Fight Colorectal Cancer

Leroy Sievers, who is living with metastatic colon cancer, is featured on National Public Radio’s call-in program Talk of the Nation, Monday, April 16th.  Live shows are carried by NPR stations at 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. Eastern time.  An audio webcast will be available on the Talk of the Nation site about  6 p.m. that day.

The show will be broadcast from Washington D.C. before a live audience.  People who want to be part of the audience should contact NPR at talk@npr.org.

Sievers writes an insightful daily blog  for NPR — My Cancer — where he chronicles his life dealing with colon cancer that has spread to his brain. 

Talking about the language of cancer, he writes,

Maybe the best thing to say is that we all just “deal with it.” Some days that involves fighting; other days, coping. Some days we don’t win, some days it’s a struggle to do the smallest thing and other days the battle swings our way. We all just deal with it in our own ways and do the best we can on any given day.

Sievers has won 12 national news Emmys and two Peabody awards.  He worked for ABC News Nightline for 14 years, four years as executive producers.  As a correspondent he covered more than a dozen wars, accompanying Ted Koppel during the invasion of Iraq.

His blog has many followers, both cancer patients and family members, who write often to comment on what he says each day.

On Wednesday, April 11, 2007 the United States Senate voted on The Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2007 (S. 5). This legislation will provide federal funding for research involving human embryonic stem cells. S. 5 passed with a 63 to 34 vote, with three Senators not voting.

Research on human embryonic stem cells has great potential for a person living with neurological, degenerative and genetic diseases, but it’s the recent findings on cancer that make us at C3 the most hopeful.

Scientists have recently learned that the mechanisms that control cell division and differentiation in embryonic stem cells are likely to also regulate cancer stem cells, which means that cancer patients stand to benefit greatly from progress in embryonic stem cell research.

S. 5 will now make its way to the desk of The President. President Bush has vowed to veto the legislation for the SECOND TIME. To override the President’s veto S. 5 needed 67 votes.

Though not a victory this vote shows potential for future legislation that will open up doors in research for cures of such cancers as colorectal.

The fight is not over! To get involved sign up to be a One Minute Advocate today. It is up to us to bring the message to our elected officials that researchers must have all possible avenues open to them in which to search for a cure for cancer.

Leptin, a hormone that is released from fat cells, caused an increase in the development of colon cancer cells in three colon cancer cell lines.  When the cell lines were treated with leptin the number of cells increased and fewer cells died.

Leptin may provide the connection between obesity and increased risk for colon cancer. 

Researchers at the University of California at San Diego not only discovered the effect of leptin on colon cancer cells, they studied signalling pathways by which it appears to act.  When the treated the cells with inhibitors of MAPK and PI3-K signalling, fewer new cancer cells developed and cells died.

This may provide a target for a drug that could treat colon cancer.

M.R. Hoda and team at UCSD concluded:

Chronic increases in leptin concentration may enhance the growth of colonic cancers via MAPK and PI3-K pathways. These effects of leptin could provide a link between obesity and colonic cancer, and may represent a target for anticancer drug development.

SOURCE: Hoda et. al., British Journal of Surgery, Volume 94, issue 3 pages 346-354, March 2007.

An article about the study from BBC News.

Obesity is a major risk factor for colorectal cancer.  And studies show that eating fruit and vegetables also reduce colon and rectal cancer risk.

But an annual study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control found that men and women of all racial backgrounds are failing to get enough exercise and eat at least five servings of fruit or vegetables every day.

CDC analysts reviewed self-reported data from the 2005 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), a telephone survey of nearly 318,000 Americans. 

To find out if an individual was eating five or more servings of fruits or vegetables each day they asked:

How often do you drink fruit juices such as orange, grapefruit, or tomato?” “Not counting juice, how often do you eat fruit?” “How often do you eat green salad?” “How often do you eat potatoes, not including French fries, fried potatoes, or potato chips?” “How often do you eat carrots?” and “Not counting carrots, potatoes, or salad, how many servings of vegetables do you usually eat?”

They also asked about physical activity:

To measure physical activity, respondents were asked how often they engaged in physical activities of moderate intensity (i.e., brisk walking, bicycling, vacuuming, gardening, or anything else that causes small increases in breathing or heart rate) and vigorous intensity (i.e., running, aerobics, heavy yard work, or anything else that causes large increases in breathing or heart rate) for at least 10 minutes at a time in a usual week. Respondents were classified as being regularly active if they reported engaging in moderate-intensity activity at least 30 minutes per day, 5 or more days per week, or vigorous-intensity activity at least 20 minutes per day, 3 or more days per week.

They then combined the two responses to identify people who both ate fruits and vegetables and exercised regularly and another group who did neither. Results were classified by sex and racial background.

Percentages of study responders who combined both healthy diet and exercise were:

• Non-Hispanic white men — 12.6 percent
• Men of other races — 16.5 percent
• Non-Hispanic black women — 12.6%
• Hispanic women — 14.8 percent
• White women — 17.4 percent

The study concluded

These results underscore the need to promote diets high in fruits and vegetables and regular physical activity among all populations in the United States and among racial and ethnic minority communities in particular.

SOURCE: J. Kruger et. al., Centers of Disease Control, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, Volume 56, Number 13. April 6, 2007.

Got caught typing faster than checking the facts!

Eddie Leigh will be seen on the Discovery Health Channel Mystery Diagnosis program not on Medical Mysteries which is seen on another network.

• Mystery Diagnosis
• Discovery Health Channel
• Monday, April 9, 2007
• 10 p.m. (Eastern)
• Repeats:  April 15 at 6 p.m. and April 29 and 8:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m.