Balance Your Health

The Diabetes-Cancer Connection

The more I read about nutrition, diseases and lifestyles, the more I believe that our bodies were meant to live in balance. And when they aren’t in balance, bad things happen.

Take the growing evidence that diabetes or signs of insulin resistance may lead to an increased risk of certain cancers. The strong connection includes kidney, pancreatic and colorectal cancers. 

At first the thinking was that people with type 2 diabetes, associated with high insulin levels, are most at risk.  Now the research says the link is for everyone with prediabetes – that’s a huge number of people.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that 40 percent of Americans – that’s 41 million people – are prediabetic and at risk for developing diabetes.  Many people are completely unaware they have prediabetes.  By the time symptoms and glucose levels result in a diagnosis – it’s too late- they already have diabetes.

Type 2 diabetes and cancer share a major risk factor: high body fat.  It may be that the hormonal changes that take place because of high body fat are the culprits. It may be that insulin stimulates cell proliferation and cell growth. More research is needed before the questions are answered. 

For now it is known that obesity is tied to type 2 diabetes and prediabetes. The National Diabetes Information Clearinghouse states that losing 5 to 10 percent of a person’s starting weight can prevent or delay diabetes or even reverse prediabetes.

It’s all tied to poor eating habits and not exercising. The research may have the answers but there’s something we all can do to balance our lives and reduce our risk of both diabetes and cancer. Get up and move and do that frequently.   Eat nutritionally well with lots of fruits and vegetables.

The solution seems so simple yet we all have problems living well. If you have suggestions and something that worked for you to stay motivated to be healthy, let the rest of us know. Scroll down to ‘Comments’ and tell us your story in the blank window.

In the meantime, to your successful healthy lifestyle.

Ruthan Brodsky

I help businesses and health care professionals market their

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www.balanceyourhealth.com

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Sunscreens and Sun Blocks - What's Not So Good About Them

In my last post I wrote that there is research which indicates sunscreen isn’t all it’s chalked up to be. (June 26, 2008) The American College of Preventive Medicine says they don’t protect against malignant melanoma (MM). In fact, they may even increase the risk of MM because people who use sunscreen tend to stay out in the sun longer than those who don’t.

The information below isn’t really technical; it’s the names of the chemical ingredients that are scientific but I’m assuming you would want to know about their possible impact for your health.

Sunscreen Sense

Saturday was the first day of summer and I feel compelled to write about protecting yourself from the sun. No matter how hard you work on balancing your physical and mental and personal life, you and I still need to sometimes get back to basics – such as preventing skin cancer.

I’m one of those people who wore a t-shirt over a bathing suit when I was a kid and still got sunburn especially on my back. I remember blisters.

Breast Cancer Risk Reduced by Exercise

No matter what your approach to staying healthy, physical activity throughout your adult life can help prevent certain cancers, especially breast and colon cancer.

In one study researchers found that breast cancer risk decreased by 26 percent in the most active women compared to the least active. I think that’s a big difference.

DMIST-Digital Mammography Screening Trial Clears Some of the Fog

Breast cancer remains the most frequently diagnosed non-skin cancer and the second leading cause of cancer-related death in women. Last year close to 180,000 women were diagnosed with breast cancer and about 40,000 will die.

The good news is that there’s been a steady decrease in breast cancer mortality due partly to improvements in breast imaging. MRIs, digital mammography, breast ultrasound tools, sentinel node injection and precutaneous image-guided biopsies have all improved.

The digital mammography sometimes confuses people because it also uses X-rays but it produces electronic images of the breast that are stored on a computer and can be manipulated to evaluate the breast tissue. The study was sponsored by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to help physicians which women would benefit most from various forms of mammography. The question was whether digital mammography offered advantages over conventional mammography and was it worth the higher cost?