By Colleen Doyle, MS, RD

Love is in the air - and not just because Valentine's Day is right around the corner. It's also National Heart Month - a time to show our hearts a little love, and do what we can to reduce our risk heart disease, the leading cause of death in the United States.

Fortunately, there are things we can put in our cereal bowls, lunch boxes and dinner plates every day that can help reduce our own risk for developing heart disease. Not only that, a lot of these things can also be part of a healthy diet that can also reduce your risk of developing a variety of types of cancer. A two-for-one! Now who wouldn't love that? More...

By Nathan Grey, MPH

For many years, global health has been associated with diseases like HIV/AIDS and malaria. And rightly so. These diseases present significant threats to health around the world. But they aren't the only major killers. In fact, they're not even the leading killers anymore!  Today, cancer claims more lives globally than HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis combined, and the death toll from cancer is only going to grow.

How can this be? Well, there are two major factors that affect the growing impact of cancer around the world.

First, we've done a much better job of controlling diseases that used to kill people while they were still quite young. Vaccinations, new medications including antibiotics, and prevention programs (like providing bed nets to combat mosquitoes and malaria, and clean drinking water to curb a host of other water-borne illnesses)  have led to people living longer. And as people live longer they are faced with the diseases more common to older age, such as cancer.

Second, when people live longer, there is a greater chance that they will be exposed to cancer-causing agents - like tobacco - at some point in their lives. Longer lives plus greater exposure to cancer-causing substances equals more cancer. More...

By Michele Szafranski, MS, RD, CSO, LDN

"Well, I could stand to lose some weight." As a cancer dietitian, I have heard this more times than I can count in the past 10 years. But most people are surprised when I explain to them that losing weight during their treatment may not be the best time. While getting to a healthy weight over the long run can be a healthy thing to do,  it can actually be harmful before and during cancer treatment.

For some people with cancer, keeping weight stable can feel like an uphill battle since there are many factors that can contribute to weight loss even before patients are diagnosed. For instance, the cancer itself may produce chemicals called "cytokines" that can give you less of an appetite or cause nausea. Or the location of a tumor may place pressure on the digestive tract, making you fill up on food easily or have a hard time swallowing. After receiving a diagnosis, anxiety about the diagnosis and upcoming treatment can take away appetite. Then once treatment begins, side effects such as nausea, diarrhea, taste changes, and sore throat can change what and how much people are eating. More...

By Durado Brooks, MD, MPH

Imagine being told by your doctor, "You have cancer."  Then imagine that their next words are "... but we probably don't need to do anything about it."  Many people would immediately start looking for another doctor. But hold on just a moment.

Last month the National Institutes of Health (NIH) brought together experts from around the world for a summit to examine the state of our scientific knowledge on "active surveillance" as a management strategy for prostate cancer. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, active surveillance essentially means monitoring the cancer closely and delaying active treatment (surgery or radiation, for instance) until there are signs it is needed; the delay may be months, years, or forever. This summit pointed out that while there is still much we need to learn about this once-controversial approach, there is a wealth of data supporting the potential value of active surveillance for a large number of the 240,000 men in the United States who are diagnosed with prostate cancer each year.  More...

By Colleen Doyle, MS, RD

Today, the American Cancer Society released its 2012 Guidelines on Nutrition and Physical Activity Cancer Prevention. Based on sound science and strong evidence, our best advice to the general public to help reduce their risk of cancer through nutrition and physical activity is to:

• achieve and maintain a healthy weight throughout life
• adopt a physically active lifestyle
• consume a healthy diet, with an emphasis on plant foods
• limit consumption if you drink alcoholic beverages

As a matter of fact, for the majority of us who don't smoke, these are the most important ways to reduce cancer risk. More...

By William C. Phelps, PhD

The 1960s seems like yesterday to me.  The music, the cultural passion, and a Presidential assassination helped to sear time and place in my now gray-headed memory. During this time, two young scientists in Philadelphia, Dr. Peter Nowell from the University of Pennsylvania and Dr. David Hungerford from Fox Chase Cancer Center, spent their days peering through microscopes at white blood cells. They noticed that when they stained cells from patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (or chronic myelogenous leukemia, or CML), they would very often see an odd, minute chromosome in addition to the normal set.

We know today in looking back that this was a landmark observation. Dr. Nowell and Dr. Hungerford named their discovery the "Philadelphia Chromosome" in keeping with the tradition of the day, and it soon became an important way to diagnose CML.

In the 1970s as we suffered through the disco era, Dr. Janet Rowley at the University of Chicago used newly developed techniques that highlighted different regions of chromosomes to look more carefully at the Philadelphia Chromosome. She determined that they looked odd because two large pieces of two different chromosomes had changed places. But the significance of that wasn't immediately apparent. More...

By Mia M. Gaudet, PhD

Certain types of cancer often seem to run in families. Sometimes, it's because families share certain risk factors (like smoking) that can cause cancer. Other times, though, there is an inherited link - a slight difference in the genetic code that is passed down from generation to generation.

Only about 5% - 10% of all cancers are inherited. It's an important area of research because identifying genetic causes of cancer could help us understand who might need to be screened for a certain type of cancer more often, or take other steps to protect themselves from this disease. This is the first blog in a series where we'll explore what researchers have learned about some of the cancers that have a strong genetic link, and who might be candidates for genetic counseling and testing. Today we'll focus on breast cancer. More...

By Terri Ades, DNP, FNP-BC, AOCN

As an advanced practice oncology nurse, I've been asked many interesting questions about cancer at cocktail parties. While I've never been asked about palliative care, my sense is that more people should be asking about it.  Opinion surveys indicate that the public does not understand palliative care.  So what?  Well, if the public doesn't understand it, then when they or a family member need it, they may be missing out on care they should be receiving.   

Palliative care is care given by specialized health professionals to improve the quality of life of individuals and families who face a serious illness. Palliative care addresses the physical, emotional, spiritual, and social needs of a person from the time of a diagnosis to the end of life.  It is the care that occurs to relieve symptoms (like pain, nausea, and fatigue) when someone is undergoing therapy to cure their  cancer, or to address their emotional suffering when they are told their cancer has progressed, or the social suffering they experience with limited income and health insurance, or their spiritual suffering when they have lost hope.   More...

By Thomas J. Glynn, PhD

No, "The Dissolvables" are not a Saturday morning TV cartoon show - they are the tobacco industry's latest attempt to maintain, and even expand, the number of tobacco users in the U.S., at a time when fewer people are smoking cigarettes.

"Dissolvables," as they have become collectively known, are products made of compressed tobacco and are available in a variety of forms, including sticks, pellets, and strips (think the Listerine breath strip). They dissolve in the user's mouth, delivering nicotine, as well as thousands of other chemicals and substances. Examples of these products are below.  More...

By Greta Greer, MSW, LCSW


In my last blog, I provided general tips for communicating with someone diagnosed with cancer. In this blog, I talk about the added importance of good, open communication when you are caring for a loved one with cancer.

When it comes to being a cancer caregiver, I've found that caregivers often have the same questions and concerns as the person with cancer. Is he [am I] going to die? What if I can't handle this?  Where's the money coming from for treatment? Is the cancer his [my] fault? I told her to go [I know I should have gone]...to the doctor... stop smoking... lose weight...get a colonoscopy, mammogram, Pap smear...use sunscreen!  I'm so angry...scared...overwhelmed. Is cancer contagious?  However, both those with cancer and those who care about them may not share these concerns with one another. Why is that? More...