Of all the cultural beliefs about health and illness that saturate the developed world, there is none so pervasive and deeply held as the idea that you can “battle” an illness by sheer force of will…
Exercise isn’t a substitute for traditional therapies but should be part of a comprehensive treatment plan.
Image from shutterstock.com
One in two men and one in three women will be diagnosed with cancer during their lifetime. The good news is that with earlier detection and improved treatments, the survival rate for many common cancers…
Cancer is a disease in which abnormal cells divide without control and are able to invade other tissues.
Tips Times
Few things strike fear into people more than the word cancer, and with good reason. While improvements in cancer therapy and advances in palliative care mean that the illness does not always lead to inevitable…
Based on the evidence, it’s safe to dismiss this one as a myth.
Flickr/lism
The concern that using deodorants and antiperspirants might increase the risk of breast cancer has been around for around for at least 15 years, probably longer.
The theory suggests that either parabens…
Epigenetic factors can change due to environmental factors, such as diet, toxins and stress.
leeroy09481/Flickr
DNA provides the instructions to make us how we look and contributes to our life expectancy. Identical twins have exactly the same DNA, so why are slightly different in many ways? The answer is epigenetics…
There’s no evidence that diet supplements are a panacea for people who have cancer.
Steven Depolo
Dietary supplements are big business, and often people are easily drawn in by marketing claims and anecdotes that vitamin pills may be the answer to all their health concerns.
People with cancer tend…
There are sound business reasons for supporting staff with cancer.
Michael Lokner
Cancer is now the leading cause of death and disability in Australia. One in two males and one in three females living to the age of 85 in Australia receives a cancer diagnosis at some stage in his or…
Sponges and hydra, which are made of colonies of cells with a small number of cell types, have some similarities with cancer.
Biodiversity Heritage Library
Life originated on Earth about four billion years ago. Death, sex and multicellularity came along about a billion years later.
According to our new atavistic model, cancer came with multicellularity…
Ian Gawler recovered from secondary cancer after conventional and unconventional treatments, including meditation.
Sebastien Wiertz
Late last year, two oncologists went public with a theory that cancer survivor Ian Gawler’s secondary cancer may not have been cancer at all but tuberculosis instead. At the time, the story made front…
Even without routine mammographs, women with a family history of the disease should be screened.
Zanthia
Public discussion about the risks of over-diagnosis of breast cancer have left some women wondering whether they should take part in the government’s breast screening program.
Let’s take a look at what…
Natural does not necessarily equate to harmless. Nor does conventional equate to unnatural.
Flickr/wine me up
One of the most misleading myths of modern medicine is that conventional cancer doctors reject “natural” therapies in favour of artificial or “unnatural” cancer treatments. This myth has contributed to…
The consortium’s work means cancer’s reign as one of our most devastating diseases may be over sooner rather than later.
shutterstock.com
The first results of the most comprehensive genetic survey of cancer ever to be undertaken by an international consortium of researchers have just started to come in. The consortium is mapping mutations…
Brain cancer and schizophrenia are the two most recent human conditions linked to Toxoplasma gondii.
shioshvili
I should admit straight up that I’m no fan of cats. Like any zoologist I treasure the rare glimpses I have had of lions, leopards, serval and even ocelot.
But I have never understood the devotion of so…
Non-communicable diseases are the silent assassins in global health. Risk exposure begins in early childhood, and accumulates across the lifespan.
michaelwhays
What causes two out of every three deaths in the world, has been described by the Director-General of the World Health Organisation as “a slow motion disaster” and by the Secretary-General of the UN a…
The French paper linking GM corn and cancer in rats should have been rejected on a number of grounds.
Vermario
French scientist Gilles-Eric Seralini caused quite a stir last week when he claimed he’d shown cancer in rats increased when they were fed genetically modified corn and/or water spiked with the herbicide…
Ovarian cancer is a significant cause of illness and death in Australia.
Flickr Lindsey G (modchik)
Cancer has been a National Health Priority Area since 1996 because of the burden it places on the Australian community. Of course, cancer isn’t just a health and economic burden – it takes an enormous…
Vaccines are the public health measure that, after safe food and water, have saved most lives.
Flickr/VCU CNS
A couple of years ago, I contributed to a documentary with the intriguing title Catching Cancer. We don’t normally regard cancer as an infection, so it often comes as a surprise to learn that more than…
Kate Willetts, Aug 28 2008, the first woman to receive the world’s first cervical cancer vaccine, Gardasil.
AAP
Australia has had a pioneering role in the discoveries that underpin our understanding that some cancers can be caused by infectious agents. But we still face many problems that could be solved if we only…
The jury is still out on whether mobile phones cause cancer.
yago.com
Neurosurgeon Charlie Teo is, to many of his patients, the “angel” who cuts where other surgeons fear to go. He feels strongly about the possibility that using mobile phones might increase the risk of brain…
Arsenic in contaminated soil can be absorbed and have long-term health consequences.
hoyasmeg
Exposure to arsenic in soil and gold mining waste may have contributed to a slight increase in past cancer risk in socioeconomically disadvantaged areas in the Goldfields region of Victoria, according…
Better diets and more exercise could prevent 43,000 cancer diagnoses a year.
joshbousel
Cancer is one of the most common public health threats facing Australians and accounts for nearly one-fifth of the disease burden in this country. The direct cost to the Australian community is approaching…
Bowel cancer screening shouldn’t just be limited to Australians turning 50, 55 and 60.
duvelNZ
In more than 30 years of treating cancer patients, I have seen some health policy decisions that defy common sense. But the most senseless of all is Treasury’s continued refusal to expand the National…
The risk of cancer from air pollution is a fraction of the hazard posed by smoking.
EPA/Alex Hofford
The fixation on potentially cancer-causing chemicals in the air, food and consumer products is diverting attention from the real risks, according to a review of global evidence by an Australian cancer…
Cancer is a disease of the body’s cells that affects around half of all Australians by the age of 85. Normally cells grow and multiply in a controlled way. But if something causes a mistake to occur in…
Gawler claims to have cured himself of advanced cancer by a series of unorthodox treatments including herbal remedies, meditation, coffee enemas and diets.
Nick Olejniczak
It’s not often that a scientific article in a learned medical journal becomes front page news but that was the case recently when a paper I co-authored with Dr Ian Haines of Melbourne’s Cabrini Hospital…
Nanas may contribute more than just hugs and kisses.
John McNab
A recent study shows that mutations in the “breast cancer genes” BRCA1 and BRCA2 – which increase the risks of breast and ovarian cancers among others – also increase fertility.
This is an extraordinary…
The value of medical research extends beyond pure economics.
Flickr/left hand
The Federal Government’s main medical research funding body, the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), last week announced its 2011 program and development grants, and postgraduate scholarship…
The Catholic church should freely distribute the contraceptive pill to its almost 95,000 nuns in order to reduce their “greatly increased risk” of developing female-specific cancers, a paper published…
Biting is a big part of the devil’s life. It’s also their undoing.
AAP
For more than a decade, the Tasmanian devil has been fighting for survival against an unusual enemy – Devil Facial Tumour Disease (or DFTD). This deadly infectious cancer has ravaged the Tasmanian devil…
Jacques Miller discovered the function of the thymus gland, which changed immunology forever.
Every year at the beginning of October, a frisson runs through the global medical research community. Who will win the greatest lottery of them all, the Nobel Prize for Medicine?
In a cynical and sceptical…
More than seven thousand Australians die each year of lung cancer but not all are smokers.
Flickr/Social is better
Each year 40,000 Australians die from cancer-related illness – the number one cause being lung cancer.
Surprised? You’re not alone.
According to a recent Galaxy poll which asked asked Australians which…
Many DIYers are not aware of the strict regulations about how asbestos should be removed.
OregonDOT/Flickr
A study published in the Medical Journal of Australia todays says the increase in the number of malignant mesothelioma cases in Western Australia over the past decade is the result of home renovation and…
Cancer patients need to think twice before adding vitamins to their treatment.
shannonkringen/flickr
Previously unthinkable questions about vitamin use by cancer patients are being asked following a series of recent clinical studies.
Is it time for cancer patients’ love affair with vitamins to end? Might…
The World Health Organisation’s cancer agency, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), has classed mobile phones as Group 2B or “possibly carcinogenic” in a new report.
In this Q+A Rodney…
Many men experience reproductive issues yet find it difficult to talk about them.
Jane Rawson
Getting men to talk about their “tackle” – those bits below the belt – is no easy feat. And the fact men aren’t talking about their reproductive health means they are putting their health and quality of…
The PSA test isn’t an accurate indicator of prostate cancer.
Ed Yourdon
The question of prostate specific antigen (PSA) testing for prostate cancer is not whether any individual has ever benefited from a PSA test, to which the answer is yes.
The question is whether a PSA…
All men should take a PSA test when they turn 40.
Thirteen of Clubs
When compared with mammograms and pap tests, the PSA test isn’t as effective in detecting early prostate cancer. But for now, at least, it’s the best test we’ve got. And if it means lives will be saved…
Mobile phones raise body temperature, but only by a tiny margin.
AMERICANVIRUS/Flickr
In a recent episode of Channel Seven’s current affairs program Today Tonight, it was claimed that wireless devices in the home – such as cordless phones and routers – can cause a range of negative health…
The Cancer Council’s alcohol abstinence message isn’t helpful.
flickr/MrTinDC
The marketing of public health messages can bear some disturbing similarities to the way the tobacco, alcohol and food industries go about promoting their products.
Recent suggestions by the Cancer Council…
The breast cancer research agenda is more balanced due to its public profile.
AAP
Some of the most serious forms of cancer are less likely to be the subject of a clinical trial than cancers with a less significant health impact.
Research shows that even being a disease is a popularity…
Prostate cancer survival rates for rural and urban men have widened.
AAP
Australia has seen many major advances in disease screening, treatment and surgery over the past few decades. But this progress hasn’t been shared equally around the country.
People living outside major…
Health statistics, such as those for breast cancer, are better understood as natural frequencies.
AAP
We rely on professional advice when making decisions about prenatal testing or cancer screening or judgments about test results, such as an HIV test. But there is a need to be wary about what your doctor…
Vaccinating all boys would offer greater protection to girls and gay men.
AAP
Data just released by the Australian Government show that many girls are not completing the full course of the cervical cancer vaccine. It’s another very good reason towards an already compelling case…
People who live on busy roads are at greater risk of pre-term births.
The body of evidence on the unhealthy effects of traffic pollution is now longer than a stretch limo.
Our recent Queensland study found pregnant women exposed to greater levels of traffic pollution had…
The $125m already spent on bowel cancer screening will be wasted if the program isn’t funded in the May Budget.
AAP
This year 17,000 Australians will be diagnosed with bowel cancer and every week 80 people will die from this disease. Meanwhile Australia’s National Bowel Cancer Screening Program (NBCSP) has run out of…
Hand held radiation monitors don’t detect inhaled plutonium particles which can lodge in the lung and cause long term damage.
AAP
The March 11 earthquake and tsunami in Japan and complicating nuclear crisis throw into sharp focus concerns about exposure to ionising radiation. What is it, how is it harmful, how much is too much…
