Progress made on prostate cancer diagnosis
Finally, there may be a reliable prostate cancer blood test! “The Prostate Monologues” by sportswriter Jack McCallum tried to blow the cover off the all-too-often hushed-up topic of prostate cancer diagnosis, treatment and life post-treatment. And while it didn’t get turned into a celeb-packed play like Wendy Wasserstein’s “The Vagina Monologues” (and why not?!!) it does shed much-needed light on the subject through one man’s experience.
The good news: These days, new light is being shined on prostate cancer diagnosis, one that might make over 40 per cent of prostate biopsies unnecessary. The IsoPSA blood test, developed by the Cleveland Clinic, is designed to discriminate between highgrade prostate cancer (with a Gleason score of above seven) and low-grade/benign disease (Gleason score of six or lower).
Why is this test more accurate than the PSA (prostate specific antigen) test, which has fallen out of favour? Cleveland Clinic’s Dr. Eric Klein, who led the research team that presented the paper “Prospective Validation of the IsoPSA Assay for Detection of High Grade Prostate Cancer” at the recent annual meeting of the American Urological Association, explains: “To be clinically useful, a biomarker must be both tissue-specific and cancer-specific. While PSA is prostate-specific, it is not specific for prostate cancer, leading to diagnostic inaccuracy and too many unneeded biopsies. IsoPSA fulfills both the tissue- and cancer-specificity needed for a useful biomarker.”
Clearly this could be a game changer.
TEACH KIDS NOT TO BE AFRAID OF THE DARK
Norway’s Svalbard archipelago is the northernmost inhabited region of Europe. There, the sun never sets during the summer, producing a midnight sun. Makes you wonder, “How do those folks sleep?” That’s because you know instinctively that if it’s daylight out, your body thinks, “Hey, time to do stuff.”
But in lower latitudes — like the U.S. — there’s a midnight sun indoors. Just think about all the lights that are on from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. inside your home. Those lights are just as disruptive to your young children as the midnight sun is to, well, everyone.
For a new study, researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder created a dimly lit environment in 10 preschoolers’ homes. They then measured the children’s levels of melatonin, a hormone that signals the body it’s time to sleep, after the children spent the day in the darkened environment.
The next day the researchers exposed the kids to bright light for one hour before their bedtime and then returned them to the low-light environment. That one hour’s worth of bright light suppressed the kids’ melatonin levels by up to 88 per cent compared to all-lowlight levels.
That shines a light on just how damaging illumination at night can be to your preschoolers’ sleep cycle.
SURPRISING WEIGHT-GAIN CULPRITS
Emma Stone purposely gained 15 pounds of muscle in three months to play Billy Jean King in the movie “Battle of the Sexes.” How? She drank high-calorie protein shakes and worked out with a strength trainer five days a week.
Chances are, if you’ve packed on an extra 15 pounds, it isn’t all muscle and it didn’t sneak up on you. It may be hard to figure out what contributed to the extra weight. Well, here are four hidden weight boosters that can add pounds with every bite.
Processed Meats:
Studies show that bacon, hot dogs, lunchmeats, even meat-based pasta sauces increase the risk of weight gain and Type 2 diabetes. Better choice: Skinless poultry and fish such as salmon.
Potato Chips:
According to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine, potato chips were No. 1 when it came to foods strongly associated with weight gain over a fouryear period. Better choice: Fruits, carrot and celery sticks, and nuts.
Diet Soda:
A study in Canadian Medical Association Journal found, “consumption of non-nutritive sweeteners was associated with increases in weight and waist circumference, and higher incidence of obesity, hypertension, metabolic syndrome, Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular events.” Better choice: Water, unsweetened tea and black coffee.
Low-Fat Food:
Studies done by the Food and Brand Lab found that putting low-fat labels on snack foods encourages people to eat up to 50 per cent more than they would if the foods didn’t claim to be low-fat. Better choice: Skip highly processed foods; opt for produce and healthful proteins like quinoa, skinless chicken, beans and salmon.
TEEN VAPING IS RISKY BUSINESS AND THEY NEED TO KNOW
Many celebrities have credited e-cigarettes for helping them quit smoking, but Katherine Heigl might have brought the most attention to vaping with her appearance on “The Late Show With David Letterman” in 2010. She and Letterman smoked from her ecig. “This oughta get it done,” said Letterman. “I know,” agreed Heigl. “You have no excuse now to smoke a real cigarette.”
Turns out, that’s not the positive public health message it seemed to be — especially when it comes to teens and vaping. The exotic-seeming, caloric, sweet-flavoured e-cigs have become a high school craze. A 2016 report from the U.S. surgeon general found a 900 per cent increase in ecigarette use by high school students from 2011 to 2015.
Those kids are getting bombarded by many harmful chemicals that are produced during vaping. A new study published in Pediatrics analyzed urine samples from 103 teens, 67 of whom used only e-cigarettes, 16 of whom smoked regular and ecigarettes, and 20 of whom smoked neither. They found that teens who vaped had three times the levels of metabolites of chemicals such as acrylonitrile, acrolein, propylene oxide, acrylamide and crotonaldehyde in their urine as those who didn’t.