Category

Cancer

It’s impossible to talk about cancer without realizing that everybody’s life has been touched by it either directly or indirectly. In the United States, half of women and one-third of men will be afflicted with cancer in their lifetime, and it still ranks as the second leading cause of all death, only a hair behind atherosclerosis.

But unlike heart disease, cancer lethality is even greater in mid-life than among seniors. In fact, for people between the ages of 45 to 65, cancer is the leading cause of death, killing more people than heart disease, liver disease, and stroke combined.

When thinking about how to prevent mortality from cancer, there are three key questions to consider: 

  1. (1) How do you prevent cancer? 
  2. (2) How do you screen for cancer to detect it early? 
  3. (3) How do you treat it when you have it?

Below is a collection of clips, podcasts, and articles discussing the latest science on cancer prevention, treatments, and the importance of cancer screening.

#52 – Ethan Weiss, M.D.: A masterclass in cardiovascular disease and growth hormone – two topics that are surprising interrelated

“Primary prevention is still very much art and not science and probably will be for our lifetime so we’ll have to get used to that.” —Ethan Weiss

#51 – Robert Sapolsky, Ph.D.: The pervasive effect of stress – is it killing you?

“The [stress response] system has been serving vertebrates, doing a lot of help for them for an awful long time, and it’s only been a very recent modification to instead secrete [cortisol] in response to thinking about taxes.” —Robert Sapolsky

#48 – Matthew Walker, Ph.D., on sleep – Part II of III: Heart disease, cancer, sexual function, and the causes of sleep disruption (and tips to correct it)

“If there is one central, common pathway through which we can understand almost all aspects of the deleterious impact of insufficient sleep, it is…an excessive leaning on the fight or flight branch of the nervous system.” — Matthew Walker

Red meat, cancer, push-ups, and CVD

Groundhog Day (GD) came and went last month — and sure enough — 2019 has already brought a bounty of emails and Tweets from concerned folks wondering if red meat is going to kill them (again).

#42 – Avrum Bluming, M.D. and Carol Tavris, Ph.D.: Controversial topic affecting all women—the role of hormone replacement therapy through menopause and beyond—the compelling case for long-term HRT and dispelling the myth that it causes breast cancer

“We welcome the criticism and the discussion, that way we will all learn. We don’t claim to have the final answer, but we think that this book [Estrogen Matters] represents an important step forward in empowering women and helping them live longer and live better.” —Avrum Bluming

#39 – Ted Schaeffer, M.D., Ph.D.: How to catch, treat, and survive prostate cancer

“With our algorithm. . .you can reduce biopsies by about one third, reduce detection of low-grade cancer by about one third, and you actually don’t compromise the detection of higher grade disease. . .we have great tools to offer people very sophisticated screening for their prostate cancer.” —Ted Schaeffer

#32 – Siddhartha Mukherjee, M.D., Ph.D.: new frontiers in cancer therapy, medicine, and the writing process

“The fundamental rule that works for me is just to throw something at the world. The first line, the first experiment, the first idea, and then, keep at it.” —Siddhartha Mukherjee

#31 – Navdeep Chandel, Ph.D.: metabolism, mitochondria, and metformin in health and disease

“I pay more attention today to stress than anything else.” —Nav Chandel

#30 – Thomas Seyfried, Ph.D.: Controversial discussion—cancer as a mitochondrial metabolic disease?

“The standard of care should never have been written in granite. It should be flexible. If you have something else that comes along that might be better, you’d think there would be enthusiasm.” —Tom Seyfried

#06 – D.A. Wallach: music, medicine, longevity, and disruptive technologies

“The way that anything looks before we understand it is pretty imposing . . . when we have breakthroughs, they feel like an enormous relief, because something that seemed really complicated becomes really simple.” —D.A. Wallach

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