Greater of Two Evils: Cancer or Alzheimer's?

Who'd ever have thought it?  If you have cancer, you might never have Alzheimer's.  And vice versa.

But a new study has found that "older people with Alzheimer’s disease are less likely to also have cancer, and older people with cancer are less likely to also have Alzheimer’s disease," according to a story at newswise.com.

“Since the number of cases of both Alzheimer’s disease and cancer increase exponentially as people age, understanding the mechanisms behind this relationship may help us better develop new treatments for both diseases,” newswise.com quotes study author Massimo Musicco, MD, of the National Research Council of Italy in Milan.

A little over 200,000 people age 60 and older in northern Italy were studied during a six-year period. "During that time, 21,451 people developed cancer and 2,832 people developed Alzheimer’s disease," newswise.com reports.

A total of 161 people had both cancer and Alzheimer’s disease, but, based on statistics for the general population, 281 people would have been predicted to have cancer and 246 for Alzheimer’s disease. "Therefore, the risk of cancer was cut in half for people with Alzheimer’s disease, and the risk of Alzheimer’s disease was reduced by 35 percent for people with cancer," the story notes.

Now, I've had cancer and Alzheimer's is one of the other diseases I'm most frightened of.  So wouldn't it be wonderful if having one precluded the other?  Still, in a perfect world, no one would have either.  But I guess cancer and Alzheimer's are protective.  Weird to think of them, two of the most dreaded diseases, in that way.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Don't Wash Your Chicken and Other Food Safety Myths

I remember when I first heard this.  Don't wash your chicken , before you cook it?  I ignored it.  But over time, I began to realize it's true.  Washing it spreads deadly (or at least sick-making) bacteria.  Really. “You should assume that if you have chicken, you have either Salmonella or Campylobacter bacteria on it, if not both,”Dr. Jennifer Quinlan, an associate professor at Drexel University, told newswise.com.  These two bacteria, she noted, are the leading causes of food-borne illness. “If you wash it, you’re more likely to spray bacteria all over the kitchen and yourself," she said. And the rinse water you've been using? It's not hot enough to kill bacteria anyway. Washing raw poultry was a common unsafe practice in all the groups she studied for a documentary on safe cooking conditions, with some minor cultural differences in the method of washing. People are very attached to the idea of washing raw poultry, she told newswise.com. “Some think they’re
Read more

Need the ER? Pray Your Doc Plays Video Games

We're all so used to picking on our kids for playing video games but the next time he's in the ER, you just might be happy that doctors do it, too. According to new research, video games improve doctors' recognition and triage of severe trauma patients, newswise.com reports. Playing an adventure video game featuring a fictitious, young emergency physician treating severe trauma patients was better than text-based learning at priming real doctors to quickly recognize the patients who needed higher levels of care, according to a new trial led by the  University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine .  The results held, even though doctors assigned to the game enjoyed it less than those assigned to traditional, text-based education. This indicates that if game enjoyment can be improved, the already favorable results might be enhanced, the web site notes.  “Physicians must make decisions quickly and with incomplete information. Each year, 30,000 preventable deaths occur
Read more

Take Herbal Supplements? Even Green Tea Extract Can Lead to Liver Damage

Take herbal supplements? You might want to listen up. A new study is warning that new information is showing that some supplements may damage the liver, along with over the counter drugs and even those prescribed by physicians, according to newswise.com. The rate of drug-induced liver injury (DILI), a rare adverse drug reaction which is challenging to diagnose -- and which can lead to jaundice, liver failure and even death -- is increasing more and more.  Experts put it down to the overwhelming use of herbal supplements and other drugs in the last 10 years.  “A lot of consumers have a preconceived notion that if it’s a natural product, it must be safe. But that is not necessarily the case,” the Web site quotes Herbert Bonkovsky, MD, FACG, co-author of the guidelines. “Most of these products are not well-regulated and have very little oversight. Traces of heavy metals and prescription drugs have even been found in some herbal and dietary supplements. We encourage patients to
Read more