“I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to see my children grow up and my grandchild grow, you get this really scary feeling inside,” says Rosamond Stallings. When 45 year old Rosamond Stallings was diagnosed with breast cancer 2 years ago, doctors urged her to immediately have a mastectomy. “They found like six malignant tumors,” says Rosamond.
Recent studies have shown that 30 percent or more of breast cancer patients fail to receive complete treatment, and that African American women are as much as 10 percent less likely than white women to receive optimal therapy. But now, supported by a $10 million grant from the Department of Defense, a study, led by a team of doctors at Columbia University Medical Center, will look at possible reasons for the disparity. (Read more about African American Women and Breast Cancer)

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Women living in urban areas have denser breasts, which make them more susceptible to developing breast cancer, according to a recent study presented at a meeting of the Radiological Society of North America. Women's breast tissue may be fatty or glandular or a mixture of both. Women who have more glandular breasts show denser tissue on a mammogram. These women have been found to have nearly four times the risk of developing breast cancer compared to women with fatty breasts. To determine if there was a situational factor that attributed to the breast density, researchers analyzed digital mammograms of over 900 women from urban, suburban, and rural areas. (Read more about City Women Are More Likely To Develop Breast Cancer)

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A recent study by Kaiser Permanente Researchers has found that the effects of alcohol on breast cancer are the same, regardless of whether a woman drinks wine, beer, or liquor. The ethyl alcohol found in those drinks and the quantity consumed are the factors that weigh heavily on breast cancer risk. Researchers believe the increased risk from three or more drinks a day is similar to the increased breast cancer risk from smoking a pack of cigarettes a day or more. They claim that "Population studies have consistently linked drinking alcohol to an increased risk of female breast cancer, but until now there has been little data, most of it conflicting, about an independant role played by the choice of beverage type." (Read more about All Types of Alcohol Linked to Breast Cancer Risk)

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There is a new warning for people with pacemakers and implantable cardioverter defibrillators: Magnets may pose a serious health risk!

While common magnets for home and office use with low magnetic strength posed little risk, stronger magnets made from neodymium-iron-boron may cause interference with cardiac devices and pose potential hazards to patients.

These magnets are increasingly being used in homes and office products, toys, jewelry and even clothing.

The authors say physicians should caution patients about the risks associated with these magnets and they also recommend that the product packaging include information on the potential risks that may be associated with these types of magnets. (Read more about Health Wrap for December 2006 | Cardiology, Cancer, Asthma, Trans-fat)

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College professor, 61 year old Karin Wexler, wasted no time when she first felt a lump on her breast three years ago. “Within 3 minutes, I had called my doctor and went for a mammogram and sonogram right away and nothing showed up on the mammogram even though the radiologist could feel it herself with her hand, we couldn’t pick it up on the mammogram,” says Karin.

Doctors performed a lumpectomy and discovered that Karin did indeed have stage one breast cancer. For many women like Karin, mammography, while still the first-line screening tool for breast cancer, can miss abnormalities. Dense tissue and cancers can have a similar appearance on mammography, making it difficult to identify cancers…this can result in false negative mammograms and in addition lead to unnecessary biopsies.

But now, thanks to breast specific gamma imaging, cancerous tissue can be identified that may go undetected by mammography. “This is different than traditional breast imaging like mammography or sonography or even MRI in that it is not anatomical imaging but it is more what we call functional imaging so in other words we are picking up areas where the cells are beginning to be more active like cancer cells can and allows us to identify these cells at a much earlier stage before we might be able to see an abnormality on a mammogram a sonogram or even an MRI so it is very, very exciting,” says Dr. Sheldon Marc Feldman of Beth Israel Medical Center. (Read more about New Breast Cancer Diagnostic)

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So when is a trip to the candy counter a cure for a common problem that costs the country millions in healthcare dollars and gets patients out of the hospital days earlier?

It’s when you buy a pack of gum of course!

It might sound weird, but chewing gum has just been shown to help many surgery patients. (Read more about Chewing Gum Cure)

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By Dr. Chitti Moorthy -Director, Departments of Radiation Medicine and Radiology,
New York Medical College, Valhalla , NY

The cause of cancer lies deep within the building blocks of a person's cells (genes and DNA). If these blocks become disorganized, cancer may develop. (Read more about What is Cancer?)

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According to new research in the medical journal the lancet, the number of people that have dementia--the common form is Alzheimer’s disease--is going to double every twenty years.

Given that 24 million worldwide have dementia today, that number will go up to 42 million by 2020, and 81 million by 2040.

Now, 61 percent of these patients live in developed countries, like the U.S. But that number is going to go up to 71 percent by 2040 (Read more about Healthwrap - Dementia, SIDS, Breast Cancer)

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Cancer is a term used to describe a group of illnesses all having certain common characteristics. There are over 200 different types of cancer and all have a specific name, treatment and a chance of being cured. The human body is made of organs, such as the brain, liver and heart. And each of these organs is made up tissues, such as fat, blood vessels and muscles. (Read more about What is Cancer and How it is Caused)

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Researchers have identified two genes which play a key role in determining whether a person is at risk for breast cancer. Identified as Brca1 and Brca2, individuals with both the ‘breast cancer genes’ are found to be at a greater risk of inheriting breast cancer.
But new research shows there are two other genes, called Notch1 and Jagged1, which are linked to the more aggressive lung cancers. It’s believed patients are less likely to survive the disease when these two genes are found. (Read more about WEEKLY HEALTH WRAP)

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