An aspirin a day keeps the apple away

Taking aspirin every day may significantly reduce the risk of many cancers and prevent tumors from spreading, according to two new studies.

Researchers at the University of Oxford found that after three years of daily aspirin use, the risk of developing cancer was reduced by almost 25 percent when compared with a control group not taking aspirin. After five years, the risk of dying of cancer was reduced by 37 percent among those taking aspirin.

A second paper that analyzed five large randomized controlled studies in Britain found that over six and a half years on average, daily aspirin use reduced the risk of metastatic cancer by 36 percent and the risk of adenocarcinomas — common solid cancers including colon, lung and prostate cancer — by 46 percent.

“What really jumps out at you in terms of prevention is the striking 75 percent reduction in esophageal cancer and a 40 to 50 percent reduction in colorectal cancer, which is the most common cancer right now,” Dr. Peter M. Rothwell, a professor of clinical neurology at the University of Oxford, said. “In terms of prevention, anyone with a family history would be sensible to take aspirin.” 

But you have to talk to your doctor, because aspirin raises the risk of gastrointestinal bleeding, but of hemorrhagic strokes.

A glimpse at the future of medicine

Michael Snyder knows his body better than anyone in history.

For two-and-a-half years, he's had regular blood samples drawn, and tracked the ebb and flow of 40,000 different molecules within his cells, from hormones to blood sugar, to the proteins of the immune system and mutated genes. Snyder also watched as his genetic vulnerability to diabetes turned into actual disease.

His story marks the first time anyone's physiology has ever been followed this closely, and portends the future of personalized medicine, according to Snyder and others.

"The future is now," says Charis Eng, a professor of genomic medicine at the Cleveland Clinic. "I think we're heading in this direction, and I think we must prepare in every way, not just scientifically, not just medically, but as a society—[considering] all the ethical, moral, and regulatory issues." 

During the course of the study, Snyder had his genome sequenced. The DNA testing suggested he was at risk for type 2 diabetes. Although his doctors didn't see any outward signs that he might be developing the condition, his self-testing revealed early signs. He later developed the disease.

A close reading of his body's data suggested to Snyder that his diabetes could have been triggered by a "pretty nasty cold" that forced him to skip work for a few days. 

Betul Hatipoglu, an endocrinologist at the Cleveland Clinic, doesn't think any specific virus caused Snyder's diabetes. But she says the coincident timing supports the idea that stress can unmask underlying vulnerabilities. "It could have been any other kind of stress that turned on that event," she says. "If you carry these genes, a big stress like a huge car accident could turn that on. The body uses many pathways to respond to stress."

Everybody needs to chill.

Miracles and wonders: printing muscle

Printing human muscle.

The real news in health care is the extraordinary advances being made daily. A sampling:

In a small clean room tucked into the back of San Diego–based startup Organovo, Chirag Khatiwala is building a thin layer of human skeletal muscle. He inserts a cartridge of specially prepared muscle cells into a 3-D printer, which then deposits them in uniform, closely spaced lines in a petri dish. This arrangement allows the cells to grow and interact until they form working muscle tissue that is nearly indistinguishable from something removed from a human subject.

It is estimated between 130 - 170 million people worldwide are infected with the hepatitis C, can lead to scarring of the liver and cirrhosis. Although treatment with medication is available, it isn't effective in all cases and between 20 to 30 percent of those infected with hepatitis C develop some form of liver disease. Now a team at the University of Alberta has developed a vaccine from a single strain that is effective against all known strains of the disease.

Starting this spring, for about $5,000, any oncologist will be able to ship a sliver of tumor in a bar-coded package to Foundation's Medicine's lab. Foundation will extract the DNA, sequence scores of cancer genes, and prepare a report to steer doctors and patients toward drugs, most still in early testing, that are known to target the cellular defects caused by the DNA errors the analysis turns up. About 70 percent of cases studied to date have yielded information that a doctor could act on—whether by prescribing a particular drug, stopping treatment with another, or enrolling the patient in a clinical trial.

Medical scientists at Stanford have created a tiny computer chip capable of navigating the body's blood vessels while monitoring patient health and delivering drugs. While the device holds medical promise, it was a breakthrough in mathematics that allowed researchers to overcome previous barriers to powering the chip. Traditional batteries take up too much space, not to mention the problem of corrosion. By recalculating old equations and accounting for the body as an electricity insulator, magnetism became a suitable power source.

Depressed? Take a hike.

Research suggests that the benefits of regular exercise can be powerful and comparable to those of an antidepressant for mild to moderate depression, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine.

Researchers at Duke University randomly divided 202 adults diagnosed with major depression (average age 53) into four groups. Two groups engaged in aerobic exercise three times a week: one group at home and the other in a supervised class setting. The routine was a 10-minute warm-up followed by a half hour of walking or jogging on a treadmill and five minutes of cool-down exercises. The other two groups didn't exercise but were given a typical daily dosage (50 to 200 mg) of the antidepressant sertraline (Zoloft) or a placebo.

Overall, 41 percent of participants achieved remission of depression after four months of treatment, and the percentage of each treatment group that reached this outcome was similar: 47 percent of the Zoloft takers, 45 percent of the supervised exercisers, and 40 percent of those who worked out at home. The placebo response was also considerable (31 percent), a reminder that some of the benefit of depression treatment -- whether medication, psychotherapy, or exercise -- is due to favorable expectations from patients and the attention that accompanies the treatment and being in a study.

How does it work?

It's hard not to feel good -- or at least better -- after exercising. On a psychological level, taking care of your body bolsters self-confidence and imparts a sense of self-control. It also promotes a positive body image, especially important if you're struggling with weight gain, a potential side effect of antidepressants.

Physiologically, exercise increases the flow of oxygen throughout the body, stimulates the nervous system, and affects levels of brain chemicals like serotonin, which, in turn, relieve tension, induce calm and make it easier to handle anxiety and stress. In addition, hormones called endorphins are released by the pituitary gland during exercise, creating a sense of well-being.

It sure can't hurt.

Miracles and wonders: personal cancer meds

More evidence that the world of medicine is changing in a big way.

Michael Pellini fires up his computer and opens a report on a patient with a tumor of the salivary gland. The patient had surgery, but the cancer recurred. That's when a biopsy was sent to Foundation Medicine, the company that Pellini runs, for a detailed DNA study. Foundation deciphered some 200 genes with a known link to cancer and found what he calls "actionable" mutations in three of them. That is, each genetic defect is the target of anticancer drugs undergoing testing—though not for salivary tumors. Should the patient take one of them? "Without the DNA, no one would have thought to try these drugs," says Pellini.

Starting this spring, for about $5,000, any oncologist will be able to ship a sliver of tumor in a bar-coded package to Foundation's lab. Foundation will extract the DNA, sequence scores of cancer genes, and prepare a report to steer doctors and patients toward drugs, most still in early testing, that are known to target the cellular defects caused by the DNA errors the analysis turns up. Pellini says that about 70 percent of cases studied to date have yielded information that a doctor could act on—whether by prescribing a particular drug, stopping treatment with another, or enrolling the patient in a clinical trial. 

This is only the beginning.

Is the medical system actually working?

I frequently write about breakthroughs in medicine and suggest that innovation, not government-run healthcare, is the answer.

There now seems to be some evidence that this is true.

New data show that health spending over the past several years has been normalizing toward the rate of general inflation, rather than growing higher and higher, as had been the case almost continuously since the 1970s, J.D. Kleinke writes in The Wall Street Journal.

This moderation in the growth rate of spending predates the national recession. And it puts the lie to the claim that we need government to put the brakes on an "out-of-control" health-care system. The moderation has been driven by cumulative improvements in medical care and by insurers, and by marketplace disciplines on the demand for medical care. Consumers are finally getting more involved in managing and paying for their own care.

Contrary to the perennial doomsaying, the health-care system is—almost in spite of itself—getting better, Kleinke says.

A generation of breakthrough drugs for chronic disease, mental illness, HIV and cancer were developed in the 1980s and '90s at great cost. Dozens of these drugs—like Zocor for heart disease or Zyprexa for schizophrenia—are now widely available, many in generic form. There are now countless electronic ways of telling patients about them. And health insurers are driven by their own evolving market disciplines to make sure patients start taking them and keep taking them in the cheapest available versions. 

Combine all these new medicines, information channels and business compulsions with the slow, steady transfer of economic responsibility for health care—from corporate and government bureaucrats to consumers and their families—and suddenly health-care starts to look almost like an actual market.

Just in time for the whole thing to get swallowed up by Washington.

Stop reading this and ...

... go out right now and buy yourself some Vitamin D3.

Most people in America are seriously vitamin D deficient or insufficient, Patrick Cox writes. The same is true for Canada and Europe, and the implications are staggering. Cox is a columnist for Agora Financial. His conclusions, he says, come from his job as a tech investment adviser, which requires that he survey thousands of the most recent scientific studies.

Simply put, unless you are one of the few people with optimal serum D levels, such as lifeguards and roofers in South Florida, you can cut your risks from most major diseases by 50 to 80 percent. All you have to do is get enough D. It also means we can significantly reduce both health care costs and the staggering national deficit by taking a few simple steps.

Sensible sun exposure and vitamin D3 supplementation would do far more for our national health than the current health care bill. Even better, the benefits to society could be achieved without spending hundreds of billions of dollars. If an “Army of Davids” took it upon itself to spread the word, they could achieve what government is apparently incapable of achieving.

You need to read his whole article, but here are some excerpts:

Optimal vitamin D serum blood levels, attained through sunlight or supplementation, dramatically reduce the risk of many diseases other than bone maladies. Many of the most serious are ameliorated by an astonishing 50 to 85 percent. These diseases include cancers, from breast and colon to deadly melanoma skin cancers. [Read the full article for an explanation of skin cancers.]

This is not the end of the list, though. The big killers and most expensive diseases respond similarly to adequate D. I’m talking about hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and stroke. So do type 1 diabetes, type 2 diabetes (to a lesser extent), rheumatoid arthritis, peripheral vascular disease, multiple sclerosis, dementia, autoimmune diseases, and apparently even viral diseases such as H1N1 and AIDS.

I predict that other diseases will also be linked to vitamin D insufficiencies as more studies are performed. Even conditions such as autism and schizophrenia may be directly related to prenatal or infantile vitamin D deficiency.

I take 2,000 IUs of Vitamin D3 a day, a level I got from a pharmacist. I've had only one test for Vitamin D, and that was ordered by a urologist. Here's what Cox recommends:

The NIH’s current recommended dosage for vitamin D supplementation remains basically unchanged since it was established to prevent rickets. In fact, the maximum safe dosage of vitamin D3, the preferred dietary form, is currently 2000IU. This is extremely unfortunate because it takes about a hundred IU to raise serum blood levels by 1 ng/ml in a healthy adult. To get into the optimal range, 40 to 60 ng/ml, one would therefore have to take 4000 IU daily. It would take even more if you were obese, are taking certain medications, or have one of a number of medical conditions that degrade or prevent the creation of usable D. The evidence, incidentally, is that 10,000IU is entirely safe.

You should talk to your doctor, of course, but most doctors I know don't talk much about vitamins. Vitamins weren't part of their training. Read Cox' article and decide for yourself.