According to CDC data , cigarette smoking is the single most preventable cause of premature death in the United States, with more than 400,000 Americans dying from cigarette smoking each year (one in every five deaths in the United States is smoking related). Exposure to secondhand smoke (or environmental tobacco smoke) causes an estimated 3,000 deaths from lung cancer, alone, among American adults, and according to a new study by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, exposure to secondhand smoke even for a brief period is injurious to health. They also found that the deleterious effects of the exposure remain in the body for at least 24 hours, much longer than previously thought : According to the study, a 30-minute exposure to the level of secondhand smoke that one might normally inhale in an average bar setting was enough to result in blood vessel injury in young and otherwise healthy lifelong nonsmokers. Compounding the injury to the blood vessels themselves, the exposure to smoke impedes the function of the body's natural repair mechanisms that are activated in the face of the blood vessels' injury, the researchers report. Many of these effects persisted 24 hours later.

Statistics show that an incredible 65.2 percent of the U.S. population is considered to be "overweight" or "obese." Fat cells have an important physiological role in maintaining triglyceride and free fatty acid levels - as well as determining insulin resistance, and lie behind how you gain and lose weight. Researchers at the Karolinska Institute, Sweden, in a study published in Nature, report they have demonstrated that we continually create new fat cells to replace those that are breaking down. According to the scientists, obese people produce approximately twice as many new fat cells annually as lean people. They also found that fat cell death happens at twice the rate among obese people, compared to lean people, and even if the obese people they studied lost a significant amount of weight, their total number of fat cells in the body remained constant, even though the size of individual fat cells fell substantially. [...] It has been generally believed that adult humans cannot create new fat cells. We have thought, until now, that fat cells only and simply increase their fat mass by adding more lipids into fat cells that already exist in order to settle their body weight - this is true, but that is not the end of the story. Research lead by Kirsty Spalding, Jonas Frisén and Peter Arner has recently shown that adult humans constantly produce new fat cells regardless of their body weight status, sex or age. Peter Arner, Professor, Department of Medicine, Huddinge, said "The total number of fat cells in the body is stable overtime, because the making of new fat cells is counterbalanced by an equally rapid break down of the already existing fat cells due to cell death."

Researchers supported by the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, part of the National Institutes of Health, report that their initial success using a customized optical device that allows dentists to visualize in a completely new way whether a patient might have a developing oral cancer . The device is called a Visually Enhanced Lesion Scope (VELScope), and it's a simple, hand-held device that emits a cone of blue light into the mouth that excites various molecules within our cells, causing them to absorb the light energy and re-emit it as visible fluorescence. Remove the light, and the fluorescence of the tissue is no longer visible: Because changes in the natural fluorescence of healthy tissue generally reflect light-scattering biochemical or structural changes indicative of developing tumor cells, the VELScope allows dentists to shine a light onto a suspicious sore in the mouth, look through an attached eyepiece, and watch directly for changes in color. Normal oral tissue emits a pale green fluorescence, while potentially early tumor, or dysplastic, cells appear dark green to black.

Remember the alphabet. Dermatologists recommend patients consider the letters ABCDE as a guide for self-screening, and have moles exhibiting any of the following characteristics checked out: Asymmetrical shape; border that is irregular; color that is inconsistent within the mole; diameter greater than one-fourth inch; and evolving, or changing in any of the criteria above, or in any other way. Skin cancer is the most common form of cancer in the United States. The two most common types are basal cell cancer and squamous cell cancer, which usually form on the head, face, neck, hands and arms. Another type of skin cancer, melanoma, is less common, but far more dangerous. Recently, the Skin Cancer Foundation recently promoted a simple screen for identifying potentially cancerous lesions such as melanoma: Just look at the moles on your body and note ... [ BAD MARKS AND GOOD: The top left mole is benign, whereas the other three are malignant. And don't look to color as a guide to whether a mole is harmless -- in citing which characteristics to watch, dermatologists emphasize irregularities and changes. - L.A. Times ] Is one different than the others? Has a new one appeared? Some tips to help you decide when to see a dermatologist.

University of Washington scientists have uncovered details about the mechanisms through which dietary restriction slows the aging process; the take-home message for us is eat less - live longer ...

Facing a diagnosis of breast cancer is challenging enough, but facing breast cancer during pregnancy can be nothing short of devastating, not to mention the matter of wondering if one can have chemotherapy and will the treatment hurt one's baby. However, new research helps to answer these questions, and the findings should serve to reassure patients and their doctors. In a German study examining outcomes among 122 pregnant breast cancer patients, researchers concluded that pregnant patients can often be treated as aggressively as non-pregnant patients, with little evidence of ill effects to their babies. The health problems reported among the babies during their first month of life were generally minor and outcomes among babies born to mothers who had chemotherapy were similar to those of babies born to mothers who did not. More ...

Scientists at Emory University studying how vitamins and minerals in the diet can stimulate or prevent the appearance of colon cancer have found that supplementing the diet with calcium and vitamin D can influence colon cancer risk. Their findings on biological markers that could influence colon cancer risk will be presented in three abstracts at the American Association for Cancer Research meeting in San Diego: [...] In a clinical study of 92 patients, supplementing diet with calcium and vitamin D appeared to increase the levels of a protein called Bax that controls programmed cell death in the colon. More Bax might be pushing pre-cancerous cells into programmed cell death, says Emory researcher Veronika Fedirko, who will present her team's results.

A revolution in radiotherapy treatment for cancer could be near after 10-year trials showed less radiation delivered in fewer doses is just as effective in preventing return of the disease. An important result of the reduced number of doses and total radiation is fewer long-term side effects on the breast due to hardening (radiation fibrosis), as well as a reduction in shrinkage: Two trials involving almost 4,500 women with breast cancer found that reducing the overall dose of radiation by 20 per cent and the number of sessions by 40 per cent cut side effects without increasing cancer recurrence. The finding could mean a reduction in the international-standard radiotherapy schedule for early breast cancer, which says that women should receive 50 gray of radiation in 25 equal doses over five weeks. It could also have implications for other cancers of glandular tissue, such as prostate cancer. In women with breast cancer, radiotherapy is normally given after chemotherapy. The present regime means women must attend hospital five days a week for five weeks, spending an hour or more queuing for the radiotherapy machine, being correctly positioned under it and receiving their daily dose. Women in the two trials, called Start A and B (Standardisation of Breast Radiotherapy Trial), attended clinics three days a week over five weeks with a total dose of between 39 and 41.6 gray, compared with the normal 50 gray.

In a new study published online in Science, researchers shed light on the poorly understood process of metastasis - when a tumor spreads to other organs. They report that mutations in mitochondrial DNA can spur metastasis and that it can be reversed with drugs, at least in mice: Mitochondria are the tiny organelles inherited from your mom that serve as the cell's powerhouses. They have their own DNA, called mtDNA. Ten years ago, cancer researchers noticed that mtDNA in tumor cells tends to be riddled with mutations--far more than in normal tissues. (This is in part because mtDNA is not packaged in proteins, which makes it more vulnerable to damage.) Some researchers think mtDNA may cause tumors. But others suggest that the mutations are simply a byproduct of the cancer; they note that people with mitochondrial diseases are not particularly cancer-prone, and cancer risk is not inherited maternally, as would be expected for a disease linked to mitochondria.

Just when you might think it was safe to drink the water in plastic bottles, along comes another chemical called BPA or bisphenol A. Now it looks as though you might want to think twice next time before you leave your plastic water bottle in a hot car, or even drink from a plastic bottle if you're genetically predisposed to breast cancer.