Low-dose CT scan can help with early detection of lung cancer.
Last September, former CNN host Larry King announced that he’d been treated for lung cancer. Luckily, doctors had caught it at stage 1, after detecting it with a CT scan followed by a PET scan. King underwent surgery to remove the tumor and 20 percent of his lung on July 17. Two weeks later, he was back at work without needing chemotherapy.
Unfortunately, until recently, only 16 percent of lung cancers were diagnosed early. That’s one reason lung cancer is up there with digestive cancers as the most lethal.
The great news is that if you’re at high risk for lung cancer, you can have a low-dose CT scan and detect the disease early on. That slashes the risk of death from lung cancer by 20 percent! To spread the word, the American Lung Association has launched Saved by the Scan; they urge you to go to lung.org and take a quiz to see if you’re a candidate.
What puts you at high risk? Quitting smoking recently is a reason to get tested, especially if you smoked in the past 15 years or smoked one pack per day for 30 years. So is chronic exposure to secondhand smoke or to radon (have your home tested), exposure to certain industrial pollutants (asbestos, chromium, arsenic and nickel) and a family history.
And remember, it’s never too late to quit. Go to lung.org to join “Freedom From Smoking” or search for YOU Can Quit at sharecare.com.
Bariatric procedures increase alcohol’s impact
A new study reveals that after sleeve gastrectomy, women can become legally intoxicated if they consume half the number of drinks it takes for women who haven’t had the surgery to register as drunk. Two drinks have the effect of four or five! And this comes along with research showing similar results for women who’ve had Roux-en-Y gastric bypass. (This reduced alcohol tolerance probably holds for men, too, because the body’s enzymes that process alcohol would be greatly reduced in anyone who’s had these operations.)
The American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery estimates that more than half of the 193,000 bariatric procedures in the U.S. annually are sleeve gastrectomies; 80 percent of those patients are women. That’s a five-fold increase in the number of these operations from 2010 to 2015.
So, male or female, if you’ve had weight-loss surgery, ask your doc about changes in digestion of food and alcohol that it causes. Respect the constraints that this operation places on your daily habits, and you’ll reap its amazing benefits.
Q: I’m head over heels for my new significant other, but he hates using condoms. I trust him, but with all the STDs going around, I just have to insist on it. How can I make it a better option for him?
Gladys K., Brooklyn, New York
A: The second-best way to protect yourself from sexually transmitted diseases — and practice birth control while you’re at it — is for the man to wear a condom. Unfortunately, many guys say that for one reason or another, the prophylactics are uncomfortable: too big, too small, too tight, not tight enough. But that doesn’t mean you or he can skip using one!
You are smart to be concerned about STDs. This past year in the U.S., cases of chlamydia increased by 4.7 percent to 1.5 million cases; gonorrhea is up 18.5 percent to more than 460,000 cases; and primary and secondary syphilis is up 17.6 percent to almost 28,000 cases. And we haven’t even mentioned human papillomavirus (HPV) — it’s virtually universal among sexually active people. Fortunately, there’s a new product that might help make condoms a more appealing form of protection.
After getting Food and Drug Administration approval, an American company named ONE has started marketing custom condoms in 60 different sizes, under the brand name myONE Perfect Fit. (They’re an extended partner of the U.K.-based company TheyFit, which has 66 different sizes.)
The long and the short of it: The company offers a downloadable measuring kit on their website or you can enter your own numbers if you know them (length and girth). They also provide recommendations. Sources claim that soon after myOne came to market, customers had ordered condoms in all 60 sizes, ranging from 4.9 to 9.4 inches long and 3.5 to 5 inches in circumference.
We hope that helps, and good luck with your new beau.