Ignoring the non existent British summertime!

Hello everyone

Ignoring the non existent British summertime, I'm hoping the the London Olympics are inspiring everyone to address there fitness levels and get out there exercising! Hopefully young and old alike are looking into doing some for of exercise. You will definitely benefit from it. We in the UK have had a successful games in a wide variety of sports and hopefully this will get a generation of youngsters off the computers and game consoles and outside in the fresh air. Come on mum's & dad's encourage your kids out exercising!

There has been various reports issued this week on the cancer front. There's quite a bit of controversy at the moment surrounding what the experts are saying are overstated benefits from mammograms, and that they failed to inform women of the risks in their last public advertising campaign from the Komen cancer group.

Doctors believe the ads are misleading and giving false promises. There has been much controversy surrounding mammograms for many years, in recent years studies have shown that they have shown tumours that  may never cause harm, but treating them causes physical, emotional and financial implications. To be fair, women should be giving all available information, both the positive and negative, so they themselves can make a decision for themselves based on the most recent facts.

Further news out today says a new vaccine for kidney cancer is looking promising! Currently there are clinical trials taking place for a vaccine in the fight against kidney cancer. The vaccine is made up of synthetic tumour associated peptides ( pure science! ), unlike chemo, the vaccine works by triggering of the bodies own killer T-cells to attack the tumour. This active immunization against the cancer can be effective and prolong the life of the patient with less adverse effects from chemotherapy the study results show. So more groundbreaking work going on in the continuous fight against cancer.

Also today, the reports about chemotherapy undermining itself with rogue response in healthy cells. This in itself could explain why some people become resistant. For a significant number of patients it loses effectiveness with secondary cancers, US experts have said the chemotherapy causes a wound-healing cells around the tumour that help the cancer resist the treatment.

Around 90% of patients with a solid cancer - breast, lung, colon, prostrate, the cancers that spread ( metastatic disease ) develop resistance to the chemotherapy. Treatment is given in cycles of normally around a three or four week time period, this is to help the body cope with the toxicity and allow good cells to recover between treatments in order to not overwhelm the body, the downside to this is the possibility of the tumour cells recovering and developing a resistance. It was already known about that protein was involved in the development of cancers - but not in the resistance of treatment. Cancer treatments are evolving to be very specific, one of the next steps will be to find ways to target the resistance mechanisms to make chemotherapy more effective.
As it stands now, we have the available treatments that help us all have a better fighting chance, research is on-going and new avenues are being discovered all the time, we fight because it is right, and until the day a cure is found, we owe it to ourselves to keep fighting. Proactively help yourself, we only get one body to live in, keep it has fit and healthy as we possibly can. Help it to help you!

Until next time

Tracy