Cancer isn’t something I’m thrilled about, but the latest buzz on Health news has cancer on top of its list.
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The rates of new cancer cases and deaths have been falling modestly each year. The rate of new cancer diagnoses fell by slightly less than 1% a year from 1999 to 2006, and the death rate fell by 1.6% a year, says the report from the American Cancer Society, the National Cancer Institute, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries.
When it came to new cases of breast cancer, the rate of detection has fallen slightly faster (2% per year).This could mean fewer women develop the disease; or it could mean that there is a drop in the number of women coming in for mammograms.
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After fresh medical evidence suggesting that loneliness is contagious, here comes fresh evidence that adds weight to suggestions that loneliness makes cancer both more likely and deadly. The rodents in the study that were kept alone were found to have developed tumors of the more deadly type than those rodents living with a group. Knowing this may help identify potential cancer patients for intervention and reduce cancer.
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Men have breasts, too. Ergo, men can develop breast cancer, too. Although rare,
some men may be at greater risk than others of getting cancer – those who carry the breast cancer gene, for example, or who have been exposed to radiation in the chest. And because men aren’t routinely screened for breast cancer, and aren’t often encouraged to perform self-exams, their cancers are usually more advanced by the time they’re diagnosed. So while breast cancer is much more unusual in men than in women, it’s also deadlier.
The good news though, is that since male breasts are less dense than in women, cancerous tissue is more obvious and easier to detect.
Lesson? Men need to check for breast cancer, too.
This post is tagged cancer, loneliness, male breast cancer
