Health Diaries > The Lung Cancer Blog

November 17, 2008

New research is being done to find out why only some smokers end up getting lung cancer and one reason may be something called methylation, an event regulating gene expression that changes as people age.

"Alteration to DNA methylation might potentially explain why some former smokers sustain additional genetic damage resulting in lung cancer," Vucic said. "As methylation is a reversible DNA modification, this knowledge could prompt the development and application of chemopreventive agents and unique therapeutic strategies that target DNA methylation in these patients."

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November 3, 2008

With the recent alarming studies that show vitamin E supplements may cause lung cancer, one might think that naturally occurring vitamin E in foods is also dangerous. Not so. A new study has found that vitamin E in its natural alpha-tocopherol form slashed lung cancer risk by more than 50 percent.

It's one of the first studies to look at the effects of different forms of vitamin E on lung cancer risk.

There are eight forms of vitamin E: four tocopherols (alpha, beta, gamma, delta) and four tocotrienols (alpha, beta, gamma, delta). Alpha-tocopherol is the main source found in supplements and in the European diet, while gamma-tocopherol is the most common form in the American diet.

Mike Adams at Natural News comments on this:

... the real truth about natural vitamin E continues to come out: It slashes lung cancer risk by a whopping 55 percent. It also slashes the risk of other cancers, but only if you use the natural form of vitamin E, not the synthetic form. The National Cancer Institute knows this, of course, but they continue to use synthetic vitamin E anyway, since the whole purpose of their own studies is to discredit vitamin E rather than conduct actual science.

It makes you wonder, doesn't it?

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April 5, 2008

Several new studies have found that a common genetic variation that affects how the body responds to nicotine increases the risk of developing lung cancer.

The papers said that people who inherit the variation from one parent have a 30 percent greater chance of getting lung cancer. Those who inherit the variation from both parents face an increased risk of 70 to 80 percent.

Several researchers believe it is not the gene variant itself that causes lung cancer but the fact that the variant appears to cause addiction to nicotine.

Stefansson said the extra cigarettes, not the gene itself, led to lung cancer. His group estimates that the variation was indirectly responsible for 18 percent of lung cancers and 10 percent of cases of peripheral artery disease, which is also linked to smoking.

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February 28, 2008

Do vitamin E supplements increase the risk of lung cancer? The results of a survey of the vitamin habits of 78,000 people suggests that may be the case.

"Our study of supplemental multivitamins, vitamin C, vitamin E and folate did not show any evidence for a decreased risk of lung cancer," study author Dr. Christopher G. Slatore, a fellow in the division of pulmonary and critical care medicine at the University of Washington, said in a statement. "Indeed, increasing intake of supplemental vitamin E was associated with a slightly increased risk of lung cancer."

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September 4, 2007

A new Dutch study of over 7,000 people has found that current smokers are 50 percent more likely to develop dementia or Alzheimer's disease than non-smokers or former smokers.

"Smoking increases the risk of cerebrovascular disease, which is also tied to dementia," study author Dr. Monique Breteler, of Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, said in a prepared statement. "Another mechanism could be through oxidative stress, which can damage cells in the blood vessels and lead to hardening of the arteries. Smokers experience greater oxidative stress than nonsmokers, and increased oxidative stress is also seen in Alzheimer's disease."

The results of the study were published in the Sept. 4 issue of Neurology.

Smokers More Likely to Develop Dementia

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February 9, 2007

A new study has found that 20 percent of women with lung cancer never smoked, suggesting that secondhand smoke may be even more dangerous than previously thought. Non-smoking women appear to be more susceptible than their male counterparts.

Chang said that because more men smoke than women, women may be more likely to be exposed to secondhand smoke, even when they are classified as never-smokers

Many lung cancer cases in nonsmokers, study finds

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February 4, 2007

Researchers at UC San Francisco say lung cancers that are found incidentally during routine x-rays for other reasons, called "incidentalomas," do not usually require lung removal because they are often smaller than lung tumors found when lung cancer was already suspected.

"Not surprisingly," the investigators write, "patients with incidentally detected lung cancer had smaller cancers and earlier-stage disease." In fact, half of all patients with early disease had lung cancer detected by chance.

Lung removal often unneeded for "incidentalomas"

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