Colorectal Cancer

Virtual Colonoscopy May Eliminate the Current Painful, Nauseating, and Inconvenient Colonoscopy Procedure. To many of us the very word brings shudders. Colonoscopy occurs when a specialized physician inserts a long tube with a probe through your rectum and into your colon. The entire procedure lasts about 20 minutes, longer if polyps are removed. The American Cancer Society recommends everyone get a colonoscopy when they turn 50, and then every 10 years (unless polyps are discovered, then more frequent tests are needed).

If you have coronary artery disease, you have a 34% chance of also having colon cancer. Why is this so? Seems the risk factors for both are the same:

• diabetes,

• smoking,

• hyperlipidemia,

• sedentary lifestyle,

• high-fat and low-fiber diet,

• obesity, and

• hypertension

Patients who took aspirin or statins were excluded from the group, as these medications mitigate both coronary artery disease and colon cancer. The mechanism involved is probably the decrease in chronic inflammation. Chronic inflammation has been implicated in both artheroschlerosis (hardening of the arteries, or coronary artery disease) and colon neoplasms (cancers of the colon).

• American dairy milk is genetically-modified unless it’s labeled “NO rBGH”
• Genetically-engineered bovine growth hormone (rBGH) in milk increases cancer risks.

American dairy farmers inject rBGH to dairy cows to increase milk production.

Taking Vitamin D supplementation  (1000 IU-2000 IU)  by Black and white Americans would likely reduce overall cancer incidence rates by 30% for Black Americans and 10% for white Americans and increase cancer survival rates by 20-30%.

The guaiac-based FOBT, which detects blood (haemoglobin) in the faeces, is currently used to screen individuals for colorectal cancer. However, although this test is cheap and relatively easy to do, it is not very accurate and has a low clinical sensitivity and specificity since cancer is not the only cause of a positive result. Nevertheless, individuals who are positive in this test are followed-up by colonoscopy, a more expensive procedure that has some associated risks.

Use of a simple test, in addition to traditional screening tests, identifies more accurately individuals who might have colorectal cancer, according to researchers reporting online today in THE LANCET ONCOLOGY. This test, known as an immunochemical faecal occult blood test (FOBT), when used for individuals who have previously tested positive on initial screening with the more traditional guaiac FOBT, "could decrease substantially the number of false positives in a screening programme for colorectal cancer.

Article Date: 07 Jan 2006

A study concerning Vitamin D appears in the current online edition of the American Journal of Public Health, and will appear in the February 2006 print edition, citing a possible link between cancers and insufficient Vitamin D.