Merry Christmas!
First Lady Talks About Her Treatment for Skin Cancer
"I was never sick. I never felt badly."
Appearing on the CBS News show "Face the Nation" Sunday, that's how First Lady Laura Bush described her experience with squamous cell skin cancer.
In fact, Mrs. Bush told host Bob Shieffer, "... it never occurred to me to make it public. I thought it was an insect bite, actually, when I first got it, and then it just didn't get well."
In late October Mrs. Bush said she had a biopsy done on a sore on her right shin after it didn't heal on its own. The results, she said, turned out to be a malignant squamous cell carcinoma, the second most common form of skin cancer. It is more aggressive than basal cell cancer, the most common type. The most serious skin cancer is melanoma, which can spread quickly throughout the body and can cause death if not treated quickly.
The malignancy was surgically removed during a doctor's office visit, Mrs. Bush said.
She attributed the cause to spending a lot of time in the Texas sun when she was younger, and that she had fair skin. "I didn't tan, really," she told Shieffer. "But I would spend afternoons at the swimming pool and did those things that we all did growing up in Texas, and so I was out in the sun a lot."
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Health Care Shortage in L.A Jail System Leads to Death, Newspaper Reports
Medical professional staffing shortages in the Los Angeles County jail system have resulted in the lack of proper health care for hundreds of inmates and resulted in at least 14 deaths since 1999, the Los Angeles Times reports.
The newspaper says that the jail system, which houses an average of 18,000 people every day, is estimated to need almost twice the number of doctors, nurses and other medical workers to help avoid the delays in treating illness and injury that seem to be the rule rather than the exception.
In a review of medical records, including autopsies, the Times says it found that 20 percent of inmates seeking a doctor's attention never received it before they were released.
In one case cited by the newspaper, a 55-year old diabetic man arrested for drunk driving never had the medication he needed entered on his medical record when he was first incarcerated. He died a few days later after collapsing while cleaning latrines.
Sheriff's Lt. Stephen Smith, who oversees the L.A. county jail system's medical services bureau, told the Times that he was aware that there staffing shortages and that "bad outcomes" can occur. But, "we face unique challenges, and we do the best we can," the newspaper quotes Smith as saying.
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Olive Oil May Protect Against Cancer-Causing Substance
A little more than a couple of tablespoons of olive oil daily may be able to stave off the introduction of too many free radicals, substances that promote the growth of cancer cells, BBC News reports.
The broadcast news agency says a study of 182 European men found that the subjects who consumed as little as 25 milliliters (five teaspoons) of olive oil per day showed a reduced level of a substance that creates free radicals in their systems.
Olive oil contains monounsaturated fat that lowers HDL (bad) cholesterol levels. It also contains antioxidants called phenols, which based on the latest study, can help retard the accumulation of free radicals in a person's body.
The study showed that those who took olive oil during the course of the trial had a 13 percent reduction in the damaging substances, the BBC reported.
But more study is needed, scientists add. The BBC quotes Dr Anthea Martin, science information officer at Cancer Research UK, as saying, "Although this study suggests that olive oil can reduce DNA damage that could lead to the development of cancer, more long-term research is needed to confirm these effects."
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Hypertension Problems Can Occur in Black Children as Early as Age 10
Signs of elevated blood pressure in African Americans can be evident as early as age 10, according to new research from the Medical College of Georgia.
By percentage, blacks in the United States have more hypertension than whites, and the latest research, published in the Dec. 19 edition of the journal Circulation,, offers more information as to how early high blood pressure problems can occur.
In an article written by the Medical College of Georgia, Dr. Xiaoling Wang, a genetic epidemiologist and the study's lead author is quoted as saying, "... this 15-year study allows us to look at one population over an extended period of time, [helping] us identify the age that these problems begin to occur -- as early as age 10."
The research team found that by age 10, some black children already had escalated blood pressure at night, which can signal heart disease problems later in life. Over its 15 year span, the study also found the gap of nighttime high blood pressure between blacks and whites widened.
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Dietary Supplement Burns Fat
A common dietary fat supplement called conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) helped overweight adults burn fat, even through the holiday season, says a study by American and Canadian researchers.
The six-month study included 40 overweight people, mainly women, who were divided into two groups. One group took a daily supplement of CLA while the other group took a placebo, CBC News reported.
Over the course of the study, the people in the CLA group lost an average of 2.2 pounds of fat and tended to lose fat from the abdomen. This type of fat is believed to increase the risk of heart disease. In contrast, the participants in the placebo group gained an average of 1.5 pounds in November and December alone.
"Despite no differences between the CLA and placebo group with regards to calorie intake or physical activity throughout the study, the CLA group still managed to lose weight prior to the holiday season and didn't gain any weight over the holidays," said study author Andrea Buchholz, professor of applied nutrition at the University of Guelph in Canada.
The study was published in the International Journal of Obesity.
CLA is a form of naturally occurring polyunsaturated fat found in meat and dairy products. CLA supplements are available in health-food stores and pharmacies. While animal studies have suggested that CLA helps burn existing fat and impedes proliferation of new fat cells, previous research in humans has yielded inconsistent findings, CBC News reported.
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Slow Start to Flu Season in U.S.
There has been a slow start to the flu season in the United States this year, according to health officials.
In a report released Thursday for the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR, statistics showed that influenza activity remained low in the country overall between Oct. 1 and Dec. 9, but did increase in the southeastern states.
So far this season, influenza A (H1) viruses have been the most common, and most of those viruses are well matched by this year's influenza vaccine, the report said
Patient visits for influenza-like illness and influenza and pneumonia death rates have not exceeded national baseline levels, the report said. No influenza-associated hospitalizations from the Emerging Infections Program or New Vaccine Surveillance Network systems or influenza-related children's deaths have been reported to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which publishes the MMWR.
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