What is the mesothelium?
Many of the internal organs of the body are protected by a membrane called the mesothelium. This membrane actually consists of two layers of cells. The inner layer surrounds the organs, and the second is a sac surrounding the inner layer. When organs within this membrane must move or expand or contract — such as the heart, lungs, bladder, and so on, they are able to do so because the mesothelium produces a lubricating fluid between the two layers.

What about the options available for treating cancer mesothelioma, This cancer is a rare cancer which has a very long time to appear in the human body, the symptoms of the disease take many years from 30 to 50 years. For this problem, the discovery of mesothelioma, cancer is very difficult.

The other problem with the discovery of mesothelioma, cancer is the similarity of signs of that disease to signs of other illness and diseases. The diagnosis of mesothelioma is difficult. SO, the diagnosis of this process takes a lot of transactions to be attained.

What are the options to treat mesothelioma cancer? There are three options for the primary treatment.

Unfortunately, individuals suffering from mesothelioma (a form of cancer caused by asbestos exposure) have a rather poor prognosis. There is currently no cure for mesothelioma, and once the disease is discovered, patients usually only have a short time to live. Without treatment, mesothelioma is fatal within four to eight months. New forms of treatment are always being developed and tested, however, and there is evidence that the healthier a patient is at the time of diagnosis, the longer the life expectancy of the patient.

There are cases where patients receiving treatment have lived for as long as five or even ten years, but this is very rare. Even under treatment, most people survive less than one year, and often only a few months after receiving their mesothelioma diagnosis. According to recent studies, around 10% of victims live at least three years after their diagnosis, and 5% reach five years.

The mesothelioma lawyer (s) at some firm (A mesothelioma law firm which is dedicated to finding a cure for mesothelioma and has donated over $10 million to cancer research) have been working with people diagnosed with mesothelioma and asbestos-related diseases and their families for nearly a decade.

DIAGNOSIS OF MESOTHELIOMA

A mesothelioma diagnosis starts with identification of the symptoms  associated with the different forms of the disease. Then, a doctor will review medical history, paying special attention to circumstances where an individual may have been exposed to asbestos. Next, is a complete physical examination with x-rays and possibly a CT scan or MRI. Finally, a biopsy confirms a diagnosis. This can take the form of a fine-needle aspiration, thoracoscopy or laparoscopy. Afterwards, more tests are given to determine staging, or the level of disease severity on a scale of I-IV.

Stages of mesothelioma

I. localized, limited to one part of the body
II. spread to another nearby membrane or organ
III. spread to several other nearby membranes or organs, possibly lymph nodes
IV. advanced, metastasized cancer that spreads to parts of the body farther away from the original site

Other testing

Imaging tests include (explained in greater detail on the American Cancer Society):

• Chest x-rays
• CT (computed tomography) scans
• PET (positron emission tomography) scans
• MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scans
• Blood tests
• Fluid tests and tissue samples
  • Thoracentesis (chest cavity fluid)
  • Paracentesis (abdominal fluid)
  • Pericardiocentesis (heart sac fluid)
• Needle biopsies
• Thoracoscopy/laparoscopy/mediastinoscopy
• Surgical biopsy
• Bronchoscopic biopsy
• Testing lab samples
  • Immunohistochemistry
  • DNA microarray analysis
  • Electron microscopy
• Pulmonary function tests (PFTs)

TREATMENT

Depending on a patient’s physical condition and stage of mesothelioma, the treatment prescribed may be either curative or palliative. Curative treatments are designed to completely eradicate the disease, and are usually given to patients with Stage I or Stage II mesothelioma. Palliative treatments, on the other hand, are designed to relieve symptoms of the disease and are usually administered when mesothelioma tumors are too large to remove or have already spread throughout the body.

Mesothelioma Surgery

Surgery

The goal of mesothelioma surgery is usually curative. For patients in relatively good health whose mesothelioma is contained to one specific area, surgery is many times the most effective treatment option.

Surgeries designed to treat pleural mesothelioma include pleurectomy and extrapleural pneumonectomy. Pleurectomy, which is usually used to treat patients with localized mesothelioma, removes the pleura where the tumor is located. Extrapleural pneumonectomy is much more extensive and removes the pleura, the diaphragm, pericardium and one whole lung.

Chemotherapy Patient

Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy treatments attack mesothelioma cells with anti-cancer drugs. While chemotherapy is not considered a completely curative treatment, it can be effective at holding mesothelioma in check and shrinking tumors. If a patient undergoes surgery for mesothelioma, chemotherapy is often used as a supplemental treatment. For those physically unable to handle surgery, however, chemotherapy can be used as an alternative treatment.

No two people react the same to chemotherapy treatments, which is why doctors often experiment with a number of different drugs. Two of the most common drugs prescribed for mesothelioma are pemetrexed (Alimta) and cisplatin.

Mesothelioma Radiation Treatment

Radiation Therapy

Radiation works best on single, large tumors, because it can bombard these tumors with a strong concentration of high-energy x-rays or particles. Since most mesothelioma cases consist of smaller tumors spread across a large area, radiation is often relatively ineffective.

Radiation is many times used as a palliative treatment, relieving mesothelioma symptoms like shortness of breath, pain and bleeding. It can also be used as a supplement to surgery or an alternative for those too weak to handle surgery and chemotherapy.

Clinical Trials

Trial therapies focus on the study of promising new treatments for a particular disease. These trials are constantly in need of patients who are willing to try these experimental treatments before they are approved by the FDA. Patients should speak to their doctors about current clinical trials available to them and if they might qualify to be a part of a particular study. Those opting to participate in a clinical trial should carefully weigh the pros and cons before agreeing to participate.
Alternative Therapies

The most precious resource of all human beings is our ability to reason and interact with the world around us. Luckily, healthy adults can maintain their overall intellectual performance into their eighties and beyond. Your language ability, sensory and immediate memory, and problem-solving skills normally will change little over time. An important part of staying younger, however, is taking steps to exercise your mind, including your thinking ability and your learning capacity, to keep all of your mental processes working optimally. Think of your brain as just another muscle, one that has to be exercised regularly to keep it in optimal condition. This article lets you know how to get started, by giving you specific memory exercises and ways to reverse memory loss.

It’s also important to know how to distinguish between normal memory lapses and more serious mind-related problems, such as depression, dementia, mild cognitive impairment, and Alzheimer’s disease, that may be treatable to enhance your enjoyment of life. Likewise, spirituality and religion are a comfort to many individuals and can provide much-needed emotional support. You should also realize that a high level of creativity is possible throughout your life span, and examples of the creative works of older minds abound. Read on to get started in keeping your mind, along with your body, in tip-top shape throughout your lifetime.

Creativity and Aging

To start on a positive note, growing older by no means results in an inevitable end to your creative thought processes. On the contrary, the concept that you can and will continue having a productive life for years to come has been demonstrated by many and has been encapsulated by poets throughout the ages, from Seneca, who stated, “The best morsel is reserved to the last,” to Robert Browning, who exclaimed, “Grow old with me! The best is yet to be.”

Galileo changed our view of the earth round versus flat-when he was 74

Examples abound of extraordinarily creative older people whose achievements vie with those of anyone younger. As poetically detailed by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “Nothing is too late till the tired heart shall cease to palpitate.”

Among scientists, Galileo changed our view of the earth round versus flat-when he was a robust 74.  Benjamin Franklin gave us bifocal glasses at 78, and Sigmund Freud’s The Ego and the Id was published when he was 67. Giuseppe Verdi wrote Otello at 74 and Falstaff at 80. Richard Wagner’s Ring operas were written after his 60th birthday. George Bernard Shaw continued to write plays into his 90s, Goethe wrote the second part of Faust at 80, and Cervantes was in his 60s when he wrote Don Quixote. Prolific author James Michener wrote ten very long books in the last 4 years of his over-90-year life.

Among artists and performers, Michelangelo produced two Pietàs, one at 22 and the other at 90. His Last Judgment was painted when he was relatively young: between 57 and 66 years old. Pablo Picasso was extraordinarily productive throughout life, Henri Matisse did his cut outs in old age, and Grandma Moses produced her last painting at age 103. Interestingly, Claude Monet did his best Impressionist art after he developed cataracts. Finally, on the big screen, actress Jessica Tandy won an Oscar for her colourful performance in Driving Miss Daisy in 1989 when she was 80 years of age, making her the oldest actor or actress ever to win an Academy Award, beating out George Burns by just 1 year for his work in The Sunshine Boys at the age of 79. When he reached the one century mark in 1996, he had successfully spent 80 years in show business, appearing in his last movie just 2 years before his death occurring not long after his 100th birthday.

What Causes Memory Loss, and How Much Is Normal?

Whether you’re still creative or not, you’re likely to experience a decrease in your ability to learn and remember things as you age. For instance, a study of Harvard physicians found that between forty and seventy years of age, most of them experienced an approximate 18 percent decrease in this ability. While the extent of changes in learning ability varies widely from person to person, everyone shows some degree of decline over time, along with reductions in skills like riding a bike or judging distances accurately.

Memory loss, or not being able to remember what you’ve already learned, is a different ball game, but it can be a frightening occurrence whether it’s minor forgetfulness or the devastating effects of Alzheimer’s disease. How much memory loss is normal? Although you will experience a slower rate of learning and memorizing things, you should not lose your memory—short-term or long-term—simply from getting older. Some degree of forgetfulness is normal, but you should maintain the ability to function in your job and remember the names of your spouse, children, friends, and so on. In fact, you should never forget the names of your close relatives and friends, as forgetting who they are would be abnormal. The kind of memory loss that would be concerning is completely forgetting entire events. For example, it would be normal to not recall the name of a movie you saw last weekend, but it’s not normal to forget that you saw a movie at all.

The most common causes of normal memory loss are stress and anxiety, followed by depression, all of which are considered reversible. Only after these emotional states are eliminated would other medical conditions be considered as potential causes, and Alzheimer’s disease would actually be far down the list. Most older adults who complain about memory loss do not have Alzheimer’s disease; rather, many are either experiencing normal forgetfulness or suffering from mild mental impairment, depression, stress, anxiety, fatigue, insufficient sleep, or other medical issues (such as a prior head trauma resulting in unconsciousness) that are impacting their short-term memory.

Tips for Better Health

Everyone experiences a decreased ability to learn and memorize things over time, but while some degree of forgetfulness is normal, memory loss is not usual. For instance, it would not be concerning to forget the name of a movie you saw last weekend, but you shouldn’t forget that you saw a movie at all.

Before a person can be diagnosed as having Alzheimer’s disease or even dementia, the reversible causes of memory loss should be treated fi rst. These potential causes are listed in Table 4.1, along with ways to treat each problem and restore memory function.

Sometimes the cure is incredibly simple, such as when medical students at Saint Louis University found that removing excess wax from the ears of nursing home residents improved their mental status more than most drugs did. People with uncontrolled diabetes can act impaired because blood glucose levels higher than 200 mg/dL interfere with normal learning and memory, as do triglyceride (blood fat) levels higher than 150 mg/dL. Likewise, aggressive treatment of anemia using hormones like erythropoietin to boost red blood cells improves mental function as soon as oxygen delivery to the brain is enhanced.

Table: Reversing Memory Loss

Reversing Memory Loss

Exercise Your Mind to Keep It Healthy

Not surprisingly, the same advice that we gave for achieving physical fi tness applies to mental fi tness: “Use it or lose it.” Just as daily exercise strengthens certain muscle groups, mental exercises will strengthen and enhance your cognitive function. The goal of brain fi tness is to revive certain mental abilities before they slow down or reverse such changes if they have already taken place.

Mental Exercises for a Healthier Mind

1. Try to memorize any sort of list, and at the end of the day, try to recall as many of the items as you can. You can memorize any list that is new to you (e.g., a list of groceries you need that week), but try to make it as challenging as possible for maximum mental stimulation.
2. Each time you answer the phone, practice recognizing the callers before they identify themselves. Then memorize the caller’s phone number. At the end of the day and later at the end of the week, try to write down the names of all the people you have spoken with and their phone numbers.
3. Pick an object each day to observe and then draw (to stimulate your short-term memory). To work your long-term memory, at the end of the week draw all seven objects from each day of the week without looking to see what they were.
4. Whenever you walk into a room, try to quickly determine how many people, pieces of furniture, and other objects in it are on your right and on your left. Also, pick out any details that have changed since your last visit, if it’s a usual room.
5. When you have visited somewhere and then return home, try to draw a plan or map of the place you have seen. Repeat this exercise every time you return from somewhere new.
6. Take a sentence from something you are reading and try to make other sentences using the same words, but in a different order. As an alternative, try substituting new words in several places without making the sentence nonsensical.
7. Try playing challenging card or board games that require mental reasoning, such as pinochle, bridge, chess, checkers, or Othello. To keep them fresh and challenging, avoid playing the same games all the time.
8. Do daily crossword puzzles, anagrams, and other word or reasoning games. Recently, Sudoku has become an excellent source of such exercises.
9. Find new games and interests, as well as different activities and partners for your chosen games and activities.
10. Listen to or read the news; later on, try to write down a summary, or main points, of all that you heard or read.
11. Read challenging articles and books, including non fiction, fiction, poetry, classic literature, and more.
12. When you see a word, think of as many others that begin with the same two letters as you can. Alternately, use the last two letters of the word and think of other words with that ending.
13. When eating, try to identify the individual ingredients in what you’re eating, including the subtle flavorings of herbs and spices. Exercise your senses of smell and touch by trying to identify objects with your eyes closed, both indoors and outdoors.
14. Try to do something new or unusual every day that requires you to think. For example, vary the route that you take home to see if you can fi gure out a slightly different way to arrive at your usual destination.
15. Practice doing math problems in your head: adding, subtracting, multiplying, figuring out percentages from decimals, and so on. Practice to get better at doing any types of math problems that you fi nd particularly challenging.
16. Learn a new language, either on your own or by taking a class. Sign up for other courses that are challenging and fun.
17. Play video games, particularly ones that require quick responses. It will give you something to do with your kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids.
18. Use your imagination and your creativity to think up new ways to exercise your mind on a daily basis.

Tip for Better Health

Exercising both your mind and your body with daily exercises can keep your mental status sharper. Do daily (and varied) mental and physical activity for optimal mental sharpness and physical fitness.

Exercise Your Body for a Healthy Mind

Just as you need to exercise your mind to keep the neurons firing well and your mental processes sharp, exercising your body will also keep your mind healthy. Exercise can improve not only your physical health but also your mental well-being, because almost all forms of physical activity improve insulin sensitivity and simultaneously decrease your risk of vascular changes—one of the risk factors for dementia and cognitive declines. Participation in leisure physical activities reduces your risk, and all levels of exercise may prevent or delay the onset of dementia or Alzheimer’s. If you’re already suffering from some noticeable mental changes, all is not lost. Exercise training also improves mental functioning and positive behaviour in people who have already developed some level of dementia and other related cognitive changes.

Exercise improves memory and mental function in two ways. First, it enhances your heart’s function, which means that it can pump more effectively and perfuse your brain with a rich supply of blood, along with lowering your risk for vascular problems. Second, exercise also has a direct impact on growth factors in the brain, which are proteins that naturally nourish the brain cells and help repair small injuries, thus allowing them to remain healthy and functional. Two of these growth factors, brain-derived neurotropic factor and nerve growth factor, have both been shown to increase with exercise and to improve memory. Thus exercise makes your brain repair itself to allow it to work better. Regular physical activity can additionally alleviate many of the reversible causes of memory loss by reducing stress, anxiety, depression, and sleep disorders. Any type of physical activity is an effective, but often underused, treatment for mild to moderate depression and emotional stress. Exercising helps you release fewer stress hormones as well, which will help you sleep better, gain less fat weight, and keep your immune system stronger. To treat anxiety, more intense exercise may be more effective because it causes a greater release of beta-endorphins, which are brain hormones with calming effects.

Dealing with Depression

While dementia is the most common mental illness to afflict older people, depression is more devastating for the individual and family members, and it can occur at any age. Pervasive sadness can totally destroy your ability to function, often leading to suicidal thoughts and actions. In addition, living with depressed individuals can leave the rest of the family exhausted and drained of all their enthusiasm for life. Feeling blue can negatively impact all aspects of living well, both mental and physical, but the good news is that it’s treatable.

Who Gets Depressed and Why?

Despite the general expectation that older people’s life experiences, such as losing a spouse, job, house, or friends, lead to justifiable depression, major depressive disorders occur more commonly in young women and men than in older ones. Lack of proper diet at young age because of the hectic schedules is also one of its cause. Older people generally cope better with disease and adversity than their younger counterparts. However, as people begin to suffer from more diseases and decreased feelings of youthfulness, even older individuals may develop an intermediate version of sadness known as dysphoria. Moreover, if you become depressed when you’re older, it’s more likely to go unrecognized and untreated. For this reason, early detection and treatment is essential, particularly for anyone older than fifty.

Depressive symptoms are often atypical, meaning that the usual ones may not be prominent or even evident. Some people may complain about dizziness or loud tinnitus (ringing in their ears), or they may experience severe weight loss. Depression can even be misdiagnosed as dementia or cognitive impairment. When you’re depressed, you often lack the desire to answer questions that may detect depression. Suicide occurs most commonly in older white males, and two out of three people who commit suicide actually will have had a doctor’s appointment in the month before. They generally have no specifi c complaints of depression, and consequently, their cry for help is often missed. When anyone ever says that he or she is thinking of suicide, this statement must be taken seriously and appropriate treatments started right away.

A number of medical conditions are also associated with a greater risk of depression, including pancreatic cancer, stroke, Parkinson’s disease, diabetes, and most hormonal disorders. The major neurotransmitter abnormalities resulting in depression are related to norepinephrine and serotonin, both of which are substances found in the brain. Elevated levels of another hormone, corticotropin-releasing factor, appears to cause most of the vegetative signs of depression, including weight loss, sleep disturbances, constipation, erectile dysfunction, and decreased libido. It’s also responsible for elevating blood cortisol levels, which causes faster bone thinning and decreased insulin action. What’s more, if you’re depressed and have a heart attack, you’re likely to fare less well and have another cardiac problem within a year.

Tips for Better Health

Depression is a common and emotionally devastating condition that can strike at any age and often goes undetected and untreated the older you are. If you feel unusually sad for an extended period, seek out treatment from your physician before you end up with limitations from physical symptoms as well.

How Depression Is Treated

Depression is effectively treated with psychotherapy (talk therapy), drugs, and electroconvulsive therapy (shock therapy). One-third or more of people with depression will spontaneously get better, and drugs and psychotherapy will cure approximately another third. Electroconvulsive therapy will cure eight out of ten people, but is less commonly used.

Numerous drugs have been developed for the treatment of depression. The two major classes are tricyclics, which alter norepinephrine function, and serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) that may be more effective for severe depression. Tricyclics are more sedative and have a large number of potentially undesirable side effects, including an increased risk of glaucoma, abnormal heart rhythms, urinary retention and incontinence, hip fractures, and falls. A large number of SSRIs are available, and although many physicians consider them to be safer to use than tricyclics, SSRIs have many potential side effects. For instance, they can cause low sodium levels in blood, stomach bleeding, hip fractures, falls, sleep disturbances, and more. Thus, neither class of drugs has potential side effects that are desirable.

In addition to traditional medical therapy, some herbal remedies for depression have been tried. For example, Saint John’s wort (hypericum perforatum) is an herbal drug that has shown effi cacy against mild (but not major) depression in some studies. It appears to have fewer side effects than tricyclics or SSRIs but has not been thoroughly studied in this regard.

Where Do We Go from Here? What’s The Solution?

For some reason, psychologically ill persons are often blamed for their problems. Physicians have little difficulty treating the physical ailments of smokers, alcoholics, drug abusers, obese individuals, and those with sexually transmitted diseases. Yet they often fail to prescribe appropriate therapies for emotional changes.

When a mind malfunctions, one or more neurotransmitters have now started to jump in the wrong rhythm or are failing to be recognized by the receptors that normally receive them. Such a phenomenon is no different from many metabolic disorders, such as diabetes, or classical neurological disorders like epilepsy or multiple sclerosis. It’s time to make treatment of major mental health disorders a central part of staying young.

What Are Mild Neurocognitive Disorder and Dementia?

Milk could help prevent Alzheimer's Disease

Being cognitively impaired, becoming demented, or suffering from Alzheimer’s disease are not possibilities that anyone wants to dwell on. Nevertheless, it’s important to understand what causes such mental changes, so that if there is anything preventive that you can do, you have the option of trying to keep your mental function intact. As discussed, all individuals lose some of the ability to learn things at the rate they did when they were younger. If we live long enough, many of us (but certainly not all) will become truly cognitively impaired at some point and lose our ability to reason rationally, that wondrous quality that separates us from the other members of the animal kingdom.

The physiological or psychological conditions that can lead to cognitive impairment include not only reversible causes of memory loss, but also stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, certain types of tumours, cardiovascular problems, schizophrenia, and severe anxiety. These and many other disorders may produce symptoms of cognitive impairment. Your doctor should be able to determine whether your cognitive changes result from a reversible condition and help you to treat them effectively if they do.

However, certain other conditions affecting mental processes are harder to reverse. For example, mild neurocognitive disorder can often be the harbinger of other changes to come. It is present when you are experiencing small but noticeable alterations in your ability to think. People with it can continue to function relatively normally, but this condition isn’t necessarily benign, as it progresses to some form of dementia within fi ve years in about 50 percent of people with these cognitive changes. To see if you have any signs of it, have someone test you using the Saint Louis University Mental Status (SLUMS) Examination that Dr. John helped to develop, given in the appendix. If you want to know your chances of progression, have a brain MRI done to determine the volume of your hippocampus, the part of the brain that regulates memory, as small hippocampal volumes are predictive of future declines.

Moreover, approximately half of us will, if we live long enough, also develop some level of dementia. By definition, dementia means memory loss plus deficits in one or more areas of cognition. To be diagnosed with dementia, you must be unable to carry out some of your normal functioning, such as no longer being able to handle your finances, to work, or to take medications properly. While our loss of thought processes is not likely to greatly worry us personally (due to our lesser ability to think), it will certainly be traumatic for our friends and relatives.

The most devastating form of dementia is called Lewy body dementia and occurs in about one in ten cases. Its impact is potentially the most damaging because the people it afflicts have behavior problems early in the disease process. In one case, a deacon with Lewy body dementia, who had been happily married for forty years, started to make sexually inappropriate remarks to members of his congregation and undress in public! Unexplained angry outbursts by individuals with this type of dementia can also increase well in advance of memory decline.

Although a proper diet is required to avoid Alzheimer’s disease  but milk is proven to prevent Alzheimer’s disease effectively.

Dementia itself has many potential causes, such as high blood pressure resulting in vascular changes that reduce blood flow to the brain (common in diabetes). The most usual cause of dementia, however, is Alzheimer’s disease, making Alzheimer’s just one of the different types of dementias, although the onset and progression vary with the origin. Alzheimer’s disease is not as common as people believe. Only one in a hundred people in their sixties develops this disease; in people in their seventies, the incidence is only two or three per hundred. The numbers are only significantly higher when people reach their eighties and nineties.

Unfortunately, the drugs available to treat dementia work poorly, so little can be done to reverse its symptoms, aside from treating the reversible causes of memory loss in case any of them are contributing to the severity of the dementia. For individuals with diabetes, reducing the severity of vascular problems can provide greater blood flow to the brain and potentially improve their symptoms.

Tip for Better Health

Mild neurocognitive disorder involves small alterations in your ability to think and may progress to dementia, characterized by memory loss plus deficits in one or more areas of cognition. Drugs to treat dementia work poorly, so the best approach is to simply treat the reversible causes of memory loss.

New Insights into Alzheimer’s Disease

Alzheimer’s disease is a disease that many fear getting, but relatively few will. If you have dealt with an aging relative with Alzheimer’s, you have fi rsthand experience of how bad it can be. It essentially causes family members to mourn twice: fi rst when they lose mental contact with the person they know and love, and again when that person dies much later. Undeniably, it’s a devastating disorder of the brain that leads to memory loss, alterations in behavior and personality, inability to think appropriately, and loss of function.

This disease was f irst described by the pathologist, Alois Alzheimer, at the beginning of the twentieth century. He associated the changes in memory with the presence of amyloid plaques and neurofi brillary tangles in the brain (more on these later). While the majority of people who develop Alzheimer’s disease are older, it can occur in middle age. Some individuals die in the fi rst few years after diagnosis, but most survive eight to ten years and a few as long as twenty. At present, about four million Americans have it. Over the last decade, researchers have markedly enhanced knowledge about Alzheimer’s disease. We can only look forward to seeing further breakthroughs in the near future that will lead to an enhanced quality of life for anyone developing this debilitating disease.

What Causes Alzheimer’s Disease?

At present, there are two major theories about the cause of Alzheimer’s disease. First, overproduction of beta-amyloid, a brain molecule produced in nerve cells, directly inhibits the ability to learn and recall events and also sets in motion a cascade of events that leads to brain tissue destruction. Dr. John and other researchers have found that in some cases beta-amyloid accumulates excessively in the human brain, leading to a build up of toxic products and memory loss. The second theory is that this disease occurs when oxygen free radicals cause nerve degeneration. As evidence of this process, treatment with a free radical scavenger, alpha-lipoic acid, leads to improved memory. And talking about vitamins, supplementing with vitamin E, a less potent antioxidant, has yielded mixed results. Research suggests that the two potential causes are likely linked.

Likewise, systemic inflammation may contribute to the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. Elevated levels of ineffective insulin, found in an insulin-resistant state, are more common in people with vascular disease and type 2 diabetes. Even if you don’t have diabetes, having elevated insulin levels increases your risk of Alzheimer’s disease and memory deficits. Thus, Alzheimer’s disease may actually prove to be another form of diabetes (“type 3”), because brain cells make some of their own insulin, but this hormone disappears early and dramatically in people with this disease, the result being a decreased clearance of beta-amyloid. It’s unclear if lack of insulin or decreased insulin action in the brain occurs only locally or results from a lower insulin action in the rest of the body, but it is well established that poorly controlled diabetes increases your risk of mental decline and Alzheimer’s. There is hope: you likely can improve your mental status by achieving control over your diabetes using medications such as insulin sensitizers.

The health of your cardiovascular system is also very important to the vitality of your brain. Your risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease increases with the number of vascular risk factors that you have, such as insulin resistance, diabetes, smoking, hypertension, and heart disease. Diabetes by itself confers a greatly exaggerated risk of vascular complications and mental decline.

Is It Possible to Slow, Reverse, or Prevent Alzheimer’s Disease?

Right now, ongoing research attempting to slow the overproduction of beta-amyloid offers great hope for more effective treatment and prevention of Alzheimer’s disease in the near future. A number of potentially reversible factors may accelerate the onset of Alzheimer’s, including a low education level, less diverse and intense recreational activities, lower physical activity, high levels of homocysteine (related to inadequate intake of vitamins B6, B12, and folate), and an underactive thyroid gland. An Australian study even concluded that people who pick their noses regularly are more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease. At present, the safest way to prevent the onset of this disease is to participate in regular physical activity to slow your rate of brain tissue loss. Exercise also helps control blood glucose levels in people with diabetes and lower insulin levels in the blood by reversing insulin resistance. In addition, mental activity also delays potential declines in cognitive function, so make sure to regularly practice the mental exercises given earlier in this article.

Tip for Better Health

Alzheimer’s disease is one form of dementia but not the only potential cause. The onset of Alzheimer’s is sometimes preventable. The best strategies to prevent its onset include regular physical activity and mental exercises, have proper nutrition along with better control of your cardiovascular risk factors, such as insulin resistance, diabetes, and high blood pressure.

Drugs to Treat and Slow the Progression of Alzheimer’s To date, the treatment options for this disease leave a lot to be desired. One of the major neurotransmitters (i.e., substances that conduct nerve impulses) involved in the memory deficits seen in Alzheimer’s disease is acetylcholine (ACh). Some of the available drugs, such as Aricept, block its breakdown, although none currently works very well. Other therapies have been investigated, but have also proven to be unsuccessful, including estrogen replacement and the use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs like naproxen.

Are there any alternate therapies for this disease? As discussed , testosterone levels slowly decline over one’s lifetime. A number of studies, including Dr. John’s, have found that this occurrence is associated with a lessening mental function, that visual spatial memory can be enhanced with testosterone replacement, and that low testosterone levels are associated with Alzheimer’s disease. In mice, testosterone reduces the production of amyloid precursor protein. In addition, ginkgo biloba is a medicinal herbal substance that appears to have some memory-enhancing effects in animals as well, but it hasn’t been rigorously studied in humans yet. Finally, nootropics, or so-called smart drugs that improve blood flow in the brain, are inexpensive and appear to be about as effective in improving mental function as are the modern drugs.

Ghrelin, Hunger, and Mental Health

Ghrelin, the hormone produced in the stomach that signals when you’re hungry, may not make your body release more growth hormone, but it naturally helps you remember and learn things. This recent discovery could point to a new direction for a treatment for Alzheimer’s disease: ghrelin replacement therapy to restore memory. Not surprising to most of us, there appears to be a direct link between the stomach and the brain. The latest research by Dr. John and others at Saint Louis University shows that high levels of ghrelin, the primary hormone that regulates appetite that tells you that you require proper nutrition as and when required, trigger activity in the part of the brain responsible for learning and memory performance. In these studies, mice that lacked the ghrelin gene failed to do as well on behavioural tests, but when they received ghrelin replacement therapy, their memory improved and their ability to learn was restored. Thus ghrelin likely has a physiological role in maintaining memory. In fact, the ghrelin response could date back to the time when man had to forage for food when hungry. If you can’t remember where your dinner ran off to, you’ll have nothing to eat, so a better memory is ultimately important to the long-term survival of our species.

Whenever neuroscientists attempt to explain spiritual experiences, they end up around religion. But still both spirituality and religion can help you live the rest of your life with a greater sense of well-being.

Spirituality and Religion: Their Role in Aging Well

We are just now beginning to fully recognize the role of spirituality and religion in the preservation of psychological and physical health throughout our lifetimes. Overall, both improve psychological health with a lesser effect on physical aspects of health, although not all forms of religion have positive effects. Their main role in health likely is to increase coping skills and enhance access to external support. For example, prayer is a commonly used coping strategy for anyone dealing with disability or life-threatening illnesses. People of all ages also seek to find meaning in their lives. Expressing spirituality through religious practice, compassion, service to others, or passing on wisdom to succeeding generations may bring deep personal satisfaction, comfort, and a sense of peace. Similarly, religious individuals generally live longer and function better, although people don’t necessarily become more religious as they get older.

Be Religious live longer….

Many people think that spirituality and religion are one and the same. You may experience both, but even though everyone has a spiritual component, not everyone is religious. One definition of religion is “a set of beliefs, values and practices based on the teachings of a spiritual leader.” As defined, it would suggest that religion is a subset of a larger rubric called spirituality and religion is generally an organized expression of spirituality. Religion offers a way to express spirituality with social support, security, and a sense of belonging through religious affiliations, all of which are important to coping with adversity. Religion is also steeped with tradition, which becomes more important to people the longer they live.

And About Spirituality?

Although religion may include specific beliefs and practices, spirituality is far broader. Defining spirituality, therefore, is a bit like describing colour to a blind person who has never known sight.

Your perception of your spiritual self will vary according to your beliefs. Spirituality is more about being concerned with things of the spirit—the big questions of meaning, metaphysics, and existence.

Being spiritual is thinking about, wondering about, and exploring the deepest aspects of reality, values, morals, and meanings, but it should never be equated with supernaturalism. It’s about all the ways that we try to make sense of living and our attempts to make good come from our lives and actions. Spiritual development provides us with insight and understanding of ourselves and others.

Strategies to Bring Spirituality into Your Life Spiritual awakening is a journey, and you may feel the call to embark on a spiritual path after going throug when certain parts of your life are no longer fl owing as smoothly h a diffi cult time or as they once did. Sharing your unique, personal experiences, even if they are outside of traditional realms, can increase your feelings of spirituality. Talking about your dreams, daydreams, near-death experiences, visions, hallucinations, and more serves as a positive outlet for your emotions.

Similarly, feelings of hope are associated with a longer life. Hope may be used as a means of coping with changes occurring to your body over time because it can improve your expectations for the future, motivate you to take action, or give you the means of fulfilling your goals. Religious and spiritual activity can even help you recover faster from illness or injury.

Finally, creating legacies is another very constructive approach to bringing meaning and spirituality into your life. They may be expressed as written or recorded memoirs, photograph collections, memory gardens, family histories or genealogies, and autobiographies or life histories. For some, making trips to family homes or pilgrimages to locations of spiritual significance also increase positive feelings. For others, telephone calls, prayer circles, televised religious services, and sacred readings may offer hope and solace.

Positive mental factors like, being in a stable marriage, getting some exercise, not smoking, not abusing alcohol, and not becoming overweight are the key to Happy-Well People

As far as your physical health is concerned, making the effort to attend church services regularly is far better than simply watching televangelists without leaving your home. People who go to churches, mosques, or synagogues tend to maintain their physical and mental function longer than those who don’t. Just getting out of the house and getting some exercise may explain some of these differences.

Tip for Better Health

Both spirituality and religion can help you live the rest of your life with a greater sense of well-being. You don’t have to be religious to experience spirituality, but both can help you deal more positively with adversity (e.g., changes in your body over time or illness) and give a deeper meaning to your life.

Positive Mental Health Factors: A Study

Professor George Valiant at Harvard University followed a group of Harvard graduates from age fifty to eighty years and a group of inner-city dwellers from age fifty to seventy. He found that a number of mental health factors not only were strongly related to survival, but also distinguished who became the “happy-well” as opposed to the “sad-sick” as they aged. Positive mental factors were the ability to deal with adversity, being in a stable marriage, getting some exercise, not smoking, not abusing alcohol, and not becoming overweight. Exercise, especially resistance exercise, decreased depression. Perhaps we can all learn something from this study about how to become one of the happy-well people throughout the rest of our long lives.

They Work Miracles!

In our health blog we are constantly putting stress on exercises, diet etc. Now explore these wonderful natural methods of healing your body. Then choose the best healing techniques for you:

ACUPUNCTURE/ACUPRESSURE

Acupuncture directs and re-channels body energy by inserting hair-thin needles (use only disposable needles) at specific points on the body. It’s used for pain, backaches, migraines and general health and body dysfunctions. Used in Asia for centuries, acupuncture is safe, virtually painless and has no side effects. Acupressure is based on the same principles and uses finger pressure and massage rather than needles.

CHIROPRACTIC

Chiropractic was founded in Davenport, Iowa in 1885 by Daniel David Palmer. There are now many schools in the U.S., and graduates are joining Health Practitioners in all nations of the world to share healing techniques. Chiropractic is popular, is the largest U.S. healing profession benefitting literally millions. Treatment involves soft tissue, spinal and body adjustment to free the nervous system of interferences with normal body function. Its concern is the functional integrity of the musculoskeletal system. In addition to manual methods, chiropractors use physical therapy modalities, exercise, health and nutritional guidance.

F. MATHIUS ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE

These lessons help end improper use of neuromuscular system and bring body posture back into balance. Eliminates psycho-physical interferences, helps release long-held tension, and aids in re-establishing muscle tone.

FELDENKRAIS METHOD

Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais founded this in the late 1940s. Lessons lead to improved posture and help create ease and efficiency of movement. This method is a great stress removal. Touch is a primal need and is as necessary for growth as food, clothing or shelter. Michelangelo knew this when he painted God extending a hand to Adam on the Sistine Chapel ceiling, he chose touch to depict the gift of life. – George H. Colt

HOMEOPATHY

It is the most common remedy you will find on many health blogs. In the 1800’s, Dr. Samuel Hahnemann developed homeopathy. Patients are treated with minute amounts of substances similar to those that cause a particular disease to trigger the body’s own defenses. The homeopathic principle is Like Cures Like. This safe and nontoxic remedy is the #1 alternative therapy in Europe and Britain because it is inexpensive, seldom has any side effects, and brings fast results.

NATUROPATHY

Brought to America by Dr. Benedict Lust, M.D., this treatment uses diet, herbs, homeopathy, fasting, exercise, hydrotherapy, manipulation and sunlight. (Dr. Paul C. Bragg graduated from Dr. Lust’s first School of Naturopathy in the U.S. Now 6 schools) Practitioners work with your body to restore health naturally. They reject surgery and drugs except as a last resort.

OSTEOPATHY

The first School of Osteopathy was founded in 1892 by Dr. Andrew Taylor Still, M.D. There are now 15 U.S. colleges. Treatment involves soft tissue, spinal and body adjustments that free the nervous system from interferences that can cause illness. Healing by adjustment also includes good nutrition, physical therapies, proper breathing and good posture. Dr. Still’s premise: if the body structure is altered or abnormal, then proper body function is altered and can cause pain and illness.

Feet Reflexology

REFLEXOLOGY OR ZONE THERAPY

Founded by Eunice Ingham, author of Stories The Feet Can Tell, inspired by a Bragg Health Crusade when she was 17. Reflexology helps the body by removing crystalline deposits from reflex areas (nerve endings) of feet and hands through deep pressure massage. Primative reflexology originated in China and Egypt and Native American Indians and Kenyans practiced it for centuries. Reflexology activates the body’s flow of healing and energy by dislodging deposits.

SKIN BRUSHING

Skin Brushing daily is wonderful for circulation, toning, cleansing and healing. Use a dry vegetable brush (never nylon) and brush lightly. Helps purify lymph so it’s able to detoxify your blood and tissues. Removes old skin cells, uric acid crystals and toxic wastes that come up through skin’s pores. Use loofah sponge for variety in shower or tub.

REIKI

A Japanese form of massage that means “Universal Life Energy”. Reiki helps the body to detoxify, then rebalance and heal itself. Discovered in the ancient Sutra manuscripts by Dr. Mikso Usui in 1822.

ROLFING

Developed by Ida Rolf in the 1930’s in the U.S. Rolfing is also called structural processing and postural release, or structural dynamics. It is based on the concept that distortions (accidents, injuries, falls, etc.) and the effects of gravity on the body cause upsets and long-term stress in the body. Rolfing helps to achieve balance and improved body posture. Methods involve the use of stretching, deep tissue massage, and relaxation techniques to loosen old injuries and break bad movement and posture patterns.

TRAGERING

Founded by Dr. Milton Trager M.D., who was inspired at age 18 by Paul C. Bragg to become a doctor. It is a mind-body learning method that involves gentle shaking and rocking, allowing the body to let go, releasing tensions and lengthening the muscles for more body peace and health. Tragering can do miraculous healing where needed in the muscles and the entire body.

WATER THERAPY

Soothing detox shower: apply olive oil to skin, alternate hot and cold water, every 2-3 minutes. Massage body while under hot, filtered spray. Garden hose massage is great in summer or anytime. Hot detox soak bath (diabetics use warm water) 20 minutes with cup of Epsom salts or apple cider vinegar. This soak helps pull out the toxins by creating an artificial fever cleanse.

MASSAGE & AROMATHERAPY

In our health blog you will find many articles on Massage and Aromatherapy. It works two ways: the essence (aroma) relaxes, as does the massage. Essential oils are extracted from flowers, leaves, roots, seeds and barks. These are usually massaged into the skin, inhaled or used in a bath for their ability to relax, soothe and heal. The oils, used for centuries to treat numerous ailments, are revitalizing and energizing for the body and mind. Example: Tiger balm, MSM, echinacea and arnica help relieve muscle aches. Avoid skin creams and lotions with mineral oil – it clogs the skin’s pores. Use these natural oils for the skin: almond, apricot kernel, avocado, and I use Bragg Organic Olive Oil and mix with aromatic essential oils: rosemary, lavender, rose, jasmine, sandalwood, lemon-balm, etc. – 6 oz. oil and 6 drops of an essential oil.

MASSAGE – SELF

Paul C. Bragg often said, “You can be your own best massage therapist, even if you have only one good hand.” Near-miraculous health improvements have been achieved by victims of accidents or strokes in bringing life back to afflicted parts of their own bodies by self-massage and even vibrators. Treatments can be day or night, almost continual. Self-massage also helps achieve relaxation at day’s end. Families and friends can learn and exchange massages; it’s a wonderful sharing experience. Remember, babies love and thrive with daily massages – start from birth. Family pets love the soothing, healing touch of massages.

MASSAGE – SHIATSU

Japanese form of health massage that applies pressure from the fingers, hands, elbows and even knees along the same points as acupuncture. Shiatsu has been used in Asia for centuries to relieve pain, common ills, muscle stress and to aid lymphatic circulation.

MASSAGE – SPORTS

An important health support system for professional and amateur athletes. Sports massage improves circulation and mobility to injured tissue, enables athletes to recover more rapidly from myofascial injury, reduces muscle soreness and chronic strain patterns. Soft tissues are freed of trigger points and adhesions, thus contributing to improvement of peak neuro-muscular functioning and athletic performance.

MASSAGE – SWEDISH
One of the oldest and the most popular and widely used massage techniques. This deep body massage soothes and promotes circulation and is a great way to loosen and relax tight muscles before and after exercise.

After 1 year and at least 20 lbs. everybody would be safest facing backward while riding in a car. Babies are lucky to have seats that work this way. Infants are safest when riding facing the rear, because the back of the safety seat supports the child’s back, neck, and head in a crash. So, whichever seat you choose, your baby should ride rear-facing until about one year of age and at least 20 pounds. Every year you spend much money on buying car accessories but forget small accessory for your new-born baby.

Two kinds of safety seats are made for babies:

1.            Small, lightweight “infant-only” safety seats are designed for use rear–facing only. This kind can be used only as long as the baby’s head is enclosed by the top rim of the seat. The label on the seat gives the upper weight limit (17 to 22 pounds). One seat can be converted into a car bed for babies who must lie flat.

2.            Larger “convertible” seats usually fit children from birth to about 40 pounds. Some new models have weight limits as high as 30 to 32 pounds for rear-facing use. These products are especially good for babies under age one who are growing more rapidly than average. It may be turned around to face the front when the baby is about one year old and at least 20 pounds.

How to choose the best seat for your baby: The simplest and least expensive car accessories models for seats usually will work as well as one with fancy features. Choose a seat that you find easy to use and that fits in your vehicle.

•             Before you buy a seat, try it in your car to make sure it fits and can be buckled in tightly. If you choose a convertible seat, try it facing both rearward and forward.

•             Look for the seat you can use facing the rear as long as possible. Read the labels to check weight limits. If you buy an infant-only seat, you will need a convertible seat later. Most babies need to use rear-facing convertible seats as they get larger, because they outgrow their infant-only seats before age one. Some products are made to carry a baby over 20 pounds facing the rear. Look for a seat with a higher weight limit when you shop.

Practice buckling the seat into your car before your baby’s first ride.

More tips on choosing a seat:

•             You’ll save a little money for your car accessories if you buy one convertible seat to do the job from birth to 40 pounds, but an infant-only seat may be easier for you to use and may fit your new-born baby better.

•             An infant-only seat can be carried with you wherever you go. It can be used at home also.

•             Some infant-only seats come in two parts. The base stays buckled in the vehicle, and the seat snaps in and out. You may find these convenient.

•             If you want to use a convertible seat for a new-born baby, choose one without a padded shield in front of the baby. Shields do not fit small new-born babies properly. The shield comes up too high and may make proper adjustment of the harness difficult.

What about seats for preemies?

•             A baby born earlier than 37 weeks may need to use an expensive car accessories like a car bed if he or she has any possibility of breathing problems when sitting semi-reclined. Ask your baby’s doctor if your baby needs to be tested before discharge for breathing problems.

•             Use a seat with the shortest distances from seat to harness strap slots, and from back to crotch strap. Use rolled blankets to keep the baby’s head from slumping. Never place any extra cushioning under or behind the baby.

What to do if your baby’s head flops forward?

• It’s important for an infant to ride sitting semi-reclined (halfway back or 45 degrees from horizontal). In the car, you may find that the safety seat is too upright for a new baby who can’t hold up his or her head. You can put a tightly rolled bath towel under the front edge of the safety seat to tilt it back a little so your baby’s head lies back comfortably. Do not recline it too far.

Harness straps must fit snugly on the body.

•             Use lowest harness slots for a new-born infant. Keep the straps in the slots at or below your baby’s shoulders for the rear-facing position.

•             It is very important for harness straps to fit properly over the shoulders and between the legs. Dress your baby in clothes that keep legs free. If you want to cover your baby, buckle the harness around him first, and then put a blanket over him. A bulky snowsuit or bunting can make the harness too loose.

•             To fill empty spaces and give support, roll up a couple of small blankets and tuck them in on each side of your baby’s shoulders and head. If he still slumps down, put a rolled diaper between his legs behind the crotch strap. Thick padding should not be put underneath or behind the baby.

You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone without some direct exposure to cancer, either through his or her own battle to overcome it or a loved one’s struggle. Cancer is second only to cardiovascular problems in causing people in the United States to fail to reach their unique Hayflick limit (the number of times their cells can divide and renew themselves). It is possible to develop cancer at any age. Certain types of this disease—lung, prostate, breast, colorectal, and skin cancer—are more common than others, but they vary by type with regard to how easy they are to treat and how soon you’re likely to return to a state of optimal health. What can you do to protect yourself from getting cancer? Some types can readily be prevented. Lung cancer, the leading cause of cancer-related deaths, is largely preventable with avoidance of cigarette smoking and second hand smoke inhalation. Risk reduction for certain other cancers is more surprising. For instance, people with diabetes are more likely to develop colon cancer, leaving no doubt that you can lower your risk by achieving more effective control of blood glucose levels; you can also often prevent type 2 diabetes with lifestyle improvements to avoid raising your risk of this cancer at all. To help you stay young for longer, this article discusses the more common types of cancer, what you can do to reduce your risk of developing them, along with how to stay healthier and more vital during medical treatments, if you do have to receive them.

Jade Goody Died Of Cervical Cancer

What Causes Cancer and How Widespread Is It?

Cancer results when your own cells start reproducing at a faster rate than normal, usually due to an alteration in the cells’ DNA. As you live longer, you’ll experience a number of conditions that can increase the odds of getting cancer, such as declines in immune function, longer exposure to potential carcinogens, random gene mutations, a lesser ability to repair bodily injuries, and hormonal changes. Some cancers appear to run in families, but those types usually express themselves when people are younger. It still remains difficult to pinpoint the exact cause of most cancers. Although a diagnosis of cancer is still one of the most dreaded, nowadays cutting-edge advances in medicine allow many types to be treated and completely cured.

This good news needs to be tempered with the fact that the risk of cancer increases with age. People between sixty-five and seventy-four years old have a two- to threefold greater chance of developing it than those between fifty and sixty years old. Cancer is the most common cause of death in people ages sixty to seventy years and the second leading cause in anyone older than eighty. In spite of a fall in its overall incidence in the population as a whole, the fact that the American population is rapidly graying has resulted in an increase in the total number of cases.

Which Cancers Are More Survivable and Common?

Cancer comes in many different forms. Some are relatively benign, such as a slow-growing skin type, while others like pancreatic cancer grow rapidly. Moreover, it can remain localized to one area, or

Number Of People Cancer Free 5 Years After Diagnosis And Treatment (per 100 people)

it can spread through the blood or lymph system to distant parts of the body. When the latter happens, it is called metastatic. Cancer more commonly spreads via the lymph system, which explains why nearby lymph nodes (e.g., in the armpits for breast tumors) are checked for the presence of abnormal cells as well.

Certain types are more survivable, depending on whether they are localized or spread around the body, as you can see in above Table. In general, the sooner a cancer is diagnosed, the greater your chances of stopping its spread and treating it effectively. Later in this article, you will also learn which screening tests are recommended for early detection and treatment of the more common and easily treatable types.

Lung Cancer. Overwhelmingly, lung cancer is the most common type in anyone older than sixty, followed closely by colorectal. As mentioned, many lung cancer cases could be prevented by avoidance of smoking tobacco products in any form and limited exposure to second hand smoke. Likewise, if you stop smoking and never start again, you’ll lower your risk of developing lung cancer or of having it recur. An increase in antioxidants naturally through intake of more vegetables and fruits may also lower risk.

Colorectal Cancer. Colorectal cancer can affect both the colon, or the large intestine, and the end of the colon, or the rectum. In almost all cases of colorectal cancer, early detection can lead to a cure, making regular screening for anyone older than fifty a must. Its incidence may also be lower in people who eat a low-fat, high fiber diet, have a limited intake of red meat, and exercise regularly, so adopt these healthier habits to reduce your risk.

Breast Cancer. In women of any age, breast cancer is slightly more common than colorectal. Although younger women certainly can get breast cancer, its incidence in women rises markedly between the ages of sixty-five and eighty-five, and 45 percent of all new cases are diagnosed in women older than sixty-five. Still, that leaves more than half (55 percent) being diagnosed in younger women and also in men. Most breast cancers are located in the upper, outer quadrant of the breast. Other common areas are found under the nipple; in the upper, inner quadrant; and in the lower, inner quadrant. Risk factors include a family history of this cancer, being childless or having children for the first time after age thirty-five, higher intake of animal fats and alcohol, and physical inactivity, among other things. Monthly breast self-exams, along with mammograms (more on these screenings later in this article), may facilitate early detection.

Prostate Cancer. In men, prostate cancer occurs just about as frequently as colorectal. The prostate gland in males is normally about the size and shape of a walnut and is located at the base of the bladder. Its front also surrounds the urethra, the tube that urine flows through. For any American male, the lifetime risk of developing prostate cancer is about 10 percent, although it’s rare in men younger than fifty. Older men experience a forty fold increase in its prevalence between the ages of fifty and eighty-five. It’s believed that a high-fat diet may increase your risk of developing this cancer. Some types of prostate cancer are slow-growing and may not become a serious threat to health, but other, more aggressive ones can be.

Prostate cancer often has no symptoms, particularly in the early stages. Symptoms are more likely to occur if and when your cancer grows in the prostate gland and narrows the urethra. Watch out for difficulty in starting to pass urine; a weak, sometimes intermittent flow; dribbling before and after urinating; a frequent or urgent need to urinate; getting up several times in the night to visit the bathroom; (rarely) blood in the urine; and pain during orgasm.

Tip for Better Health

For a number of reasons, cancer occurs more frequently the older you get. The most common forms of cancer are lung, colorectal, breast (women), prostate (men), and skin, almost all of which are preventable to some degree with dietary improvements, increased physical activity, or other means.

These symptoms are similar to ones produced by a common noncancerous disease called benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) where the prostate becomes enlarged. Caused by the multiplication of noncancerous prostate cells, this type of enlargement is very common as well, affecting about half of men in their sixties and up to 90 percent of men in their seventies and eighties. It is less common in men who exercise regularly, though. Luckily, although BPH can cause annoying urinary problems, the presence of prostate gland enlargement is not believed to be directly related to cancer development there.

Skin Cancer. Skin cancers also occur frequently. Worldwide, one in three cancers is skin-related, and among people of all ages, skin cancers currently account for one-half of all cases in the United States. Many are easy to cure if detected early with a thorough skin exam performed by a doctor. Watch for any unusual nodules, lesions, or patches anywhere on your skin; any changes in a mole; or any sores that do not heal, and have them checked out by a doctor. Severe sunburns in childhood and adolescence increase your risk for malignant melanoma, which is much less easily cured and more often a fatal form of skin cancer. Its incidence has purportedly doubled in the past thirty years among Americans, according to the World Health Organization, but you can lower your risk by avoiding tanning salons and by using sunscreens to prevent sunburns.

Is Cancer Different as You Get Older?

Your immune system, particularly the natural killer cells, plays an important role in destroying cancer cells before they can accumulate in your body, and your immune system declines over time, making cancer harder to fight on your own. Loss of telomeres, the ends of chromosomes that control the rate at which cells divide, also occurs as you get older and may play a role in cancer development, along with the body’s decreasing ability to repair genetic material found in your DNA.

When it comes down to it, older cells are more prone to developing cancer and when they do become cancerous, they often behave differently. Some cancers, such as breast cancer, actually grow more slowly when you’re older. Accordingly, cancer is more likely to respond to hormonal therapy in women older than fifty as there are receptors for estrogen and progesterone in the breast. Certain other types, like acute myelogenous leukemia, respond less well to treatments the older a person gets.

Tip for Better Health

Even when you’re older, as long as you’re healthy you should respond as favorably to cancer treatments as anyone younger, so treat it aggressively. Also, try to prevent cancer from occurring through appropriate lifestyle changes like more physical activity, which can work as a preventive therapy even when you’re fifty or older.

Can Cancer Be Prevented?

In 1950, smoking was shown to be the number one cause of preventable cancer. Since then, other lifestyle alterations such as the use of sunscreens and increased physical activity have been found to lessen the chances of developing other types, although none is as powerful as smoking cessation’s benefit to the lungs. Lifestyle factors with a clear benefit, a probable effect, or a possible one are listed in the sidebar “Lifestyle Factors for Preventing Specific

Cancers” along with the cancers most likely prevented (given in parentheses) are as follows.

Lifestyle Factors for Preventing Specific Cancers

Clear Benefit

• Do not smoke or chew tobacco (lung, oral, esophageal).
• Use sunblock and avoid excessive sun exposure (skin).
• Avoid occupational exposure to cancer-causing toxins or use appropriate protective clothing (skin, lung, and others).
• Increase physical activity (colon and breast).
• Avoid being overweight (colon, breast, and uterine).

Probable Benefit

• Eat more fruits and vegetables (colon, lung, and possibly others).
• Limit intake of red meat (colon).
• Do not consume alcohol excessively (oral, esophageal, breast, and pancreatic).

Possible Benefit

• Take folic acid and supplements (colon and breast).
• Take selenium supplements (lung, prostate, and colon).
• Take vitamin E supplements (prostate).

*Note that eating a balanced diet with citrus fruit, broccoli, leafy vegetables, asparagus, and tuna most probably is as good as taking these supplemental vitamins and minerals.

Regular Screening Saves Lives

Although there is no evidence yet that early detection reduces men’s risk of dying from prostate cancer, regular screenings to detect breast, colon, cervical, and other cancers may in fact increase your chances of surviving them. If you develop any of the symptoms suggestive of cancer or if your risk is higher than average due to family history or other factors, discuss appropriate approaches to screening and diagnosis with your cancer doctor. Symptoms suggestive of cancer include a change in bowel or bladder habits, a sore that does not heal, unusual bleeding or discharge, thickening or a lump in breasts or elsewhere, indigestion or difficulty in swallowing, obvious change in a wart or mole, or a nagging cough or hoarseness.

Tip for Better Health

Early detection of certain cancers such as breast and colon increases your chances of beating them and remaining healthy for longer. Cancer screenings that are recommended vary with the specific type of cancer, your age, and your unique risk. To determine which screenings to routinely have and the best schedule to follow, consult with your doctor or check the guidelines given by the American Cancer Society at cancer.org.

General screening recommendations are shown in the following Table. Currently, there is no recommended screening for lung cancer, although two tools have been developed: chest radiography and sputum cytology. Computerized tomography (CT) screening may be useful for early detection and better survival if you’re at high risk for lung cancer (e.g., if you have a history of heavy smoking). Certain screenings have recently become controversial, with debates occurring over the usefulness of breast self-exams and mammography, but they still make sense for the majority of women.

How Often Should You Be Screened for Cancer and How?

Cancer Therapies Available Today

As far as cancer is concerned, a delay of a few days is unlikely to make a difference to your health, so don’t be embarrassed to get a second opinion. If you want to, search for more information on your specific cancer before deciding on which treatment(s) to have. The number of therapies used to treat cancer is constantly increasing, but varies with the type of cancer, its location, and how advanced it is. Therapies commonly employed include surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, hormone therapy, bone marrow transplantation, and biotherapy. Each may be used alone or in conjunction with others, and you may need a combination of two or more for the best outcome in terms of your chances of survival and longevity.

Cancer and most of its therapies cause side effects. A common one is loss of appetite and weight loss, but eating multiple small meals in a day may help. Another is fatigue, but in most cases staying as active as you can and exercising regularly will allow you to maintain function and prevent additional tiredness that results from being out-of-shape physically.

Tip for Better Health

Commonly used cancer treatments include surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, hormone therapy, bone marrow transplantation, and biotherapy. Each of these therapies may be used alone or in conjunction with others, depending on the type of cancer. If you’re unsure about what would be best, research your options and consider getting a second opinion.

Surgical Treatments

Surgery is used for cancers that are localized and easily accessible, such as breast, uterine, cervical, and prostate. It may involve a local incision or require removal of lymph nodes in or near the affected area as well. About 60 percent of cancer patients choose to have surgery, and half of them are cured with this treatment alone. Side effects include pain, infection, fatigue, loss of mobility, and loss of organs or limbs.

Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy is used to treat cancer that has spread (metastasized), or it may be introduced as a secondary line of treatment following surgical removal of a tumour with the goal of treating cancerous areas that may not have been detected on an x-ray or scan. “Chemo” is delivered to all parts of the body through the bloodstream following injection of the drug into a vein or after being taken as a pill by mouth. This therapy is given in repeated cycles of drug delivery followed by recovery periods, so it’s not unusual for a course of chemotherapy to take three to nine months. You may experience such side effects as increased risk for infections (fever), low white blood cell count, temporary hair loss, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, loss of appetite, ulcers of the mouth, candida (a fungal infection), and fatigue. Discuss with your cancer doctor whether you are a candidate for injections that boost white and red blood cells and often decrease the fatigue commonly caused by these treatments.

Alpha-Particle Radiation Therapy

Radiation

Like surgery, radiation therapy is used for localized cancers that have not spread. More than half of all cancer patients opt to have radiation treatment as part of their therapy, either using a focused, high-energy ray or radioactive implants. The energy ray is painless and is often repeated several times a week over two to three weeks. Be assured that you won’t be radioactive or dangerous to other people when receiving this therapy. The implants allow for a more concentrated dose of radiation to be administered to a smaller area for a shorter period of time. They are placed in or near the tumour while you’re under local or general anaesthesia. Once the implants are surgically removed, no radioactivity remains in the body.

Proton or neutron beam therapy is another specialized form of radiation offered at some cancer centres. If radiation is recommended for you, you should explore whether gamma ray therapy (Cyber Knife) may be better for you. It will require going to a specialized centre and may not be as convenient to get for that reason.

For all types of radiation, the usual side effects are fatigue, local irritation of the skin, loss of appetite, hair loss at the irradiated site, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhoea.

Hormone Therapy

This treatment option involves the use of chemicals that are either naturally produced or that resemble your own hormones. They include corticosteroids, oestrogens, progesterone, tamoxifen, and androgens. This therapy often requires the administration of larger doses of hormones than are normally produced by your body and results in side effects that are temporary. Breast cancer in older women is usually more responsive to hormone therapies than when it occurs at a younger age. Mood changes, fluid retention, difficulty sleeping, and osteoporosis are all possible following this therapy.

Immunotherapy

Biotherapy, also called immunotherapy, uses the body’s own immune system to fight cancer or to decrease the side effects of other types of cancer treatments. This treatment may interfere with cancer growth, or it may help repair normal cells damaged by other cancer treatments. Drugs such as interleukins, interferon’s, or tumour necrosis factor are currently being studied in several on-going clinical trials.

Other Medical Therapies

Alternate medical therapies may be available to treat your cancer, depending on the type. Gene therapy is a promising treatment being studied to determine its usefulness and safety, but it is not used routinely at present. Ask about clinical trials in your area and whether or not you would be eligible to participate.

Alternative Cancer Therapies

Out of desperation, many people seek a variety of alternative therapies or healers after being diagnosed with cancer. While in some areas of medicine alternative therapies are very effective, cancer is not one of them. Numerous alternative therapies are often touted for their ability to cure cancer, but in most cases they’re really drugs in disguise and are best avoided. If you’re considering one of these alternatives, discuss it with your doctor. If you decide to pursue it, let your doctor know because some of these therapies are extremely toxic and can interact dangerously with any conventional drugs you may already be receiving.

Certain alternative therapies have been shown to be sound, but none of these involves herbs or supplements of any kind. One example of an effective therapy is a positive attitude, which may enhance your body’s immune system, thereby decreasing the aggressiveness of your cancer. A positive attitude also makes it easier to cope with the variety of adverse factors that being a cancer patient can bring. Spirituality also can have positive effects; prayer may help the healing process, and religion provides tremendous emotional support. Likewise, exercise increases your circulating levels of beta-endorphins (your body’s own morphine-like mood enhancer) and enhances natural killer cells, which are immune cells responsible in part for killing cancer cells. These supportive approaches should not replace appropriate medical therapy, but rather should be considered fellow travellers alongside one another during your journey to become a cancer survivor.

Tip for Better Health

Sound alternative therapies for cancer don’t include herbs or supplements. Instead, try a positive attitude to boost your immune function, spirituality or religion for support, and exercise to raise your feel-good (beta-endorphin) brain hormones, in conjunction with standard medical treatments.

Will Your Cancer Come Back?

There is no standard of care yet about how often you should be rescreened if you have already had cancer. In the absence of any guidelines, you should likely be screened every three months for two years afterward for returning signs of your cancer. The goal of this increased surveillance is to find the cancer before the symptoms return. This increased rate of screening applies only to the specific type of cancer you had. If the cancer does not return within two years, then the schedule for screening is reduced over the next few years to the frequency recommended for people who never had it.

A Final Word About This Article

A diagnosis of cancer, although frightening, is not a reason to lose hope. Instead, it is a time to explore options and make a plan to get the best care you can. The more allies you have on your road to recovery, the more likely you are to survive the cancer and thrive afterward. Some cancers appear to run in families, but those types usually express themselves when people are young. Other types are preventable through lifestyle choices. The single greatest risk factor for getting cancer is aging. The older you become, the greater your chances of getting this disease for myriad reasons.

Whatever the cause, the importance of early detection through screening and quick treatment following detection, after considering all of your treatment options, can’t be overemphasized.