The three pharmaceutical giants announced a plan to create a not-for-profit company in Singapore that will help speed up research on new medicines to treat gastric and lung cancers, which have become prevalent in Asia.

the Asian Cancer Research Group

The company, which will be called the Asian Cancer Research Group, is one of the first examples of a collaboration among major drug companies to combine resources and expertise to rapidly increase the knowledge of a disease and the disease process.

Merck is headquartered in Readington, Pfizer in New York and Eli Lilly in Indianapolis.

Over the next two years, the three companies will work on creating an extensive pharmacogenomic cancer database. The database will consist of information taken from about 2,000 tissue samples from patients with lung and gastric cancer and will be made available to researchers around the world.

The data will be housed and shared with scientists at the Lilly Singapore Center, Eli Lilly’s drug research facility.

“Through its work and the subsequent sharing of information, the information, the Asian Cancer Research Group hopes to empower researchers, foster innovation and improve the prognosis and treatment of patients with cancer,’’ said Gary Gilliand, senior vice president and franchise head, oncology, Merck Research Laboratories.

Sage Bionetworks

The creation of the research group was inspired by the non-profit Seattle-based Sage Bionetworks, which was founded by Stephen Friend, who previously headed Merck’s cancer research efforts.

Two soft drinks a week may double the risk of getting pancreatic cancer, according to a recent study.

The soda industry strongly disagreed with the study, calling it flawed and showing other research that did not find an association between soda drinking and pancreatic cancer.

”People who drank two or more soft drinks a week had an 87% increased risk – or nearly twice the risk – of pancreatic cancer compared to individuals consuming no soft drinks,” says study lead author Noel T. Mueller, MPH, a research associate at the Cancer Control Program at Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington, D.C.

Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research has published the study.

Cancer of the pancreas was found in over 40,000 people in America in 2009, according to American Cancer Society estimates, and about 35,000 deaths from the disease were expected. The pancreas lies beneath the stomach and creates the hormone insulin to balance blood sugar. It also produces juices with enzymes in order to break down fats and proteins.

Video on pancreatic cancer

Prior studies showed mixed conclusions as to the connection of of soft drinks boosts the risk of pancreatic cancer.

Mueller and his associates studied 60,524 men and women enrolled in a Singapore Chinese Health Study, which began in the early 1990’s, for up to 14 years, to observe their diet and whether they got cancer.

They asked all participants about food intake, including sodas and juices. Mueller says the researchers didn’t ask specifically about diet soda consumption, but that most of the soda drunk was regular or sweetened.

In Singapore at that time, Mueller says, there was very little intake of diet soda.

“We followed the participants for 14 plus years, keeping track of different cancers,” he tells WebMD.

They found 140 cases of pancreatic cancer and looked back to see if there was an association with sodas or juices.

The researchers divided the consumption of sodas and juices into three categories: none, less than two servings a week, or two or more servings a week.

Those who drank two or more a week — the average number was five — had the 87% increased risk, Mueller tells WebMD.

No link was found between juices and pancreatic cancer risk.

Why is there an association with soft drinks? Mueller says they are not certain. “What we believe is the sugar in the soft drinks is increasing the insulin level in the body, which we think contributes to pancreatic cancer cell growth. That increase in insulin is what may be leading to the development of the cancer.”

His team adjusted for other risk factors, such as advancing age, smoking, diabetes, and body mass index. It is well known that the risk for pancreatic cancer rises with age.

As it turns out BBC News has reported the use of screening tests other than smears may prevent of more deaths caused by cervical cancer. This is so for women who are over 35.

Italian researchers headed by Dr. Guglielmo Ronco of the Turin Centre for Cancer Prevention studied data on over 90,000 women over three and a half years. The findings were that women who have been tested for the human papillomavirus (HPV) suffered less cancers than women who were tested using the more common smear technique.

Testing for HPV can pick up early pre-cancerous alterations to cervical cells, which means that the correct treatment can be started at an early stage. The director of information at the Cancer Research UK,, Dr. Leslie Walker state that “we might be able to spot the warning signs even earlier and it might, in future, mean that women go for screening less often.”

The good news according to the research is that HPV testing does not require the same amount of testing. Once every five years will do whereas smears need to be done once every three years.

Good for women under the age of 35

Unfortunately this type of testing is not the best one for all women. Since HPV testing is generally more sensitive, it also tends to find problems that, when discovered in younger women, often correct themselves over time and are truly better left untreated. Therefore, the testing is not best suited for women under the age of 35 in order to avoid being over-treated.

We encourage you to read more on this.

Doctor Speaks About Cervical Cancer Screenings

Dr. Bernadine Healy speaks about ACOG’s new recommendations for less frequent pap smears to detect cervical cancer in this video.

The investigation into why poorer women have a higher risk of the disease found they tended to have sex about four years earlier than more affluent women.

Previously, it had been thought the disparity was the result of low screening uptake in poorer areas.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer findings are published in the British Journal of Cancer.

Although the difference in cervical cancer incidence between rich and poor – across the world – had been noted for many years, it was not clear why this is the case.

Especially as rates of infection with human papillomavirus (HPV) – the sexually transmitted infection linked with the vast majority of cervical cancers – seemed to be similar across all groups.

The study confirmed that the higher rates of cervical cancer were not linked to higher HPV levels.

But what it did reveal is that the two-fold increased risk was largely explained by women from poorer backgrounds starting to have sex at a younger age.

The age at which a woman had her first baby was also an important factor.

Screening was found to have some effect on the level of risk.

But the number of sexual partners a woman has and smoking did not account for any of the difference.

Harvard researchers are finding an intriguing link between coffee and the prevention of an aggressive type of prostate cancer.

Prostate cancer kills 27,000 men annually. So this research comparing the history of thousands and thousands of men raises the possibility of a simple and effective prevention in this deadly disease.

The researchers discovered that men who drank six or more cups of coffee a day had a 60 percent lower risk developing the advanced form of the disease when compared to men who drank no coffee at all.

Even men who drank just one to three cups are showed a lower risk, about 20 percent, of developing the aggressive cancer.

Prostate cancer specialist Dr. Ihor Sawczuk, of Hackensack University Medical Center, says the researchers were not exactly sure what it is about the coffee that might affect the cancers. But he says it’s too early to recommend boosting coffee drinking to men, although one cup of coffee might be helpful.

“I think those that don’t drink coffee should consider perhaps a cup a day may help build up their immune system,” he said. “I think what we need to remember is there may be more to this story.”

And finding out more details will be the next job for researchers. Because one study is not enough for scientists, the findings will need to be confirmed.

But if coffee helps prevention, it’s a bonus for those who already drink it and a simple benefit for those who don’t.

Prostate cancer survivor Richard Williamson has made some already-proven lifestyle changes for his recovery. He’s lost 25 pounds, walks two miles daily and, because he doesn’t eat enough fruits and vegetables, now frequents a health food store near his home to get his vegetables in a drink he likes.

“I do my walk and then I stop there,” he said. “I do that three or four times a week.”

Other proven prevention habits include:

“Decrease the total amount of fat, taking good fat, for example, the omega-3,” Dr. Sawczuk said. “Tomatoes have lycopene, especially the skin of tomatoes. These are good substancse to ingest. Soy products, apples, perhaps even a glass of red wine.”

And now, maybe a cup of coffee or two. One way coffee might be working is that it’s known to help the body use insulin. And high insulin has already been proven to increase risk of prostate cancer.

The 30-year study, which covers cell phone use in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden from 1974 to 2003, found no link between mobile phones and brain cancer. However, the authors of the report conceded that more research is needed on the topic.

According to an abstract, the study showed a lack of a “trend change in [brain cancer] incidence from 1998 to 2003,” when cell phone use showed a marked increase in Scandinavia. That suggests that the induction period relating mobile phone use to brain tumors exceeds five to 10 years. The report concludes that “the increased risk in this population is either too small to be observed, the increased risk is restricted to subgroups of brain tumors or mobile phone users, or there is no increased risk.”

In August, an international group of electromagnetic field activists offered criticism of an Interphone study on handsets and cancer, a 13-country research effort funded in part by the telecom industry.

According to groups, including the EMR Policy Institute and the Radiation Research Trust, the Interphone study was systemically skewed because it was commissioned on behalf of wireless handset manufacturers.

The activists argued that the study ignored many types of brain tumors; excluded people who had died or were too ill to be interviewed as a consequence of their brain tumors; and excluded children and young adults potentially at higher risk than mature segments of the population.

Cell Phone and Brain Cancer

The University of Albany has connected the pregnancy protein alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) to breast cancer slowing down in rats exposed to pregnancy hormones such as estrogen, progesterone, or human chorionic gonadotropin.

These pregnancy hormones were shown by the authors to induce AFP during the term of pregnancy.

The hormones also appear to inhibit breast cancer growth in previous rat studies, although estrogen and progesterone fuel the growth of breast cancer in humans.

Herbert Jacobson, PhD, who has been studying AFP in rats for over twenty years, believes the protein is the cause of the pregnancy-related reduction in breast cancer risk.

“Twenty-five years ago I deduced that this must be the agent responsible for lowering breast cancer risk in women who have been pregnant,” he tells WebMD. “And the research we have done since then supports this hypothesis.”

Pregnancy, particularly before the 30 years old, lowers a woman’s lifetime risk of developing breast cancer. Also having more than one child is preventative.

Alpha-fetoprotein is produced by the fetus, and size of the protein during pregnancy can help to screen out possible birth defects.

Extremely high AFP levels portend the appearance of neural tube defects or an abdominal wall defect known as omphalocele, and extremely low levels suggest Down syndrome.

The protein is usually not detected in the blood of healthy men and women who are not yet pregnant. In these groups, elevated AFP levels suggest the presence of some cancers.

In their new study, in the December issue of Cancer Prevention Research, Jacobson and associates treated cancer-exposed rats that were not pregnant with estrogen, estrogen plus progesterone, or human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG).

As in previous studies, all of these treatments are associated with reduced levels of breast cancers in the high-risk rats.

Each of the hormone treatments were also connected with elevated AFP levels and AFP was found to slow down the growth of breast cancer cells in lab cultures.

“Hormones in pregnancy, such as estrogen, all induce AFP, which directly inhibits the growth of breast cancer,” Jacobson says in a news release.
Second Opinion

However, devil’s advocate and cancer specialist Powel Brown, MD, PhD, says the research does not show that this is true beyond a shadow of a doubt.

As is the case with these kinds of studies, says Sandy Hutchens Cancer Prevention, there will be those that promote the idea and there will be detractors. We await the results of further studies and even possibly some proof on this unique view into breast cancer prevention.

Pregnant and Facing Breast Cancer

It is interesting to note that the reason men leave a sick spouse is partially explained by their lesser ability to quickly adjust to becoming a caregiver and be the primary homemaker. Links were discovered between age and length of marriage and the probability of separation. Longer marriages seem to remain more stable however the older the woman, the more likely the partnership would end.

The study that Hutchens Cancer Prevention is reporting on was conducted with the Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah School of Medicine and Stanford University School of Medicine. For the study, patients were divided into three diagnostic groups: those with malignant primary tumors, those with solid tumors with no central nervous system involvement, and those with multiple sclerosis. Approximately one half were women.

Chamberlain said the study was begun since doctors noticed that in their neuro-oncology practices, divorce occurred almost exclusively when the wife was the patient, but in all cases the woman was more likely to end up alone. Researchers also looked at the quality of life among the patients who separated or divorced.

They found that these patients used more psychotropics for depression, took part in less clinical trials, had a greater frequency of hospitalizations, were less likely to continue their courses of radiation therapy and it was more common for them to not die in their own homes.

The findings will be published in the journal Cancer. Medical professionals should be sensitive to potential marital problems in couples afflicted by a serious medical illness, especially when the one diagnose is a woman.

“Early identification and psychosocial intervention might reduce the frequency of divorce and separation, and in turn improve quality of life and quality of care,” claimed the researchers.

Cancer and Marriage: Four Couples

Vitamin D is essential for promoting calcium absorption for bone and overall health in people. Low levels of vitamin D can lead to rickets in infants and children and the loss of bone density in adults.

More than 25 million adults in the United States have or are at risk of developing osteoporosis, a disease characterized by the loss of bone density that makes bones fragile and significantly increases the risk of fractures. When it comes to Osteoporosis, it’s a chicken and egg scenario: osteoporosis is most often associated with inadequate calcium intakes (generally less than 1,000-1,200 mg/day), but insufficient vitamin D contributes to osteoporosis by reducing the body’s calcium absorption.

While the evidence is far from conclusive, vitamin D may also prove to be an important protective nutrient in the prevention and treatment of cancer.

Video: Possible 75% cancer mortality reduction with Vitamin D

In a new study, researchers at the Moores Cancer Center and Department of Family and Preventive Medicine, UC San Diego used a complex computer prediction model to determine that intake of vitamin D3 and calcium would prevent 58,000 new cases of breast cancer and 49,000 new cases of colorectal cancer annually in the US and Canada. The researchers model also predicted that 75% of deaths from these cancers could be prevented with adequate intake of vitamin D3 and calcium. Dr. Cedric Garland, UCSD School of Medicine, lead researcher on the study discusses the implications of this finding and the proposed actions.

While we know that there is no balm for the sense of helplessness that arises from learning a loved one has cancer, a national research study is focused on giving average Canadians occasion to aid in someone’s future grief. Personal health data from 300,000 Canadians over the next 30 years will give researchers a better understanding of risk factors for cancer.

“We know a bit about some of the causes of cancer, but we clearly don’t know all of them,” said Dr. Marilyn Borugian, scientist at the B.C. Cancer Agency. “People still walk into doctor’s offices everyday who don’t have the common risk factors and their illness can’t be explained.”

Borugian is the director of the province’s portion of the study, called the BC Generations Project.The project just launched its drive to enlist 40,000 B.C. residents between the ages of 40 and 69. Participants will complete a questionnaire about health and lifestyle, have various physical measurements taken, and provide blood and urine samples. “The purpose is to try and get at solutions around cancer prevention and early detection,” Borugian said.

The anonymous data will be tracked over 30 years and then compared against the provincial cancer registry. Information from those who develop cancer, diabetes and heart disease will be placed side by side with those who remain healthy. The result will hopefully be a clear reading on what was at play before the person got sick, potentially pointing to contributing factors or causes, Borugian said.

“If I take a blood sample from someone who’s already become ill, then (I’ve) confused the picture with things that might be the result of the stresses or weight loss or medications as a result of the illness,” she said.

Chris Dawkins, of Vancouver, gave his blood during the 90-minute process with two loved ones in mind: his father, who died of cancer, and his sister-in-law, a breast cancer survivor who persuaded him to join the study.

“I’m wishing something like this had happened years ago, so that we had that body of knowledge and those trends and that information that we could have relied on before now,” said the 64-year-old. “My father died in 1961 and there’s been a lot of (other) pain and heartbreak since then, and I was thinking that if a project like this had gotten off the ground several years ago, we would have been so much ahead of the game.”

Along with B.C., Alberta, Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada are participating in the cohort study, which is supported by $42 million from Canadian Partnership Against Cancer and regional funding.

While an assessment clinic is currently open in the city of Vancouver, another one will open in the following year in Victoria. A mobile assessment van will also tour small communities in the province. One advantage of the study is that the data collected is about how participants are living at present, as opposed to asking afflicted people to recall their habits from years past, Borougian said.