Archive for August, 2009

Cancer research: Virus that causes cervical cancer also causes penile cancer

Not too many people have heard of penile cancer, that is, cancer that affects the penis; and it is rare, with only around 1% of total cancer cases in the United States and Europe being those of penile cancer. The cancer can cause mutilations, and affects a higher number (upto 10% of all cancer patients) in certain parts of Africa and Asia. Penile cancer starts at the tip (also called the glans) of the penis, and spreads from there. Some of the common symptons of penile cancer include:
* A wart-like growth or lesion
* An open sore that won’t heal
* A reddish rash
* Persistent, smelly discharge under the foreskin
The good news is that research has establised that the virus that causes cervical cancer also causes at least half of penile cancer cases, and hence, the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, used against cervical cancer, can also be used against penile cancers (link to article):

Dr. Silvia de Sanjose and colleagues reviewed cases of penile cancer reported in clinical studies between 1986 and 2008 and found 46.9 percent of tumors were associated with HPV.
Nearly all of these were linked to HPV strains 16 and 18, the two types that most commonly cause cervical cancer and which are targeted by Gardasil and Cervarix, they wrote in the Journal of Clinical Pathology.
Merck reported results of a clinical trial last November showing that Gardasil was effective in preventing lesions caused by the virus in men.

Finding that an existing medicine can be used in the fight against cancer is always great news.

| More

If you found this post informative, why not sign up to receive new posts ?
It's simple, and free, and you can even opt to receive by email:
Subscribe in a reader
Subscribe to Good Health Tips by Email

Foods for losing weight – Link to external article

A lot of us would have heard or read about miracle foods, food that can help you lose weight, or even foods that take more energy to eat than the calories you get from such foods. However, it is difficult to construct a diet from such foods, since there are almost no nutritional values to be derived from a diet heavy in such foods. Celery is one such example. Doctors and nutritional experts always advice losing diet with a well constructed diet that removes high calorific value food items, and instead substitutes them with food items that provide the required balance of food.
Here is an article that touts the advantage of certain food stuffs that you would not have thought would be recommended ways for losing weight; however, there are constant revisions in the matter of food, nutrition, and diet, especially when you are looking for ways to lose weight.
Some of the items in this article (link to article) are interesting in the least – these include steak, eggs, oats (you would not have been surprised at seeing oats in this list), lentils, apples, chiles, yoghurt, Parmesan, Avocado, Olive Oil.
Some of these are items you would have known, such as Yoghurt, Apples, Oats, others are not ones that you would have particularly known. Steak and eggs are particularly ones that you would not have associated in respect of foods that can help you in losing weight.

Ad: Click Here to learn about the Master Cleanse Diet for weight loss and detoxication!