News in Brief catches up today after celebrating the Fourth of July with swimming, sailing, and time with family.  We hope you had as good a time relaxing as we did.

Research shows that children whose parents have cancer have more social and psychological problems, mice who are fed a high-fat Western-style diet don’t benefit from exercise and develop more colon polyps, and adding irinotecan to 5FU after surgery to remove liver mets adds no benefit but has more serious side effects.

The VA is upgrading equipment to sterilize endoscopes and train staff to clean them properly with $26 million from its reserve funds.  Two scientists at MIT are sampling and freezing their own stools each day to study changing patterns of millions of  microbes in the intestinal tract. Read the rest of this entry »

What you eat can increase your risk for rectal cancer . . . or reduce it.  But race makes a difference too.

Whites had an increased risk of rectal cancer when their diets had lots of refined grains and white potatoes, while African Americans risk was increased with fruit and added sugar.

The North Carolina Colon Cancer Study studied diet patterns and colorectal cancer risk among whites and African Americans with rectal cancer and matched controls.  They identified three major eating patterns and found that risk for rectal cancer differed between the two racial groups. Read the rest of this entry »

We know that throughout history people have lived well when their diets were rich in fruit and vegetables. There is evidence that eating fruits and vegetables helps to reduce gastric and colon cancer. All fruits and vegetables contain fiber which is helpful in preventing colon cancer. Now science has proven without a doubt that there is a relationship between intake of fruits and vegetables and health. Read the rest of this entry »

Patients always ask what they can do. Well, there is a lot they can do to reduce the risk for tumor recurring after successful surgeries.

Recent studies have clearly shown that diet is directly associated with the risk of tumor recurrence. People who eat primarily a Western diet are significantly at higher risk than those patients whose diet has less red meat, processed sugar, desserts, and French fries. You can change your diet and reduce your risk of tumor recurrence. Read the rest of this entry »

The typical Western diet increases the risk of tumor recurrence for patients with colon cancer.

Patients who ate the most red and processed meats, refined grains, fats, and sugars were about three times as likely to die or have their cancers recur as patients who ate these foods the least. While there is no shortage of evidence linking the so-called Western diet to an increased risk for developing colon cancer, the study by the group at Harvard is among the first to examine the impact of such a diet on survival among patients treated for the disease. Read the rest of this entry »