UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Wednesday, September 21, 1994
5B
Exercise reduces cancer risk
The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES — Women who exercise an average of four hours a week over the course of their child-bearing years run almost a 60 percent lower risk of breast cancer, according to a study.
Leslie Bernstein, a professor of preventive medicine at the University of Southern California School of Medicine and the study's chief author said, "Even one to three hours of physical exercise per week reduces a woman's risk of breast cancer by about 30 percent."
The findings appear in today's issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
They were drawn from surveys of 1,000 Los Angeles County women 40 and younger — 545 with newly diagnosed breast cancer and 545 without the disease. The study analyzed the women's exercise habits since they began menstruating.
The risk of breast cancer among those who averaged four hours of exercise a week since menstruation was 58 percent lower than that of women who did no exercise at all.
Bernstein said the determining factor for women in the study was how much exercise they did when it was averaged out over their childbearing years.
The study did not prescribe any particular sport or type of exercise. But among the activities reported by the women surveyed were individual or team sports, dance or exercise classes, swimming, jogging and working out at the gym.
"I think this is an extremely exciting study," said Dr. Susan M. Love, director of the University of California at Los Angeles Breast Center. "This is the kind of prevention we need. This is lifestyle changes instead of drugs."
Promoting exercise in young women "will not only prevent breast cancer, but osteoporosis and heart disease," said Love, author of "Dr. Susan Love's Breast Book."
The researchers speculated that exercise may protect by altering the production of the ovarian hormones estrogen and progesterone during menstrual cycles. Other research has shown that vigorous athletics can delay the onset of menstruation and
halt ovulation in some women. A woman's cumulative exposure to the sex hormones is believed to be associated with breast-cancer risk.
Love suggested other mechanisms may be at work.
"It may be that (exercise) decreases body fat and increases muscle mass. We know that women with a higher percentage of body fat have a higher incidence of breast cancer," she said.
Bernstein, a researcher at the USC-Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, said the results intensified her concerns about how sedentary American girls have become. A 1900 study showed that fewer than 40 percent of high school junior and senior girls were enrolled in physical education classes.
"Our results strongly support the need for educational school policies that require participation in physical education classes that encourage lifelong participation in exercise programs," Bernstein said.
Each year, 180,000 American women develop breast cancer;46,000 die from the disease.
Study links diet with ovarian cancer
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Scientists have found one more reason to choose vegetables over a greasy hamburger: Just two small servings of vegetables a day could more than offset that risk
"We need to do more research," said study author Dr. Harvey Risch of Yale University. But "if I were female, I might change my diet."
Ovarian cancer strikes some 20,000 U.S. women a year and kills about 12,500 of them, mostly because there is no good way to detect it early.
The main risk factor is exposure to the hormone estrogen. Women who have multiple pregnancies or use oral contraceptives, which both inhibit estrogen, are at lower risk.
But scientists have long suspected that the same fat that causes heart disease plays a role too, because women who eat less meat aren't stricken as often.
Now, the first large study of diet and
ovarian cancer, published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, suggests the link is real.
Risch and colleagues at the University of Toronto compared the eating habits of 450 Canadian women newly diagnosed with ovarian cancer to 540 demographically similar, healthy women.
For every 10 grams of saturated fat a woman ate per day, her risk of ovarial cancer rose 20 percent. Conversely, women who lowered their saturated fat consumption by 10 grams a day experienced a 20 percent drop in risk.
But every 10 grams of vegetable fiber added to a woman's daily menu lowered her risk of ovarian cancer by 37 percent, the study found.
Each full-term pregnancy a woman experiences lowers her risk by about 20 percent, and each year of oral contraceptive use lowers it by 5-10 percent.
Nobody knows exactly why saturat
ed fat might affect a hormone-caused cancer. But Risch has a few theories;
—Animal fat may contain estrogens or boost a woman's natural production of them.
—Plants contain chemicals that mimic female estrogen. The brain may not be able to tell the difference.
—Fiber may bind up estrogen so that it is eliminated instead of being continually circulated through the body.
Dr. Michael Thun of the American Cancer Society warned that one study doesn't make for scientific certainty.
Risch agreed but said he hoped a similar Australian study due out soon will confirm his findings, because they may provide the only high-risk women — who are childless or forego oral contraceptives — can do to stave off ovarian cancer.
WASHINGTON — A tourist's life was in jeopardy after an auto accident in the remote Mojave Desert, and the doctors at a rural California hospital lacked the equipment and skills to save her.
Telemedicine wave of future
But High Desert Hospital did have access by satellite to doctors at a trauma center in Los Angeles, where the accident victim was quickly transferred after initial X-rays were taken.
And with help from the satellite and a supercomputer, the surgeons there called up the accident victim's medical records and consulted with the woman's physician back in Maryland and other specialists on the case.
The accident never happened. Doctors played out that scenario in a congressional office building yesterday. A satellite dish on the roof provided the link to medical facilities in California and Maryland.
The high-technology equipment allowed doctors on different coasts to summon the woman's medical records in a matter of minutes.
It was a demonstration by a nonprofit consortium of private companies, universities and government agencies on how lives could be saved on the information superhighway.
Doctors often must wait hours or overnight to get records transferred over slow-speed networks. In the demonstration, a CT scan was transferred in less than a third of a minute, compared to 215 minutes for a normal, slow-speed transmission.
Rep. Patricia Schroeder, D-Colo., said there are legal barriers to the spread of telemedicine, including restrictions on practicing medicine across state lines without a license, privacy concerns and the refusal by Medicare and other insurers to reimburse physicians if they do not see the patient in person.
Surgeons like tunes while they operate
CHICAGO (AP) — Toscanini for a tonsillectomy. Bach for brain surgery.
Surgeons are likely to do a better job at the operating table with a little background music, a study suggests.
Surgeons had lower blood pressure and pulse rates and performed better on nonsurgical mental exercises while listening to music, researchers wrote in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.
Two Chicago-area surgeons agreed heartily but disagreed sharply on which music works best.
"It has to be classical music," said Dr. Roque Pifarer, a cardiovascular surgeon at Loyola University Medical Center. "Anything else interferes with
the rhythm of the operation. And no singing! I don't think opera is good for my operating room."
Dr. Edward May, an oral and maxillofacial surgeon at the University of Chicago Hospitals, favors Pink Floyd and Peter Gabriel.
"It's a great way to relax, and it just makes the place less impersonal," he said.
The study tested 50 men, ages 31 to 61, all of whom regularly listened to music while operating.
The surgeons were hooked up to a polygraph, which measures stress through factors such as pulse and blood pressure, and were asked to count backward by 13s, 27s or other
increments from a five-digit number. The task was repeated while the surgeons listened to music of their own choosing, to music of the kind used in commercial stress-reduction tapes, and with no music at all.
The quickest, most accurate performances with the least physical stress came while the surgeons were listening to the music they chose.
They also performed better with less stress when listening to the music chosen by the experimenter than with no music at all.
The surgeons selected 50 musical pieces, all instrumental. Forty-six were classical, two were jazz and two were Irish folk tunes.
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