Sandy Hutchens Cancer Prevention

WOW!!! More on the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, Sandy Hutchens

Texas voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment in 2007 establishing the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) and authorizing the state to issue $3 billion in bonds to fund groundbreaking cancer research and prevention programs and services in Texas. CPRIT’s goal is to expedite innovation and commercialization in the area of cancer research and to enhance access to evidence-based prevention programs and services throughout the state. CPRIT accepts applications and awards grants for a wide variety of cancer-related research and for the delivery of cancer prevention programs and services by public and private entities located in Texas. More information about CPRIT and the funded proposals is available at its website, www.cprit.state.tx.us.

Here is who got funding!

January 20, 2010 CPRIT Research Awards

High Impact/High Risk: Short term projects that are developmental or exploratory in nature targeting new avenues of cancer research that, if successful, will contribute to major new insights into the etiology, diagnosis, treatment, or prevention of cancers.

Total monies awarded: $ 2,596,950
Recipients:
Baylor College of Medicine
Baylor University
InGeneron, Inc.
Rice University
Texas A&M University
The University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center
The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas

Individual Investigator: Innovative research proposals directed by a single investigator addressing critically important questions that will significantly advance knowledge of the causes, preventions and/or treatment of cancer.

Total monies awarded: $ 56,311,597
Recipients:
Baylor College of Medicine
Rice University
Texas A&M University System Health Science Center
Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center
The Methodist Hospital Research Institute
The University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Dallas
The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio
The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center
The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas
Visualase, Inc.

Recruitment (First Time, Tenure Track, Rising Stars and Superstars) Awards tailored to the career stage of the targeted recruits for relocation to Texas.

Total monies awarded: $ 2,000,000
Recipients:
The University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio

Cancer Research Institute Activities

Pomegranates and Phytochemicals, Cancer Beware!

Eating a pomegranate everyday can help prevent breast cancer, new research reveals. American scientists are saying pomegranates contain chemical agents known as phytochemicals, which play an important role in the prevention of breast cancer.

Scientists at the City of Hope Cancer Research and Treatment Center in Duarte, California, have discovered that the fruit contains a large amount of the phytochemical called ellagitannins. The phytochemical has an inhibitory effect on the enzyme aromatase, which plays a pivotal role in making the hormone oestrogen, which in turn leads to most of the cases of breast cancer. Meanwhile, many patients who suffer from the breast cancer take medicines which are actually aromatase inhibitors.

The research which was published in the journal ‘Cancer Prevention Research’ highlights the fact that laboratory experiments that were carried out took into account around 10 compounds from the pomegranate and their effects were subsequently tested. Among the compounds which were taken into consideration, urolithin B was seen to be the most effective in preventing breast cancer.

However, researcher Shiuan Chen, who was intrinsically involved with the research, emphasized that the compounds did not turn out to be as effective as actual drugs due to which researchers have warned the patients against using the fruit as a replacement of the aromatase inhibitor medicines. At the same time, it has been implied that the results are not conclusive and further tests need to be carried out in order to confirm the findings. However, the findings are being considered to be significant as it might herald a new era in breast cancer treatment.

Read more: Pomegranates and Cancer.

Sandy Hutchens Cancer Prevention, December, 2009 – “Cancer can be cured by prayer,” Cardinal George Pell told ABC. ‘And there are quite a number of examples in the books.’

Meanwhile, doctors are warning cancer patients not to put their hopes too high regarding miracle recoveries through prayer and meditation, after the head of Australia’s Catholics confidently stated that prayer could cure malignancy.

Defending the Vatican’s attribution of miracles to saint-in-waiting Mary MacKillop, Cardinal George Pell yesterday said “obviously” prayer could cure cancer and there were “a number of examples in the books”.

But cancer experts say prayer should not take priority over conventional treatments.

David Goldstein, senior staff specialist in the department of medical oncology at Sydney’s Prince of Wales Hospital, said spontaneous remission of cancer happened in about one or two cases in every 1000.

“It would be a brave person that used prayer instead of conventional treatment for a curable cancer — it’s a complementary practice,” Dr Goldstein said.

Prayer shares some similarities with meditation, which has been shown to lower blood pressure. Dr Goldstein said it was “impossible to dissect out” whether improvements seen in patients who pray were due to these and other explainable phenomena, such as the fact people who attended church also tended to live more healthily.

Previous studies into the effect of prayer have produced mixed results. A review of 10 previous trials by the international Cochrane Collaboration found when patients were prayed for by others, they enjoyed no significant improvement in outcomes compared to others who were not prayed for.

Cancer Council Australia chief executive Ian Olver said medicine and prayer were “not incompatible” and people with faith should consider the possibility that God was working through the patient’s doctors.

Professor Olver recently conducted a study measuring the spiritual wellbeing of 509 cancer patients who, unknown to them, were being prayed for, and compared them to 490 for whom the trial authors did not arrange prayers. The study found a small but significant improvement in spiritual wellbeing, but did not measure any health changes.

Cancer survivor Ian Gawler, who founded the Gawler Foundation to promote self-help cancer techniques, said there was increasing evidence prayer had a positive effect. “When I was at my sickest, there were quite large groups of people that were praying for me, and I took great comfort from that,” he said.