It has been amazing to see what we have learned since then, but even more interesting to think of where this could go in the future.  Hopefully soon we will be able to apply this on a more individual basis, with people being able to identify potential risk factors for certain diseases at their primary care physician.  This then will lead to new developments for drug therapy, having a drug that will be able to target a certain pathway that is specific to that patient.  I can only wonder and look forward to what will come next.

In the fall of 2009, the World Health Organization published a 10 year study which examined the cell phone habits of more than 120,000 people in 13 countries. The study reported a significantly higher risk of developing brain tumors in individuals with 10 years or more of cell phone usage. Similar findings in other studies have added to the growing concern over long-term exposure to cell phone usage.

In 2007, Dr. Lennart Hardell, from Örebro University in Sweden, reported an increased risk of malignant glioma in cell phone users, and that a daily one hour exposure significantly increased the risk for developing a brain tumor after 10 years. Recently, Dr. Ronald B. Herberman, director emeritus of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute delivered a memo to over 3000 staff and faculty members, essentially warning them of the health risks of cell phone use, and specifically stated that children should limit cell phone use to emergencies only.

So why aren’t cell phones packaged with health warning labels in the same way that alcohol and cigarettes are labeled? The jury is out on whether the cell-phone and brain tumor link is convincing enough to warrant major concerns. In fact, the number of studies that render the link inconclusive far outnumber the studies which do (arguably, though, we can exclude studies funded by telecommunication companies). Discrepancy in these findings is due in large part to the inherent bias found in case-control studies, which are designed to examine specific factors that may contribute to a disease process or illness by comparing similarly matched individuals, those with and without the medical condition in question. In this case, the studies essentially rely on the participant’s recall of cell phone usage patterns as far back as 10 years.

Further substantiation of the clinical health risks posed by cell phone usage will need to include cohort studies, where healthy individuals, with and without exposure to cell phones are followed over a period of time and examined for occurrence of brain tumors. This of course means that it will take years to adequately determine the health risk. In the meantime, it may serve us well to heed recommendations to limit exposure to the electromagnetic radiation emitted by cell phones.

References:

http://artpredator.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/cell-phones-on-planes.jpg

http://www.webmd.com/cancer/brain-cancer/news/20091203/cell-phones-and-brain-tumors-no-connection

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17409179

http://www.post-gazette.com/downloads/20080722upci_cellphone_memo.pdf

http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/cellphones

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/161960.php

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE59C5GA20091013

http://www.newser.com/story/69023/report-revives-fears-of-cell-phone-tumor-link.html

http://www.physorg.com/news175853675.html

The foods we eat also have a big effect. I think back on what my mother used to preach, and I think she had it right. She told me to eat my greens and have lots of fruit. On the other hand, somehow she knew too much alcohol, red meat, and sugary drinks are bad. “Where did all the ice cream go?” echoes from the past. My hiking and canoeing mother encouraged me to do sports and other outdoor activities. I knew these choices were healthy and protected me from heart disease. What I didn’t realize was that my mother was protecting me from cancer, too.

The World Cancer Research Fund has recommendations for how to prevent cancer. I think they interviewed my mom.

Here are some of them:
• Be as lean as possible in the normal range of body weight
• Be physically active every day
• Avoid “energy-dense” foods and sugary drinks.
• Eat lots of non-starchy veggies and fruit
• Limit red meat and processed meat in your diet
• Avoid salt

You can check out the details and see the whole list on their web site:

http://www.wcrf.org/research/expert_report/recommendations.php

Now that I have passed on my mother’s preaching, you have yet another reason to eat well and exercise. I’m off to the gym… to fight cancer and heart disease at the same time!

I’m a bit of a coffee drinker, so I often wonder if this is good or bad. Growing up, it was always presented as a vice. Yet, I have been drinking coffee all my life- and coffee has thousands of chemicals in it. Should I try to quit, or am I all right? Given all the chemicals, I have worried that I might be exposing myself to a cancer causing chemical- a carcinogen. Recently, a few reports have looked into this. On the whole, coffee comes out all right.

The best evidence for a good effect is on liver cancer: a Japanese group showed that drinking coffee decreases your risk of getting liver cancer around 43%! The American Cancer Society estimates that there will be around 22, 620 new cases of liver cancer this year. A quick bit of math makes me think that we should be able to prevent thousands of these cancers by getting everyone to drink coffee!

Here is my admittedly sloppy calculation:

The National Coffee Association reports that 54% of American adults drink coffee daily. If the risk of getting cancer is about 43% lower and 54% of American drink coffee day, it seems to mean that the coffee drinkers only make up a small proportion of the liver cancer patients.

The proportion, I think, is .54 times .57, or .3078. That means that only around 7000 of the new liver cancer cases are coffee drinkers if my calculations are right (.3078 times 22620 is 6962). That leaves over 15000 non-coffee drinkers. What if they had been coffee drinkers?

If we look at the 22,620 cases, how many should come from coffee drinkers? .57 times 15657 is 8925…. If my sloppy math is right, that means that there could have been 6700 fewer cases of liver cancer this year if everyone drank coffee every day. Of course, many find drinking dirty brown water unpleasant, but it makes you think…

There is also evidence that coffee reduces the risk of kidney cancers, some breast cancers, and ovarian cancer.

It is nice to know my morning indulgence is unlikely to be making me sick, and that  coffee is probably  good for you in many ways. Check out this article at the National Institutes of Health to find out more:

The news is not all good: it seems that drinking hot beverages including coffee can increase the risk of esophageal cancer. Maybe I should start drinking my coffee cold…

For information on some things that might not be good for you, check out Inside Cancer’s section on Causes and Prevention of cancer.