Cancer

January 31, 2020

Here’s why the U.S. surgeon general and WHO want smokers to quit, asap

Cigarette smokers got yet more chiding from public health officials about why and how they should quit an addictive and destructive habit. To do so isn’t easy, and a “shocking” number of doctors aren’t helping enough, the Surgeon General of the United States conceded. But there are big reasons to give up the nasty vice, especially before elective surgery, the World Health Organization warned.

The health experts found much to agree on when it comes to the carnage smoking causes. As the New York Times reported on the surgeon general’s work:

“More than 55 years after the first surgeon general’s report warned that smoking causes cancer, it remains the leading cause of preventable death and disease in the United States. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the rate of smoking in the United States has declined to an all-time low of 14%. More than 3 of every 5 adult Americans who have smoked have quit, the report said. Still, 34 million Americans currently smoke, and an estimated 480,000 die from smoking-related illnesses each year, the agency said. About 16 million people in the United States now suffer from cancer, heart disease and smoking-related disorders, according to the CDC. The financial toll is enormous too, with annual health care spending attributed to smoking exceeding $170 billion, the agency said.”

January 15, 2020

Good news on cancer shows why the battle against smoking matters. A lot.

by Patrick A. Malone

There’s good news out on declining deaths caused by one of the nation’s leading killers. But experts warn that the country will need to work hard to sustain a sharp drop in cancer mortality rates — mostly due to smokers quitting their nasty habit. That’s because other factors like rising obesity may undo the recent favorable results.

The findings reported by the American Cancer Society were heartening, as the New York Times reported:

“The cancer death rate in the United States fell 2.2% from 2016 to 2017 — the largest single-year decline in cancer mortality ever reported … Since 1991, the rate has dropped 29%, which translates to approximately 2.9 million fewer cancer deaths than would have occurred if the mortality rate had remained constant.”

January 10, 2020

Need simple, clear, and direct ideas to be healthier? Heed these 48 words

by Patrick A. Malone

Bravo, brevity. Four dozen words is all it takes for a doctor and noted writer on diet and obesity to offer plenty of sound advice on how to get and stay healthy.

Here are the suggestions from Yoni Freedhoff, associate professor of family medicine at the University of Ottawa, founder and medical director of Ottawa’s Bariatric Medical Institute, blogger at Weighty Matters, and author of “The Diet Fix: Why Diets Fail and How to Make Yours Work:”

“Don’t smoke. Get vaccinated. Avoid trans fats. Replace saturated fats with unsaturated if you can. Cook from whole ingredients — and minimize restaurant meals. Minimize ultra-processed foods. Cultivate relationships. Nurture sleep. Drink alcohol at most moderately. Exercise as often as you can enjoy. Drink only the calories you love.”

January 5, 2020

With teens’ health at risk, White House plays politics with vaping

by Patrick A. Malone

The Trump Administration kicked off the new year with a whimper not a bang with yet another of its attempts to corral the health nightmare of e-cigarettes and vaping by the nation’s young, while not upsetting the industry too much.

Starting Feb. 1, the federal government announced it will forbid the sale of most flavored cartridges for e-cigarette use, notably those with popular tastes like candy, fruits, and mint.

At the same time, though, vendors still can sell menthol and tobacco flavorings. And they can peddle flavored vaping liquids if they are used in the open tank systems that most often are so big, they are limited to shops or stores.

December 27, 2019

U.S. to require vapers and smokers to be at least age 21 to buy tobacco in any form

by Patrick A. Malone

Consumers soon may need to be 21 or older to buy burning tobacco cigarettes or e-cigarettes, the key component of the national health nightmare of “vaping.”

Both the House and Senate have passed the higher age requirement and President Trump is expected to sign it, joining hundreds of states (including Maryland, as illustration shows) and cities that have sought to make it tougher for Americans to damage their health with the popular products.

The damage caused by smoking have been well proven for decades now, with the American Cancer Society reporting the nasty habit’s persistent toll:

December 4, 2019

As life expectancy and fertility rates decline, health politics more key than ever

by Patrick A. Malone

Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Indiana — if you’re obsessed with national politics, these states might register in your mind as key partisan battlegrounds. But if you’re focused on Americans’ health and well-being, these states — along with New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont, and West Virginia — may be causes for different and considerable concern: the nation’s plummeting life expectancy.

These states are flashing warning signs, racking up the greatest relative increases in death rates among young and middle-aged adults (New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont, West Virginia, and Ohio).

Excess deaths among Americans in their prime, that is individuals in the 25 to 64 age group who would live longer if mortality rates improved, also were highly concentrated geographically, with fully a third of them in just four states: Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Indiana, experts say.

December 1, 2019

With new heat on THC and CBD use, will zeal for marijuana keep growing?

by Patrick A. Malone

Fans of marijuana and its related products may want to take careful note of developments regarding their health and safety effects.

Federal researchers are racing to trace thousands of cases of lung damage and dozens of deaths to so-called smokeless consumption of tetrahydrocannabinol or THC, the ingredient that produces the marijuana high. Other federal officials also are warning about cannabidiol or CBD — a derivative of marijuana or its cousin hemp — and its burgeoning and unapproved use in an array of products on the market.

To be sure, because blue-nose attitudes blocked rigorous research on marijuana and other drugs, medical scientists have been scrupulous in declining to make sweeping declarations about grass and its potential benefits or harms.

November 24, 2019

On vaping, gun violence, and health insurance, the big talk flows, but action, not so much

by Patrick A. Malone

When it comes to key health concerns of the American public, President Trump and his administration have offered evidence anew that whatever they say may not last to the next political moment, that inaction is its own powerful kind of action, and that what officials say they’re doing may be exactly the opposite.

This is not intended as partisan commentary. It reflects the turn of a few news cycles and how Trump and his officials have dealt with:

The outbreak of serious lung illnesses and deaths tied to vaping

October 27, 2019

As FDA warns of implant perils, new questions arise about 3D mammograms

by Patrick A. Malone

Angry women, anxious that officials were failing to protect their health, besieged a federal Food and Drug Administration hearing in the spring. That unusual outcry may have helped push regulators off their bureaucratic backsides, getting them finally to warn about risks of one of the most commonly used medical devices for women: breast implants.

But will a similar gender uprising be required to quash a rising and dubious medical testing of women, the so-called “3D mammogram?”

The FDA’s sudden, fast stepping on breast implants is occurring after years of inaction. Under new rules proposed by the agency, the devices’ packaging would be required to carry “boxed warnings,” the FDA’s most serious caution. The agency also would call on surgeons to step up their discussions with women about implant risks, including for rare cancers. As the Washington Post reported, doctors also would be told to tell patients:

October 1, 2019

Health care plagued by cases of a persistent pathology — unmitigated gall

by Patrick A. Malone

There seems to be a never-ending outbreak of a certain kind of pathology in the United States. Big Pharma has it and spreads it around, a lot. So, too, do public health figures. Let’s call this scourge what it is — unmitigated gall.

The problem with this nasty condition is that it afflicts the rest of us. Just consider how stomach-churning these shenanigans can be:

Penalties for bogus prescribing of ‘little red pills’ on elderly dementia patients