Category Archives: Transhuman News

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) has a devastating trajectory, first manifesting as muscle weakness and slurred speech. From there, it steals progressively more motor function until sufferers are no longer able to breathe on their own. There is no cure, and treatments can only prolong the inevitable by months, at most.

Most patients die within two to five years, although there are exceptions: theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking famously lived more than 50 years with the disease. Another striking case: The Indigenous population of Guam in the years after World War II, which developed ALS in very high numbers for unknown reasons.

Unlike typical ALS patients, many Guamanians with the disease lived a long time without medical intervention 20 years or more. Reports indicate the more severe the symptoms at onset in the Guamanians, the longer they lived the opposite of modern patients.

Risana Chowdhury, a doctoral candidate in anthropology, is looking to discover why.

Risana Chowdhury, a doctoral candidate in anthropology, conducts an immune-assay to determine the levels of c-reactive protein in the sera of Guamanian ALS patients and matched controls. Image Credit: Provided photo.To that end, she is looking at a panel of immunoregulators in human serum from Guam that is part of Binghamton Universitys biospecimen archive, under the direction of Chowdurys mentor, Professor Ralph Garruto. Her focus is on c-reactive protein (CRP), a marker of inflammation produced by the liver, and cytokines, which regulate immune function. As with most diseases, elevated levels of inflammation are part of ALS.

I am interested in how serum inflammation may have been different in Guamanian ALS patients compared to modern ALS patients, and how these differences may have influenced the unusually long lifespan seen in some cases of Guamanian ALS, she said.

Born in Bangladesh, Chowdhury moved to the United States at the age of five; she grew up mostly in Missouri. Originally contemplating a career in dentistry, she came to Binghamton with her husband a resident in internal medicine at the time and decided to pursue a masters degree in biomedical anthropology. The field proved so interesting that she shifted gears during her masters program and decided to become an anthropologist herself.

I think biological anthropology is fascinating because it is the study of humans interacting with their environments. It observes how one affects the other and how human behaviors, on both individual and community levels, affect health outcomes, she said.

She completed her MS in 2009 and enrolled in the MA/PhD program in 2015, completing her MA in 2018. Life has been busy in other ways, too; she had three children during the course of her studies at Binghamton.

She has found the University to be a welcoming and supportive environment, from her professors and department staff to the undergraduate students who have assisted her research through the years; many of the latter have gone on to their own graduate programs or to medical school. Chowdhurys research also received a boost from internal grants, including one from Harpur Edge.

My female and BIPOC (Black, indigenous and people of color) professors have also inspired me. I know it sounds clich, but representation matters! she said.

Her advisor, Associate Professor Katherine Wander, helped Chowdhury formulate hypotheses for the project. The central premise is this: Because humans have co-evolved with parasites and infectious diseases, our ancestors immune systems learned to self-regulate based on these interactions. Intestinal parasites, for example, down-regulate the hosts immune response in order to survive. Higher-income countries have significantly reduced childhood exposure to such pathogens, which can result in a hyperactive immune system in turn leading to an increased risk for developing allergies and autoimmune diseases later in life.

ALS emergence on Guam is a mystery; when the Spanish ruled the island from the mid-1500s to 1898, they made no note of it. The incidence of ALS has also decreased since the modernization of the Pacific Island, with the last remaining cases affecting between 10 and 25 individuals occurring between 1980 and 1991.

Risana Chowdhury, a doctoral candidate in anthropology, explains one of the three pilot studies she conducted to ensure the integrity and reliability of her data. Image Credit: Provided photo.According to reports, the environment of post-World War II Guam was higher in parasitic and other infectious diseases. My question is: Did Guamanians with ALS live longer because their exposure to a higher-infectious disease environment made their immune systems stronger? Chowdhury said. Studying patterns of inflammation in Guamanian sera of ALS cases and non-cases may help us answer that question.

So far, she has uncovered surprising patterns in the data that support the findings of researchers from the 1950s, although its too early to come to meaningful conclusions.

In the Guamanian ALS cases, elevated serum levels of some pro-inflammatory cytokines appear to be associated with longer lifespan. This is different from modern ALS cases, where higher serum inflammation is associated with shorter lifespan, she said.

Chowdhury is currently in the process of writing her dissertation, which she plans to defend in May 2022. She hopes to continue teaching or conducting research in the field.

Weve lost several giants in anthropology these last few years, including our own Professor Gary James in 2020 and well as E.O. Wilson and Richard Leakey more recently. Those are enormous shoes to fill, but it would be incredible to carry on their legacy, while taking anthropology to broader and more inclusive horizons, she said.

Read more here:
Research explores longevity and ALS | Binghamton News - Binghamton University

BATON ROUGE An LSU chemist and her research team have discovered a promising new treatment for an aggressive form of breast cancer with limited treatment options called triple-negative breast cancer, or TNBC. Compared to other types of breast cancer, TNBC has a shorter overall survival rate, and is more common in women of color and women under the age of 40.

TNBC cells do not have the receptors commonly found in other forms of breast cancer, which can complicate treatment. Currently, TNBC treatment involves multimodality therapies, including surgery, radiation and non-targeted chemotherapy. However, non-selective chemotherapy can be problematic for patients.

Non-selective chemotherapy treatments cant differentiate between cancer and non-cancerous tissue, resulting in harm to both cancer and non-cancerous, healthy cells, said LSU Chemistry Assistant Professor Fatima Rivas. Thus, there is a critical need to discover effective drug therapies that target TNBC cells without harming normal cells.

The Rivas research group is studying potential effective therapies using natural products to selectively target tumor cells and reduce mortality rates associated with TNBC.

Rivas and her collaborator,Associate Professor Michelle M. Martnez Montemayorfrom the Universidad Central del Caribe School of Medicine, identified ergosterol peroxide, a natural product from Ganoderma lucidum mushrooms, and developed Erperox. The mushroom-derived compound targets TNBC models without inducing cytotoxicity to normal tissue.

A Canadian company,Revive Therapeutics, recently licensed Erperox, which had been previously patented, and will fund preclinical efforts on determining the mode of action of Erperox and in vivo efficacy and safety studies. The teams goal is to advance this compound to preclinical candidate status so they can clear the path toward future clinical use for TNBC.

Natural products and their structural analogues have historically made a major contribution to the development of therapeutics, especially for cancer and infectious diseases, Rivas said. We believe that current scientific and technological advances will continue to facilitate the use of natural product-based drug discovery across the United States to improve human health and longevity.

According to Rivas, nearly half of patients in the U.S. with cancer reported that they began taking dietary supplements after receiving a diagnosis of cancer. The team hopes that their current in vitro and in vivo data will provide science-based evidence on the potential of Erperox.

The research team also received funding from Columbia Universitys Translational Therapeutics Accelerator, Puerto Rican Trust and the National Institutes of Health IDeA Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence program. These sponsored funds will assist the team in expanding their knowledge of drug dosing, potential synergies with current chemotherapeutics and potential toxicity effects.

Rivas joined the faculty at LSU in 2020. Her groups research focuses on synthesizing complex natural products as molecular probes to investigate cellular metabolic processes that drive human disease and develop chemical tools that can be utilized for treatment.

For additional information about Rivas research, please visit the Rivas research groupwebpage.

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LSU Chemist and Collaborator Discover a Natural-based Therapy to Treat an Aggressive form of Breast Cancer - L'Observateur - L'Observateur

Precision medicine software comprises on-premise and web & cloud-based deployment platforms used in the personalized treatment and detection of diseases, such as cancers, genetic disorders, cardiac & infectious diseases, and others. Precision medicine software assists physicians in choosing a treatment method based on the patients genetic makeup and lifestyle habits.

In efforts to reduce the healthcare burden, manufacturers have started developing platforms that increase accuracy & decrease the time taken for entire medical treatment. Meticulous Research, in its latest publication on Precision Medicine Software Market, states that the global precision medicine software market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 11.2% from 2021 to 2028 to reach $2.55 million by 2028.

The paradigm shift in treatment, rising pressure to decrease healthcare costs, scientific & technological advances in the genomics field, and growing focus towards providing companion diagnostics & biomarkers for various therapeutic areas are some of the major factors expected to drive the growth of this market. However, the lack of awareness about precision medicine practices and fragmented healthcare systems in developing countries hinder the growth of this market to a certain extent.

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To provide efficient analysis, Meticulous Research has segmented this market by deployment mode (on-premise and web & cloud-based), application (oncology, pharmacogenomics, and other applications), end user (healthcare providers, research & government institutes, and pharmaceutical & biotechnology companies), and geography (North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, and the Middle East & Africa).

Geographically, North America commanded the largest share of the global precision medicine software market in 2020, followed by Europe and Asia-Pacific. The Asia-Pacific region is expected to register the highest growth during the forecast period. The growing shift in treatment from one-size-fits-all medicines to precision medicine, increased spending on healthcare, rising funds for research activities, and growing focus of international players to expand their presence in this region are some of the key factors expected to propel the growth of the precision medicines software market in Asia-Pacific.

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Based on deployment mode, the global precision medicine software market is categorized into on-premise and web & cloud-based. In 2021, the on-premise segment accounted for the largest share of the global precision medicine software market. The large share of this segment is primarily attributed to the broad range of advantages associated with the use of on-premise software, such as high security of data, low risk of data breaches, and full command over software upgrades & data storage.

Based on application, the precision medicine software market is segmented into oncology, pharmacogenomics, central nervous system disorders, hereditary disorders, and cardio & metabolic disorders. In 2020, the oncology segment accounted for the largest share of the global precision medicine software market. The large share of this segment is primarily attributed to the growing prevalence of cancer, shift towards personalized treatment, rising funding in cancer research, applications of precision medicine in oncology research, and increased investments by government organizations in precision medicine and related software industry.

Based on end user, the global precision medicine software market is categorized into healthcare providers, research and government institutes, and pharmaceutical & biotechnology companies. In 2020, the healthcare providers segment accounted for the largest share of the global precision medicine software market. The large share of this segment is primarily attributed to the rising number of tertiary/specialty care hospitals, rising incidence of chronic diseases, growing healthcare infrastructure, increasing demand for quality healthcare, and shift towards personalized/precision medicine.

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The report provides competitive intelligence in terms of financials, growth strategies, product portfolios, and geographical presence on some of the key players in this market, including Syapse, Inc. (U.S.), Fabric Genomics, Inc. (U.S.), SOPHiA GENETICS SA (Switzerland), GenomOncology LLC (U.S.), Human Longevity, Inc. (U.S.), Sunquest Information Systems Inc. (U.S.), LifeOmic Health, LLC (U.S.), Translational Software Inc. (U.S.), N-of-One (U.S.), PhenoTips (Canada), PierianDx (U.S.), Foundation Medicine, Inc. (U.S.), and 2bPrecise (U.S.).

Contact:Mr.Khushal BombeMeticulous Market Research Inc.1267WillisSt,Ste200 Redding,California,96001, U.S.USA: +1-646-781-8004Europe : +44-203-868-8738APAC: +91 744-7780008Email-[emailprotected]Visit Our Website:https://www.meticulousresearch.com/Connect with us on LinkedIn-https://www.linkedin.com/company/meticulous-research

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Precision Medicine Software Market: Meticulous Research Reveals Why This Market is Growing at a CAGR of 11.2% to Reach $2.55 Billion by 2028 - Digital...

Understanding rates of suicide can be tricky, as researchers in a new study initially found there was a decline in the overall number of intentional drug overdoses. But after isolating data more finely, they found suicide rates actually went up for young people, Black women and the elderly.

In a study published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, researchers analyzed drug-involved overdose deaths from 1999 to 2019. Despite a 35.2 percent decrease in overall suicide rates, a very different set of results were revealedwhen researchers isolated data based on age, gender and race.

Researchers found that intentional drug overdoses from 2015 to 2019 increased inyoung men between the ages of 15-24 from 0.5 to 0.8, per 100,000 people. A similar trend was found among young women in the same age group from 0.6 to 1 and in Black women from 0.4 to 0.7.

Elderly adults' rate of intentional drug overdose deaths also rose among men ages 75-84 from 0.7 to 1.6, per 100,000 people. For elderly women it went from 0.8 to 1.7.

The American Psychological Association cites teen suicide as the second-leading cause of death for young people between the ages of 15 to 24 and that mental illness is the leading risk factor for suicide.

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Similarly, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services found that in 2019, suicide was the second leading cause of death for Black Americans between the ages of 15 to 24, while Blackwomen in grades 9-12 were 60 percent more likely to attempt suicide in 2019 compared to white females of the same age.

More recently the National Institutes of Health (NIH) found that nearly 90,000 people died from drug overdoses in the U.S. in 2020, which is the largest increase in a calendar year and reflects a nearly fivefold increase in the rate of overdose deaths since 1999.

NIH explained that it can be difficult to determine whether anoverdose death was intentional, and therefore the actual number of suicides is expected to be even higher. Many people who suffer from substance use disorder may also develop other mental illnesses, like mood and anxiety disorders, which independently are associated with increased suicide risk.

The distinction between accidental and intentional overdose has important clinical implications, as we must implement strategies for preventing both. To do so requires that we screen for suicidality among individuals who use opioids or other drugs, and that we provide treatment and support for those who need it, both for mental illnesses and for substance use disorders, said Nora Volkow, senior author on the study and director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).

Researchers also found that overdose rates varied by month, with the lowest rates noted in December and the highest rates came in spring and summer, noting both social and biological factors may play a role in those monthly fluctuations. For instance, low rates in December and could be related to a persons more positive and hopeful mood during the holiday season.

Another trend researchers investigated was when overdose deaths were most likely to occur in terms of days of the week. They found suicide rates were highest on Mondays and lowest on weekends. Social factors, like people having plans with friends and family over the weekend, could play a role in that.

If you or someone you know is in crisis and needs immediate help, call theNational Suicide Prevention Lifelineat 1-800-273-TALK (8255).

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Suicides by drug overdose increased among youth, elderly and Black women in last five years: study | TheHill - The Hill

Love relationships come with their own set of rules. When two people get their hearts dependent on each other, it often creates a lot of expectations from the other partner failing to fulfill each of the expectations create problems in the relationships.

These expectations often grow from the fact that people are exposed to a lot of myths that surround relationships. Nicole LePera, Psychologist, who goes by the name The Holistic Psychologist on Instagram is known for sharing helpful tips on relationships that help people to create a safe space for their partner to flourish, both mentally and emotionally.

ALSO READ: Want a healthy, long-lasting relationship with your partner? Experts share tips

Nicole LePera shared a set of relationships myths on her Instagram profile, a day back, and spoke about the need of re-learning the ideas of relationships to create a healthy one. Take a look:

Divorce or breakups term the relationship as failed

We often think that divorce or breaking up from a relationship means that it was a failure. However, Nicole said that separating ways and hence, coming to the conclusion of ending a human relationship is a common human experience.

Meant-to-be relations are easy

Relationships need constant work, based on honest communication, vulnerability, curiosity and self-compassion. To create a safe space for the relationship to mutually evolve, we need constant work and the commitment to make it work.

Partners are always expected to know what the other person is feeling

Communication is the key to a healthy relationship. In order to let the partner know what we are feeling, it is important to communicate the same in clear words, so as to not burden the other person with expectations.

Partners should always team up together

Bringing different perspectives to a relationship is a healthy way to go. Disagreements are natural between two people in a relationship, and that is not unhealthy.

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The ultimate goal is to stay together

We often believe that people who are in long-tern relationships are in a healthy one. However, longevity has nothing to do with emotional connection.

These myths often set up false expectations in a relationship, which further leads to resentment. It is time to re-learn the process of relationships so as to create a mutual healthy space for both of the partners to evolve.

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5 myths about relationships that create resentment: Expert offers tips - Hindustan Times

Fans typically have one of two responses when a great athlete announces their career is over. Most of the time, we look back on a long and decorated career filled with memories and marvel, while acknowledging that their body had started to falter and that the time to walk away had come. But there are rare cases when an athlete retires at the top of their game, leaving us to wonder what might have been.

Tom Bradys retirement this week somehow falls into both categories. Of course it feels as if the time had come for him to move on. Brady has been the face of the NFL for almost two decades, achieving more than any other quarterback in football historyand arguably more than any other athlete in team sports history, period. He leaves the league with seven Super Bowl wins, and he owns the records for virtually every major passing statistic, many of which should hold for decades. Having accomplished so much, Brady is ready for a life without footballand fans of pretty much every NFL team are ready for a life in which Brady isnt playing football. Weve been waiting a long time for our teams to win, dammit!

But despite having the longest, most successful career of any football player in history, Brady never dropped off. In his final season, he led the NFL in passing yards (5,316) and passing touchdowns (43). He won the Super Bowl last season; this season, he led his team to a 13-4 record and a playoff win. In his final outing, Brady rallied the Buccaneers from a 27-3 second-half deficit to briefly tie the teams divisional-round matchup against the Rams, who ended up making the Super Bowl. Many quarterbacks arm strength falters as they grow olderbut Bradys final touchdown pass was a gorgeous 55-yard bomb to Mike Evans, a perfect, powerful strike reminiscient of the throws he made to Randy Moss on the Patriots 15 years earlier.

The past few years have brought a slew of retirements by quarterbacks who dominated the NFLs modern era. In every prior case, the retirement followed a significant decline in the quarterbacks quality of play. Drew Brees could no longer throw deep when he called it quits after 2020. Ben Roethlisberger looked like a QB from a different era this season before retiring in January; you could almost hear him emitting an exhausted grunt every time he wound up to throw a wobbly 6-yard pass on third-and-10. Peyton Manning may have gone out on top by retiring after the Broncos win in Super Bowl 50but that Denver team was carried by its all-world defense, while Manning threw just nine touchdowns and 17 interceptions. The 2015 Broncos often seemed better off with Brock Osweiler on the field.

With Brady, though? Hes legitimately as good as hes ever been. Hell either finish first or second in 2021 MVP voting. The Buccaneers were Super Bowl contenders for 2022 with Brady; without him, they probably wont be. Sportsbooks gave the Bucs the fourth-best odds to win next seasons Super Bowl before Bradys retirement. Now, FanDuel lists them with what are tied for the ninth-best odds. Unless another six-time Super Bowl champion decides to switch teams in the offseason, Tampa Bay may have to try to win next fall with Kyle Trask or Blaine Gabbert. Players like Andrew Luck may have retired at younger ages, but Bradys retirement in his mid-40s probably has a bigger impact on the competitive future of the league.

Brady had said repeatedly over the years that his goal was to play until age 45. That proclamation seemed impossible, considering that there are a total of 22 passing attempts in league history thrown by quarterbacks aged 45 or olderand all of them came from Hall of Famer George Blanda, who only threw those passes in the 1970s because he hung around on rosters as a kicker and occasionally came into games as a backup.

But Brady never wavered, defying the aging curve while appearing in a Facebook show called Tom vs. Time and releasing a book titled The TB12 Method: How to Achieve a Lifetime of Sustained Peak Performance. As it turned out, living a lifetime of sustained peak performance involved buying expensive products from the TB12 store, and the book was widely derided as pseudoscience. (Brady also sold a $200 cookbook.) Eventually, Brady abandoned the idea that he would play until 45and moved on to saying he could play until 50, or 55. Sometimes, he sounded like a narcissist who believed his on-field success meant that he was exempt from the concept of human mortality; other times, he simply sounded like a salesman with a warehouse full of anti-aging products.

Brady did fall short of his lofty projections, retiring at age 44. (Ha! I knew he was lying!) But in doing so he proved that all of his claims about being able to play deep into his 40s were legitimate, rather than delusional ramblings or an attempt to push product. Though he accomplished everything possible for a football player, I have to wonder: How far could Brady have gone?

Identifying Bradys greatest trait as an athlete is hard. While some legends are known for possessing one iconic skill, Brady didnt have a ridiculously strong arm or a stunning ability to power through defenders. Im not actually sure Brady even knows how to sprint. His greatness came from qualities that are more difficult to define, like presnap anticipation, processing ability, and throwing accuracy. Oh, and the fact that his teams always won games. But as Brady continued thriving, something else emerged that separated his legend from anybody elses: his ability to keep going.

Bradys late-career production is silly. He has 22,938 passing yards after turning 40; that alone would rank 92nd all time in NFL history. Brady has more passing yards after turning 40 than Roger Staubach did in his entire Hall of Fame career, and more passing touchdowns after turning 40 (168) than Troy Aikman did in his entire Hall of Fame career. Every other QB in NFL history has combined for just 38 passing touchdowns after turning 42; Brady has 107. Brady is actually second in receiving yards after 40, since he caught a pass in 2018only he and Jerry Rice have post-40 receptions.

Bradys longevity makes his records insurmountable, at least for the next couple of decades. Aaron Rodgers feels like the only long-tenured QB who could conceivably catch some of those marks, but he would need to throw for another 175 touchdowns and more than 29,000 yards to do so. The 38-year-old Rodgers would basically have to staple Lucks entire NFL career (171 touchdowns, 23,671 yards) on top of his current career. If Rodgers doesnt do it, well have to wait about 15 years for anybody else (Patrick Mahomes? Josh Allen?) to get close. And winning seven Super Bowls feels downright impossible.

But part of me wonders: How far could this have gone? Brady certainly had the ability to play for another yearcould he have played for three more? Could he have really been an effective NFL quarterback at age 50? With Brady, it feels like we had a legitimate chance to see the maximum amount of football success that a human being could have in one lifetime. What would that look like? How much could he have done?

Were left without an answer here. Some aging quarterbacks drop off astoundingly quickly. It seemed like Manning was set to play well into his 40s when he set an NFL record by passing for 55 touchdowns at age 37; just two years later, he posted career lows in virtually every category except for interception rate, which rose to a career high. Other quarterbacks aged more gracefully. Even as Brees stopped throwing the ball deep, he was still capable of sustaining high completion rates and leading efficient offenses. Well never know how long it wouldve taken for Brady to physically drop offor how he wouldve adjusted to newfound physical limitations.

It feels probable that Brady could have continued to contend for Super Bowls for at least a few more years with these Buccaneers. Hed already passed virtually every significant quarterbacking milestone, but another three seasons couldve seen him hit 100,000 career passing yards. It feels reasonable to expect that Brady could have thrived even if his throwing capabilities did lessen in his late 40s or early 50snobody was better at taking what a defense gave him, and Brady was the second-highest-rated QB on passes marked as short by Pro Football Focus in 2021. He may be retiring with a live arm, but its conceivable that he could have dinked and dunked his way to an eighth Super Bowl or a ninth or a 10th.

For the most part, Im glad Brady is retiring. There were no more stories left to tell. He had already achieved every possible goal, and its well past time for other players to build their legacies. For the record, I am a fan of the New York Jets. Brady has haunted me enough for 10 lifetimes. If I never see him again, itll be too soon.

But if anybody was going to keep playing until he found the limit of what one football player could accomplish, it was Brady, who was compulsively driven to prove that he could just keep going. Its strange to wonder what more we could have seen from him, considering that he played longer and did more than anybody else who previously played his position. Brady made it feel like he would try to achieve everything that was conceivably possible. In the end, he settled for simply achieving more than anybody else in football history ever has.

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How Long Could Tom Brady Really Have Kept Playing? - The Ringer

4 February is World Cancer Day and 2022s World Cancer day theme is Close the care gap. Initiated by the Union for International Cancer Control, World Cancer Day aims to unite the cancer community and reduce the global cancer burden. Dr Ida Mbuthia, Medical and Scientific Affairs Lead SSA, Roche Diagnostics explains.

Approximately 8.2 million people worldwide die from cancer each year, and the numbers are consistently rising. Half of these deaths are considered premature. Disparities in prevention, diagnosis, treatment and palliative care are growing and World Cancer Day is an opportunity to raise cancer awareness in the media, public consciousness and in global health and development circles.1

Cancer is the second leading cause of death globally and accounted for an estimated one in six deaths, in 2018 2 . And the cancer burden exerts tremendous physical, emotional and financial strain on individuals, families, communities and health systems.

Awareness and action are key factors in managing the global cancer burden, as at least one-third of cancers are preventable. Access to care and early diagnostics are vital. Poor access to resources means that 70% of cancer deaths occur in low-to-middle income countries. But early detection, appropriate strategies for prevention and treatment could save millions of lives. 3

Cancer tumours are divided into three groups. Benign tumours are slow growing and rarely life threatening. They are usually contained within one part of the body and are made up of cells resembling the normal healthy cells. Complications arise when they become too large and put pressure on other organs such as the brain or lungs. 3

Faster growing malignant tumours, however, spread and destroy neighbouring tissue. Their cells break off from the primary tumour and metastasise through the body. They continue to divide and grow resulting in metastatic cancer. 3

There are five main types of cancer, classified according to the nature of the cell they originate from:

Most cancers are the result of exposure to several factors some external and some internal. One-third of cancer cases can be prevented by reducing behavioural and dietary risks3. Alcohol, excess weight, diets high in red meats, processed meats, salted

foods and low in fruits and vegetables impact cancer risks. 3

Tobacco smoke contains at least 80 different cancer-causing substances that pass into the bloodstream and are transported throughout the body. Manmade sources of radiation can cause cancer and are a risk for people exposed to cancer-causing substances because of the work that they do. 3

Viruses that cause changes in cells make them more likely to become cancerous. 70% of cervical cancers are caused by Human Papillomavirus (HPV) infections, while liver cancer can be caused by the Hepatitis B and C virus. 3

Regular physical activity reduces excess body fat and the cancer risks associated with this and being physically active can help reduce the risks of developing cancers.3

Some risk factors are not as easy to modify. Age plays a role as a longer life means more exposure to carcinogens. Genetic mutations can also alter how a cell behaves, making it more likely to be cancerous. And certain people are born with a genetic predisposition that makes the disease more likely. Weakened immune systems also increase cancer risk. Those with HIV or AIDS, organ transplant recipients or those with medical conditions that reduce immunity are more vulnerable to cancer.3

The African continent suffers from a shortage of medical equipment, research resources and epidemiological expertise. Late diagnosis greatly reduces the possibilities of curative treatment, and in sub-Saharan Africa, those vulnerable to being diagnosed with advanced disease include many socially disadvantaged people with poor cancer awareness.Even with many patients experiencing symptoms and seeking help, it is common to long delays to diagnosis.4

To improve survival rates, sub-Saharan African countries need to boost programmes to ensure the early diagnosis of cancer, in tandem with improvements to efficient, timely access to appropriate high-quality treatment. An accelerated referral system to diagnosis needs to be strengthened and strategies to improve cancer education and awareness among patients and health professionals should be intensified.4

The old clich, Knowledge is power is most fitting here. It is of the utmost importance that patients are acutely aware of the symptoms of cancer so that early diagnosis can lead to proper care. Different people can have different symptoms. And some people do not have any signs or symptoms at all, making cancer harder to detect on the surface. 5

Here are some possible warning signs of cancer. Contact your healthcare professional if you find any of the following:

It is important to note that these symptoms can also occur with other conditions that are not cancer. 5

Even though we live in a time of incredible advancements in cancer prevention, diagnosis and treatment, many are denied basic care. This is the equity gap that needs to be addressed. Barriers obstructing cancer care include income, education, geographical location and discrimination. In healthcare, inequality refers to the uneven distribution of resources, whereas inequity refers to unjust, avoidable differences in care or outcomes.

Closing the care gap isnt about providing equal resources, but about giving everyone what they need to bring them up to the same level. 6

At Roche Diagnostics, we believe in collaborative solutions that can improve the lives of patients throughout the African continent. Whether its cancer, infectious diseases or other serious health threats, the quest for better solutions to healthcares greatest challenges starts with and depends on diagnostics. If we commit to tackling the burden of cancer together, I truly believe we can be instrumental in curbing the cancer burden, the non-communicable pandemic in the long-term. 7

Dr IDA MBUTHIA MBChB, MPH, GCSRT (Harvard Medical School)

Dr Mbuthia holds an MBChB from the University of Nairobi and a Masters degree in Public health specializing in Health Promotion from Moi University. She is a Harvard alumnus from the Global Clinical Scholars research-training program with over 15 years experience in Clinical medicine, Healthcare management, Medical Affairs and Clinical research expertise in the Pharmaceutical and Diagnostics industry. Dr Mbuthia is the Medical and Scientific Affairs Lead SSA for Roche Diagnostics, a position she has held for the past one year and is based in Nairobi Kenya. Global health policy, non-communicable diseases and evidence generation for Africa are among key areas of interest for her.

Original post:
Dr Ida Mbuthia Says Awareness Is Key to Reduce The Global Cancer Burden - Longevity LIVE - Longevity LIVE