Ills of a very tight bra - Times of India Article

Ills+of+a+very+tight+bra

Storing Food in Plastic – Is it safe?

Food has been stored by people in containers made from plastic, for quite some time. Lately with the safety of food being a primary concern, plastic as a device for food storage is being investigated. With current research and studies being performed on contaminated food, the web is a valuable tool in getting information so as to avoid food poisoning from E. coli and salmonella, or even to avoid potential ailments triggered by the use of plastics.
Research has indicated that EDC's, (Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals), are present in plastics. Cancer and disruption to sex hormones can be caused by these chemicals. The recommendation is that food should be stored in containers that are a substance other than plastic so that food cannot be contaminated in this way. It's best to use a glass or stainless steel container to keep phthalates from leaching out and contaminating food.
People are also worried about using plastic dishes to microwave food. Most experts warn against it anyway. To be safe, it is wise to refrain from utilizing plastic containers to heat food in the microwave and to minimize the amount of direct contact between plastic cling wrap and food that is heated in the microwave!!!.

source - http://in.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100718113102AARjT3F&show=2

Cancer Causes - Popular Myths

Cancer causes: Popular myths about the causes of cancer

Positive thinking

Positive thinking: Reduce stress, enjoy life more
By Mayo Clinic staff
Original Article:

Positive thinking: Reduce stress, enjoy life more


Positive thinking: Reduce stress, enjoy life more
Positive thinking helps with stress management and can even improve your health. Overcome negative self-talk by recognizing it and practicing with some examples provided.
By Mayo Clinic staff

Is your glass half-empty or half-full? How you answer this age-old question about positive thinking may reflect your outlook on life, your attitude toward yourself, and whether you're optimistic or pessimistic.

In fact, some studies show that these personality traits — optimism and pessimism — can affect many areas of your health and well-being. Positive thinking also is a key part of effective stress management. Positive thinking doesn't mean that you keep your head in the sand and ignore life's less pleasant situations. It just means that you approach the unpleasantness in a more positive and productive way.

With all this in mind, take a refresher course in positive thinking. Learn how to put positive thinking into action in your own life, and reap the benefits.

Understanding positive thinking and self-talk

Self-talk is the endless stream of thoughts that run through your head every day. These automatic thoughts can be positive or negative. Some of your self-talk comes from logic and reason. Other self-talk may arise from misconceptions that you create because of lack of information.

If the thoughts that run through your head are mostly negative, your outlook on life is more likely pessimistic. If your thoughts are mostly positive, you're likely an optimist — someone who practices positive thinking.

The health benefits of positive thinking

Researchers continue to explore the effects of positive thinking and optimism on health. Health benefits that positive thinking may provide include:

* Increased life span
* Lower rates of depression
* Lower levels of distress
* Greater resistance to the common cold
* Better psychological and physical well-being
* Reduced risk of death from cardiovascular disease
* Better coping skills during hardships and times of stress

It's unclear why people who engage in positive thinking experience these health benefits. One theory is that having a positive outlook enables you to cope better with stressful situations, which reduces the harmful health effects of stress on your body. It's also thought that positive and optimistic people live healthier lifestyles — they get more physical activity, follow a healthier diet, and have reduced rates of smoking and alcohol consumption.
Identifying negative thinking

Some common forms of negative self-talk include:

* Filtering. You magnify the negative aspects of a situation and filter out all of the positive ones. For example, say you had a great day at work. You completed your tasks ahead of time and were complimented for doing a speedy and thorough job. But you forgot one minor step. That evening, you focus only on your oversight and forget about the compliments you received.
* Personalizing. When something bad occurs, you automatically blame yourself. For example, you hear that an evening out with friends is canceled, and you assume that the change in plans is because no one wanted to be around you.
* Catastrophizing. You automatically anticipate the worst. You refuse to go out with friends for fear that you'll make a fool of yourself. Or one change in your daily routine leads you to think the entire day will be a disaster.
* Polarizing. You see things only as either good or bad, black or white. There is no middle ground. You feel that you have to be perfect or that you're a total failure.

Focusing on positive thinking

Because your self-talk is mainly negative doesn't mean you're doomed to an unhappy or unhealthy life. You can learn to turn negative thinking into positive thinking. The process is simple, but it takes time and practice — you're creating a new habit, after all. Here are some ways to think and behave in a more positive way:

* Check yourself. Periodically during the day, stop and evaluate what you're thinking. If you find that your thoughts are mainly negative, try to find a way to put a positive spin on them.
* Be open to humor. Give yourself permission to smile or laugh, especially during difficult times. Seek humor in everyday happenings. When you can laugh at life, you feel less stressed.
* Follow a healthy lifestyle. Exercise at least three times a week to positively affect mood and reduce stress. Follow a healthy diet to fuel your mind and body. And learn to manage stress.
* Surround yourself with positive people. Make sure those in your life are positive, supportive people you can depend on to give helpful advice and feedback. Negative people, those who believe they have no power over their lives, may increase your stress level and may make you doubt your ability to manage stress in healthy ways.
* Practice positive self-talk. Start by following one simple rule: Don't say anything to yourself that you wouldn't say to anyone else. Be gentle and encouraging with yourself. If a negative thought enters your mind, evaluate it rationally and respond with affirmations of what is good about yourself.

Examples of typical negative self-talk and how you might apply a positive twist include:
Negative self-talk Positive spin
I've never done it before. It's an opportunity to learn something new.
It's too complicated. I'll tackle it from a different angle.
I don't have the resources. Necessity is the mother of invention.
I'm too lazy to get this done. I wasn't able to fit it into my schedule but can re-examine some priorities.
There's no way it will work. I can try to make it work.
It's too radical a change. Let's take a chance.
No one bothers to communicate with me. I'll see if I can open the channels of communication.
I'm not going to get any better at this. I'll give it another try.


Practicing positive thinking every day

If you tend to have a negative outlook, don't expect to become an optimist overnight. But with practice, eventually your self-talk will contain less self-criticism and more self-acceptance. You may also become less critical of the world around you. Plus, when you share your positive mood and positive experience, both you and those around you enjoy an emotional boost.

Practicing positive self-talk will improve your outlook. When your state of mind is generally optimistic, you're able to handle everyday stress in a more constructive way. That ability may contribute to the widely observed health benefits of positive thinking.

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/positive-thinking/SR00009

Chemotherapy and Hair Loss

Chemotherapy and hair loss: What to expect during treatment
Find out what to expect when it comes to chemotherapy and hair loss. Plan to use your energy staying healthy rather than worrying about how you look.

You might not think about how important your hair is until you face losing it. And if you have cancer and are about to undergo chemotherapy, the chance of hair loss is very real. Both men and women report hair loss as one of the side effects they fear most after being diagnosed with cancer.

Whether or not you have hair loss from your chemotherapy depends mostly on the type and dose of medication you receive. But whether you can maintain a healthy body image after hair loss depends a lot on your attitude and the support of your friends and family. Read more..

Chemotherapy and hair loss: What to expect during treatment

Screening-Mammography Benefits and Harms in Spotlight Again

Screening-Mammography Benefits and Harms in Spotlight Again

Nick Mulcahy

Medscape Medical News 2009. © 2009 Medscape

April 2, 2009 — A new study adds to the debate about how the benefits and harms of screening mammography are presented to the public and provides new estimates of the absolute numbers of breast cancer deaths prevented by the screening.

The authors argue that the public is not currently presented with a balanced view of the screening, with potential benefits overemphasized and potential harms rarely discussed.

The study was published April 2 in the open-access online journal BMC Medical Informatics and Decision-Making.

Repeated screening mammography starting at age 50 saves about 1.8 lives over 15 years for every 1000 women screened, according the study authors.

They calculated that the absolute death risk from breast cancer without any screening is about 1% over those 15 years. "This means the survival percentage among women aged 50 to 60 who are not screened is 99%," said lead author John D. Keen, MD, senior attending radiologist at the John H. Stroger Hospital of Cook County, in Chicago, Illinois.

The survival percentage among women aged 50 to 60 who are not screened is 99%.

These statistical facts about mammography are in sharp contrast with what is most publicized about this screening, which is "mammography saves lives," suggested Dr. Keen.

"From a consumer perspective, the screening-mammography discussion in the United States is rather paternalistic and 1-sided," said Dr. Keen in an interview with Medscape Oncology.

What's needed is a balanced presentation of the facts to patients, which should include mention of the absolute benefits associated with screening and a discussion of potential harms, such as false positives, anxiety, unnecessary biopsies, and overdiagnosis, emphasized Dr. Keen. "This is not occurring now," he added.

However, a critic of the study says that its statistical methods are questionable and its findings debatable. Furthermore, the paper "labors an obvious point" about preventive medicine, says the critic.

"One has to apply an intervention to large numbers of healthy subjects in order to benefit the few who are unlucky enough to develop the disease," writes Stephen W. Duffy, MD, from the Cancer Research Center, in London, the United Kingdom, in an editorial that accompanies the study.

Dr. Keen's response to that criticism was that the "public has a right to know what the statistics are regarding mammography screening so that individuals can make informed decisions about participating."

Another cancer-screening expert approached by Medscape Oncology joined the study authors in calling for a better presentation of the facts about screening mammography. "We all have to do a better job to best inform the public about the benefits and harms of screening mammography," said Bob Smith, PhD, director of cancer screening at the American Cancer Society, in Atlanta, Georgia.

We all have to do a better job to best inform the public about the benefits and harms of screening mammography.

The new study appears at a time of increased public scrutiny of screening mammography. The New York Times recently covered the story of a public-health leaflet on screening mammography in the United Kingdom and the public outcry that resulted because the leaflet failed to mention the potential harms of screening. The controversy had been reported a month earlier by Medscape Oncology.

Findings Disputed and Supported

In their new paper, Dr. John Keen and his brother and coauthor James E. Keen, DVM, PhD, associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Nebraska, in Lincoln, analyzed the claim that "mammography saves lives" by calculating the life-saving absolute benefit of screening mammography in reducing breast cancer mortality in women aged 40 to 65.

To make this estimate, the authors used a variety of existing data sources, including randomized trials and SEER data on breast cancer mortality.

Dr. Duffy points out in his editorial that this study is one of modeled results and not empirical observation. "The accuracy of the figures arrived at is questionable," he writes.

Dr. Duffy notes that empirical data from 2 different randomized trials indicate that 3 or 2.1 breast cancer deaths, respectively, are prevented by repeatedly screening 1000 women. So the figure of 1.8 prevented deaths used in the current study is low, he says.

However, in a second editorial that accompanies the new study, Michael Retsky, PhD, from Harvard Medical School, in Boston, Massachusetts, says that the 1.8 deaths prevented by screening are consistent with other results.

"The crux of the problem is that early detection from screening only benefits approximately 1 in 1000 participants. That ratio appears in many trials and in the Keen and Keen paper," he told Medscape Oncology. The numerical results of the new study "are consistent with my knowledge and experience," he writes.

The crux of the problem is that early detection from screening only benefits approximately 1 in 1000 participants.

Dr. Duffy also disputes the new study's estimate that only 4.3% of screen-detected breast cancer cases have their lives saved as a result of screening. "This is clearly at odds with the experimental evidence. In the Swedish Two-County Trial, 141 breast cancer deaths were prevented — 15% of the 928 screen-detected cancers," he writes.

However, Dr. Keen countered this criticism by pointing out that a recent review of Swedish screening trials had turned up "multiple problems" and that his study findings predicted the results from the most recent AGE trial in England. He also said that the new study's data are derived from American sources and are "therefore more likely accurate for women in the United States."

Challenging a Popular Perception; A Question About Patient Knowledge

The finding that so few (only 4.3%) screen-detected breast cancer cases have their lives saved as a result of screening seems counterintuitive, write the authors. There is a widely held view that breast cancer is a uniformly progressive disease and that it is rarely curable unless caught early, they write. But in reality, breast cancer is a heterogenous disease, and it may be systemic from the start or it may never metastasize, they say.

In effect, this finding about lives saved by mammography challenges "the popular perception that earlier detection through mammography helps most patients with screen-detected breast cancer," write the authors.

In his editorial, Dr. Retsky agrees that the new study findings "defy" some "well-established viewpoints." He also believes that screening has considerable limitations.

"Personally, I am doubtful that imaging-based early detection will ever make dramatic improvements in breast cancer mortality. Rather, I think improved therapies are needed," Dr. Retsky commented to Medscape Oncology.

The limitations of mammography screening make the discussion of the harms all the more important, suggested Dr. Keen.

"Authorities acknowledge that screening-mammography harms include a 30% increase in overdiagnosis and overtreatment, delayed diagnosis, and radiation-induced cancers," write the authors. They also cite a survey that showed that physicians discuss these potential harms only 7% of the time when talking to women before a baseline mammogram (Health Expect. 2008;11:366-375).

However, the American Cancer Society's Dr. Smith believes that women are not uninformed about most of the potential harms of screening mammography.

"The authors imply that women are naive about these harms. They aren't. A study by Schwartz [et al. BMJ. 2000;320:1635-1640] observed that 90% of women said they were fully aware of false-positive mammograms and biopsies, and this awareness remained just as high when women who had experienced a false positive were compared with those who had not," he told Medscape Oncology.

The new study authors suggest that substantial business concerns influence the likelihood that consumers will receive "professional even-handed advice" about the harms and benefits of mammography. "Fundamentally, cancer testing is a business," they write.

Breast radiologists, equipment manufacturers, and advocacy groups all have conflicts of interest arising from financial incentives. "These incentives create the temptation to exaggerate the benefits and dismiss the harms of screening for breast cancer when advertising to the public," the authors write.

The study authors have disclosed no relevant financial relationships. Dr. Retsky disclosed that he has a patent application for a therapy for early-stage breast cancer.

BMC Med Inform Decis Mak. 2009;9:18, 19, 20.

For details go to - http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/590535

Exercise for Cancer Patients

http://www.seacoastonline.com/articles/20090402-LIFE-904020335
Exercise for cancer patients
n Elisa Fraser 'Dream Time' gets a workout in York
By Rachel M. Collins
April 02, 2009 6:00 AM

Physical therapist Elisa Fraser knows first-hand that rest does not make cancer-related fatigue go away.

Having been diagnosed in 2003 with breast cancer herself, Fraser recounts vividly that year in which she had five surgeries, four months of chemotherapy and six weeks of radiation.

"You don't feel like doing anything," she said. "And the longer you rest the less you feel like doing something."

That is a sentiment well-known by the 14 cancer patients, or cancer survivors, who can be found twice a week doing stretching and strengthening exercises in the Next Step class led by Fraser at York Hospital's Heart Health Institute in York, Maine.

"I call them my 'Dream Team,'" she said. "If ever there was a group of people who have every right to complain ...; none of them ever complain ...; ever ...; They are just awesome."

The group exercise class actually is designed to combat cancer-related fatigue — which is being recognized today with Cancer-Related Fatigue Awareness Day — by focusing on improving a person's flexibility, strength, cardiovascular endurance and balance.

After all, studies have shown exercise not only can reduce fatigue, it can improve well-being, functionality, bone density, assist an immune system and enhance mental function, Fraser noted.

But the proof is in the amazing stories told around the classroom by Fraser's "Dream Team."

For instance, when Don Simard first was diagnosed with multiple mylenoma he was at times bedridden.

But then he decided he would begin the journey to get in better shape so that he could be a viable candidate for a stem cell transplant.

Now in Fraser's class, he alternates between stretching exercises and some strength training, such as balancing on an exercise ball while doing bicep curls with small weights.

"This has changed me in a lot of ways," Simard said of the class, which he is supplementing with walking and physical therapy. "Coming into this class was like coming into one big family where we all have the same problems and are coming from the same place."

Phyllis Bachi, whose uterine cancer has required surgery and 24 chemotherapy treatments over an eight-month period, agreed.

"She (Fraser) has been able to make us each feel equal, even though we all have had different types of cancers and surgeries, we all feel equal," Bachi said. "It has helped me greatly."

During the class, while working out to tunes such as Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World," participants do exercises with exercise balls and small weights, but they also take time to joke with each other and socialize.

"This class is incredible," said Bobbie Stephenson, who was diagnosed with breast cancer four months ago. "It's really been life-changing. It gives you a lot more energy and it makes you feel you can do some things."

It is clear, Fraser said, through the research and her experience personally and in this class, that exercise is a key to battling cancer-related fatigue.

Certainly she seems to be right. Not only is there a long waiting list for the class, but when Fraser announced that she was beginning a "Step Up" class for those who no longer were qualified by their insurance to stay in the beginner's class, immediately it had its minimum of nine students. Fraser said she also is considering adding a second section to the beginner's class, if possible.

"After you've had surgery and treatment you know exercise will help you heal, but you don't want to do it alone," said Ann McHugh, who had her cancer surgeries and radiation beginning last November. "You know you're all starting with limitations you have to overcome, but this way you do it with someone who has professional knowledge."

Fraser, with her boundless enthusiasm, is also someone who easily motivates the class participants not only to exercise, but to bond with each other.

"Psychologically it's a little bit difficult to recover from this," said George Schumacher, who was diagnosed with cancer a year ago last December. "You can't do things you did before. This is a big help to get you back on track."

Certainly Fraser said the class includes "people on all parts of the cancer journey."

"When you get a cancer diagnosis it seems like people always want to relate with someone who has had exactly what they had and they're still here," she said.

Think you or your group should be profiled in Get off the Couch? Contact Rachel Collins at Rcollinsme@aol.com.

Benefits of Mammogram Under Debate in Britain

Benefits of Mammogram Under Debate in Britain
New York Times - United States
By RONI CARYN RABIN The conventional wisdom about breast cancer screening is coming under sharp attack in Britain, and health officials there are taking ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/31/health/31mamm.html?ref=science