Antioxidants in green tea appear to significantly lower the risk for developing lung cancer among smokers and nonsmokers alike, new research from Taiwan reveals.

The study suggests that smokers and nonsmokers who consume a minimum of one cup of green tea per day appear to have a nearly 13-fold and fivefold lower risk, respectively, for developing lung cancer than smokers and nonsmokers who don’t drink any green tea.

Leafy green vegetables, folate, and some multivitamins could serve as protective factors against lung cancer in current and former smokers, according to a study that is a first step in understanding a complex association. The study was supported by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health. The study appeared online Jan. 12, 2010, in Cancer Research.

Routine tests like Pap smears and mammograms are important, but do not rely on testing alone to protect you from cancer. It is equally important to listen to your body and any opinion that is different, strange or inexplicable. You do not want to join the ranks of cancer patients who realize too late that the symptoms they had noticed for a long period may have sounded the alarm earlier, if the cancer was easier to heal.

Kudos to Widener University for taking steps to ban smoking on its campuses, both indoors and out.

Other area colleges and universities should follow Widener’s lead. For that matter, so should other institutions, including all hospitals and government facilities. The move would help promote public health and reduce health-care costs.

Inhaling secondhand smoke is estimated to cause 3,000 lung cancer deaths and 46,000 heart disease deaths in the United States each year. Secondhand smoke is also thought to increase the risk of breast cancer, leukemia, and lymphoma. Most researchers say there is no safe level of secondhand smoke.

A new study has revealed that air pollution could be linked to cases of lung cancer in dogs, according to a report in MediLexicon News.

Dr Giuliano Bettini, an associate professor at the University of Bologna in Italy, has previously claimed that his findings could be linked to similar health problems in humans.

The explanations for back pain are many and therefore the symptoms of lung cancer are many more.

Whether you have got lung cancer due to back pain or back pain because of lung cancer…the symptoms are therefore confusing and inter-related, that occasionally, the diagnosis becomes even additional complicated.

Researchers from several U.S. medical centers have reported that 9% of patients hospitalized with pneumonia were diagnosed with pulmonary malignancy, but the median time from hospitalization to diagnosis is 297 days. The details of this study were published in the January 2010 issue of the American Journal of Medicine.[1]

Patients with lung cancer or metastatic cancers to the lung often develop pneumonia as the first clinical sign of disease. However, the incidence of pulmonary malignancies in patients with pneumonia has not been determined.

GPs will be given computer software to help spot the early signs of cancer, it emerged yesterday.

Doctors will use a new programme to give patients their percentage chance of having cancer based on their including age, weight and symptoms such as bleeding or constant tiredness.

Anti-oestrogens as therapy for breast cancer may also reduce the risk of death from lung cancer, according to study results presented at the CTRC-AACR San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.

“We found a reduction in lung cancer mortality among women treated with anti-oestrogens for breast cancer. This work builds on previous studies that had suggested oestrogens have a role in lung cancer development and progression,” said Elisabetta Rapiti, MD, MPH, medical researcher with the Geneva Cancer Registry, University of Geneva, Switzerland.

My mom was a step ahead of scientists, hiding the cookie jar when I was a kid. Of course, she didn’t have access to studies published in 2009, but her advice extends even now to my passion. Her argument focused on our teeth and our waistlines, but skipping that extra cookie may be a good idea for lung health as well.