...
Marijuana Mouth Spray: Will Cancer Pain Reliever Be Abused? Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:30:00 EST - The medical marijuana drug Sativex, which could be approved in the United States in the coming years as a treatment for pain relief, has little potential for abuse, experts say. [More]
The Math behind Screening Tests Sat, 31 Dec 2011 10:00:00 EST - It seems like every few months a new study points out the inefficacy of yet another wide-scale cancer screening. In 2009 the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force suggested that many women undergo mammograms later and less frequently than had been...
D'oh! Top Science Journal Retractions of 2011 Tue, 27 Dec 2011 12:30:00 EST - Bad science papers can have lasting effects. Consider the 1998 paper in the journal The Lancet that linked autism to the MMR vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella. That paper was fully retracted in 2010 upon evidence that senior author Andrew Wakefie...
Anything Boys Can Do... Mon, 26 Dec 2011 08:00:00 EST - When then Harvard University president Lawrence Summers suggested in 2005 that innate differences between men and women may account for the lack of women in top science and engineering positions (and subsequently resigned), he was referring to the greater...
How Ralph Steinman Raced to Develop a Cancer Vaccine--And Save His Life (preview) Tue, 20 Dec 2011 12:04:00 EST - Peering through a microscope at a plate of cells one day, Ralph M. Steinman spied something no one had ever seen before. It was the early 1970s, and he was a researcher at the Rockefeller University on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. At the time, scien...
Why We Don't See Lions, Bombs and Breast Cancers Tue, 20 Dec 2011 08:28:00 EST - Let’s imagine that I suggest you look for lions while we are strolling through the park. For most people reading this, the local park will be an unlikely place to find a lion. If you take my request seriously, you might look around but you wou...
Vitamin D Prevents Fractures, But Role in Cancer Remains Unclear Mon, 19 Dec 2011 20:15:00 EST - Taking v itamin D , along with calcium supplements, may reduce your risk of breaking a bone, but there's not yet enough evidence to say whether it may lower your risk of cancer, a new analysis concludes. [More]
Prolonged Sitting Linked to Breast and Colon Cancers Thu, 03 Nov 2011 18:05:00 EST - WASHINGTON -- Our culture of sitting may be responsible for 173,000 cases of cancer each year, according to new estimates.Physical inactivity is linked to as many as 49,000 cases of breast cancer and 43,000 cases of colon cancer a year in the United S...
8 Mobile Apps to Help Manage Your Health [Slide Show] Wed, 02 Nov 2011 15:30:00 EST - Thousands of health and medical apps can be had for a minute or less of download time, and sometimes a dollar or two. Because choosing among mobile applications can be an overwhelming experience, Scientific American has put together a list--based on funct...
Did Alternative Medicine Extend or Abbreviate Steve Jobs's Life? Thu, 27 Oct 2011 08:00:00 EST - Exact details of the alternative natural and traditional therapies tried by Steve Jobs before he underwent surgery in 2004 and eventually died of pancreatic cancer earlier this month have not been disclosed. (A representative from Apple declined to commen...
Boys Should Get HPV Vaccine, Too, CDC Says Wed, 26 Oct 2011 12:10:00 EST - A vaccine originally intended to prevent cervical cancer in girls should be given to boys as well, an advisory panel for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today (Oct. 25).The panel voted to recommend the human papillomavirus (HP...
Hairdressers Can Be Skin Cancer Detectors Wed, 19 Oct 2011 17:03:08 EST - Humans have mostly abandoned the grooming strategies of our chimp cousins. So there's a good chance your scalp and the back of your head go largely unexamined. But this inattention can leave skin cancers undetected. [More]
Outsmarting Cancer: Why It's So Tough Fri, 14 Oct 2011 08:00:00 EST - Name : Brent Stockwell Title : Associate professor, Columbia University [More]
A New Ally against Cancer: Vaccines (preview) Wed, 12 Oct 2011 08:00:00 EST - For decades cancer specialists have offered patients three main therapies: surgery, chemotherapy and radiation. (Some cancer survivors pointedly refer to this harsh trinity as “slash, poison and burn.”) Over the years continual refinement...
