The decision by an advisory committee of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to recommend the approval of the drug tamoxifen to prevent cancer shows we are finally learning how to attack the disease before it occurs.This marks a breakthrough in medicine that doctors and researchers have been working on for decades.Women with a high risk, including those with a history of breast cancer in their families.

GOOD HEALTH HEDGING THE BET AGAINST CANCER IN 1981, writer Max Lerner, developed two life-threatening cancers: a non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and prostate cancer that had spread to the lungs. He was a vibrantly alive 78-year-old man, but he was not given long to live.I HAD BEEN EXPLORING mindbody health and complementary, or alternative, therapies professionally for 10 years. So I started to study whether any might be of benefit to him, and have now spent another decade studying complementary cancer therapies.

CANCER PREVENTION: CHOICES ARE OURS If we want to prevent most human cancers, we must stop using tobacco and eating high-fat, low-fiber food. That is why there is an increasing emphasis on research programs for cancer prevention, the only truly definitive “cure.”Although there has been a major national effort in cancer treatment research over thepast three or four decades, the gains made against established human cancers are less than was expected.

BREAST CANCER: THE TREND IS AWAY FROM MASTECTOMIES There is good news: A new study indicates that breast-cancer surgery that removes the malignant lump but saves the breast is often as effective as a disfiguring total mastectomy for controlling this major killer of women But there is bad news.Dr. Merrill Feldman, a radiation oncologist at University Hospital in Boston who participated in the study, said, “The bottom line is that breast cancer is predominantly a systemic disease, and that what is done locally (breast surgery).

Nearly 200,000 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in 2008. More than 40,000 of them will die. Approximately 2,000 men will also be similarly diagnosed and more than 20 percent will die. And those are only the statistics reported to the American Cancer Society.Frightening numbers? Yes. And it sometimes seems like a fruitless crusade to stay ahead of the numbers.But if you talk to two women who are battling in the midst of the fray, you’ll find combatants.

Fight Breast Cancer with Fruits and Vegetables For anyone who has had breast cancer, this is important news. A recent study finds that certain breast cancer survivors who load up on fruits and vegetables, eating far more than current U.S. guidelines, can slash their risk the tumors will come back by nearly a third. The finding only held for women who did not have hot flashes after their cancer therapy, the researchers said, suggesting that the fruits and vegetables act on estrogen.Their analysis may explain why some studies have shown…

Breast Cancer: Facts and Fiction A simple pink ribbon serves as a constant reminder of the millions of women struggling with breast cancer. Yet despite the high visibility, confusion still surrounds some important basics about the disease. For instance, if your sister gets breast cancer, are there things you can do to avoid getting it yourself? If you find a change in your breast that’s not a lump, could it be cancerous? “Most women think all breast cancers are the same,

Please don’t call me a survivor Until there’s a cure found, I’m actually `living with breast cancer’ I was diagnosed with breast cancer for the first time in 1993, and then a second time in 1996. Obviously, I’m still alive, but I do not call myself a breast cancer survivor. There are several reasons why. One is that the term “survivor” suggests–wrongly–that breast cancer is curable. It is true, thank goodness, that many of us will live long enough to die of something else. But most women diagnosed with breast cancer live with the threat

An actress. An athlete. A Supreme Court justice. They come from many walks of life, but breast cancer made them all simply victims. Happily, they shared the determination and good fortune to conquer their illness Olivia Newton-John Once she learned she had cancer, the singer acted quickly and never looked back Olivia Newton-John didn’t have second thoughts–or seek second opinions. She had had several benign lumps in her breasts over the years, but when her doctor discovered a malignant tumor in her right breast in July 1992, he recommended swift action. “He wanted to remove all the tissue,” she says. “I’d done a lot of reading; it seemed.

New drugs bring hope in breast cancer fight A revolution in the fight against breast cancer is well under way. The decision by an advisory committee of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to recommend the approval of the drug tamoxifen to prevent cancer shows we are finally learning how to attack the disease before it occurs. This marks a breakthrough in medicine that doctors and researchers have been working on for decades.Women with a high risk, including those with a history of breast cancer in their families

American Cancer Society funds more cancer research than any other organization in the world except for the federal government. The American Cancer Society estimates that about 10,700 cases were diagnosed in children in the U.S. last year, compared with 1.4 million cases in adults. Overall, children’s cancers are also easier to treat than adult cancers. About 80 percent of kids with cancer will be cured. One promising trend is an ability to pinpoint precisely, for some types of cancer, what has gone wrong in the DNA,…

Support Systems IF IT SEEMS THAT everyone you know has breast cancer or is close to someone who does, it’s not your imagination: One out of eight women will be affected by the disease. So even if you’re not the one being diagnosed, it’s very likely that someone close to you — a friend, a family member, or even the woman who serves up your morning latte — could use your support. But in the face of such a serious disease, it’s hard to know… P

Many types of breast cancer, and not all are fatal, Failure to understand different forms of disease leads women to exaggerate chances of dying of it In medical circles, it’s called “cancer hysteria.”It’s that moment of dread when a person has just been informed that they have cancer.As they leave the doctor’s office numbed with shock, they will likely have forgotten every shred of information just given to them