Weight Control Can Cut Women's Diabetes Risk, Study Shows

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If Colonoscopy Picks Up Cancer Risk, Get Next Screen in 5 Years: Study

HealthDay – 6 mins ago WEDNESDAY, July 25 (HealthDay News) -- People who have had a colonoscopy during which a high-risk potentially cancerous polyp was removed may not need another colonoscopy for five years, German researchers report.

If this suggestion were to be adopted, it would be a change from the current recommendation in the United States, which calls for another colonoscopy three years after a high-risk polyp -- one that is likely to become cancerous -- is removed.

"This is a case control study, so they didn't follow a group of individuals over time to assess the impact of polyp removal," said Dr. Durado Brooks, director of prostate and colorectal cancers at the American Cancer Society.

That kind of patient follow-up, however, did take place in the study that established the current U.S. recommendations for colonoscopy, he noted.

In addition, while the German study looks at the odds of cancer developing over time, the older study that set the U.S. guidelines looked at the odds of a new polyp developing, Brooks said.

"The time frames they are recommending are something that might be considered, but you cannot make changes in current guidelines based on this study," he said.

The report was published online July 23 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

For the new study, a team lead by Dr. Hermann Brenner, at the German Cancer Research Center, in Heidelberg, looked at medical records of more than 2,500 people who had a cancerous polyp removed and compared them to nearly 1,800 people without such polyps.

They compared surveillance intervals of less than three years, three to five years, and six to 10 years before receiving another colonoscopy.

Looking at the risk of finding colorectal cancer, even for those with high-risk polyps, "strong, statistically significant risk reduction by 60 percent was seen for the less-than-three-years time window and by 50 percent for the three-to-five-years time window," the researchers wrote.

This was true for men, women, young and old, they added.

Their results suggest that surveillance colonoscopy could take place five to 10 years after the a low-risk polyp was found and removed, and possibly also be prolonged to five years for high-risk polyps, the researchers concluded.

The current recommendation for people with high-risk polyps is to have another colonoscopy three years after the polyp was removed, Brooks said.

If new polyps aren't found, then another colonoscopy isn't needed for 10 years, he said.

The 10-year span between colonoscopies is the recommendation for anyone who has a normal colonoscopy, Brooks added.

The advantage of extending the time between colonoscopies from three to five years in patients with high-risk polyps is the use of resources, he said.

The problem is that doctors don't follow the current guidelines.

"If we could get clinicians just to follow the current recommendations we could expand our resources considerably," Brooks said. "Right now far too many people are getting colonoscopies done at intervals that are not recommended by anyone's guidelines."

Some people who have had high-risk polyps get a colonoscopy every year. Many people who have normal colonoscopies get another after five years, Brooks said.

All the evidence shows that colonoscopies every five years is much too frequent, he said.

"We are doing far too many colonoscopies on people who are in the system, but there are at least 40 percent of adults at risk who have never been screened," Brooks said. "If you're 50 and older and never been screened -- get screened."

More information

For more about colon cancer, visit the American Cancer Society.

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Antioxidants Might Help Cut Pancreatic Cancer Risk, Study Suggests

HealthDay – 1 hr 40 mins ago MONDAY, July 23 (HealthDay News) -- Eating a diet high in antioxidants such as selenium and vitamins C and E may reduce the risk of pancreatic cancer by up to two-thirds, a new study suggests.

The study is observational in nature and can only suggest an association, not a cause-and-effect relationship. The British researchers say, however, that if further research confirms a direct link, this type of diet could prevent 8 percent of pancreatic cancer cases.

One expert said there has been much research into the link between diet and cancer.

"Over the years there have been many attempts to find dietary causes for cancer," said Dr. Vincent Vinciguerra, chief of oncology and hematology at North Shore-LIJ's Monter Cancer Center in Lake Success, N.Y. "It is estimated that 35 percent of cancers are related to carcinogens in the diet. Antioxidants have been the subject of numerous trials because in theory they could be instrumental in the prevention of carcinogenesis."

In the new study, researchers led by Dr. Andrew Hart of the University of East Anglia tracked the long-term health of more than 23,500 people, aged 40 to 74, who entered the study between 1993 and 1997. Each participant kept a food diary that detailed the types, amount and method of preparation for every food they ate for seven days.

After 10 years, 49 participants (55 percent of whom were male) had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. By 2010, the number of participants diagnosed with pancreatic cancer increased to 86 (44 percent were men). On average, patients survived six months after diagnosis.

The researchers found that people with the highest dietary intake of selenium were half as likely to develop pancreatic cancer as those with the lowest intake. Those who consumed the highest dietary intake of three antioxidants -- selenium and vitamins C and E -- were 67 percent less likely to develop pancreatic cancer compared to those with the lowest intake.

The study was published online July 23 in the journal Gut.

Previous studies using antioxidant supplements have not produced such encouraging results, but this may be because antioxidants in food behave differently than those in supplements, Hart and colleagues said.

Vinciguerra agreed that the research so far on this issue has been "conflicting."

For example, he said, there was "a recent study

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Calcium supplements linked to significantly increased heart attack risk, study suggests

ScienceDaily (May 23, 2012) — Calcium supplements might increase the risk of having a heart attack, and should be "taken with caution," concludes research published in the online issue of the journal Heart.

See Also:Health & MedicineOsteoporosisWomen's HealthNutritionMind & BrainNutrition ResearchDieting and Weight ControlStrokeReferenceDietary mineralNutrition and pregnancyOily fishHormone replacement therapy

Furthermore, boosting overall calcium intake from dietary sources confers no significant advantage in terms of staving off heart disease and stroke, the findings indicate.

Previous research has linked higher calcium intake with a lowered risk of high blood pressure, obesity, and type 2 diabetes, all of which are risk factors for heart disease and stroke.

And calcium supplements are commonly recommended to elderly people and women who have gone through the menopause to prevent bone thinning.

The authors base their findings on almost 24,000 participants of one of the German arms of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) study in Heidelberg.

All the participants were aged between 35 and 64 when they joined the study in 1994-8.

Normal diet for the preceding 12 months was assessed using food frequency questionnaires and they were quizzed about whether they regularly took vitamin or mineral supplements.

Their health was tracked for an average of 11 years, during which time 354 heart attacks, 260 strokes, and 267 associated deaths occurred.

After taking account of factors likely to influence the results, those whose diets included a moderate amount (820 mg daily) of calcium from all sources, including supplements, had a 31% lower risk of having a heart attack than those in the bottom 25% of calcium intake.

But those with an intake of more than 1100 mg daily did not have a significantly lower risk. There was no evidence that any level of calcium intake either protected against or increased the risk of stroke, which backs up the findings of other research, say the authors.

But when the analysis looked at vitamin/mineral supplements, it found that those who took calcium supplements regularly were 86% more likely to have a heart attack than those who didn't use any supplements.

And this risk increased further among those who used only calcium supplements. They were more than twice as likely to have a heart attack as those who didn't take any supplements.

The authors conclude: "This study suggests that increasing calcium intake from diet might not confer significant cardiovascular benefits, while calcium supplements, which might raise

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