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    Thursday, December 29, 2011

    Cancer Incidence And Mortality Continue To Decline

    Cancer incidence and mortality continue to decline, with the most dramatic decreases in lung, prostate, and colorectal cancers among men, and breast and colorectal cancers in women, according to the latest national report card.

    "Overall cancer incidence rates for all racial/ethnic groups combined decreased by 0.7% per year during 1999-2006 for both sexes combined, by 1.3% per year during 2000-2006 for men, and by 0.5% per year during 1998-2006 for women," authors from the American Cancer Society, the CDC, the National Cancer Institute, and the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries concluded. The report, was published online in the ACS journal, Cancer.

    There has been a decline in cancer death rates since the early 1990s and that trend appears to be durable.The decreases were slightly larger for men, who had declines of 1.5% per year during 1993-2001 and 2.0% per year during 2001-2006 compared with women, whose cancer death rates declined 0.8% per year during 1994-2002 and 1.5% per year during 2002-2006," the authors wrote.

    But the news was not all good. As men saw decreased rates of prostate, lung, oral, stomach, brain, and colorectal cancers, there was a concurrent increase in the cancers of the kidney, renal, liver, and esophagus -- as well as increases in leukemia, myeloma, and melanoma of the skin.

    For women the story was similar -- decreased rates of breast, colorectal, ovarian, cervical, uterine corpus, and oral cancers, but an uptick in lung, thyroid, pancreas, bladder, and kidney cancers, as well as increases in non-Hodgkin lymphoma, melanoma, and leukemia.

    Colorectal cancer [CRC] is a focus of this year's report, not a surprising choice because the news here is good: "CRC death rates have declined since 1984 in both men and women, with an accelerated rate of decline since 2002 (for men) and 2001 (for women)."

    And a "microsimulation model" suggests that death rates from colorectal cancer could be reduced by 36% over the next decade if "1995-2000 trends for risk factor prevalence, screening, and treatment continue."But the authors point out that increased obesity among younger Americans could derail this trend.

    Please remember, as with all our articles we provide information, not medical advice. For any treatment of your own medical condition you must visit your local doctor, with or without our article[s]. These articles are not to be taken as individual medical advice.

    Deepen your understanding of "medical malpractice"... www.MedMalBook.com
    For more health info and links visit the author's web site www.hookman.com

    Thursday, December 15, 2011

    Americans living longer than ever

    Americans living longer than ever. And every year that gets tacked on to the average life expectancy costs an extra trillion dollars in expenditures by Social Security and Medicare.

    Americans are living a record 77 years and 11 months on average...according to two studies that led researchers to suggest raising the retirement age." The first study, from the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics, found that in the "US in 2007, the latest year for which figures are available," the "0.76 percent death rate is the lowest ever," driven by "a decline in deaths from heart disease and other ailments." Meanwhile, a second study published Dec. 14 in the health journal Milbank Quarterly, found that "every year that gets tacked on to the average life expectancy costs an extra trillion dollars in expenditures by Social Security and Medicare."

            Overall, the 2007 data "show continued improvements in life expectancy for all Americans, although women are faring better than men, and whites fare better than other racial groups" by a "race differential" of about "4.6 years." But, even amid this progress, vast geographical discrepancies remain -- with people in southern states still facing higher death rates than those living in other parts of the country." And, "even though Americans can expect to live longer than their parents, life expectancy in the" US "is still lower than in many other industrialized countries, including Canada and Japan. Even so, the "dramatic improvements in the health of Americans over the last 20 years" will "have unforeseen effects on the country. The Social Security and Medicare "programs weren't designed to support people for that long."

    Please remember, as with all our articles we provide information, not medical advice. For any treatment of your own medical condition you must visit your local doctor, with or without our article[s]. These articles are not to be taken as individual medical advice.

    Deepen your understanding of "medical malpractice"... www.MedMalBook.com
    For more health info and links visit the author's web site www.hookman.com