But I know one thing: Too many women die of breast cancer every year.

Now we have to hear so-called health experts tell women to wait until age 50 to get potentially life-saving mammograms? Those same experts are saying that self-examinations may be worthless.

The Boston Herald’s Margery Eagan got it best.

Statistically, it’s true that breast cancer rates skyrocket after age 50, but you don’t need to click this link to know that women under 50 get breast cancer. A 10-year-old girl got breast cancer this year in the US.

While we’re on the topic of numbers, we also know that children are going through puberty faster and faster over recent generations.

I understand that people are worried about false-positives among mammograms. It’s scary. It’s a science that we should be working to perfect, especially with today’s computer technology. But do you know what’s scarier? A dead mom. A dead wife.

Men will never have to experience a mammogram. We hear it’s unpleasant. We hear it can be painful. I understand it’s equal to 1,000 x-rays. I’m not saying every woman should be forced to undergo a test they don’t want, but if you’re a 35-year-old woman, and your mom died of breast cancer, you should be able to get any test you want, whenever you want, to ensure you don’t have to die, too.

It’s outrageous, and you shouldn’t be surprised when men are getting recommendations not to get their own “manly” cancer screenings before a certain age either.

Well, they came for the woman, and I’m not going to wait to let them come for me. Defaultly waiting until age 50 for a mammogram is awful advice that appears to be solely driven by money.

Tumor growth is actually relatively common; however, most tumors are benign, and do not invasively grow further outward or take up residence in other locations. That process, known as metastasis, is the true killer in cancer, as the body becomes unable to fight off the multiple new tumors that begin to disrupt normal body function.

The ACS is now telling patients that we may be over-treating the less-threatening tumors, and in the process missing more-threatening cases.  Since advocating screening, the ACS acknowledges that cancer diagnoses have increased. However, for frequent screenings to actually prove beneficial to the public health, there should have been a corresponding decrease in cancer deaths. Instead, widespread screening has only led to an increase in the discovery and treatment of tumors that would have remained harmless and wouldn’t have required any intervention.

While screening has resulted in fewer late-stage cancer cases for colon and cervical cancers, unfortunately there’s no data to show that we’ve seen fewer deaths in breast and prostate cancers, and doctors are now worried that the public has been over-promised on the benefits of some cancer screens.

However, Colin Begg, a biostatistician at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York told The Times that he’s worried that the message will confuse the public who will assume that all cancer screenings are unnecessary. “I am concerned that the complex view of a changing landscape will be distilled by the public into yet another ‘screening does not work’ headline. The fact that population screening is no panacea does not mean that it is useless,” he said.

For now, it will just take time for doctors and researchers to determine which tumors should be treated, and which, counter intuitively should be left alone. In the mean time, follow the advice of your doctor, whatever that might be.

(photo via)

BlastMagazine.com is proud to be sponsoring the Faulkner-Sagoff RUNWAY Gala on October 22 at the InterCOntinental Hotel here in Boston.

The RUNWAY Gala is a night of fashion and fundraising for one of the best causes of all — breast cancer care. So cue the music, lower the house lights, and join Blast as we are very proud to cover and be a part of a night of fashion supporting the Faulkner Hospital Faulker-Sagoff Centre.

Presented by Suffolk Healthcare, this exciting event will preview the works of Boston’s hottest up and coming young designers from the School of Fashion Design. Guests will vote for their favorite alongside celebrity judges, including TLC’s “A Makeover Story” coach Gretchen Monahan, “Project Runway” alums Emmett McCarthy and Kevin Christiana, jewelry designer Tonya Chen Mezrich and Boldfacers.com founder Lisa Pierpont.

The evening will honor Men with Heart, a group of men committed to fighting breast cancer. They are husbands, sons, fathers and brothers of women touched by breast cancer.

The Faulkner-Sagoff Breast Imaging and Diagnostic Centre provides a patient-centered approach to breast cancer detection and prevention, making it one of the leading centers for breast health care in New England and in the country. In the decades since its establishment in 1971, the Centre has cared for well over 100,000 women.

For even more information on the event, visit Faulkner Hospital’s website.

While many of these discoveries are based on shoddy science, a recent study, which was actually rather elegant in design, has found that a lack of social interaction can lead to increased breast cancer tumor growth, indicating that social environment could play a role, along with environmental and genetic factors, in the determination of the severity of a cancer.

The study used genetically similar mice that are altered so that they develop mammary tumors. Mice were either housed alone or with other mice. The mice kept alone showed greater tumor growth than the mice housed together.

Scientifically, the researchers found higher stress hormone levels in the mice housed alone before there were even measurable changes in the tumor sizes. Even though the two groups of mice were genetically very similar, the stress hormones caused measurable changes in gene expression before there was even any indication that the tumors in the two groups were growing differently.

The researches point out hat they intend to focus further research on researching the specific cell types in which these genetic changes are occurring, and then targeting the pathways that connect the stress hormones to their detrimental effects rather than to suggest that cancer patients should maintain strong social contacts.

Either way, every new thing we learn about cancer is another tool in our arsenal to conquer the disease, and this is an interesting find that gives scientists a new avenue of research.

Image courtesy Flickr/Rick in Rio.

News reports out of Tripoli, Libya suggest al-Megrahi’s prostate cancer is worsening. Video footage of the 57-year-old convicted killer shows the man breathing through an oxygen mask, his head tilted to the side, his family members by his bedside.

In the background a reporter can be heard asking al-Megrahi a question. He appears too weak to respond.

Libyan Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Mohammed Siala described al-Megrahi as a “dying man,” according to AP.

Many questions have been raised regarding the seriousness of al-Megrahi’s condition. A video depicting him as an ailing man won’t put those theories to rest.

A London-based newspaper quoted al-Megrahi’s father as saying his son is not dying.

“I see he is improving day by day, and he is better than the day he returned,” he told Asharq Al-Awssat newspaper.

Testing by Scottish officials is the only confirmation of al-Megrahi’s cancer, however now, to many, the testimony of Scottish officials is no longer sufficient because of the controversy surrounding the bomber’s release.

Many believe al-Megrahi’s release was made in order to facilitate an enormously lucrative oil deal with Libya. British Petroleum (BP) signed a $900 million oil search deal with Libya in 2007, but their progress has been repeatedly stalled by superfluous rules on equipment imports by Libyan officials.

British and Scottish authorities have both denied such a connection.

But after rewatching the second hour, and then rerewatching the last minute of the show several times, I came to a startling conclusion that contradicts everything I have said up until this point: I don’t want Izzie or George to die.

This revelation could come from several sources. Maybe it was the catch in Meredith’s voice when she said “Oh god!” and look of horror in her eyes when she realized John Doe was George. Maybe it was the beautiful moment when Izzie walked into the elevator dressed in her pretty pink prom dress in a reenactment of the season two finale, but the doors opened to find George waiting for her in full army garb. Or maybe it was the realization that, despite all my personal feelings against Katherine Heigl, “Grey’s” simply wouldn’t be “Grey’s” without Izzie and George.

There has been some debate after the final scene whether George and Izzie will actually end up being dead. For those who missed the culminating season five episodes, Derek was able to remove Izzie’s entire brain tumor and she had just recovered her memory when she coded in Alex’s arms while George turned out to be the John Doe who was hit by a bus saving a woman from a similar face and had his face smashed in beyond recognition. The show ended with a cliffhanger that did not definitively clarify whether both characters lived or died.

The elevator scene, which has recurred in various forms since the second season, symbolizes both characters’ deaths in this episode, but also suggests that Izzie and George are not dead yet. The elevator doors open and Izzie smiles at George in a “this is the way it’s supposed to be” kind of way. However, while the Chief ignores her Do-Not-Resuscitate and allows Bailey, Christina and Alex to try to bring Izzie back to life, Prom-Dress-Izzie has a worried look come over her face that George’s face mirrors. She does not step off the elevator to join George, which means that she is on the brink of death and the resuscitation revives her and she lives, or she could end up passing in to the great beyond in the season six premiere.

My guess is show creator Shonda Rhimes left this season open ended to see the fan response. She has been adamant this entire season that Katherine Heigl and T.R. Knight will not be leaving the show, so this feels like a way to gauge the fans’ response to Izzie and George’s “death” and see if people actually care if the two stay on the show. Not to toot my own horn, but I was unsurprised during my first viewing last night of Heigl and Knight’s seemingly tidy exits from the show. But after rewatching the episode this morning, I was surprised by how much I really did care – especially about George. Plus, by killing off two major characters, “Grey’s” will become more of a soap opera than a primetime drama, and one “General Hospital” is more than enough.

Beyond the not-so-startling cliffhanger ending, there were some other great moments from the season five finale. Highest amongst those was the long awaited MerDer wedding. Signing their marriage contract on a borrowed blue Post-It that was placed in Meredith’s locker was the sweet and fitting wedding the couple deserved.

But even more than that was the realization that Dark-And-Twisty Meredith really is gone. Meredith slipped under my radar this season after Ellen Pompeo was overshadowed by the great characters of Callie, Bailey, Christina and Sloan, not to mention the season-long Izzie drama, but she reemerged this episode with Christina – and the rest of the audience – realizing that Meredith’s proclamation at the end of season four that she was “all whole and healed” was true. By finally marrying Derek and Meredith and by resolving both characters’ emotional dramas, it felt like Shonda’s way of tying a nice pretty bow on five seasons of serious ups and downs. Hopefully the couple will remain happy and that bow won’t be untied to create unnecessary drama. Sadly, MerDer has run its course.

The best character resolution this finale though was by far that of Christina Yang. Though her awkward declaration of “I love you” to Hunt was uncomfortable to watch, seeing her willingly play the role of Maid of Honor to Meredith when she found out MerDer was going to get married in City Hall and then hugging Meredith when all along they have not been “hugging people” showed how far both characters have come since season one. Christina has always been the somewhat cold, logical, ambitiously badass surgeon, so it’s nice to see she’s developed a softer side. It just gives Sandra Oh an even more fantastic character to play.

One character I wish wasn’t going to face serious emotional trauma is Miranda Bailey, who last season almost went through the dissolution of her marriage and, in a final-hour moment, turns out actually is going to be faced with divorce. Bailey has always been the strong and emotionally healthy doctor in the hospital, so when her seemingly happy marriage with husband Tucker was torn to shreds last season, the resulting unhappiness for one of the few remaining complete characters felt like the writers had gone too far. Bailey’s marital issues have been glossed over this season and the show is better for it. The fact she will be a single mother and have to give up the pediatric fellowship she fought for is sure to be heartbreaking season six drama.

And poor Alex Karev. He is a man I never want to see cry again (kind of like Ewan McGregor at the end of “Moulin Rouge”), but his admission to Izzie that they only got married because they both thought she was going to be dead in week was something I’m glad the writers allowed audience members to hear. Because that is what their marriage was. Could Alex and Izzie actually pull off a life of happiness? I don’t think so.

So now we have four months to wait until we find out if Izzie and George are really dead – or less than that until we find out who signed on as a full-time cast member. My guess is that, unlike Isaiah Washington’s rapid exit, Heigl and Knight will return for the season six premiere and subsequent episodes, regardless of if their characters die or not. There will undoubtedly be magnificent, beautiful funerals to send of both beloved characters.

But both deaths don’t feel like they’re set in stone. So for those of you like me who don’t want Izzie and George to remain dead, make your voices heard to Shonda and the other “Grey’s” creators – her responses on Twitter “Grey’s Anatomy” fan pages show that she is listening. And we all know they won’t be the first “Grey’s” characters to return from the dead.

What did you think of last night’s “Grey’s Anatomy” finale? Did you expect George to be John Doe? What about the Sloan and Lexie drama? Do you think George and Izzie will stay dead? Leave your thoughts below!

The result is scary: the more you want it the more likely you may be to get prostate cancer.

The study found that those subjects who were most sexually active at younger ages had more of a chance of developing cancer later in life. The researchers concluded that higher levels of sex hormones could lead to both the sex drive and the cancer.

So, it’s probably not the sex causing the cancer, but the hormones might give you both the drive and the disease.

“Hormones appear to play a key role in prostate cancer,” Dr Polyxeni Dimitropoulou, the study leader, told the BBC.

Prostate cancer is one of the leading health concerns among men. It’s the most common cancer in men in the UK, with over 30,000 new cases each year.

Asha Mevlana, a soft-spoken violinist with a hint of rock n’ roll swagger, is living out her dream as a professional musician., but the decision to pursue a career in music came after passing a significant juncture in life.

In 2000, her friends gathered with food and wine and held a party that was meant to ease the awkwardness of the effects of chemotherapy. It was a hair cutting party. One by one, her friends cut off a piece of her hair until she was left nearly bald.

“I decided that the easiest way to accomplish this was to involve my friends in the process,” Mevlana wrote on her website.

At 24, Mevlana had breast cancer. While most of her peers were securing their futures, she was forced to confront the thought of dying and not having one.

In an instant, her aspirations of having a career in public relations were overshadowed. The feeling of invincibility vanished within minutes of hearing the upsetting diagnosis.

“It was as if I was in a daze,” she said.

The painful months of treatment began with a lumpectomy. She just didn’t fit the stereotype of most breast cancer patients. Even before reaching the major milestones in life, life-altering decisions had to be made. Choosing between different forms of medications and treatment centers was overwhelming. The varying opinions from doctors were not reassuring. Rather, the situation was made even more complicated.

The first treatment was particularly scary.

“As they prepared to inject me with the red AC, I became very scared and began shaking. Why was I letting someone inject poison into my body?” she wrote. “The nurse told me to think of it as an army of red soldiers going in to kill all the bad cells. Psychologically, this made it much easier to deal with.”

Mevlana turned to the Young Survivor’s Coalition (YSC) to find a group of women her age, going through the same ordeal. She explained they helped her find a “chemo buddy.” Along with friends and family, the YSC was another strong support system.

The four rounds of chemotherapy, followed by radiation, was an exhausting period of time, but the cancer cleared from her system. Gradually, the physical distress faded away, but the mental torment persisted. The fear of recurrence and consuming thought of cancer was difficult to handle.

Nonetheless, over time, this too subsided. When asked about her outlook on life now, she responded, “I feel lucky.”

This change in perspective prompted by her survival brought about the courage to pursue her lifelong ambition of becoming a violinist.

Ditching the corporate life in exchange for an electric violin, Asha, now passionately teaches and performs with a well known Australian band called Porcelain. Now, she spends most of her time on stage performing intricate violin riffs and has also been seen with various artists such as Gnarls Barkley and The Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Despite the success, she takes the time to share her story as its one that embodies courage and independence. This should be a beacon of hope for the thousands of young breast cancer patients.

Ashamevlana.com

Porcelain on MySpace

Environmentalists consider litter a nasty side effect of our convenience-oriented disposable culture. Just to highlight the scope of the problem, California alone spends $28 million a year cleaning up and removing litter along its roadways. And once trash gets free, wind and weather move it from streets and highways to parks and waterways. One study found that 18 percent of litter ends up in rivers, streams and oceans.

Cigarette butts, snack wrappers and take-out food and beverage containers are the most commonly littered items. Cigarettes are one of the most insidious forms of litter: Each discarded butt takes 12 years to break down, all the while leaching toxic elements such as cadmium, lead and arsenic into soil and waterways.

The burden of litter cleanup usually falls to local governments or community groups. Some U.S. states, including Alabama, California, Florida, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas and Virginia, are taking strong measures to prevent litter through public education campaigns, and are spending millions of dollars yearly to clean up. British Columbia, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland also have strong anti-litter campaigns.

Keep America Beautiful (KAB), the group known for its “crying Indian” anti-litter TV ads of bygone days, has been organizing litter clean-ups across the U.S. since 1953. KAB has a strong track record of success in litter prevention, though it has been accused of doing the bidding of its industry founders and supporters (which include tobacco and beverage companies) by opposing many mandatory bottle and can recycling initiatives over the years and downplaying the issue of litter from cigarettes. Nonetheless, 2.8 million KAB volunteers picked up 200 million pounds of litter in KAB’s annual Great American Clean-up last year.

A more grassroots-oriented litter prevention group is Auntie Litter, which started in 1990 in Alabama to help educate students there about the importance of a healthy and clean environment. Today the group works internationally to help students, teachers and parents eliminate litter in their communities.

In Canada, the nonprofit Pitch-In Canada (PIC), founded in the late-1960s by some hippies in British Columbia, has since evolved into a professionally run national organization with a tough anti-litter agenda. Last year 3.5 million Canadians volunteered in PIC’s annual nationwide Cleanup Week.

Doing your part to keep litter to a minimum is easy, but it takes vigilance. For starters, never let trash escape from your car, and make sure household garbage bins are sealed tightly so animals can’t get at the contents. Always remember to take your garbage with you upon leaving a park or other public space. And if you’re still smoking, isn’t saving the environment a compelling enough reason to finally quit? Also, if that stretch of roadway you drive everyday to work is a haven for litter, offer to clean it up and keep it clean. Many cities and towns welcome “Adopt-A-Mile” sponsors for particularly litter-prone streets and highways, and your employer might even want to get in on the act by paying you for your volunteer time.

CONTACTS: Keep America Beautiful, Auntie Litter, Pitch-In Canada.

Dear EarthTalk: My uncle worked for over a decade on the top floor of an office building with cell phone towers directly above him. He was recently diagnosed with cancer. Is there any scientific evidence of links between exposure to cell phone tower radiation and cancer? — Jennifer L., Wellesley, MA

No one doubts that cell phone towers give off low-level radio-frequency radiation (similar to the microwave oven in your home), but scientists are still debating the health effects of long-term exposure. Some people are genetically predisposed to certain types of cancers, while others are not (for example, some lifelong smokers get lung cancer while others don’t). And with so many different chemicals, pollutants and other substances around us in our air, food and water, it is very difficult to determine with certainty if a particular environmental influence (such as a cell phone tower) is the culprit when health problems, such as cancer, arise in a particular locale or among certain populations.

But that hasn’t stopped many communities from worrying about this issue and taking cautionary measures. In San Francisco, for instance, concerned individuals and neighborhood groups have formed the San Francisco Neighborhood Antenna-Free Union (SNAFU) for the purpose of preventing “the placement of wireless antennas on or near residences, schools, health care centers, day care centers, senior centers, playgrounds, places of worship, and other inappropriate locations…”

SNAFU is worried that San Francisco is “already immersed in a sea of electromagnetic radiation” from, among other sources, some 2,500 licensed cell phone antennas at 530 locations around the city. The group is distributing petitions calling on local public officials to increase “restrictions on the number and location of cellular phone antennas and other wireless transmitters.” Other controversies have erupted in communities in Connecticut and elsewhere over churches renting their rooftops and steeples to cell phone companies for placement of antennas. And parents in Ossining, New York waged an unsuccessful battle in 2000 to ban revenue-generating cell towers from school grounds.

Still, the American Cancer Society (ACS) does not seem concerned, stating that limited epidemiological evidence suggests no link between cancers and living or working near a cell phone tower. ACS says that the energy level of radio waves coming off cell towers is too low to cause any noticeable human health impacts, and that a person would have to stand right in front of an antenna to pick up even trace amounts of radiation. And unlike X-rays or gamma rays, radio-frequency electromagnetic radiation is “non-ionizing,” meaning it lacks the gusto to break the bonds that hold molecules (like DNA) in cells together.

Still, cell phones and their towers are a fairly new technology, and very few studies of their health effects have yet been conducted. And the bulk of the research cited by the American Cancer Society has focused on direct and prolonged exposure to radio-frequency electromagnetic radiation in general, not on cell towers and their effects specifically. SNAFU reports that “no systematic attempt has been made to determine what current cumulative exposures to this radiation are….” Lingering public concerns about the issue surely means that more research on the topic is to come.

CONTACTS: American Cancer Society, San Francisco Neighborhood Antenna-Free Union (SNAFU).

GOT AN ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTION? Send it to: EarthTalk, c/o E/The Environmental Magazine, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; submit it at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/thisweek/, or e-mail: earthtalk@emagazine.com. Read past columns at: www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/archives.php.