Cancer

Vulvar Melanoma Is Increasing in Older Women

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Vulvar Melanoma Is Increasing in Older Women

The national incidence of vulvar melanoma is on the rise in women aged over 60 years, climbing by an average of 2.2% per year during 2000–2016, Maia K. Erickson reported in a poster at the virtual annual meeting of the American Academy of Dermatology.

These are often aggressive malignancies. The 5-year survival following diagnosis of vulvar melanoma in women aged 60 years or older was 39.7%, compared with 61.9% in younger women, according to Ms. Erickson, a visiting research fellow in the department of dermatology at Northwestern University, Chicago.

Meat Intake and Colorectal Polyps

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Meat Intake and Colorectal Polyps

Research professor of medicine Martha Shrubsole, Ph.D., and colleagues at Vanderbilt University Medical Center have published the first study to evaluate intakes of meat, cooking methods and meat mutagens and risk of developing sessile serrated polyps (SSPs, also called sessile serrated lesions). Shrubsole previously reported that consuming high levels of red meat increased the risk of developing all types of polyps, but that the likelihood of developing SSPs was two times greater than the risk of developing adenomas and hyperplastic polyps (HP).

Conventional colorectal adenomas are the precursor lesions for most colorectal cancers. SSPs, however, represent an alternative pathway to carcinogenesis that may account for up to 35 percent of colorectal cancers. Because a diagnostic consensus for SSPs was not reached until 2010, few epidemiologic studies have evaluated risk factors.

 

Any Polyp Type Raises CRC Risk

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A finding of any type of polyp in the colon increases the risk for colorectal cancer (CRC), according to new findings from a large Swedish study.

At 10 years, the cumulative colorectal cancer incidence was 1.6% among patients with hyperplastic polyps, 2.5% among those with sessile serrated polyps, 2.7% for tubular adenomas, 5.1% for tubulovillous adenomas, and 8.6% for villous adenomas, as compared with 2.1% for the control group.

However, a higher risk for colorectal-related death was only observed in patients with sessile serrated polyps, tubulovillous adenomas, or villous adenomas.

The study was published online March 16 in Lancet Gastroenterology & Hepatology.

Any Type of Polyp Increases the Risk for Colorectal Cancer

Boldface sections are mine.

I had my first virtual visit with my physician yesterday.  I mentioned that I was postponing my colonoscopy this year for pandemic reasons.  She said that’s fine, don’t worry about it.  I read this article today.  Now I know why I’m on a three year callback.

 

Scientists uncover how high-fat diet drives colorectal cancer growth

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In mice.

The research, conducted in a mouse model, suggests how lifestyle and genetics converge. The researchers found that animals with an APC mutation, the most common genetic mutation found in humans with colorectal cancer, developed cancer faster when fed a high-fat diet.

The mice with APC mutations developed benign growths called adenomas. In humans, adenomas are common in the intestine and are routinely removed during colonoscopies. These growths normally take decades to turn into malignant adenocarcinomas. Yet the adenomas in these mice quickly turned cancerous when given high-fat diets.

Consumption of ultra-processed foods and cancer risk: results from NutriNet-Santé prospective cohort

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Conclusions – In this large prospective study, a 10% increase in the proportion of ultra-processed foods in the diet was associated with a significant increase of greater than 10% in risks of overall and breast cancer. Further studies are needed to better understand the relative effect of the various dimensions of processing (nutritional composition, food additives, contact materials, and neoformed contaminants) in these associations.

We categorized all food and drink items of the NutriNet-Santé composition table into one of the four food groups in NOVA, a food classification system based on the extent and purpose of industrial food processing.94243 This study primarily focused on the “ultra-processed foods” NOVA group. This group includes mass produced packaged breads and buns; sweet or savory packaged snacks; industrialized confectionery and desserts; sodas and sweetened drinks; meat balls, poultry and fish nuggets, and other reconstituted meat products transformed with addition of preservatives other than salt (for example, nitrites); instant noodles and soups; frozen or shelf stable ready meals; and other food products made mostly or entirely from sugar, oils and fats, and other substances not commonly used in culinary preparations such as hydrogenated oils, modified starches, and protein isolates. Industrial processes notably include hydrogenation, hydrolysis, extruding, moulding, reshaping, and pre-processing by frying. Flavouring agents, colours, emulsifiers, humectants, non-sugar sweeteners, and other cosmetic additives are often added to these products to imitate sensorial properties of unprocessed or minimally processed foods and their culinary preparations or to disguise undesirable qualities of the final product.

Read the BMJ study here.

Linking Sucrose to Hyperlipidemia and Cancer

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In rats.  But it’s the behavior of the sugar industry rats that is more disturbing.

Read the entire study here.

Our study contributes to a wider body of literature documenting industry manipulation of science. Industries seeking to influence regulation have a history of funding research resulting in industry-favorable interpretations of controversial evidence related to health effects of smoking [15,16], therapeutic effects of pharmaceutical drugs [17,18], the relationship between sugar-sweetened beverage consumption and weight gain or obesity [5], and the causes of climate change, [19] among other issues. The tobacco industry also has a long history of conducting research on the health effects of its products that is often decades ahead of the general scientific community and not publishing results that do not support its agenda [20–23]. This paper provides empirical data suggesting that the sugar industry has a similar history of conducting, but not publishing studies with results that are counter to its commercial interests.