“Congratulations!” “Er, thanks — what for?” “For beating cancer!” Congratulations are certainly due but not to me. I was just the patient; all I had to do was be on time for my many medical appointments, follow my oncologist’s instructions and avoid crowds following my chemo infusions while my immune system was recovering. The real […]
cancer
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Living with Cancer
“It may be tough to convince patients, even those with an incurable disease, that the best approach is not to kill as many cancer cells as possible but as few as necessary.” — James DeGregori and Robert Gatenby, Scientific American, August, 2019 When his wife, Nancy, was diagnosed with metastatic cancer, veteran science reporter George […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Sunshine Vitamin vs. Skin Cancer
It’s a conundrum: Ultraviolet B radiation from the sun is both the best source of vitamin D — the “sunshine vitamin” — and the the major cause of skin cancer. Get enough sun-mediated vitamin D and your’re courting melonoma; too little and the rest of your body will suffer. Vitamin D facilitates absorption of bone-building […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Cancer, Part 2: Turtles, Birds and Rabbits
Last week, we looked at some of the many reasons why the diagnosis and treatment of cancer are so difficult and controversial. A common way of illustrating the problem is the “turtle-bird-rabbit” analogy. Although it can equally well apply to breast cancer (the most common cancer in women), here I’ll discuss it in relation to […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Cancer, Part 1: The Unwinnable War
Like the War on Drugs, the $500 million War on Cancer was doomed from the get-go. In the case of drugs, you’re fighting human nature. With cancer, the opponent is an even more implacable force: evolution, which, according to British chemist Leslie Orgel, “is cleverer than you are.” We all know about the ravages of […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Snake Oil
Cannabis cures cancer. So goes the viral claim, which like most Internet-borne beliefs, is misguided, unfounded and potentially dangerous; and fueled by hope, desperation and frustration. There’s no shortage of “evidence” online. Glossy websites like www.cureyourowncancer.org offer competent-sounding (look, big words!) solutions while sites like Alternet and YouTube offer an anti-mainstream-media forum for testimonials. Before […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Cancer: Evolution While-You-Wait
Every second, some 4 million cells in each of our bodies clone themselves by copying their DNA into two new cells, each virtually identical to its parent. The process isn’t perfect, and occasionally a mutation occurs — if the process were perfect, we’d never have gotten beyond the original cell that kick-started life on Earth. […]
Posted inNews
St. Joe’s Gets Backup in Cancer Fight from Stanford
St. Joseph Hospital today announced that it will have some top-notch help in tackling cancer care, research, training and education. Stanford Medicine is partnering with St. Joe’s to provide a variety of services including telemedicine conferences with experts, training for local clinician staff and access to clinical trials. That last item could eliminate some frustrating […]