Cancer claims and reality

Posted on January 29, 2011 by Michael

Yahoo! Health has a short article up that I just love. It helps to demonstrate some of the points I’ve recently been making about how science works, and it makes a good example of how easily misinformation can spread among the lay population when there isn’t proper follow-up into the reality of the evidence.

Antiperspirant and Deodorant

The link: A decade ago, an E-mail warning women that using antiperspirant could cause breast cancer went viral. Since then, some research has suggested that aluminum in antiperspirants and preservatives called parabens in both antiperspirants and deodorants mimic the hormone estrogen, which in high amounts can increase a woman’s breast cancer risk.

The reality: There is no evidence that antiperspirants or deodorants cause cancer. Although a 2004 study heightened concern when researchers found parabens in breast cancer tissue samples, suggesting the chemicals may have caused the tumors, the investigators did not check for the presence of parabens in healthy tissue. Evidence suggests that 99 percent of us are exposed to parabens from numerous sources, including various cosmetics and foods, according to the American Cancer Society. Little evidence indicates they may be harmful. The organization says more study is needed to be certain that there is no risk. A 2002 study of hundreds of women with and without breast cancer, found no sign the antiperspirants or deodorants upped cancer risk.

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Tasmanian devils may go extinct

Posted on January 22, 2011 by Michael

Just over a year ago I wrote about the facial cancer that has been so deeply afflicting the Tasmanian devil population. Things have only become worse.

Tasmanian devil cancer is threatening to wipe out the entire species, and researchers say there are only around 2,000 left in the wild, according to Scientific American.

An infectious type of cancer called devil facial tumor disease first appeared in 1996 and has killed off 90 percent of the population of the famed carnivorous marsupial.

Scientific American notes that in the last nine months, the cancer die-offs have increased from 70 to 90 percent of the population, leaving researchers with no other choice than to fear the worst.

As I wrote last year (in this post), the disease ought to be considered a separate organism, free to undergo its own evolution. That’s exactly what has happened.

And to make matters worse, the cancer has turned into 13 different strains since it was first spotted, Sky News reports.

“The disease itself is a living organism and it wants to stay alive and it fights to stay alive,” David Schapp, a breeder at a Tasmanian devil facility, told Sky. “So when it meets devils that show some form of resistance to it, the disease evolves and changes so it gets to live and continue.”

This certainly is not the first time cancer has acted this way, but that doesn’t mean this is any less horrific. The most likely way the Tasmanian devil is going to be saved will be through human intervention. Fortunately, that is exactly what is in the works with the creation of temporary habitats. It isn’t the most ideal situation, but it is the best solution.

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The rising cost of cancer

Posted on January 12, 2011 by Michael

Cancer costs more and more every year for a couple of key reasons. First, people are always getting tested and diagnosed at higher rates. This is a big reason why cancer rates were seemingly so low just 100 years ago. Second, cancer is most prevalent as we age. As the baby boomers grow older, we are going to find more and more incidences of cancer. (There are, of course, more reasons, including inflation and other economic factors.)

Government researchers have recently figured several estimates for the cost of cancer care in 2020. They include:

* Using data from a 2005 national database, the team estimated medical costs associated with cancer were $127.6 billion in 2010.

* Assuming stable costs and survival rates, cancer costs will reach $158 billion in 2020.

* If the costs of cancer diagnostic tests and treatments rise 2 percent per year, the cost of treating cancer could rise to $173 billion by 2020.

* If treatment costs rise 5 percent per year, treating cancer in the United States could jump to $207 billion a year.

* In 2010, breast cancer was the most costly to treat at an estimated $16.5 billion, followed by colorectal cancer at $14 billion, lymphoma at $12 billion, lung cancer at $12 billion and prostate cancer at $12 billion.

* If cancer incidence and survival rates remain stable, the number of cancer survivors in 2020 will increase by 31 percent to about 18.1 million.

* Because of the aging of the U.S. population, the largest increase in cancer survivors over the next 10 years will be among Americans age 65 and older.

Short of a cure, the best way we can reduce these numbers will be to do all we can to avoid known carcinogens. That means doing everything we can to limit smoking. (I favor an outright ban.) It means discouraging tanning booths. (I favor an outright ban.) It means encouraging people to use sunscreen. (A requirement would be far from anything practical, thus I do not favor it.) It means getting kids to eat healthier. It means getting adults to eat healthier. It means doing a whole lot of things we all know we ought to be doing.

I expect a continued rise in costs.

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2010: FTSOS in review, July to September

Posted on December 30, 2010 by Michael

This is the third installment of the 2010 review of FTSOS. See the first two here and here.

July:
Some of the smaller posts I’ve made that I think deserve a little more attention are the ones where I emphasize that biology is all about shape. The article I wrote about the fight against HIV is one of those posts. Research earlier this year found at least one location on HIV molecules that remains a consistent shape between individual viruses. This is important because HIV’s ability to be differently shaped in different parts of a single body makes it difficult to combat.

I also wrote about the difference between atheists, new atheists, and anti-theists. One of the public relation problems for atheism is that it is viewed as a dirty word. People assume it means absolute certainty, and that is seen as arrogant. It’s ironic because belief in God usually comes with certainty and that isn’t seen as being so arrogant, but I digress. Atheism is not certainty. Furthermore, where it is involved in new atheism and anti-theism, atheism acts as a descriptive base; new atheism and anti-theism are normative positions.

One of my all-time favorite posts is the one about photolyase and cancer. Photolyase is a protein that captures light and uses two of its constituents (a single proton and single electron) to force contorted nucleotides back into place. It is not present in humans, but is common in plants and other animals, helping to keep their genes functioning properly. This may be one reason we’re more susceptible to cancer than many of our fellow organisms.

August:
This was a skimpy month for FTSOS. I was away on a couple vacations for the bulk of the month, so the majority of the posts were either from my “Thought of the day” series or they were pictures/YouTube videos. But for what was there, I couldn’t resist pointing out and expanding on a fantastic quote from the judge who said Prop 8 in California is unconstitutional. In his quote he said a ban on gays getting married fails to advance any rational cause. I compared that sentiment to the idea that the majority cannot be allowed to discriminate simply because it is the majority.

I also made a post about a website devoted to philosophical thought experiments. The thought experiment I chose to highlight was Judith Jarvis Thompson’s Trolley Problem. My big motivator was a recent discussion with another blogger who laughably claimed that the trolley experiment was merely a logistical exercise, not an exercise about morality. To date he is still the only person in the world to believe that.

I also went through a few theistic arguments that are obviously failures. The most notable in my mind is the argument that says everything has a cause, therefore the Universe had a cause. There are two major problems with this. First, then why not just say a sort of ‘exo-nature’ caused the Universe? There is no need for consciousness – in fact, that only makes the theistic argument less probable. Second, the whole basis for this argument rests in the idea that forces result in reactions. For instance, if I push a chair, that chair moves; I applied a force. This is basic physics. But the whole shebang of forces and equal and opposite reactions? We’re talking about the science of what we know that happens within the Universe. And all we know necessarily breaks down prior to the Big Bang. The First Cause argument cannot be used because it rests about an unwarranted extension of science. Religion abusing science? Crazy, I know.

September:
The beginning of September was just as skimpy as the end of August because I was still on vacation. But while I never gave a huge post on the subject, the defining moment of the month (and year and decade and…) for me was my hike of Kilimanjaro. I have started writing about it at this point – just not for FTSOS. But in lieu of that you can read the account of the journey from my fellow group member and current Facebook buddy Jim Hodgson.

I also gave a very lengthy post on why prostitution ought to be legal. No one seemed to care, but I put a lot of effort into, so I thought I would mention it here. Basically, we make the practice illegal because of our own discomfort with sex as a society. We also draw false correlations between it and other illegal activities: of course one illegal thing will bring with it other illegal things if it’s something people want. Finally, for the safety and health of all involved, it would be better to legalize and regulate prostitution than keep the old system we have now.

One of the most popular posts on FTSOS that people found via search engines was the one where I lamented low science and math scores in the United States. A lack of funding relative to other areas, hostility towards science, and a general anti-intellectual trend in the U.S. all contribute to the decline of America on the world stage in education.

Another lament was my post about the anti-vax crowd causing deaths. The fact is, people who advocate against vaccines or for made-up alternatives to vaccines are making the world a more dangerous place, making people sick and even causing deaths. Get vaccinated – and, if you have them, especially get your children vaccinated.

Once again I really want to highlight a fourth post here. In this case, it is the one I made about the Problem of Evil. This has forever been an issue that no Christian (or other relevant believer) has been able to resolve. If God is good and evil exists, then we need to answer why. Appealing to free will fails because while God is necessarily good, free will does not need to necessarily exist. In other words, God is required to be good; he is not required to create free will.

Expect October to December tomorrow.

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Thought of the day

Posted on November 17, 2010 by Michael
  • Introduction to Philosophy ought to become a required course at the high school level.
  • Everyone ought to make an effort to learn the basics of the biology of cancer.

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Hitchens and cancer

Posted on November 6, 2010 by Michael

I always find cases of cancer to be quite sad – hence my often visceral reactions to those who undermine its treatment – and Christopher Hitchen’s case is no different. Fortunately, he still cares about how he can impact the world; it matters. His writing since learning of his disease has been nothing but superb, and while a bit of an emotional take-down, to say the utter least, he brings his audience face-to-face with reality – just like we ought to expect from an outspoken atheist.

So I get straight to the point and say what the odds are. The swiftest way of doing this is to note that the thing about Stage Four is that there is no such thing as Stage Five. Quite rightly, some people take me up on it. I recently had to accept that I wasn’t going to be able to attend my niece’s wedding, in my old hometown and former university in Oxford. This depressed me for more than one reason, and an especially close friend inquired, “Is it that you’re afraid you’ll never see England again?” As it happens he was exactly right to ask, and it had been precisely that which had been bothering me, but I was unreasonably shocked by his bluntness. I’ll do the facing of hard facts, thanks. Don’t you be doing it, too. And yet I had absolutely invited the question. Telling someone else, with deliberate realism, that once I’d had a few more scans and treatments I might be told by the doctors that things from now on could be mainly a matter of “management,” I again had the wind knocked out of me when she said, “Yes, I suppose a time comes when you have to consider letting go.” How true, and how crisp a summary of what I had just said myself. But again there was the unreasonable urge to have a kind of monopoly on, or a sort of veto over, what was actually sayable. Cancer victimhood contains a permanent temptation to be self-centered and even solipsistic.

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Sunny cream

Posted on September 11, 2010 by Michael

As my guide in Africa frequently said, bring much sunny cream. It’s going to protect against both sunburns and cancer. (Get the stuff with UVB and UVA protection.)

If anyone is wondering, yes, I’ve been trawling a few random naturopath sites. I find it extremely disheartening that these evil little quacks are so eager to increase the rate of cancer by discouraging the use of sun lotion. I’m sure a few wouldn’t mind having more ‘patients’ to abuse financially, but I think the majority of them just hate science so much that they’re willing to do anything so long as it builds up their anti-science street cred among fellow quacks.

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Christopher Hitchens

Posted on August 10, 2010 by Michael

I find the attempt to sound ever so buddy-buddy with Christopher Hitchens by referring to him as “Hitch” on the Internet rather insufferable. His realistic demeanor, however, is delightful, even if based in misfortune.

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Americans aren’t using sunscreen

Posted on August 4, 2010 by Michael

…thereby raising their risk of cancer.

Despite the attention of the healthcare industry on the role of sunscreen in preventing skin cancer, about 40 percent of Americans never apply sunscreen at all before going out and only 9 percent wear it everyday, the poll of 1,004 people, showed.

One of the regions with the lowest use of sunscreen was the South, where 46 percent of people said they never using sunscreen at all during the summer. The age group with the lowest rate of sunscreen use was 18- to 29-year-olds at four percent.

Men were also much more likely not to use sunscreen before going outside with 48 percent saying they do not wear it at all.

The biggest factor in the lack of sunscreen use, I suspect, is laziness. It’s a pain to put on every time one goes outside. Then there’s the fact that people don’t want to smell like the stuff all day. And, as the article cites, income gaps contribute as well. Unfortunately, that isn’t where it ends. There are also quacks who say irresponsible things like this.

First of all: realize that sunscreen blocks all UV activity to the skin. Your skin provides countless functions not least of which is the absorption and manufacture of the steroid vitamin D. Any sunblock chemicals used in moisturizers, lip balm, and make-up should be eliminated if vitamin D levels are to be properly maintained.

The ineffectiveness of sunblock chemicals has been known for over a decade. Even though it is clear that the use of sunblock does effectively prevent sunburns, the prevention of skin cancers has not been found in the research. Furthermore, it is now clear that at least some of the chemicals in sunblock cause cancer changes in the skin.

This is Richard Maurer, naturopath. I don’t think I need to go much further in explaining his quackeriness. Unfortunately, this sort of vitamin D obsession is common with the alt med crowd. They take something good and go all after it. I suspect part of the reason has to do with the ease in which they can recommend it since they are limited in just what they can prescribe, but it’s also probably partially that many big drug companies don’t have vitamin D as a major focus. If those guys aren’t pushing it, well, it must work, right? Evidenced be damned. (For the record, I’ve never read where Christopher Maloney has excessively pushed vitamin D or recommended against basic skin protection; the problem is still common with the alt med crowd, but that doesn’t mean it is universal.)

Wear sun block.

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Photolyase and cancer

Posted on July 28, 2010 by Michael

Upon arriving at the beach yesterday, I lathered on the sun screen. Being relatively fair-skinned, I’ve learned my lesson in forgetting or not using enough of the stuff, and I wasn’t about to get all burned up. I don’t like eating lobster; I certainly don’t want to look like one.

But that isn’t the only reason I throw the stuff on so heavily. I’m also well aware of the tenacity and, if such a word is appropriate, vulgarity of cancer. Tanning is just a bad idea unless someone really wants to be diseased. It may look good (and not always), but I doubt that has ever brought solace to any cancer patients. Laying out in the sun without protection (as I saw a few people doing all day – it was at least 85 F, not a cloud in the sky) or jumping in one of those tanning cancer tubes is a sure-fire way to cause potentially deadly somatic cell mutations.

The way this works is that UV light slaps into the double helix structure of DNA causing an incorrect fusion in base pairs on the same side of the helix. Imagine – and apologies for the violence of it all – getting punched in the mouth. Instead of your teeth vertically matching as they do now (at least relatively), a couple teeth on the bottom row are now horizontal and facing each other. This calls for a dentist.

Different organisms have different mechanisms (dentists) for correcting damaged DNA. Naked mole rats, for example, have two genes for contact inhibition instead of the single gene virtually all other mammals have. This has resulted in no one ever recording an instance of cancer in the ugly little critters. If humans had this mechanism, cancer probably wouldn’t be nearly the problem it is.

Instead we get a number of repair mechanisms, chief among them base excision, nucleotide excision, and mismatch repair. (The mechanism in naked mole rats doesn’t repair mutated cells; it merely stops them from proliferating.) Unfortunately, the repair fidelity, just like the copying fidelity, of DNA is not perfect. Mistakes are made, mistakes are missed. We get cancer.

Part of our plight arises from something we’ve lost over evolutionary time. Most plants and other animals have a protein called photolyase which specifically seeks out UV damaged DNA.

Researchers at Ohio State University were recently able to observe exactly how photolyases perform their protective duty. The photolyase protein captures energy from visible light and uses it to project a single proton and a single electron towards a dimer in DNA. The two tiny particles then initiate a series of reactions that knock the contorted nucleotides back into place across the ladder, without needing to remove them like normal human proteins do. A proton and electron finally return to the photolyase protein, presumably so it can dash off to fix the next dimer it finds.

In other words, this dentist isn’t very gentle. He just punches your contorted teeth back into position. (Okay, it’s more elegant than that, but I had to finish the analogy.)

The article goes on to speculate as to the potential utilization of this protein in humans.

Given that photolyases were lost in evolution, it was possible that other proteins in the cell that allowed photolyases to do their job were also lost. But mice that were given the gene for the photolyase protein showed remarkable protection from UV damage. This means that in mice, the rest of the cellular infrastructure that photolyases need is still there. Chances are good that it’s there for humans as well.

There are other instances of mice being able to utilize genes not otherwise found in them, almost as if they’ve had them all along. For example, when injected with snippets of DNA for making red photo-pigment, normally dichromatic mice suddenly had trichromatic vision. This indicates an earlier evolved ability to see colors in the mammalian line that was later lost. In all likelihood, the appropriate gene(s) was probably just turned off out of a lack of need, leaving in place much of the cellular machinery needed to utilize red photo-pigment. I suspect the same is true with photolyase. If this can be extended to humans, a significant leap in the fight against many skin cancers may be on the horizon.

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