Are My Relatives at Risk for Developing My Type of Cancer?

Only some cancers run in families. Many cancers do not occur with increased frequency in relatives of people with that type of cancer. Ask your doctor whether your relatives are at any increased risk for certain cancers because of your history of cancer.

Should My Family Members Tell Their Doctors about My Cancer?

It is a good idea for your relatives to notify their doctors of your history, because

•as medical knowledge about family risk changes, your relatives’ doctors will already be aware of your history

•your relatives’ doctors will be more sensitive to your relatives’ concerns about symptoms or tests

•your relatives’ doctors can encourage them to follow the cancer prevention recommendations

•your relatives’ doctors can modify the recommendations regarding prevention and screening where indicated

If My Cancer Tends to Run in Families, Is There Some Way to Prevent My Relatives from Feeling like Sitting Ducks?

Yes. Although their risk may be increased, even significantly, there is much they can do

•to prevent certain types of cancer •to detect cancer early

•to have hope in the availability of safe and effective treatment, if they need it

•to live with the uncertainty

Cervical and colon cancer are examples of cancers that are preventable if people at risk have routine screening. Breast cancer, colon cancer, and melanoma are examples of cancers that are very curable if detected and treated early.

Knowledge of family risk can ruin one’s quality of life if it causes a sense of hopelessness; knowledge of family risk empowers if it is used to maximize prevention and early detection.

*42/32/5*

---

Posted by admin on March 12th, 2009 :: Filed under Cancer
Tags :: Cancer

---

What Are Antioxidants?

Antioxidants are micronutrients (substances found in tiny amounts) that serve as the body’s primary defense against free radicals and reactive oxygen molecules (two by-products of normal metabolism that are thought to cause damage to normal cells, possibly predisposing the damaged cells to become cancerous). If free radicals trigger the early changes of cancer, then antioxidants would protect patients by mopping up these free radicals. Antioxidants include

• carotenoids

• beta-carotenes

• vitamin С

• vitamin E

Selenium is an essential component of antioxidant enzymes.

What Are the Facts regarding Antioxidants as Protection against Cancer?

Animal studies suggest a protective role for antioxidants in the fight against various types of cancer, particularly lung and epithelial cancers. We cannot draw conclusions about humans on the basis of animal studies. The results from animal studies help us proceed to human studies in a safe and expeditious manner. Human studies have shown an association between

•a diet low in carotenoids and an increased risk of lung cancer

•a diet low in vitamin С and an increased risk of oral, esophageal, and stomach cancer

•a diet high in vitamin С and beta-carotene and a decreased risk of cervical dysplasia and oral leukoplakia

•a diet high in vitamin С and a protective effect against cancers of the esophagus, mouth, stomach, pancreas, cervix, rectum, breast, and possibly lung

•low blood levels of beta-carotene and an increased risk of lung cancer

•low blood levels of vitamin С and an increased risk of stomach cancer

These and other data certainly suggest that antioxidants protect against some types of cancer. Well-designed human studies are under way to determine definitively which antioxidants in what dose and form guard against which specific cancers.

*32/32/5*

---

Posted by admin on March 12th, 2009 :: Filed under Cancer
Tags :: Cancer

---

With time and practice, you can learn to lessen worries about left over cancer cells. Some techniques that will help include

•learning to view cancer cells as the weak, abnormal cells that they are

•learning to regard your body as possessing powerful defenses against cancer cells (this is hard to do soon after cancer treatment: after all, your body allowed the cancer to grow in the first place, and it is weak from treatments)

• focusing on efforts to keep your body healthy and strong •concentrating on increasing your capacity for acceptance and hope, and decreasing your need for control and perfection

•learning to accept that this is an uncertainty with which you will have to live

We have learned from people who live long lives with certain types of incurable cancer that the threat to their health and life came less from their persistent cancer than from normal age-related changes and illnesses. Even though they had known cancer, their cancer had little effect on their life or longevity unless they let the knowledge of their cancer affect them emotionally in a negative way.

Remind yourself of the patient who was successfully treated for cancer and spent the next forty years physically healthy but worried sick about a possible recurrence. At the age of ninety-eight the patient said, “I guess 1 really was in remission all these years. I spoiled what could have been forty wonderful years worrying about something that never happened.”

Do not lose today by worrying about something you can never know (whether or not you have any leftover cancer cells) or about something that may never happen (recurrence).

*23/32/5*

---

Posted by admin on March 12th, 2009 :: Filed under Cancer
Tags :: Cancer

---

Your doctor wants you to do well physically and emotionally. Doctors expect people to get second and third opinions when people feel the need. Doctors are professionals whose work routinely involves getting and giving second opinions.

You may feel more concerned about your doctor’s feelings when you go for a second opinion after completing treatment than after your original diagnosis. After all, your doctor has invested time, energy, and emotions to help get you where you are. You do not want your actions to be interpreted as an expression of lack of satisfaction or trust.

Second opinions are part of cancer survivorship. You have a right to be as sure as possible about decisions that affect your life.

If you sense disapproval on the part of your doctor for your desiring a second opinion, step back and see whether you are perhaps interpreting your self-consciousness as your doctor’s disapproval. If you are sure that your doctor is unhappy about your getting another opinion, consider switching doctors. It is a red flag when your doctor urges you not to get a second opinion or threatens to stop caring for you if you do. This is an especially difficult situation if you live in a small town with only one or two available oncologists.

If you find yourself going from doctor to doctor, never feeling satisfied with the advice you are receiving, get professional counseling to help you learn how to assess your options and make decisions about your care.

*13/32/5*

---

Posted by admin on March 12th, 2009 :: Filed under Cancer
Tags :: Cancer

---

How Long after I Receive Ну Last Cancer Treatment Will the Treatment Kill Cancer Cells (Have an Antitumor Effect)?

Depending on what kind of cancer you had, and what kind of therapy you had, your treatments can continue to have an effect on cancer cells for weeks to months. This activity against cancer cells is the “antitumor effect.”

Surgery itself has no further effect on your cancer once the operation is complete. However, the physical changes that accompany removing a cancer from the body and healing from the surgery may have an antitumor effect in some people. There is reason to believe that for some people the stimulation of the immune system during the healing process after surgery may also have an antitumor effect.

Chemotherapy continues to work for days to weeks after the drug is given. That is one of the reasons why the doses are spaced out over time.

Radiation therapy continues to have an antitumor effect for weeks after the last dose is given.

Immunotherapy continues to work over days to weeks—and possibly months to years, if it causes a self-perpetuating change in your immune system.

The exact duration of the antitumor effect is not predictable, but it can be estimated on the basis of

• the type of cancer

• the type of therapy

• the presence of concurrent therapy

• the duration and intensity of cancer therapy

• your body’s response to the cancer therapy

• your nutritional and circulation status

Do I Really Need to Have All of These Tests?

These tests are needed to determine whether you have received enough treatment and to be sure that no new problems are developing. Getting accurate information and making good decisions after treatment is just as important as doing so before treatment, as far as your long-term health goes.

What about the Risk to Me from Getting All These Scans and X Rays?

Your recent cancer poses a clear and present danger to your health. Making the best treatment decisions on the basis of complete and accurate information is critical to maximizing your health. Your risks from the X-ray exposure are far less than the risks of not evaluating adequately your cancer situation.

X rays should not be taken indiscriminately. You can minimize your exposure to X rays when there are acceptable alternative ways of getting the same information, such as sonograms. When you have doubts about the necessity of an X ray, ask your doctor

• what information will be obtained from the X ray

• how the information gained will affect your decision making

• whether you can get the same information without X rays

*3/32/5*

---

Posted by admin on March 12th, 2009 :: Filed under Cancer
Tags :: Cancer

---

Little girls want to please, they work for love and approval, if bright they under-estimate their competence. Little boys show more task involvement, more confidence’, Hoffman stated categorically only ten years ago. He based his opinion on the belief that boys had a greater ‘need’ to achieve, and were more inclined towards achievement for its own sake. Because of this, it was claimed that boys were less cautious and explored more, that they showed a greater involvement in a task and persisted at the task longer. Girls, on the other hand, it was said, only achieved well in matters relating to persons, and they did it to please others rather than for the sake of the task itself. They also had a low self-confidence about achieving. There is no truth in these beliefs. Girls, in childhood, are as self-confident and have as much self-satisfaction as boys.

• There is probably no truth in the belief that there is a difference in the general temperament of the two sexes. There is a suggestion that very small boys (under the age of 2|) are more active than girls, but after this age the difference disappears. Both sexes cry as much, at least up to the age of 3, when parents teach boys not to cry. This means that to conform to what a boy should do, a boy has to bottle up his emotions. This, in turn, may be the reason for the finding that boys react more strongly and loudly to a situation in which they are frustrated and that they lie more easily than girls.

Girls are said to be more timid and anxious, but there is no evidence that this is so, at least until the age of 9. After this, girls do appear to be more fearful. It is doubtful if this is due to an ‘innate’ character failure. It is more likely to be due to the fact that girls are taught by parents to fear sexual molestation, and that boys have learned to lie to hide any fear, because it is ‘unboyish’ to be afraid. Some child psychologists are concerned we may be damaging the emotional health of males by our insistence that boys hide their emotions, lie about fear, and react more fiercely to frustration.

Girls are said to be more nurturant than men, that is they are more likely to give aid or help to others, especially those who are younger, weaker, or damaged in some way. It is true that girls and women do undertake the care of babies and children more often than do boys and men, and more often care for elderly relatives than do men. But the evidence is that this nurturant behaviour occurs because of circumstances, and that in special circumstances men can be as nurturant as women. Biologically, women are better equipped to care for babies, as only a woman can give breast milk to the infant; but in single-parent families, men cope with child care as efficiently as women. Socially, women are taught to believe that the care of elderly relatives is their duty – some sacrificing their happiness for the whims and obsessions of a demanding widowed parent – but when men are forced into a similar position they cope equally well.

A small difference in care-taking roles is found in monkeys and may apply to humans, although there is no definite evidence. This is that female monkeys respond more rapidly to care-taking needs than males. Male monkeys take longer to accept the care of infants, but once they accept the infant, they care for it in exactly the same way as do females. This could be because the pre-natal conditioning by the male animal’s brain tracts by testosterone makes it slower to respond. In other words, a male may have a higher ‘threshold’ to nurturant activities, but we do not know to what extent this applies to humans.

*9/16/113*

---

Posted by admin on March 11th, 2009 :: Filed under Men's Health-Erectile Dysfunction

---

For most adolescents, however, the influence of parents and of peers overlaps. In most cases the values of parents and peers are not very different, and the differences tend to be superficial. The adolescent may dress and behave in a bizarre, unconventional way, but he continues to hold many of his parents’ values, rejecting only a few. But if the parents are authoritarian, or ignore him, he may reject their beliefs and adopt those of his peers.

The psychological adjustment to adolescence is complex, and often difficult, both for the adolescent himself and for his family. The adolescent has to adjust to the physical changes in himself and to the demands of his culture and the society in which he lives. As well as this he has to make decisions about whether he will conform to his parents’ expectations or reject them.

He has to decide who he is, what he wants to be, where he is going, and how he can get there. In this age of uncertainty, of corporate and governmental dishonesty, of instant television images and influences, of unresolved problems and conflicts, it is not surprising that the adolescent appears to be more ready to reject than to accept many conventional values. Most adolescents, in fact, accept many of their parents’ beliefs and behaviours, but this generation is more concerned than their parents’ generation with such qualities as tolerance, honesty, friendship, and love, and less with status-seeking, acquisition of money, and competition. Many of them believe that only through a critical reassessment of conventional wisdom, rather than its uncritical acceptance, will mankind survive in the unstable world of today.

*46/16/113*

---

Posted by admin on March 11th, 2009 :: Filed under Men's Health-Erectile Dysfunction

---

Parents often worry either when the boy is a baby, or at puberty, that his testicles are not normal. This anxiety increases if they believe that he will develop abnormally and be unable to father children. Their anxiety may communicate itself to the boy and can cause considerable psychological stress.

In over 99 per cent of boys the testicles can be felt in the scrotum either at birth or within a few weeks, but they may be drawn up out of the scrotum by cold or by crying, so that it may appear empty. If a boy’s testicles are ‘undescended’, it is important that this should be detected before his first birthday. An examination should be made by the doctor at the time of the baby’s birth. If testicles are not found in his scrotum, he should be re-examined 6 to 8 weeks later, and if they are still not in his scrotum, again when he is about 9 months old.

Baby boys – about 8 in every 1000 – whose testicles are not found in their scrotum by the first birthday require an operation to bring them down and fix them in the scrotum, so that they grow normally and function properly after puberty. The operation is usually done before the boy is 5 years old.

Until puberty the testicles remain small, when, between the age of 12 and 17, a spurt of growth enlarges them. Many parents (and some boys) are unaware that there is such a wide age range during which the testicles may grow, and become unduly concerned if they think that the testicles are smaller than they should be.

*37/16/113*

---

Posted by admin on March 11th, 2009 :: Filed under Men's Health-Erectile Dysfunction

---

Society can choose to maximize or to minimize the differences between the sexes. Should we emphasize the differences by encouraging male aggressiveness and competitiveness, by demanding female subordination and compliance, and by confining women (as much as we can) to their nurturant role? This was the ideal of

Hitlerian Germany. Men did the proper work, a woman’s place was defined by Kinder, Kuche, Kirche – children, kitchen, Church.

Or should we minimize the differences, by discouraging male aggression and encouraging male nurturing activities? For example, now that women have fewer children and the time they need to devote to child-rearing is less, should not women be encouraged to compete equally with men for jobs? It is accepted that men are more competitive than women, but the difference is weak and could be due to the fact that girls are trained to avoid competition with men as they fear they will appear less feminine.

*28/16/113*

---

Posted by admin on March 11th, 2009 :: Filed under Men's Health-Erectile Dysfunction

---

The investigations of these individuals suggest that perhaps testosterone has a stronger role in developing a gender-identity than John Money thought. Their ‘sex changes’ suggest that testosterone in pre-natal life may sensitize the brain circuits concerned with gender-identity, and if this is followed at puberty by the testosterone surge which occurs in genetic males who have testicles, a male gender-identity will be activated, and a male gender-identity will be confirmed.

There are problems about this theory, as the Dominican individuals’ genitals were not identical with those of a girl, but only resembled a girl’s vulva, and the children may have been treated in such a way that the parents expressed doubt about their gender-identity. Moreover, in their society there are considerable advantages in being a man, and when a choice appeared the individuals would have opted to be identified as males, to be able to pursue masculine activities.

Males seem to have greater difficulty in establishing an exact, clearly defined gender-identity than females. This is suggested by the fact that there are more male homosexuals than there are female homosexuals. It is also suggested by the observation that exhibitionists, voyeurs, and narratophiliacs are rarely women. A male exhibitionist is only able to become aroused sexually if he exposes his penis to a shocked female who flees from the sight. A voyeur only gets his sexual ‘kicks’ by spying on a woman as she undresses. A narratophiliac only gets sexual arousal and can only reach orgasm while talking in a ‘dirty’ sexual manner over the telephone to a woman who usually does not know his identity. There may also be a sex difference in the way men and women are sexually excited, although this is now disputed. More men appear to be sexually aroused by vision than women; more women appear to be sexually aroused by touch than men. More boys than girls masturbate in adolescence, and more fantasize about visual images during masturbation, or have visual images during wet dreams.

Recent research casts doubts on the sex differences in sexual arousal. It has been found that many women are sexually excited by the sight of an attractive man, and many men are more aroused by body contact with their lover than by the way she looks.

*18/16/113*

---

Posted by admin on March 11th, 2009 :: Filed under Men's Health-Erectile Dysfunction

---