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Survivors Of Childhood Central Nervous System Cancer Face Persistent Risks As Adults
Long-term survivors of childhood central nervous system (CNS) malignancies remain at risk for death and are at increasing risk for developing subsequent cancers and chronic medical conditions over time, according to a new study published online June 17 in the JNCI.

White House Budget Chief Says Issue Of Abortion Coverage In Health Reform Still Under Debate
In an appearance on "Fox News Sunday," White House Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag said that he is "not prepared to say explicitly" whether health care reform legislation would prohibit the use of federal tax revenue to fund abortion coverage, the New York Times reports. Orszag"s statement came in reply to a question asking whether he was prepared to say that "no taxpayer money will go to pay for abortions." Orszag said, "It"s obviously a controversial issue, and it"s one of the questions that is playing out in the debate" (Pear/Liptak, New York Times, 7/20).Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), who also appeared on "Fox News Sunday," said, "No matter what your views are on abortion, you shouldn"t ask people to use their tax dollars if they think that abortion is taking a life." Gregg added, "I would hate to see the health care debate go down over that issue. We do really need health care reform, and it has to be substantive. ... So hopefully we won"t get ourselves wrapped around the wheel of abortion in this debate" (FoxNews.com, 7/19). According to the Times, there is an ongoing behind-the-scenes debate over handling abortion coverage in health overhaul legislation. The debate affects both the public insurance plan the legislation would create and private insurers, who would receive tens of billions of dollars in federal subsidies to expand coverage for low- and moderate-income U.S. residents. A provision in the House health reform bill (HR 3200) calls for a federal advisory committee to advise the HHS secretary on an "essential benefits package" that most insurers would be required to provide. Abortion-rights opponents want abortion coverage excluded from the package, while abortion-rights advocates say the decision should be left to medical professionals. House committees working on health reform legislation have rejected Republican amendments that would have restricted abortion coverage. The Hyde Amendment, first enacted in 1976, prohibits the use of federal Medicaid money for abortion services. However, abortion-rights opponents argue that federally subsidized coverage of the uninsured would not be subject to the existing restrictions. The National Right to Life Committee issued an analysis of the House bill, stating, "There is no doubt that coverage of abortion will be mandated, unless Congress explicitly excludes abortion from the scope of federal authority to define "essential benefits."" According to the group, even if the HHS secretary did not require abortion coverage, "federal courts would interpret the broadly worded mandatory categories of coverage to include abortion" (New York Times, 7/20).
News of the day
Factors That Increase Death In Stroke Patients Ages 15 To 49: Finnish Study
Heavy drinking, being 45 to 49 years old, type 1 diabetes or having a preceding infection are associated with more than twice the risk of death in stroke patients 15 to 49 years old, according to a Finnish study.
Cardiovascular

Breast Cancer Risk May Be Affected By The Way You Eat

How you eat may be just as important as how much you eat, if mice studies are any clue. Cancer researchers have long studied the role of diet on breast cancer risk, but results to date have been mixed. New findings published in Cancer Prevention Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, suggest the method by which calories are restricted may be more important for cancer protection than the actual overall degree of calorie restriction. "Understanding how calorie restriction provides protection against the development of mammary tumors should help us identify pathways that could be targeted for chemoprevention studies," said Margot P. Cleary, Ph.D., professor at the Hormel Institute, University of Minnesota. "Further identification of serum factors that are involved in tumor development would possibly provide a way to identify at risk individuals and target interventions to these people." Previous studies have shown that intermittent calorie restriction provided greater protection from mammary tumor development than did the same overall degree of restriction, which was implemented in a chronic fashion. The researchers compared changes of a growth factor (IGF-1) in relationship to these two calorie restriction methods - chronic and intermittent - and tumor development beginning in 10-week old female mice at risk to develop mammary tumors. Their hope was to explain why intermittent restriction is more effective. The overall degree of restriction was 25 percent reduction compared to control mice. Mammary tumor incidence was 71 percent in the control mice who ate the amount of food they wanted, 35 percent among those who were chronically restricted and only nine percent in those who intermittently restricted calories. The researchers were initially surprised by these findings for several reasons. First, the prevailing wisdom is that the degree of protection from calorie restriction is proportional to the degree of mammary tumor prevention. Second, they originally thought that intermittent calorie restriction might enhance tumor growth due to growth factors being secreted in response to re-feeding, Cleary said. In an accompanying editorial also published in Cancer Prevention Research, Michael Pollak, M.D., stated that some major challenges of pharmacologic approaches to cancer prevention and/or treatment include defining the underlying causes and determining the relevance of these caloric restriction methods. Pollak is professor of oncology at McGill University and director of the Cancer Prevention Center at the Jewish General Hospital, both in Montreal. This study "contributes to accumulating evidence that caloric restriction acts by altering hormone levels rather than by directly starving cancers of energy. In particular, lower levels of insulin are associated with reduced food intake, and this may be protective," said Pollak, who is also an editorial board member for Cancer Prevention Research. In the editorial Pollak wrote: "there is reason for concern that the "obesity epidemic" may lead to an increased prevalence of a hormonal profile associated with elevated cancer risk and/or an adverse cancer prognosis. Therefore, in addition to its well-known general health benefits, maintaining an ideal body weight is also important in the specific contexts of cancer prevention and improving the prognosis of cancer patients." Based on varied findings from clinical trials, Pollak suggested that lifestyle and pharmacologic methods to reduce IGF-1 and insulin deserve ongoing investigations. Cleary agreed, stating that these results may provide interest to more aggressively pursue cancer prevention studies related to calorie restriction. "Humans frequently regain lost weight discouraging the application of calorie restriction protocols for disease prevention," she said. "We hope these studies will identify biomarkers and/or pathways that could be used in human studies to determine agents that would mimic calorie restriction." Tara Yates American Association for Cancer Research

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04.05.2012


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