LungBlog

To determine how arsenic increases the risk of lung cancer and to identify potential treatments, a Michigan State University researcher will use $1.7 million in federal funding during the next five years to examine why certain genes disrupt cells, leading to the disease.

Chengfeng Yang, a physiology assistant professor with the College of Veterinary Medicine and MSU’s Center for Integrative Toxicology, will be studying the role of very small ribonucleic acids called microRNAs. These microRNAs regulate genes, which control how a cell behaves.

The research project, which will study those processes in cultured human cells and mice, is funded by the National Institutes of Health.

While it may be a bit early to start popping supplements, a new study finds that people with high levels of vitamin B6 may be less likely to develop lung cancer than those with low concentrations. Reporting in the June 16 Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers also note a seemingly protective effect from high levels of the essential amino acid methionine and a weaker healthful effect from high levels of folate, another B vitamin.

It’s not yet established how high amounts of these compounds might protect the body from lung cancer, but all three are involved in the maintenance of DNA. In the vast majority of lung cancer cases, toxic smoke causes the DNA damage and aberrant cell growth that marks the disease.

Bizarre though it sounds, it was a chipped tooth and an incompetent Mexican dentist that saved Brian Heit’s life.

Had he not damaged the tooth while on vacation, and had that dentist not made an awful mess of the repair work, lung cancer might have devoured Heit.

“I suppose it’s funny to think of, but I am serious. That saved my life,” the St. Catharines regional councillor says.

The dental work was so bad five years ago that Heit needed surgery in St. Catharines to fix it. As part of a routine pre operation work up, Heit had blood drawn and an x-ray of his chest taken.

“So shortly after the operation I’m at home and I get a call from my doctor asking me to come in and see him to discuss the results of my tests,” Heit says. “At first I was confused. I didn’t have any tests done. But it was the tests they did before my operation.”

The tests revealed Heit might have lung cancer. Later medical scans confirmed it.

“I was shocked. Totally shocked,” says Heit.

He had been a smoker but that was more than 20 years ago. How, he thought, could this have happened?

The makers of the early Cancer Detection lung test (CDT) hope it will help more people survive lung cancer.

Currently sufferers are diagnosed on their symptoms, which means it can often be too late for treatment.

The makers of the new test say it will improve diagnosis of the disease and Australian support groups are campaigning for the test to be available here.

Professor John Robertson of Nottingham University in Britain led the research and says the test identifies defences released by the human body in response to the earliest stages of the cancer.

Vegetables and chicken are about all that Robbin Cobb and her husband, William, have eaten since he was diagnosed with lung cancer two years ago.

Robbin Cobb, 50, a certified Master Gardener, realizes not everyone knows about the importance of eating fresh fruit and veggies — rich in cancer-fighting antioxidants and other nutrients. So on Thursday, she lent her green thumb to a new cancer-prevention initiative of the Little Red Door Cancer Agency: a small community garden.

The diabetes drug metformin helped prevent tumors in mice that were exposed to a cancer-causing agent found in tobacco, said researchers at the AACR annual meeting. Compared with untreated mice, those that received the drug had a 53 percent reduction in lung tumor burden after exposure to the carcinogen, which is called nicotine-derived nitrosamine. The animals were treated with an oral form of metformin for 13 weeks at drug levels that would be achievable in humans, the researchers said.

“Metformin is a very interesting drug for cancer prevention,” said lead researcher Dr. Phillip A. Dennis of NCI’s Center for Cancer Research, who presented the results. “We prevented over half of the lung tumors that would have occurred from exposure to the main carcinogen in tobacco, and that’s a real and important reduction.” Dr. Dennis’ group is planning a clinical trial to test the FDA-approved drug in people at highest risk of developing lung cancer, he said.

Imagine this kind of warning on a cigarette package: Quitting smoking now greatly reduces serious risk to your health, particularly if your DNA is mutated at the 15q24 locus. Would you get tested for this mutation?

Right now, there is no such test. But someday, there might be.

Years of study and a mountain of evidence point to tobacco smoking as the single most important risk factor for lung cancer. Nonsmokers (people who have smoked fewer than 100 cigarettes over the course of their lives) have less than a 1% chance of ever developing lung cancer…

New research in mice suggests that metformin, a drug widely used to treat type 2 diabetes, may guard against lung cancer.

The drug’s prospects are not yet confirmed because researchers still need to test it in people. But, in mice, “this well-tolerated, FDA-approved diabetes drug was able to prevent tobacco carcinogen-induced lung tumors,” Dr. Phillip A. Dennis, senior investigator in the medical oncology branch of the U.S. National Cancer Institute, said in a news release from the American Association for Cancer Research.

As a mother, daughter, and friend, I have spent my fair share of time in emergency rooms. It can be grueling– even when the reason for the visit is fairly trivial. A broken collar bone, a hand-full of stitches, or a tummy ache from eating too many gummy bears.

But as a caregiver for someone with end-stage cancer, those minutes can feel like hours, and hours like millennia. I can’t begin to imagine how uncomfortable those same moments feel for the one who is actually struggling with the final stages of cancer.

Thinking those same thoughts – that ER visits can be “disruptive, distressing, and exhausting” – and understanding that roughly 40% of people visit the ER in the final 2 weeks of life, researchers in Canada decided to look at the reasons why those visits happen. Could some of these reasons be avoidable?

Reviewing the results of a new study just might turn me into a turophile. A turophile – for those who don’t get their kicks from reading dictionaries for fun – is someone who loves cheese.

Researchers in Europe looked at over 24,000 people, to see if their dietary intake of vitamin K might have an impact on their risk for cancer. There are two primary forms of vitamin K. Vitamin K1 – phylloquinones – are found in green leafy vegetables among other sources. Vitamin K2 – menaquinones – are found in our diet primarily in cheeses. In this study, menaquinones, but not phylloquinones, were associated with a lower risk of developing lung cancer.