WEDNESDAY. FEBRUARY 16,2005
NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
5A
HEALTH
Java reduces cancer risk
BY RANDOLPH E. SCHMID THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON - That hot cup of coffee may do more than just provide a tasty energy boost. It also may help prevent the most common type of liver cancer.
A study of more than 90,000 Japanese found that people who drank coffee daily or nearly every day had half the liver cancer risk of those who never drank coffee
The American Cancer Society estimates that 18,920 new cases of liver cancer were diagnosed in the United States last year and some 14,270 people died of the illness. Causes include hepatitis, cirrhosis, excess alcohol consumption and diseases causing chronic inflammation of the liver.
But for people who drank coffee daily the risk was 214.6 cases per 100,000,the researchers report in this week's issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Animal studies have suggested a protective association of coffee with liver cancer, so the research team led by Monami Inoue of the National Cancer Center in Tokyo analyzed a 10-year public health study to determine coffee use by people diagnosed with liver cancer and people who did not have cancer.
They found the likely occurrence of liver cancer in people who never or almost never drank coffee was 547.2 cases per 100,000 people over 10 years.
They found that the protective effect occurred in people who drank one to two cups of coffee a day and increased at three to four cups. They were unable to compare the effect of regular and decaffeinated coffee, however, because decaf is rarely consumed in Japan.
It's the caffeine in coffee that makes some people nervous and it has been shown in other studies to prompt mental alertness in many people. Some studies have suggested caffeine aggravates symptoms of menopause or intensifies the side effects of some antibiotics. Heavy caffeine use has been linked to miscarriage. But studies have also shown that a skin
cream spiked with caffeine lowers the risk of skin cancer in mice.
"It's an excellent, interesting and provocative study and their conclusions seem justified," commented Dr. R. Palmer Beasley of the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.
"It will provoke a lot of new work here," said Beasley, who was not part of the research group.
While the study found a statistically significant relationship between drinking coffee and having less liver cancer, the authors note that it needs to be repeated in other groups.
And the reason for the reduction remains unclear.
However, Inoue's team noted that coffee contains large amounts of antioxidants and several animal studies have indicated those compounds have the potential to inhibit cancer in the liver.
In their study, the team also looked at green tea, which contains different antioxidants, and they found no association between drinking the tea and liver cancer rates.
However, that analysis did find a 52 percent decline in rectal cancer among people who regularly drank two or more cans of decaffeinated coffee.
A separate study reported in the same issue of the journal reported no relationship between drinking caffeinated coffee or tea and the rates of colon or rectal cancer.
"Other unidentified substances may also be responsible" for the reduction in cancers, they said.
In that study a team led by Karin B. Michels of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston analyzed data from two large studies the Nurses' Health Study of women and the Health Professionals' Follow-up Study involving men. The analysis of nearly 2 million person years found 1,438 cases of colorectal cancer.
While they did not find any association between cancer rates and consumption of caffeinated coffee or tea, people who regularly drank two or more cups per day of decaffeinated coffee had about half the incidence of rectal cancer as those who never drank decaf.
CRIME
Teen heads to prison
CHARLESTON, S.C. — A 15-year-old boy who claimed the antidepressant Zoloft drove him to kill his grandparents and burn their house down was found guilty of murder Tuesday and sentenced to 30 years in prison.
BY BRUCE SMITH
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
States since the government began taking a close look at the dangers of antidepressant use among teenagers.
The jury took six hours to reject Christopher Pittman's claim that he was "involuntarily intoxicated" by the drug and could not be held responsible for the crime.
The case was one of the first of its kind to come to trial in the United
Pittman was 12 in 2001 when he killed his grandparents, Joe Pittman, 66, and Joy Pittman, 62, with a pumpaction shotgun as they slept in their rural home, then torched their house and drove off in their car. He was charged as an adult.
"I know it's in the hands of God. Whatever he decides on, that's what it's going to be," Pittman said quietly, just before Judge Danny Pieper handed down the minimum sentence. The boy could have gotten life in prison.
About a month before the murders, Pittman was hospitalized after threatening to kill himself. He was prescribed the antidepressant Paxil and was later put on Zoloft.
A psychiatrist testified for the defense that the Zoloft was to blame for the killings, and a former Food and Drug Administration official told the jury that the crime was an angry, rash, manic act "that was chemically induced."
Pittman's lawyers said that the negative effects are more pronounced in youngsters, and that the drug robbed Pittman of the ability to tell right from wrong.
Corps
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1A
Steven Wallace went to hear the panel after seeing an advertisement in The University Daily Kansan.
"I played basketball with a lot of underprivileged kids and I just want to do anything to help people." Wallace, Olathe junior, said. "I don't care if it's teaching or building a house."
The three organizations are nonprofit service groups that send volunteers to areas in need of education, infrastructure and business development, heath awareness and youth development.
The Peace Corps is an international organization and both AmeriCorps*VISTA and Teach for America are domestic organizations.
Baron said she suggested the Peace Corps as an alternative to students who didn't want to go straight into a job in the corporate world.
"Employers look at these kinds of things as internships and as service," she said.
Volunteers spend one to two years in assigned areas, depending on the program, and then continue their career path.
"The goal is that after you teach, you will go into the field you were ultimately interested in and affect change in that sector," Rachel Balzer, Whitewater senior, said. Blazer will
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Source; University Career Services
be leaving for Mississippi in August to begin her two-year stint with Teach for America.
It takes people in all sectors of society to influence change, she said.
Teach for America volunteers are paid the same salary that starting teachers would make in their districts.
Teach for America also has partnerships with many businesses that recruit Teach for America alumni.
Peace Corps volunteers are mainly stationed in Third or Fourth World countries. Participants like Robin Corindo would be placed in a country that asks for the skills they can provide, such as teaching or technological advancements.
Now a state program specialist
for Kansas, Corindo went to Namibia, Africa, in 1994 to teach English and physical science to elementary school students. She lived in a hut with a community well as her resource for water. She was given a stove and refrigerator as part of the accommodations the country must provide for Peace Corps volunteers.
Conditions varied.
Corindo's colleagues in Africa had brick homes, and the capitol city had an Olympic-size swimming pool and an Internet cafe.
"That was our purpose," she said. "To help bring consistency to a nation."
Corinda was also an AmeriCorps*VISTA volunteer in Houston and an AmeriCorps*VISTA leader of six counties in London, Ky. As a volunteer, she helped develop educational programs for both elementary schools and an adult literacy program.
AmeriCorps*VISTA volunteers are paid $800 a month and they live in the area where they work.
"You live in poverty." Corindo said. "If forces you to understand the area you are serving and you gain much more experience."
Volunteers in all three organizations are given health benefits, tuition deferment or assistance paying off student loans, and money for relocation expenses.
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