Cancer

Cancer, Radiation

What to Know About the Mammography Debate

March 9, 2024

At what age should women’s breasts receive radiation to detect breast cancer? In Canada, some provinces are lowering the age of eligibility from 50 to 40, even before a task force releases an update on breast cancer screening guidelines. The current guidelines do not recommend routine screening for women in their 40s. In the U.S., a separate task force urges women ages 40 to 49 to get this procedure every two years. Why the conflicting advice? Mammography has been swirling in confusion for decades. In the past, some experts were adamant there was no evidence regular mammograms decreased the risk of breast cancer. Others, equally qualified authorities, were concerned that repeated exposures of breast tissues to radiation could cause breast malignancies. A...Read More

Alternate Treatments, Cancer, Pain, Philosophy

A Veterinarian for Assessing Weakness

July 29, 2023

Readers of a great age face a common problem. It’s called frailty or general weakness. The frail elderly are at risk of falls that require hospitalization, often leading to palliative care. As the condition progresses, independent living at home can become impossible. For people who have reached the end of their desire to continue, frailty presents a medical dilemma for doctors. How much frailty is needed before the doctor allows, “There’s reason enough to end life by Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID)”? And would a veterinarian be the better professional to make this decision? One of the conditions that doctors must decide at the end of life is whether weakness is reversible. This obviously makes sense when considering life or death...Read More

Cancer, Eyes, Ears, Nose & Throat, Miscellaneous, Neurology

What A Dog’s Nose Knows

December 10, 2022

What a wonderful world if people could be as generous to humankind as dogs. Regardless of our faults, dogs provide unfailing loving care. A new study suggests dogs may be able to use their sniffing powers to know when someone is having a really bad day. Who knew there is an aroma to being stressed, but dogs seem to detect it. In this, they have a huge advantage over humans. The nose of a dog has 220 million smell cells compared to a meagre 5 million in humans. The powerful sniffers of dogs have long been effective in detecting cancer. A report years ago in the British Journal Lancet reported that a woman’s dog repeatedly sniffed at one mole on her thigh...Read More

Alternate Treatments, Cancer, Diabetes, Lifestyle, Nutrition, Obesity, Vitamins

A Windfall of Science on Apples

September 10, 2022

We write about natural remedies we believe are good for human health.  Why this focus?  It’s not to encourage avoidance of pharmaceutical drugs when medical care is an imperative.  To the contrary, Canadians and Americans have the luxury of the world’s best doctors, medicinal drugs, and healthcare facilities. But health systems are overwhelmed. To ease the crush, people who are not yet ill should take up responsibility to stay healthy. Good health is not achieved through inaction. Live a poor lifestyle and illness will come as sure as night follows day. But the talents of doctors and the cure of drugs are best reserved for the unlucky who lose the health lottery. For young people and the healthy aging population, a proactive,...Read More

Alternate Treatments, Cancer, Diabetes, Infection, Medicine, Philosophy

The Original Medicine of Stingless Bees

June 25, 2022

The American poet Emily Dickinson understood the profound gifts of nature. She wrote, “The lovely flowers embarrass me, They make me regret I am not a bee –” If bees could speak, they might add, “Let me do my work, so that you may live.” Bees are vital pollinators, ensuring the success of a wide variety of the world’s most nutritious agricultural crops grown for human consumption. Most people associate bees with painful stings and the tasty product of the Western honeybee. Being “busy as a bee” is a homage to the industrious nature of this pollinating insect that collects nectar in a dozen or more foraging trips each day. A small percentage of people who are stung by a bee or other insect...Read More

Cancer, Medicine, Miscellaneous

Can AI Help Fight Cancer?

June 4, 2022

The short answer is yes – cancer and other health problems too. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a game-changer. Not only can this rapidly advancing technology improve the speed and accuracy of disease diagnosis and treatment, it has enormous potential to predict health problems, allowing for far more effective prevention programs that target at-risk populations. Take, for example, children born with congenital heart defects. This fate currently falls to about 40,000 babies born in the U.S. each year, and about 1.35 million newborns worldwide. What causes defective heart structures in the developing embryo is open to debate. But genetics, diet, environment, medications, and smoking are all on the list. But what if AI could analyse vast quantities of data and learn from patterns...Read More

Cancer, Medicine, Obesity

For Men, Don’t Disregard a Lump in the Breast

April 9, 2022

Few findings cause women as much fear as discovering a breast lump and wondering if it’s cancer. But what about men who notice a mass and pain in the breast? Male breast lumps are not commonly discussed in the locker room. But confusion and embarrassment can delay diagnosis of a malignancy. Breast cancer is not entirely a woman’s disease. Although it occurs in males in less than one percent of cases, diagnosis tends to be late. In 2022, of the 2,710 American men expected to be diagnosed with breast cancer, about 530 will die. But male breast lumps are not always dangerous. There’s a condition called “gynecomastia” derived from the Greek root for female and “mastos” for breast. In fact, studies of...Read More

Cancer, Cardiovascular, Diabetes, Gastroenterology, Lifestyle, Neurology

Stand Up To Read This Column

January 22, 2022

Get up on your feet. Seriously. It will be good for you. Sitting is something we have all become accustomed to doing a lot more of lately. Just prior to the pandemic, studies showed that the average adult spent about 6.5 hours a day sitting – an hour longer than had been the case a decade earlier. In 2019, teenagers were sitting for upwards of 8 hours a day, and for some much longer than that. During the pandemic, a study in the UK found that people were spending more than eight hours a day sitting. Canadians are reportedly sitting around for 10 hours a day! Dr. Jennifer Heisz, associate professor of kinesiology at McMaster University, surveyed over 1600 people to compare physical activity...Read More

Cancer, Endocrine

You’ve Discovered a Thyroid Lump, What Does It Mean?

November 13, 2021

Waking in the morning, the last thing you want is a health shock before you begin the day. If you are like most people, feeling a lump for the first time at the Adam’s apple, the thyroid gland, you will immediately jump to one conclusion, “I have a cancer.” But is this the right conclusion? So, let’s report some good news that will decrease anxiety while you have your morning coffee. Fortunately, the majority of thyroid nodules are not cancers. Besides, the majority don’t even require removal. Thyroid nodules are common in elderly people. In fact, a report from the University of California states that if you’re over the age of 60, there’s a 25-to-50 percent chance of developing a thyroid lump. The...Read More

Alternate Treatments, Cancer

Go Natural to Debut Your New Hair Colour

June 5, 2021

The American star of the silver screen, Jean Harlow, was known as the “Blonde Bombshell”. She once remarked, “If it wasn’t for my hair, Hollywood wouldn’t know me.” But did the blonde hair come at a huge price? Harlow was dead at the age of 26. Do you make a habit of dying your hair? Now that lockdowns are easing and you cannot wait to get a haircut, you might want to think twice about permanent hair dye and chemical hair straighteners. Some recent studies have raised health concerns. The practice of dying hair goes back to ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome when terrible concoctions were used to alter hair colour, both for beauty and to show rank on the battlefield. In...Read More

Cancer

How Diet and Inflammation Affect Colon Cancer

May 29, 2021

It’s been said “We are what we eat,” or “garbage in garbage out.” Less catchy advice might be “Eat an anti-inflammatory diet, rather than a pro-inflammatory one.” It could make the difference in the likelihood of developing a malignancy of the large bowel. Not many people realize that if you take away skin cancers, colon cancer is the third most common malignancy in North America. A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Oncology, points out a strong association between chronic inflammation and the risk of colon cancer. Researchers at Harvard University discovered that people who had dietary patterns that triggered chronic inflammation were 32 percent more likely to develop colon cancer than those who followed a lowered inflammatory diet. Dr....Read More

Cancer, Diabetes, Infection, Obesity, Surgery

COVID Means Double Trouble, and Worse

May 15, 2021

If ever a time to act on your health, this is it. Study after study in leading medical journals reports compounding troubles from COVID-19. What was described as a lung disease early in the pandemic is now better recognized as an attack on health systems – your own body’s systems involving multiple organs as well as societal systems of disease surveillance and care delivery. Whether you have been infected or not, chances are high your health is becoming worse. New research should raise alarm bells. In the journal, Nature, Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, chief of research at Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care System, reported on deteriorated health of COVID-19 survivors. To his amazement, the disease was not just deadlier for people with...Read More

Cancer, Radiation

Did Radiation Protect President Carter from Pancreatic Cancer?

October 17, 2020

What do former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Gifford-Jones have in common? They were both born the same year and have remarkable staying power! But Carter has lived under the shadow of pancreatic cancer all his life. His father, brother, and two sisters died of this disease and his mother also suffered from it. Carter has also lived through metastatic melanoma, a skin cancer that had spread to his liver and brain.  How did he do it? Rod Adams, an atomic energy expert, has said that moderate radiation exposure may have helped to protect the former president from developing pancreatic cancer. During the nuclear meltdown at Chalk River in 1952, Carter was a naval officer working on the secret nuclear program. He...Read More

Cancer

Physical Activity Decreases Risk of Seven Cancers

July 11, 2020

Is physical activity good for you? During COVID times, it might be prudent to avoid cramped, indoor gyms.  But outdoor activity in open spaces is invariably a healthy choice. We know that getting off the couch and out for a walk helps prevent obesity, Type 2 diabetes, and heart attacks. And good news! A recent report from the American Cancer Society says exercise also lowers the risk of seven types of cancers. Dr. Charles Matthews of the National Cancer Institute in the U.S. pooled data from nine studies about how leisure-time activity affects 15 types of cancer. His results should act as a huge incentive to get people of all ages moving. Matthews and his colleagues report that those who engaged in...Read More

Alternate Treatments, Cancer, Miscellaneous, Pain, Philosophy

The Saga Continues: Rotten Law, Rotten Politicians, and Rotten Eggs

January 25, 2020

How long will patients, those dying in pain, have to endure the political nonsense surrounding the law, Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID)? The government has announced it will conduct yet another survey to determine if Canadians want to modify its incomplete law. Why another survey, another expense? The current MAID law has horrendous and painful consequences. For instance, a signed “Advanced Directive” of a patient diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease or, another type of dementia, has no bearing once a patient has lost capacity to give consent.  It’s lunacy to expect a patient to reconfirm consent when their brain is comatose, they’re incontinent of urine and feces, and living in diapers. Why won’t MPs and Senators realize this is unspeakable cruelty to...Read More

Cancer

Stomach Cancer – The Orphan Malignancy

November 23, 2019

Napoleon Bonaparte, John Wayne, and Peter O’Toole all succumbed to stomach cancer. Yet, when we talk about cancer, all the attention usually goes to lung, breast, prostate or colon cancer. This is why stomach cancer is often called the “Orphan Malignancy”. But stomach cancer strikes over 32,000 North Americans every year. It also demands a dramatic change in lifestyle when this vital organ is lost. So it’s well worth the effort to decrease the risk. Early stomach cancer usually has no symptoms. In fact, when indigestion, bloating, and weight loss occur, it can be due to several benign reasons. So it’s often only when fatigue, nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain begin that patients realize there’s a problem and seek medical advice. The...Read More

Cancer, Vitamins

Is there such a thing as sensible sun exposure?

July 13, 2019

In their book, “Embrace the Sun”, Drs. William Grant and Marc Sorenson,  experts on vitamin D, report that North Americans have been taught to believe  excessive amounts of sun cause potentially fatal skin malignancies.  The result? North Americans have developed sun phobia and spent billions of dollars on sunscreen protection. But does the sun trigger melanomas? Dr. Michael F. Holick, Professor of Molecular Medicine at Boston University, agrees that excessive sun exposure causes non-melanoma skin cancer, which diagnosed early is easy to treat. But he says there is compelling evidence that regular sun exposure helps to prevent the highly malignant melanoma, rather than causing it. There’s also general agreement to be cautious about melanoma if you have red hair, fair skin, a...Read More

Cancer, Infection, Lungs

Do You Want to Know What’s in Your Ducts?

June 29, 2019

Do you have dirty ducts?  When did you last look?  And while regular cleaning of your ducts may be important for your homeowners insurance policy, what might your ducts have to do with your health? Highly respected authorities on household air quality have studied the relationship between cleaning air ducts and your health.  Years ago, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) investigated whether cleaning air ducts leads to healthier air quality in homes, and they concluded it didn’t. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency conducted tests that showed, whether air ducts are clean or dirty, virtually the same concentration of dust can be found in the air.  This is because dust and dirt tend to stick to the vents and filters, not...Read More

Cancer, Obesity

Cancer and Obesity

May 20, 2019

What decreases the risk of cancer? A colonoscopy detects polyps before they become malignant. Also a rapid response to report unusual bleeding, a cough that lasts a few weeks, or a suspicious mole. But a report funded by the Canadian Cancer Society, links excess weight as the cause of several types of cancer. So what is it about obesity that triggers malignancy? And what to do about it? For years health authorities have labelled obesity a health hazard. The reason is that it often leads to Type 2 diabetes, then later to heart attack. But now, researchers claim that excess weight will soon be the second leading cause of cancer just behind tobacco. Sadly, being overweight has not received the attention...Read More

Cancer, Lifestyle, Obesity

Death in Both Sexes due to the “Stupidity Factor”

April 30, 2019

What’s a great medical tragedy?  It’s being diagnosed with a disease for which there is no cure. Possibly an even greater tragedy is dying from what’s been called the “Stupidity Factor”. These cases occur because patients ignore symptoms which indicate cancer may be present. But due to either fear or the hope it won’t happen again, they do nothing, thereby signing their own death warrant. This folly occurs in both sexes, resulting in failure to get a test done. The   prime example is colonoscopy, which detects polyps in the large bowel that can be removed. This procedure can save people from premature death. Another major folly is to ignore rectal bleeding. I recall a friend who confided he had noticed rectal bleeding....Read More

Cancer, Gynecology

Ovarian cancer, the one that whispers

November 17, 2018

What couldn’t I believe? Discovering that it’s been 42 years since I last wrote about ovarian cancer! During my time as a surgeon, what was my primary concern about this malignancy? And what has happened in the last four decades to bring hope to those diagnosed with this disease? Ovarian cancer is the third most common malignancy of the female pelvic organs, after uterine and cervical cancer. But it is also the most fatal pelvic malignancy. The risk of ovarian cancer increases with age. It’s also more likely to occur if close relatives have developed the disease. Also at risk are childless women and those who have had breast cancer. Vulnerable too, are those with early onset of menstruation, or a late...Read More

Cancer, Cardiovascular, Eyes, Ears, Nose & Throat, Lifestyle, Miscellaneous, Neurology, Pain, Vitamins

What Did You Learn From Me in 2017?

January 6, 2018

I hope my columns during 2017 have helped readers live longer and healthier. So which of the following are true or false? There’s evidence that regular activity lowers the risk of dementia. Also a suggestion that high daily doses of vitamin C can decrease the risk of Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers at The Harvard Medical School report the magical ingredient in fish to decrease the risk of heart disease is omega-3 fatty acids, which like Aspirin, add oil to the blood making it less likely to clot. The survival rate of cancer of the prostate has little to do with the type of treatment. Rather, it’s related to the biological nature of the malignancy. Some cancers are pussy cats, others raging...Read More

Cancer, Heroin, Pain

Heroin for Opioid Addicts, None for Cancer Patients

December 9, 2017

Where is the common sense and compassion in this country for cancer patients who suffer in agony? I write this because drug addicts, who largely seek pleasure from opioid drugs, are now getting better pain control than cancer victims. And these patients and their families should be enraged by what is happening. The Federal Minister of Health (MOH), Ginette P. Taylor, has announced a 100 million dollar fund to fight the opioid crisis. She reports “This situation keeps me up at night.” I should remind her that cancer pain keeps many patients in agony 24 hours a day! What is more galling is that the government wants to reduce barriers that limit access to heroin for addicts in drug-treatment programs. Yet there...Read More

Cancer, Lifestyle

How Safe Are Cell Phones?

September 16, 2017

Are some cell phone users destined to develop cancer after years of use? Or, is this fear being over-played? For years I’ve tried to find an unbiased informative source. Now, a report from the University of California attempts to answer this perplexing question. We know that high frequency ionizing radiation from excessive X–ray exposure can possibly cause malignancy. This radiation is cumulative, and like an elephant, it never forgets the amount of radiation received. But cell phones emit very low intensity non-ionizing radiofrequency energy that’s generally assumed to be safe. Researchers at the University of California analyzed several studies from around the world. They believed the debate would be settled by the “Interphone Study”. This research involved 13 countries and...Read More

Cancer, Surgery

Have you ever wanted To Say, “I Told You So”?

March 4, 2017

This week, a big thanks to Dr. Freddie Hamdy, Professor of surgery, Oxford University, England. Why? Because, for many years, I’ve advised readers, diagnosed with early prostate cancer, to take their time when deciding which treatment is best for them. Some authorities have disagreed with me. Now, I can legitimately say, “I told you so”. Does this mean I’m smart? No. I was just lucky years ago to interview Dr. Willet Whitmore, a world authority on prostate cancer at Memorial Hospital in New York City. At the time Whitmore remarked, “The survival rate of this cancer has little to do with the type of treatment. Rather, it’s related to the biological nature of the cancer.” In other words, how malignant is...Read More