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By PEGGY PECK
MedPage Today Executive Editor
Abc News

A firestorm of controversy erupted today when a top official with the American Cancer Society let slip that the benefits of breast cancer and prostate cancer screening may have been oversold.

The epicenter of the controversy is statement by Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the ACS. Brawley made the statement in an interview with the New York Times about a Journal of the American Medical Association analysis of breast and prostate cancer screening, which raised questions about claims that screening saves lives.

Brawley said the questions raised in the journal article were legitimate, and he said the ACS was in the process of reworking its message on breast and prostate cancer screening. According to the Times report, he said the benefits of screening had been “exaggerated.”

When ABC News contacted the ACS for an interview with Brawley, it was told that he was attending a family funeral and was not available for comment.

The ACS did, however, release a prepared statement under Brawley’s name: “While the advantages of screening for some cancers have been overstated, there are advantages, especially in the case of breast, colon and cervical cancers. Mammography is effective – mammograms work and women should continue get them… The American Cancer Society stands by its recommendation that women age 40 and over should receive annual mammography, and women at high risk should talk with their doctors about when screening should begin based on their family history.”Read more…

By PEGGY PECK
MedPage Today Executive Editor
Abc News

A firestorm of controversy erupted today when a top official with the American Cancer Society let slip that the benefits of breast cancer and prostate cancer screening may have been oversold.

The epicenter of the controversy is statement by Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the ACS. Brawley made the statement in an interview with the New York Times about a Journal of the American Medical Association analysis of breast and prostate cancer screening, which raised questions about claims that screening saves lives.

Brawley said the questions raised in the journal article were legitimate, and he said the ACS was in the process of reworking its message on breast and prostate cancer screening. According to the Times report, he said the benefits of screening had been “exaggerated.”

When ABC News contacted the ACS for an interview with Brawley, it was told that he was attending a family funeral and was not available for comment.

The ACS did, however, release a prepared statement under Brawley’s name: “While the advantages of screening for some cancers have been overstated, there are advantages, especially in the case of breast, colon and cervical cancers. Mammography is effective – mammograms work and women should continue get them… The American Cancer Society stands by its recommendation that women age 40 and over should receive annual mammography, and women at high risk should talk with their doctors about when screening should begin based on their family history.”Read more…

Ear acupuncture Points alleviates back pain in pregnant women.

Ear acupuncture can help ease lower back and pelvic pain, a complaint frequently reported in pregnant women, a new study finds.

According to the study published in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology pregnant women who had pressure needles held with tape at three acupuncture points in their ears for one week are less likely to experience lower back and pelvic pain.

While the pain-free phase was confined to one or two weeks, these women reported an improved ability to function following the treatment course.

Temporary tenderness in the ear area was the only side effect reported in these women.

Scientists are optimistic that their findings will lead to the development of more sustained pain relief strategies in pregnant women in the near future.

Source Link: – http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=108910&sectionid=3510210

BBC news

The Mediterranean diet, already thought to protect against heart disease and cancer, may also help to prevent depression, Spanish researchers say.

The monounsaturated fats in olive oil are an important part of the diet

They found depression was more than 30% less likely to develop in people who followed a diet high in vegetables, fruit and cereals, and low in red meat.

They studied 10,094 healthy adults over four years, the Journal of the American Medical Association reports.

However, the team stressed additional, larger-scale studies were required.

Researchers at the Universities of Las Palmas and Navarra recruited university graduates to take part.

Dietary patterns

They completed questionnaires and the researchers calculated their adherence to the Mediterranean dietary pattern (MDP) for an average of four-and-a-half years.

Participants who had a strong adherence to the MDP tended to be male, ex-smokers, married and older individuals.

They were more active physically and showed a higher total energy intake.

The researchers identified 480 new cases of depression during the follow-up period – 156 in men and 324 in women.

They found that those with the highest adherence to the MDP were more than 30% less likely to develop depression. Read more…

BBC News

US researchers have found a way to dramatically increase the harvest of stem cells from adult tissue.

The research was done using fibroblast skin cells

It is a practical step forward in techniques to produce large numbers of stem cells without using embryos.

Using three drug-like chemicals, the team made the procedure 200 times more efficient and twice as fast, the Nature Methods journal reported.

It is hoped stem cells could one day be widely used to repair damaged tissue in diseases and after injuries.

Much of the work on stem cells has focused on those taken from embryos as they have an unlimited capacity to become any of the 220 types of cell in the human body – a so-called pluripotent state.

But this has proven controversial and some campaigners have objected to their use on the grounds that it is unethical to destroy embryos in the name of science.

The creation of stem cells from human adult skin cells was first reported in 2007 by Japanese and US researchers, opening the way for new sources of stem cells. Read more…