International SOS: lower the cancer risk in your workplace

International SOS has leveraged World Cancer Day on February 4 to encourage organisations to recognise the impact cancer has on the workforce, and to take steps to reduce cancer risk in the workplace.

Source: International SOS. World Cancer Day infographic.

According to the organisation, at least 40% of all cancer cases reported could be prevented with effective primary prevention measures*. International SOS points out that roughly 30% of an employee's day is spent in the workplace where there may be exposure to hazardous materials, including cigarette smoke. The workplace could also inadvertently lead to inactivity and poor eating habits**, both of which are risk factors for cancer, the organisation added.

Dr Kate O’Reilly, Medical Director at International SOS, said: “The impact of cancer amongst the workforce is growing. Cancer is common and every organisation will have employees who experience a cancer diagnosis. When an employee is diagnosed with cancer, it affects not only the individual, but also a network of people across the organisation. It is vital that employers understand the impact of cancer on the individual employee and the organisation. 

"Having an integrated health and wellbeing strategy that includes promoting cancer awareness and increasing access to screening and prevention activities is best practice.”

Dr O’Reilly added: “Organisations should also understand that successfully embedding holistic health and wellbeing programmes depends on leadership involvement and promoting a workplace culture that supports employees through their cancer journey. Simple workplace changes can reduce cancer risk such as providing healthy food options, promoting smoking cessation programmes and creating a culture of safe alcohol use.”

International SOS has provided some strategies to mitigate cancer risk in the workplace:

Education on cancer risks

By providing education about cancer risks and the symptoms to look for, organisations can empower their workforce to be proactive about their health. Demonstrating a commitment to employee health and wellbeing can also improve morale and productivity.

Encourage regular screening

Early diagnosis of cancer nearly always results in better treatment outcomes. If not already included in local health programmes, consider including key screenings, such as for breast and colon cancer, in employees’ health benefits and more importantly, ensure your organisation’s policy makes screenings feasible. Introduce workplace policies that enable employees to dedicate time to their health and encourage employees to take time off for recommended regular physical exams. 

Promote healthy habits

Make it easier for employees to have a healthy diet by ensuring that healthier options are available in the organisation’s cafeteria and onsite vending machines. Provide incentives like step challenges or discounted gym memberships to encourage workers to engage in regular exercise.

Encourage open communication

Create a supportive environment which enables conversations in the workplace about cancer prevention and detection. Managers should set aside time for regular meetings with employees to discuss any problems they might be facing and check in on their wellbeing.

Conduct a workplace assessment

Some jobs may also expose workers to environmental hazards, and even shift patterns can heighten the odds that a worker will develop cancer. It is important to identify potential cancer-causing agents and put in place control measures for carcinogenic hazards to reduce cancer risk at work. Modern office work may also contribute directly to three cancer risk factors, including excess body weight, diet, and physical inactivity.

Implement a smoke-free workplace

To protect all employees from exposure to second-hand smoke, organisations can implement policies that require a smoke-free environment. A quarter of all cancer deaths are caused by tobacco use and providing employees with smoking-cessation support helps reduce the risk.

Offer Employee Assistance Programmes (EAPs)

Provide cancer access within EAPs that includes a range of services such as counselling, financial planning and wellbeing options.

*World Health Organization, International Agency for Research on Cancer, Cancer Topics

**Institute for Employment Studies, Cancer & Employment Report 2022 (PDF)

Qatar Airways supports Breast Cancer Awareness month

Source: Qatar Airways. Amenity kits go pink.

Limited edition amenity kits in pink are now being offered to Qatar Airways’ First and Business Class passengers to mark the airline’s continuing support for Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Passengers flying long-haul in first and business class will receive luxury amenity bags created exclusively for Qatar Airways by Italian luggage brand BRIC’S, in shade of pink called Rose Pompadour.

All passengers flying in First Class and Business Class with Qatar Airways will be offered pink versions of the airline’s signature miniature BRIC'S Bellagio and Sintesis suitcase amenity kits, for men and women, which feature a hard shell with a Tuscan leather trim. Each bag contains exclusive products from Italy’s Castello Monte Vibiano Vecchio, the environmentally-friendly olive oil company.

The skincare range includes lip balm, hydrating facial mist, and anti-ageing moisturiser in business class, with added Night Recovery Cream for first class kits. Pink socks, eyeshades and ear plugs complete the range with the addition of a BRIC’S signature luggage tag for First Class. A card urging customers to Think Pink! and encouraging them to support the fight against breast cancer is included with each kit.

Qatar Airways Senior VP, Marketing and Corporate Communications, Salam Al Shawa, said: “Qatar Airways is a very strong supporter of Breast Cancer Awareness Month and all the incredibly hard work that goes into research and development to help beat breast cancer. We hope these very special and limited edition pink BRIC’S luxury amenity kits for our male and female passengers flying long-haul in first class and business class will help demonstrate our ongoing commitment to raising awareness of breast cancer, and show our support for those affected by it.”

As well as being encouraged to wear pink during Breast Cancer Awareness Month, many Qatar Airways employees will be taking part in a number of initiatives to alert staff to the dangers of the disease and generate funds towards fighting breast cancer. These include various workshops and awareness-raising lectures designed to raise awareness of the importance of self-assessment and early diagnosis.

Now in its 20th year, Qatar Airways has a modern fleet of 200 aircraft flying to business and leisure destinations across six continents. Qatar Airways will be adding more destinations to its network in 2017 and 2018, including Canberra, Australia and Chiang Mai, Thailand.

Rose Pompadour was created in France in 1757 at the Sèvres porcelain facility, named after a member of the French court, Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, the Marquise de Pompadour (Madame de Pompadour). Madame de Pompadour who was a major patron of porcelain. Rose Pompadour is one of five colours produced by Sèvres, which helped to define magnificence and luxury in eighteenth-century France.

Shopee Malaysia goes pink for breast cancer awareness

Shopee, Malaysia’s mobile marketplace, is joining forces with PRIDE Foundation (Pink Ribbon Deeds) for a Goes Pink campaign for October. In order to raise awareness for breast cancer, the mobile platform has planned initiatives both online and offline supporting PRIDE throughout October.

The Goes Pink campaign collection pages encourage users to buy and use pink and white coloured products from categories such as mobile accessories, beauty, and home & living.

As of 19 October, Shopee Malaysia has amassed over 2 million installs and the Goes Pink campaign will be communicated nationwide through the Shopee app to raise awareness for breast cancer.

In order to help raise funds, Shopee Malaysia has produced a range of motivational postcards, with all proceeds from postcard sales going to PRIDE in support of breast cancer awareness month, October. Shopee users can now donate and support online by simply purchasing postcards worth RM1 to RM50 on Shopee Malaysia’s Official Account.

Source: Shopee Malaysia official account. Postcards on sale to raise funds for PRIDE.

Donations will be used to fund PRIDE activities including providing information, psychological support, practical advice to breast cancer survivors and their families, public education, training on early detection, treatment of breast cancer, and other breast-related health issues.

To find out how much Malaysians know and understand breast cancer causes and symptoms, Shopee sent a guy squad dressed in tops that had hot pink bras on them into the streets of Jalan Telawi in Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur to ask basic questions such as what are the causes of breast cancer and if men are at risk. Men aged 18 to 30 interviewed were unsure about the risk of breast cancer for men.

PRIDE Foundation Chief Executive Officer, Azuwa Abdullah acknowledged that breast cancer could happen at any age and time with the youngest case in Malaysia is a six-year-old girl from Kelantan.

Social influencers including Sean Lee, Jazel Lim and Nurul Ain have also joined forces alongside Shopee to spread the word about breast cancer by posting and giving away products to their followers on Instagram. Their followers will enjoy pink and white products from these influencers by spreading the word and tagging their friends. Their postings have garnered over 5,000 likes and reached more than 140,000 followers, Shopee said.

The CEO of PRIDE Azuwa Abdullah said, “We are glad that Shopee has come on board to help us raise awareness on breast cancer and to raise fund for PRIDE. We hope that more women, especially the younger generation, would be more aware of the importance of early detection through the campaign. We value the initiative and look forward to a successful campaign with Shopee.”

Ian Ho, Regional MD said, “Shopee is honoured to work alongside PRIDE to raise awareness on the value of early detection, education and intervention. By giving PRIDE and our user base an easy way to donate, we hope that more people can support, donate and spread the word about breast cancer awareness in a seamless way.”

Shopee is a no-commission, no-listing fee mobile-first platform and is also free to use. Shopee can be downloaded for free on all mobile platforms via Apple App Store and Google Play Store.

Interested?

Watch the video of the answers to basic questions about breast cancer

Hashtag: #ShopeeGoesPink, #ShopeeMY, #PinkRibbon, #breastcancerawareness

posted from Bloggeroid

The anti-cancer properties of frankincense essential oil

Nuggets of ordinary grade frankincense resin.

Frankincense, which comes from Africa and the Arabian peninsula, has been used for centuries for the aromatic smoke that comes from heating the resin of trees from the boswellia family. There seems to be fairly little research, but experiments on essential oil derived from the resin have been found to have anti-cancer properties.

A July 2014 study found that frankincense essential oil is more effective against human bladder cancer J82 cells in the lab, whereas a March 2009 research found that frankincense essential oil can distinguish cancerous from normal bladder cells, killing the cancer cells only.

"All fractions of frankincense essential oil from Boswellia sacra are capable of suppressing viability and inducing apoptosis of a panel of human pancreatic cancer cell lines", reads the abstract of another December 2012 study, while a December 2011 study notes that "boswellia sacra (Editor's note: the type of frankincense from Oman) essential oil kills breast cancer cells.

Hurting your throat causes cancer, not coffee

Coffee from Chye Seng Huat Hardware Store, Singapore.

IARC Monographs have come to some conclusions on the dangers of drinking coffee, maté, and very hot beverages. An international working group of 23 scientists convened by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the cancer agency of the World Health Organization (WHO), has evaluated the carcinogenicity of drinking coffee, maté* and very hot beverages. The IARC aims to coordinate and conduct research on the causes of human cancer and the mechanisms of carcinogenesis, and to develop scientific strategies for cancer control.

A summary of the final evaluations is published in The Lancet Oncology, and the detailed assessments will be published as Volume 116 of the IARC Monographs. The working group found no conclusive evidence for a carcinogenic effect of drinking coffee. However, the experts did find that drinking very hot** beverages probably causes cancer of the oesophagus in humans. No conclusive evidence was found for drinking maté at temperatures that are not very hot.

“These results suggest that drinking very hot beverages is one probable cause of oesophageal cancer and that it is the temperature, rather than the drinks themselves, that appears to be responsible, ” says Dr Christopher Wild, IARC Director.

Very hot beverages

Drinking very hot beverages was classified as probably carcinogenic to humans. This was based on limited evidence from epidemiological studies that showed positive associations between cancer of the oesophagus and drinking very hot beverages. Studies in places such as China, Iran, Turkey, and South America, where tea or maté is traditionally drunk very hot (at about 70°C) , found that the risk of oesophageal cancer increased with the temperature at which the beverage was drunk.

In experiments involving animals, there was also limited evidence for the carcinogenicity of very hot water, the working group found.

“Smoking and alcohol drinking are major causes of oesophageal cancer, particularly in many high- income countries,” stresses Dr Wild. “However, the majority of oesophageal cancers occur in parts of Asia, South America, and East Africa, where regularly drinking very hot beverages is common and where the reasons for the high incidence of this cancer are not as well understood.”

Oesophageal cancer is the eighth most common cause of cancer worldwide and one of the main causes of cancer death, with approximately 400,000 deaths recorded in 2012 (5% of all cancer deaths), says the WHO. The proportion of oesophageal cancer cases that may be linked to drinking very hot beverages is not known.

Hibiscus maté on the left, guarana ginseng on the right - drinks at the Woodford Folk Festival in Queensland, Australia, 2006.

Maté

Cold maté did not have carcinogenic effects in experiments on animals or in epidemiological studies. Therefore, drinking maté at temperatures that are not very hot was not classifiable as to its carcinogenicity to humans. This was based on inadequate evidence in humans for the carcinogenicity of drinking cold or warm maté and inadequate evidence in experimental animals for the carcinogenicity of cold maté as a drinking liquid*.

Coffee

Drinking coffee was not classifiable as to its carcinogenicity to humans. The large body of evidence currently available led to the reevaluation of the carcinogenicity of coffee drinking, previously classified as possibly carcinogenic to humans by IARC in 1991. After thoroughly reviewing more than 1,000 studies in humans and animals, the working group found that there was inadequate evidence for the carcinogenicity of coffee drinking overall. Many epidemiological studies showed that coffee drinking had no carcinogenic effects for cancers of the pancreas, female breast, and prostate, and reduced risks were seen for cancers of the liver and uterine endometrium. For more than 20 other cancers, the evidence was inconclusive.

A scan of research online showed pretty much the same conclusions. In one 2009 study in Iran, researchers found that compared with drinking lukewarm or warm tea, drinking hot tea or very hot tea was associated with an increased risk of oesophageal cancer. For this study, temperatures of warm, hot and very hot tea were defined as being under 60°C, between 61 and 64°C, and 65°C and above respectively. Various confounders such as ethnicity, daily vegetable intake, alcohol consumption, tobacco or opium use, duration of residence in rural areas, and socioeconomic status were ruled out as likely causes. The total amount of tea consumed did not have an effect, either.

A 1995 study on maté in Paraguay linked very hot maté to oesophageal cancer. The authors of the research pointed out however that alcohol consumption, smoking, and eating of beef were also linked to the same cancer. The association between very hot maté and cancer was also found in a 2000 study, which also noted that the more maté is consumed, the higher the risk of oesophageal cancer. Women were found to have a higher risk of the cancer on all counts. The good news is that eating fruit, vegetables, cereals and drinking tea has a protective effect, but meat, animal fats and salt led to an increased cancer risk.

In 2011, a study in Southern China linked not only the drinking of very hot beverages to cancer, but also the eating of high-temperature foods - those which had been fried or barbecued. Eating fast was also correlated with cancer.

The IARC Monographs Programme seeks to classify cancer hazards, meaning the potential of any substance to cause cancer based on current knowledge. The classification does not indicate what level of risk exists to people’s health associated with exposure to a classified hazard. For example, IARC has classified tobacco smoking as carcinogenic to humans, but that classification does not indicate the increase in risk for each cigarette smoked. This working group evaluation is in line with the WHO Technical Report Series 916 on diet, nutrition and the prevention of chronic diseases, which states that people should not consume drinks when they are at a very hot (scalding hot) temperature.

A 2015 study postulates that the stem cell division model of cancer can explain why very hot foods and beverages cause cancer. Swallowing something too hot will damage cells in the oesophagus. Stem cell division is activated to repair the cells, and the more often stem cells divide over a period of time, the higher the risk of DNA damage, and in turn cancer. The author, Miguel López-Lázaro, further speculates that controlling stem cell divisions, such as through taking a daily low dose aspirin, could reduce cancer rates and reduce the likelihood of dying from cancer.

Interested?

Read the IARC Monographs Q&A on classifications (PDF)

Read the IARC Monographs Q&A on the evaluation of drinking coffee, maté, and very hot beverages (PDF)

*Maté, also called yerba maté, is an infusion made from dried leaves of ilex paraguariensis. It is consumed mainly in South America and to a lesser extent in the Middle East, Europe, and North America. It is also available as a health supplement in Singapore. Maté is traditionally drunk very hot (at about 70°C), but it may also be consumed warm or cold. 

**“Very hot” refers to any beverages consumed at a temperature above 65°C. See the Q&A for more details.

Watch your red meat and processed meat consumption

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the cancer agency of the World Health Organization, has evaluated the carcinogenicity of the consumption of red meat* and processed meat*, and the news is not good.

After thoroughly reviewing the accumulated scientific literature, a Working Group of 22 experts from 10 countries convened by the IARC Monographs Programme classified the consumption of red meat as probably carcinogenic to humans (Group 2A), based on limited evidence** that the consumption of red meat causes cancer in humans and strong mechanistic evidence supporting a carcinogenic effect. This association was observed mainly for colorectal cancer, but associations were also seen for pancreatic cancer and prostate cancer. 

The IARC notes in an online Q&A that eating red meat "has not yet been established as a cause of cancer". It also shared that if the reported associations were proven to be causal (that red meat also causes cancer), then the Global Burden of Disease Project has estimated that diets high in red meat could be responsible for 50,000 cancer deaths per year worldwide. 

Processed meat was classified as carcinogenic to humans (Group 1), based on sufficient evidence in humans that the consumption of processed meat causes colorectal cancer. 

The experts concluded that each 50g portion of processed meat eaten daily increases the risk of colorectal cancer by 18%. According to the most recent estimates by the Global Burden of Disease Project, an independent academic research organisation, about 34,000 cancer deaths per year worldwide are attributable to diets high in processed meat. Assuming the association of red meat and colorectal cancer is proven to be causal (that is, red meat really does cause colorectal cancer), data from the same studies suggest that the risk of colorectal cancer could increase by 17% for every 100 gram portion of red meat eaten daily.

Tobacco smoking and asbestos are also both in Group 1, but the IARC stresses that while all are classified as carcinogenic to humans, the grouping says nothing about the relative danger of each substance. The estimates for meat-related deaths, for example contrast with about IARC-provided figures of 1 million cancer deaths per year globally due to tobacco smoking, 600,000 per year due to alcohol consumption, and more than 200,000 per year due to air pollution.

“For an individual, the risk of developing colorectal cancer because of their consumption of processed meat remains small, but this risk increases with the amount of meat consumed,” says Dr Kurt Straif, Head of the IARC Monographs Programme. “In view of the large number of people who consume processed meat, the global impact on cancer incidence is of public health importance.” 

The IARC Working Group considered more than 800 studies that investigated associations of more than a dozen types of cancer with the consumption of red meat or processed meat in many countries and populations with diverse diets. The most influential evidence came from large prospective cohort studies conducted over the past 20 years. 

"These findings further support current public health recommendations to limit intake of meat,” says Dr Christopher Wild, Director of IARC. “At the same time, red meat has nutritional value. Therefore, these results are important in enabling governments and international regulatory agencies to conduct risk assessments, in order to balance the risks and benefits of eating red meat and processed meat and to provide the best possible dietary recommendations.” 

According to the IARC, cooking meat at high temperatures or with the food in direct contact with a flame or a hot surface, as in barbecuing or pan-frying, produces more of certain types of carcinogenic chemicals (such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and heterocyclic aromatic amines). However, the working group stopped short of making any statements about how much meat is safe, the safest ways to cook meat, or whether raw meat is better, though it did point out that there is a risk of infection from consumption of raw meat.

Interested?

A summary of the final evaluations is available online in The Lancet Oncology, and the detailed assessments will be published as Volume 114 of the IARC Monographs. 

*Red meat refers to all types of mammalian muscle meat, such as beef, veal, pork, lamb, mutton, horse, and goat. Processed meat refers to meat that has been transformed through salting, curing, fermentation, smoking, or other processes to enhance flavour or improve preservation. Most processed meats contain pork or beef, but processed meats may also contain other red meats, poultry, offal, or meat by-products such as blood. Examples of processed meat include hot dogs (frankfurters), ham, sausages, corned beef, and biltong or beef jerky as well as canned meat and meat-based preparations and sauces. 

**Limited evidence means that a positive association has been observed between exposure to the agent and cancer but that other explanations for the observations (technically termed chance, bias, or confounding) cannot be ruled out.

Some cancers caused by bad luck - early detection is key

Source: Johns Hopkins Medicine. Credit: C Tomasetti, B Vogelstein and Illustrator Elizabeth Cook, Johns Hopkins. 

Scientists from the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center have found that two-thirds of adult cancer can be explained primarily by “bad luck,” or random mutations that occur in the genes that can drive cancer growth, while the remaining third are due to environmental factors and inherited genes. The authors of the paper Variation in cancer risk among tissues can be explained by the number of stem cell divisions, published January 2 in Science, stress however in a FAQ dated January 7 hat this is not the same as saying that two-thirds of all cancers are caused by bad luck as luck may have a varying influence in any particular cancer.

In the FAQ,  Dr Bert Vogelstein, a medical doctor who is the Clayton Professor of Oncology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Co-director of the Ludwig Center at Johns Hopkins and an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and Dr Cristian Tomasetti, doctor of philosphy who is a Biomathematician and also Assistant Professor of oncology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Bloomberg School of Public Health, describe what happens with the analogy of experiencing a car accident.

"Getting cancer could be compared to getting into a car accident.  Our results would be equivalent to showing a high correlation between length of trip and getting into an accident.  Regardless of the destination, the longer the trip is, the higher the risk of an accident.

 

The road conditions on the way to the destination could be likened to the environmental factors in cancer. Worse conditions would be associated with a higher the risk of an accident. 

 

The mechanical condition of the car is a metaphor for the inherited genetic factors. The numbers of mechanical problems in the car—bad brakes, worn tires, etc.—increase the risk of an accident. Think of these mechanical problems as inherited genetic mutations.  With each mechanical defect, the risk of an accident increases.  Similarly, the amount of inherited genetic mutations is among the factors that contribute to cancer risk. 

 

Now, consider the length of the trip. This could be likened to the stem cell divisions and random mutations we discuss in our paper. Even with bad road conditions and driving a car in disrepair, the length of the trip plays a significant role. An extremely short trip has an accident risk close to zero.   Regardless of road and car conditions, the probability of an accident occurring increases with distance travelled.  Short trips have the lowest risk, while long trips are associated with the highest risk. 

 

Using this analogy, we would estimate that two-thirds of the risk of getting into an accident is attributable to the length of the trip.  The rest of the risk comes from bad cars, bad roads and other factors.   In terms of cancer, we calculate that two-thirds of the variation is attributable to the random mutations that occur in stem cell divisions throughout a person’s lifetime, while the remaining risk is associated with environmental factors and inherited gene mutations." 

“Cancer-free longevity in people exposed to cancer-causing agents, such as tobacco, is often attributed to their ‘good genes,’ but the truth is that most of them simply had good luck,” commented Dr Vogelstein in the original January 1 statement. 

Dr Tomasetti and Vogelstein say they came to their conclusions by searching the scientific literature for information on the cumulative total number of divisions of stem cells among 31 tissue types during an average individual’s lifetime. Stem cells “self-renew,” thus repopulating cells that die off in a specific organ.

It was well-known, Vogelstein notes, that cancer arises when tissue-specific stem cells make random mistakes, or mutations, when one chemical letter in DNA is incorrectly swapped for another during the replication process in cell division. The more these mutations accumulate, the higher the risk that cells will grow unchecked, a hallmark of cancer. 

The scientists charted how often stem cells divide in 31 body tissues and compared these rates with the lifetime risks of cancer in the same tissues among Americans. Tomasetti and Vogelstein then found that the correlation between the total number of stem cell divisions and cancer risk to be 0.804. Mathematically, the closer this value is to one, the more stem cell divisions and cancer risk are correlated. This does not necessarily mean that one causes the other, but the likelihood is there.

“Our study shows, in general, that a change in the number of stem cell divisions in a tissue type is highly correlated with a change in the incidence of cancer in that same tissue,” says Vogelstein. One example, he says, is colon tissue, which undergoes four times more stem cell divisions than small intestine tissue in humans. Likewise, colon cancer is much more prevalent than small intestinal cancer.

To analyse the correlation further and see if they could establish causation, the scientists looked for ways to prove the relationship between stem cells dividing and cancer. “You could argue that the colon is exposed to more environmental factors than the small intestine, which increases the potential rate of acquired mutations,” says Tomasetti. 

However, the scientists saw the opposite finding in mouse colons, which had a lower number of stem cell divisions than in their small intestines, and, in mice, cancer incidence is lower in the colon than in the small intestine. They say this supports the key role of the total number of stem cell divisions in the development of cancer, rather than cancer being associated with the colon itself.

Finally, the research duo classified the types of cancers they studied into two groups. They statistically calculated which cancer types had an incidence predicted by the number of stem cell divisions and which had higher incidence. They found that 22 cancer types could be largely explained by the “bad luck” factor of random DNA mutations during cell division. The other nine cancer types had incidences higher than predicted by “bad luck” and were presumably due to a combination of bad luck plus environmental or inherited factors.

“We found that the types of cancer that had higher risk than predicted by the number of stem cell divisions were precisely the ones you’d expect, including lung cancer, which is linked to smoking; skin cancer, linked to sun exposure; and forms of cancers associated with hereditary syndromes,” says Vogelstein.

“This study shows that you can add to your risk of getting cancers by smoking or other poor lifestyle factors. However, many forms of cancer are due largely to the bad luck of acquiring a mutation in a cancer driver gene regardless of lifestyle and heredity factors. The best way to eradicate these cancers will be through early detection, when they are still curable by surgery,” adds Vogelstein.

Both scientists say that the research predicts that more cancers will appear in the future simply because ageing increases the number of stem cell divisions. "Research on primary and secondary prevention, cancer treatment, and the biology of the disease is more important than ever," they said in the FAQ.

Read the study in Science here. Read the FAQ here.

*The scientists note that some cancers, such as breast and prostate cancer, were not included in the report because of their inability to find reliable stem cell division rates in the scientific literature. They hope that other scientists will help refine their statistical model by finding more precise stem cell division rates.

The research was funded by the Virginia and D. K. Ludwig Fund for Cancer Research, the Lustgarten Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Research, the Sol Goldman Pancreatic Cancer Research Center, and the National Institutes of Health’s National Cancer Institute (grants P30-CA006973, R37-CA43460, RO1-CA57345 and P50-CA62924).

Cancer from a mobile phone? Some say yes, many say no

Mobile phones have been implicated in the risk of cancer many times over the years. The first mobile phone to go on sale was Motorola's DynaTAC 8000X in 1984. It cost nearly US$4,000, and the phones did not become relatively common till the 1990s. Given that some types of cancer may take years to develop, it could well be that we will only see a jump in cancer rates due to mobile phone radiation 25 years on - or basically from around now. 

A new study published in Pathophysiology this October has again found that the radiation from mobile and cordless phones can cause problems, specifically for a type of brain tumour called a glioma. 

In the study, Mobile phone and cordless phone use and the risk for glioma – Analysis of pooled case-control studies in Sweden, 1997–2003 and 2007–2009, researchers led by Lennart Hardell, Professor, Department of Oncology, University Hospital, Örebro, Sweden analysed two studies on malignant brain tumours in 1,498 patients diagnosed from 1997 to 2003 and from 2007 to 2009 respectively. Scandinavian countries were very early adopters of mobile phones, so it is likely that people there have used mobile phones for longer than people elsewhere. The study found that:

• Mobile phone use increased the risk of glioma, with those who have used the phones for over 25 years being at a much higher risk. 
• Cordless phone usage also increased this risk but not to as great an extent. 
• The highest risk was found for glioma in the temporal lobe, and First use of a mobile or cordless phone before the age of 20 gave a higher likelihood of getting glioma than other age groups.

The warnings keep recurring, but for every study that claims that mobile phones cause cancer of some kind, there seem to be many more which claim the opposite. The link has been debunked as far back as 1999. A 2006 study investigating whether mobile phones cause non-Hodgkins lymphoma, a type of cancer, is one of many studies to come up with nothing, for example.

But there seem to be a few studies which point to a risk of cancer from mobile phone radiation. The first are studies by Hardell. Another October 2014 study by Hardell in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health notes that brain cancer victims who have a particular type of glioma called astrocytoma and who also use mobile phones or cordless phones tend to die earlier, for instance.

A second study is dated July 2014 and found in Occupational and Environmental Medicine. Part of the CERENAT study from France, very heavy users of mobile phones were more likely to get gliomas and tumours of the temporal lobe in the brain, researchers said. The study also found that those who use mobile phones because of their jobs and who use them in the city are more likely to be at risk.

Another cited source of a positive link between mobile phone usage and radiation comes from the Interphone study. A September 2011 report in Occupational and Environmental Medicine also noticed increased rates of glioma and meningioma (cancer of the meninges, a different part of the brain) for heavy mobile phone users (people who had used mobile phones for over seven years) in the Interphone study for Australia, Canada, France, Israel, New Zealand, especially for glioma. 

A further analysis was done on tumours in different parts of the brain, and heavy mobile phone users (people who had used mobile phones for more than 10 years) had more tumours in the part of the head most exposed to mobile phone radiation as compared to other parts of the head. The study stopped short of saying that mobile phones had caused this trend, and called for further research on the topic. 

Despite these indications a 2011 review of Interphone concluded that "Although there remains some uncertainty, the trend in the accumulating evidence is increasingly against the hypothesis that mobile phone use can cause brain tumors in adults."

Another 2011 analysis of Interphone acknowledged the data on tumours but said: "Elevated odds ratios observed at the highest level of cumulative call time could be due to chance, reporting bias or a causal effect."

Another possible hint of a problem is a study from Taiwan published October 2012. This study was not about mobile phone exposure through direct use of mobile handsets, but about radiation coming from mobile phone base stations. Researchers noted that children with under 15 who lived closer to mobile phone base stations had a higher risk of suffering from tumours, which they referred to as neoplasms. There was however no specific risk associated with brain tumours or with leukemia, and no mention of whether these tumours were benign or malignant. 

Other researchers have focused on vestibular schwannomas, also called acoustic neuromas. These are benign tumours that develop in the ear area, which might well be due to mobile phones held close to the ear when in conversation.

A January 2014 study in Tumour Biology found that vestibular schwannomas, are much larger for mobile phone users than non-users. Tumours were more likely to be found in the side of the head that the user would place the phone, whereas if it were random, there should have been a 50:50 chance of tumours being on either side of the head. 

A review of the research on the subject in Surgical Neurology in 2009 found that subjects who used cell phones for at least 10 years had a 2.4-fold greater risk of developing acoustic neuromas on the same side of the head as they used the phone.

A Japanese study published in 2006 found no link between acoustic neuromas and mobile phones however. While both sets of research studied what should be the same thing, it might not be apples to apples because people in Japan hadn't been using the phones for long enough, or the phones that were in use at the time weren't as powerful. Alternatively, it could also be that most people in Japan don't put their phones to their ears to use them, but may use handsets instead.

Parotid gland tumours are another logical possibility as parotid glands are near the ear, basically where a mobile phone would be held for a voice call. Parotid glands produce saliva, though they aren't the only glands to do so. Research has turned up no statistically significant links with mobile phones. This 2012 study in the European Journal of Cancer Prevention is typical, and the same result was mentioned in 2006. Hardell also studied the possibility in 2004 and came up with nothing. 

In 2011 however researchers noted that most victims of malignant epithelial parotid gland tumours were in cities as opposed to rural areas, where there would generally be fewer mobile phones in use. 

"The results suggest a possible dose-response relationship of cellular phone use with epithelial parotid gland malignancy," they note in the abstract on the International Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery.

Hardell himself has also investigated testicular cancer as men may place their phones in trouser pockets, close to this part of the body. He found no link in this 2007 study in the International Journal of Andrology.

A large portion of the research is about searching out people who already have cancer and then asking them to recall how long they've used mobile phones. Rather than test people directly on something that may potentially be harmful, another portion of the research has focused on exposing rats to various electromagnetic fields to see what happens. The rats chosen are genetically predisposed to develop different types of cancer or also exposed to carcinogens. If using mobile phones can cause cancer, it could be assumed that the rats would then develop cancer very quickly, and even more quickly in the presence of a carcinogen. 

Researcher AM Sommer has exposed found that neither UMTS (published 2007) nor GSM-900 (published 2004), both bandwidth frequencies used by mobile phones, could be blamed for cancer. FM frequencies used to simulate mobile phone radiation in an April 2000 study had no effect at all on rats studied over two years, with or without the help of a carcinogen called ethylnitrosourea (ENU). Yet another two-year study on 900 rats, published in 2000, exposed to differing amounts of 860 MHz radiation in continuous and pulsed wave formats, delivered 0.5cm from the rat's nose, also drew a blank for tumours of any kind. Breast cancer was studied in rats which were exposed to 900 MHz radiation continuously for three years. Again, the radiation did not cause tumours to develop faster or more of them, said authors of the 2002 paper.

What separate research did find in 2010 however is that lung tumours do develop if mice exposed to UMTS fields are also pre-treated with ENU. The finding may indicate that radio frequencies may not in themselves cause cancer but can accelerate it if a person is also exposed to a carcinogen. Or, given the wealth of negative links, there may just have been something wrong with this particular study.

The research so far which has turned up next to nothing includes: 

A massive long-term study in the UK, the Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research Programme (MTHR), which said in 2012 that there is no evidence that TETRA radio signals affected people. Of course, while there are TETRA-based mobile phones, most mobile phones today use the GSM standard so this may not be relevant.

A meta analysis of the research in Bioelectromagnetics in April 2012, which has found no link between mobile phone use and cancers of the areas of the head which receive the most radiation from a phone.

Some things may even improve. A May 2014 study done on primary school children in Iran that simulated a 10-minute GSM-900 mobile call found that short term memory actually improved after exposure. And mice exposed to GSM phone radiation were subsequently more resistant to e. coli infections, according to a study reported in July 2013 in Dose Response.

The World Health Organization points out that electromagnetic fields produced by mobile phones are classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer as "possibly carcinogenic" to humans because of the studies that do point to a problem. 

When many results are negative it is still uncertain whether the next study could also be negative, hence the classification. It could mean that mobile phones don't cause cancer at all, which is why there are so many negative results. Or it could mean that mobile phones do cause cancer, but under very specific circumstances which haven't been fully explored yet. 

It should also be noted that there are many different types of cancer. Mobile phones may not cause some types of cancer, but could possibly be responsible for others. It could be that researchers haven't found the cancers that're being caused by mobile phones yet.

Researchers are also assuming that people get cancer close to where they receive the most radiation. This might not be the case. 

And just as cancer is not one homogeneous entity, neither are mobile phones, nor the radiation they give off. The types of radio frequencies they use vary from country to country too. In a sense, none of the studies are truly apples-to-apples because they are likely to be studying people who are using completely different phones; the mobile phone signals could vary across cities and different frequencies are used in different countries. The phone may be very close to the body or quite far from it depending on whether handsfree kits or Bluetooth headsets are being used, affecting the amount of radiation delivered. Proximity to a base station might also matter.

All this research presumes that we are still making a lot of voice calls through the mobile network, and also making them through placing our mobile phones to our ears. In actual fact we may be using Wi-Fi, or using our phones to communicate in other ways. And when we use our phones for voice calls, we may be employing Bluetooth or basic hands-free kits.

Since we tend to spend more time holding our mobile phones in our hands, wouldn't we be more at risk of getting tumours of the hand? It turns out that tumours of the hand are very rare. One type of cancer, called soft tissue sarcoma, can occur but is not linked to mobile phones. It is however likely to be fatal. Another possibility would be that smartphones are a recent development and it may take another decade or more to see any cancers develop. Alternatively, the cancer cells could start in the hand but travel to other parts of the body.

But if you are expecting a glioma at any moment, another study from Taiwan may put things in context. Published November 2013, the researchers surveyed the number of malignant brain tumours in the whole of Taiwan from 2000 to 2009. According to the National Cancer Registry of Taiwan, there were just four incidences and four deaths during this period, against 23 million registered mobile phone numbers in Taiwan. It was not clear from the abstract if this referred to eight different cancer victims, or four victims who subsequently passed away; but either way the risk appears small.

It should also be noted that radiation can come from other sources, like electrical appliances, and we are all bathed in radio frequencies for all kinds of communications, including TV signals and shortwave radio. 

The WHO only plans to conduct a formal risk assessment of all studied health outcomes from radio frequency fields exposure by 2016. In the meantime, individual users have to decide for themselves if the research so far shows enough of a risk to take precautions. They can choose to make shorter calls, avoid placing their mobile phones close to their bodies, or invest in handsfree kits if they are worried, for example. 

Have a date with some dates

Research shows that dates (Phoenix dactylifera L. Arecaceae), which are often sold in the supermarkets before the fasting month of Ramadhan, might be a superfood. 

A 2002 study on dates found that they are could be quite potent in preventing the mutations which could lead to cancer. Another study, this time published in 2009, tested healthy subjects who ate 100g of dates every day for four weeks. 

The research found that despite their sugar content, the Hallawi and Medjool dates consumed did not affect their blood sugar levels. Researchers also concluded that dates would help to prevent plaque from building up in arteries. Hallawi dates were found to contain different antioxidants from Medjool dates and seemed more potent in their health-giving effects, pointing to different date varieties providing different levels of benefits.

Date pits also have their uses. A 2012 study made on date pit extract also found that the extract - which was fed to the mice - also inhibited mutations. Another 2014 study on date pit extract, tested on rats, reported that date pit extract has promising indications for raising chemicals in the body that promote 'good' cholesterol.