Here’s the Amount of Exercise That Lowers Breast Cancer Risk

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More than 100 studies have found that physical activity can lower breast cancer risk; the most active women tend to have a 25% lower chance of developing the disease than the least active women. But how does exercise help?

Christine Friedenreich, scientific leader of cancer epidemiology and prevention research at Alberta Health Services, and her colleagues had identified body fat as a possible pathway to lowering cancer risk. In an earlier study, they found that women exercising 225 minutes a week showed dramatic drops in total body fat, abdominal fat and other adiposity measures.

That inspired the team to examine more closely the effects of the commonly recommended 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise a week on body fat measures. They compared these effects to a doubling of that amount of activity, to 300 minutes a week, to see if more exercise had a greater effect in lowering body fat.

Reporting in JAMA Oncology, Friedenreich found that indeed, among 384 non-active women past menopause, some of whom were normal weight and others who were overweight or obese, those randomly assigned to exercise for 300 minutes a week over the year-long study lost more body fat than those who were active for 150 minutes each week. The women didn’t change their diet or any other aspect of their lives; they just exercised their allotted amount, by walking, running, cycling or using an elliptical machine or treadmill.

Overall, the women exercising 300 minutes weekly lost 1 kg—about 2.2 pounds—or 1% more body fat than those in the 150 minute group. The former also lost more abdominal fat and had a bigger drop in their waist to hip ratio. They did not, however, lose significantly more weight.

That last finding is important because many physical activity and cancer studies focus on weight as an outcome and correlate pounds lost with cancer risk. But Friedenreich wanted to specifically tease apart what physiologic effects exercise has on the body, specifically on fat, since fat levels have been linked to a higher risk of a number of cancers, including breast cancer.

While the women who exercised more saw the biggest drops in their body fat measures, those who followed the recommended amount of activity—150 minutes each week—also melted away some of their fat. But the finding suggests that more is better, and for preventing cancer, it may take more than the recommended amount of exercise to produce a benefit.

“The exercise guidelines were developed with [heart disease] outcomes in mind,” says Friedenreich. “So at that level, they can have an effect on blood pressure, cholesterol levels and waist circumference. But for cancer prevention, we may need to exercise at higher volumes. So yes, doing 150 minutes of activity a week is good, but if you can do more, then from a cancer prevention perspective, 300 minutes is better.”

The fact that exercise can lead to a drop in body fat is especially important for cancer of the breast, she says, since fatty tissue is the primary source of hormones that can drive breast cancer after menopause. Fat also plays a role in the body’s immune and inflammatory responses, both of which are also involved in cancer. “I’m sure that doctors are advising their patients to be more physically active to prevent heart disease or diabetes,” says Friedenreich. “So we’d like to add cancer to that list of chronic diseases that exercise can potentially prevent or help to lower the risk.”

This article originally appeared on Time.com.

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Magnetic Pulses to Brain May Ease Ringing in the Ears

FRIDAY, July 17, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Magnetic pulses to the brain may provide lasting relief to many people with tinnitus, new research suggests.

The nearly 45 million Americans with tinnitus hear a persistent ringing, buzzing, hissing or other sound even when there is no external sound source. Tinnitus can interfere with people’s ability to sleep or concentrate, and it is sometimes disabling, the study authors explained.

Currently, there are no proven treatments for tinnitus, the researchers said.

The new study included dozens of patients who’d had tinnitus for at least a year and underwent “transcranial magnetic stimulation” sessions on 10 consecutive workdays, receiving 2,000 magnetic pulses per session.

Tinnitus symptoms were eased for at least six months in half of the patients who received the active treatment versus a “sham” treatment, according to the study published July 16 in the journal JAMA Otolaryngology – Head & Neck Surgery.

“For some study participants, this was the first time in years that they experienced any relief in symptoms. These promising results bring us closer to developing a long-sought treatment for this condition that affects an enormous number of Americans, including many men and women who have served in our armed forces,” Robert Folmer, an associate professor of otolaryngology/head and neck surgery at Oregon Health & Science University, said in a university news release.

Folmer is also a research investigator with the National Center for Rehabilitative Auditory Research at the VA Portland Health Care System.

“The results of the joint National Center for Rehabilitative Auditory Research/OHSU study are promising for tinnitus patients everywhere,” said Melanie West, chair of the board of directors at the American Tinnitus Association.

Military veterans are at increased risk for tinnitus and it is the most common service-related disability in the VA health system, the researchers said.

Currently, the only approved use of transcranial magnetic stimulation in the United States is for treating depression.

More information

The U.S. National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders has more about tinnitus.

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Beach Sand, Not Water, More Likely to Make You Sick

FRIDAY, July 17, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Heading to the beach this weekend? A new study finds that when it comes to germs, beachgoers may have more to fear from the sand they sit on than the water they swim in.

Studies done with water and sand from Hawaiian beaches found a “higher abundance” of bacteria indicating fecal contamination — bugs such a E. coli, for example — in the sand than in the water.

In fact, “wastewater-contaminated marine beach sand may act as a chronic source of wastewater bacteria to the beach seawater,” writes a team led by Tao Yan of the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Public health experts have long known that wastewater from sewage and other sources can contaminate seawater, some days necessitating beach closures. Swimmers who come into contact with or accidentally swallow fecal-contaminated water can suffer stomach ache, diarrhea and rashes, Yan’s team noted.

However, the researchers also noted that over the past decade, scientists have been finding fecal bacteria levels in beach sand that are 10 to 100 times higher than in adjacent seawater.

To find out why that’s the case, the Hawaii scientists created laboratory simulations of beaches and seawater contaminated with sewage to observe how overall bacterial populations — including fecal bacteria that cause illness — change over time.

They obtained their sand samples from Kualoa Beach on the island of Oahu, at about a foot and a half above the high-tide line.

In the lab simulations, Yan’s team found that bacteria tended to decay much slower in the beach sand than in the water. This could explain why more fecal bacteria is typically found on the beaches than in the nearby water, the researchers said.

Why do illness-linked bacteria such as E. coli and enterococci linger longer in sand?

According to the researchers, wastewater bacteria can easily become embedded in “biofilms” within sand that “provide shelter” to bacteria. Sunlight can also deter bacteria growth, the scientists said, and sand provides these germs with some cover from sunlight, whereas shallow seawater does not.

The bottom line, according to Yan’s team: “Beach sand needs to be considered carefully in assessing its impact on water quality monitoring and public health.””

The study was published online recently in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

More information

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has more about beaches.

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Study Questions Radiation Use for ‘Low-Risk’ Prostate Cancers

FRIDAY, July 17, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Higher doses of radiation may improve survival in men with medium- and high-risk prostate cancers, but it does not do the same for those with low-risk disease, a new study suggests.

As is the case with many cancers, doctors must balance the risks and side effects of radiation therapy against its potential benefits when deciding if it’s right for a particular patient.

When it comes to prostate cancer, “surgery and radiation treatments remain equal options for men with this disease,” noted Dr. Louis Potters, chair of the department of radiation medicine at North Shore-LIJ Health System in Great Neck, N.Y.

So when is radiation warranted, and at what dose, based on the aggressiveness of the tumor?

The new study, led by radiation oncology resident Dr. Anusha Kalbasi of the University of Pennsylvania, looked at the issue using data from more than 42,000 prostate cancer patients.

Some of the men had received the standard dose of radiation, while others received higher-dose radiation.

The researchers found that every incremental increase in radiation dose was associated with a 7.8 percent decline (for those with medium-risk cancer) and 6.3 percent decline (for high-risk cancer) in the rate of death for the men from any cause.

However, the equation changed when it came to men with slower growing, “low-risk” prostate tumors. In those cases, using a higher dose of radiation made no difference in survival rates, according to the study published July 16 in JAMA Oncology.

The researchers noted that low-risk prostate cancer was the most common type of prostate cancer diagnosed in the United States in 2014, affecting about 150,000 men.

Therefore, the study “raises the provocative question of whether radiation dose reduction for patients with low-risk prostate cancer could achieve similar cure rates while avoiding the increased risk of side effects associated with higher radiation doses,” Kalbasi said in a university news release.

Study senior author Dr. Justin Bekelman, a professor of radiation oncology at the university, believes that “the dose of radiation should be personalized to the specific characteristics of the prostate tumor.”

“For some patients, personalized treatment will lower the chances of toxicity while maintaining similar survival rates; for other patients, personalized treatment will mean escalating radiation dose to achieve the highest survival while protecting normal tissues, like the bladder and rectum,” he explained in the news release.

Potters agreed. “These results allow one’s physician to consider personalized doses of radiation therapy based on the underlying nature of a patient’s cancer,” he said.

“It also begs the question of the role of any treatment for low-risk disease, where active surveillance may be the best initial approach,” Potters said. Active surveillance, often called “watchful waiting,” means that the patient is not treated but simply monitored over time to check for any suspicious changes in the prostate tumor.

Dr. Jonathan Haas is chief of radiation oncology at Winthrop-University Hospital in Mineola, N.Y. He described the new study as “excellent,” and said the field of prostate cancer care is already moving towards “more accurate [radiation] treatments and a shorter treatment time — which translates into better medicine and more convenience for the patient.”

More information

The American Cancer Society has more about prostate cancer.

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Many Obese Teens Don’t Think They’re Fat, Study Shows

FRIDAY, July 17, 2015 (HealthDay News) — A growing number of overweight and obese American teens don’t think they have a weight problem, a new study shows.

The finding is cause for concern because people have to admit they have a weight issue before they take action, the researchers noted.

“Becoming conscious of one’s excess weight is the precursor to adopting behavioral changes necessary for appropriate weight control,” wrote lead investigator Dr. Jian Zhang, an epidemiologist from the College of Public Health at Georgia Southern University.

His team analyzed data from thousands of youths aged 12 to 16 between 1988-1994 and 2007-2012 as part of the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.

After accounting for factors such as age, race/ethnicity, gender and family income, the likelihood of overweight or obese teens who acknowledged having a weight problem fell 29 percent from 1988-1994 to 2007-2012.

Weight misperception was highest among whites and lowest among blacks.

One possible reason for the finding is that people tend to compare themselves with others. The more overweight friends teens have, the more likely they are to have a positive opinion of their weight, according to the researchers.

Other possible factors: teens undergo significant changes in body appearance during puberty, definitions of overweight and obesity have changed over time, there is less social pressure on teens about weight, and there is less mental distress among teens about weight, the researchers said.

The study was published online recently in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

“The declining tendency of correctly perceiving overweight status presents a vast challenge to obesity prevention among adolescents, making the overweight and obese adolescents less motivated to actively engage in effective weight-loss behaviors,” Zhang and his colleagues said in a journal news release.

New approaches are needed to motivate and help overweight and obese teens lose weight, the researchers said.

More information

The U.S. Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion explains how to keep children at a healthy weight.

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Talk Therapy May Help Ease Insomnia, Even With Other Health Woes

FRIDAY, July 17, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Talk therapy may help treat insomnia in people with physical or mental health problems, a new study suggests.

With cognitive behavioral therapy, people talk with a therapist to identify the negative thoughts and feelings that cause them problems, and to learn ways to solve their problems, according to the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health.

Past studies have found cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia can improve sleep. But, many of those studies didn’t include people with psychiatric and medical conditions.

For the new study, researchers from Rush University Medical Center in Chicago looked at 37 previous studies. The research included nearly 2,200 people and looked at cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia in people who had depression, alcoholism and post-traumatic stress disorder and/or with medical conditions such as cancer, chronic pain and fibromyalgia.

The new analysis showed that cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia reduced insomnia symptoms and sleep disturbances. Twice as many people who received the therapy no longer had insomnia, compared to people who didn’t have the therapy, the researchers said.

Cognitive behavioral therapy was also associated with positive effects on co-existing psychiatric and medical conditions, but it showed the strongest benefit with psychiatric disorders.

This may be due to a stronger link between psychiatric disorders and insomnia, the researchers said.

The findings provide support for using talk therapy as a treatment for insomnia in people who have other psychiatric conditions, study author Jason Ong, a behavioral sleep medicine specialist at Rush University Medical Center, and colleagues concluded in a university news release.

The findings were published online July 13 in JAMA Internal Medicine.

More information

The American Academy of Family Physicians has more about insomnia.

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Why Skin Wrinkles More Around the Eyes

By Alan Mozes
HealthDay Reporter

FRIDAY, July 17, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Facial wrinkles — such as so-called “laugh lines” or “crow’s feet” — are the bane of many aging adults. Now, new research on cadavers may offer some insight into why some skin creases are more pronounced than others.

Differences in oil-secreting glands just below the skin may help explain why forehead wrinkles are shallower than wrinkles around the outer eye, according to a research team led by Yuichi Tamatsu, of Kagoshima University Graduate School of Medical and Dental Sciences in Japan.

Sebaceous glands are “microscopic glands that secrete sebum, an oily or waxy material, which lubricates the skin and protects it from water damage,” said Dr. Nitin Chauhan, a facial plastic and reconstructive surgeon and otolaryngologist at the University of Toronto.

Chauhan, who was not part of the new research, said that based on the study findings, it appears that wrinkles in the face tend to be deeper where sebaceous glands are less concentrated — namely, the outer corners of the eyes.

Chauhan also said evidence of a gland-wrinkle skin connection appeared to be confined to the top half of the face.

The study results were published in the July 1 online edition of Clinical Anatomy.

To explore factors related to facial wrinkling, the researchers examined wrinkle depth, gland density, and dermal skin density in forehead and eye region skin samples from 58 Japanese cadavers. The ages represented ranged from 20s to 90s.

The research team concluded that the more sebaceous glands present under the forehead-region skin, the shallower the wrinkles.

A lack of sebaceous glands around the outer corners of the eyes could explain why wrinkles in that area tend to be deeper than forehead creases, the researchers said.

The investigators also observed that greater gland density was associated with a thicker dermal skin layer — the second layer of skin, which lies below the sweat glands and hair follicles contained in the outer epidermis.

While the researchers said they hoped their work might ultimately pave the way for anti-wrinkle treatment development, they acknowledged that many factors in addition to gland density probably play a role in wrinkle-depth variations.

Also, the study authors cautioned that because their effort focused exclusively on Japanese skin, “it remains unknown whether lighter or darker types of skin would show similar tendencies.”

Ashani Weeraratna, an assistant professor in the molecular and cellular oncogenesis program at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, agreed with that reservation.

While “extremely interesting,” the study focuses only on tissue from embalmed cadavers “from one race of people,” she said.

“There is a wide range of wrinkling seen among races, where certain races generally have less wrinkling than others, so it is hard to imagine that [gland] differences can fully account for that,” Weeraratna said.

Chauhan, meanwhile, suggested that while the study findings do not break any new ground in the science behind skin health, they were generally “in keeping with expectations based on facial aging patterns.”

But for the time-being, she said, those genuinely interested in reducing wrinkle-risk should focus their energies on improving lifestyle habits.

“Hydration is key,” she said. Drinking plenty of fluids “is critical to skin metabolism, toxin processing, nutrient delivery and maintaining skin [elasticity].”

Chauhan also said that sun protection, a healthy diet, regular exercise and good sleep are all “important components in ensuring optimal skin metabolism, which manifests in attractive skin.”

More information

The American Academy of Dermatology has more about healthy skin care habits.

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Could That Before-Dinner Drink Make You Eat More?

By Amy Norton
HealthDay Reporter

FRIDAY, July 17, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Having a drink before dinner really may make some people eat more — by focusing the brain’s attention on food aromas, a small study suggests.

The effect is modest, and not universal, the researchers said. But the findings, reported in the July issue of the journal Obesity, may offer one explanation for the so-called “aperitif effect” — where some people feel hungrier when they imbibe.

“The joke is, every restaurant knows that if they give you a drink first, you’ll eat more,” said one of the study’s authors, Robert Considine, a professor at the Indiana University School of Medicine, in Indianapolis.

In the new study, Considine and his colleagues tried to get at the biology underlying the effect. Using MRI brain scans, they found that, on average, alcohol made a particular brain area — the hypothalamus — more focused on food aromas, versus other types of odors.

The hypothalamus produces hormones that help govern various body functions, including hunger. And alcohol, Considine said, “seemed to direct the hypothalamus to pay more attention to food.”

However, the findings don’t mean weight-watchers can’t enjoy a glass of wine with dinner, according to Martin Binks, an obesity researcher who wasn’t involved in the study.

Binks pointed to several reasons: most of the time, alcohol increased study participants’ food intake by only a small amount; one-third actually ate less; and the whole study group was in the normal-weight range.

“We know that in people who are obese, the brain tends to respond differently [to food], versus non-obese people,” said Binks, an associate professor of nutritional sciences at Texas Tech University, in Lubbock, Texas.

Even more important, Binks said, appetite and weight control are extremely complex. And if there’s one thing that’s clear, “there is no one-size-fits-all diet, or magic bullet against obesity,” he added.

“What’s important about this study,” Binks said, “is that it speaks to the complexity of appetite regulation. There are hundreds of influences on eating behavior, and this [alcohol intake] is one of them.”

For the study, the researchers had 35 healthy women visit the lab on two separate days. On one day, the women received an infusion of alcohol, and on the other, an infusion of plain saline.

The researchers then used functional MRI scans to chart blood flow in each woman’s brain as she was exposed to food aromas and other odors. Afterward, the study participants were offered lunch.

Overall, the researchers found, the women showed less brain activity in response to non-food odors after they’d received an alcohol infusion. Instead, the hypothalamus appeared more interested in food scents.

What’s more, two-thirds of the study group ate a bigger lunch after the alcohol infusion.

On the other hand, one-third ate more after the saline infusion, too, the study found.

Considine agreed that the findings illustrate the complexity of appetite regulation.

As one example, he pointed to the fact that the study included only women. That, he explained, is because men and women typically process food aromas somewhat differently — so it’s best to study the sexes separately.

“We think we’d see similar results in men, but we don’t know that yet,” he said.

Considine also agreed that people need not ban alcohol from their lives — partly because research suggests that a glass of red wine with dinner can be a heart-healthy habit.

“Our findings would not negate the potential benefits of red wine,” Considine said.

But, he added, it’s important for people watching their weight to remember, first of all, that alcohol contains a lot of calories. And for some people, it might also boost food intake.

“In general, we do a lot of absent-minded eating,” Considine pointed out. “Just be aware that alcohol might encourage that.”

Binks made a similar point. “Notice how you personally respond to alcohol. Do you eat more?” he said.

But the broader message, Binks said, is that “complex neurochemical systems” govern appetite and weight control. “That’s why it’s not as easy as ‘eat less, exercise more,’ ” he said.

More information

The Harvard School of Public Health has more on alcohol and health.

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Your Phone Knows If You’re Depressed

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Most of us are pretty attached to our phones, and researchers are starting to figure out what that connection can tell us about our health, including our mood. In fact, your phone may be able to tell if you’re depressed even better than a self-assessment of your own depression can, according to a small new study published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research.

“We found that the more time people spend on their phones, the more likely they are to be more depressed,” says David Mohr, one of the authors of the study and director of the Center for Behavioral Intervention Technologies at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. The researchers also found that spending lots of time at home was linked to depression—and that phone data like this could predict with 87% accuracy whether someone had symptoms of depression.

Northwestern researchers recruited 28 people ages 19-58 from Craigslist and souped up their smartphones with location-and-usage monitoring software. At the start of the study, they took a standardized questionnaire that measures depressive symptoms; half of the subjects had symptoms of depression, and half did not. For two weeks, the phones tracked GPS location information every five minutes and pinged the users with questions about their mood several times a day.

The phone data the researchers collected were rich: how many places the participants visited each day, how much time they spent in each of those places and how frequently they used their phones, says Sohrob Saeb, one of the study’s authors and a postdoctoral fellow and computer scientist in preventive medicine at Feinberg. The researchers then correlated this objective data with their depression test scores.

What they hoped to find was a connection between the objective markers of behavior—such as where the people were and how often they changed locations—and their depression test results. That way, the data derived from phones could become a useful way to track depression without the user having to report how they were feeling, which is often a barrier to depression treatment, says Mohr, who has studied depression for about 20 years. “One of the things that we find over and over again is that people don’t answer questions,” he says. “In apps, they’ll respond to questions for a few days and then get tired of it.”

Mohr and his team indeed found a strong correlation between these objective markers and depression. Phone data were even better than the daily questions the users answered to predict depression test results. “People who tend to spend more time in just one or two places—like people who stay at home or go to work and go back home—are more likely to have higher depression scores,” says Mohr. When a person moved around was important, too; people who stuck to a regular pattern of movement tended to be less depressed, they found. “This fits into a larger body of clinical research showing that people with mental health problems in general, their circadian rhythms get thrown off,” Mohr says. “Usually it’s looked at with sleep and activity, but here we’re seeing it also in terms of their movement through geographic space.” When people get depressed, he says, their mood may pull them off their routine.

Depressed people, too, spent an average of 68 minutes using their phones each day, while people without depression only spent about 17 minutes on their phones. The software didn’t track what people did on their phones—just whether or not they were using it. But the authors have some ideas about why they saw phone activity rise with depression. “One of the things we see when people are depressed is that people tend to start avoiding tasks or things they have to do, particularly when they’re uncomfortable,” Mohr explains. “Using the phone, going in and using an app, is kind of a distraction.”

It’s preliminary research, but Mohr hopes to add to the number of smartphone sensors and use these to subtly help manage depression and spot it more quickly, without requiring any work on behalf of the user. “Being able to get people timely treatment for depression is a critical failure point in public health right now,” Mohr says. An app that people download on their phones—without having to answer any questions—may help pinpoint their depressive states more effectively and help them get treatment.

This article originally appeared on Time.com.

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Lung Cancer Patients Who Quit Smoking Live Longer

THURSDAY, July 16, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Lung cancer patients live longer if they quit smoking around the time of their cancer diagnosis, a new study finds.

Researchers looked at 250 lung cancer patients who were smokers and were referred to a program to help them stop smoking. Fifty had recently quit smoking, and 71 had quit smoking soon after being referred to the tobacco cessation program.

Those who quit smoking shortly before or after they learned they had lung cancer lived an average of 28 months. Those who continued to smoke lived an average of 18 months, the study found.

Even patients with advanced lung cancer gained extra survival time if they quit smoking, the study in the July issue of the Journal of Thoracic Oncology showed.

The researchers also found that patients who didn’t quit smoking but continued their attempts to quit may also live longer. However, death rates for those who quit and then started smoking again were similar to those who didn’t quit.

“To our knowledge, this is one of the first studies to examine the impact of tobacco cessation on survival among lung cancer patients who participated in a mandatory assessment and automatic referral to a tobacco cessation service,” study senior author Mary Reid, director of cancer screening and survivorship, at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, N.Y., said in an institute news release.

“Establishing services to accurately screen for tobacco use and easily accessible cessation programs are essential in the cancer care setting to further improve the survival time and quality of life of patients,” Reid said.

More information

The U.S. National Cancer Institute has more about lung cancer.

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