Types of Cancer- detection -symptoms- prevention- treatment- Medications

Cancers are of several types. Carcinoma is a cancer of the outer part of the body (such as skin, lip, breast, tongue) or of the innermost part of the body (such as stomach or colon). Sarcoma is a cancer of in-between tissues (such as muscles and bones). A teratoma is a mixture of these types. A hamartoma is an overgrowth of cells in an organ which does not progress and is now considered more a congenital abnormality than a tumor or cancer. 

Because cancer starts in a single organ rather than diffusely, there have been some daring suggestions about primary prevention. Quite seriously, some distinguished surgeons have discussed the possibility of prophylactically removing organs that are common cancer sites. Why not, they suggest, remove the uterus after child- bearing when it is no longer needed, Cancer of the breasts, or the prostate? From a straight surgical viewpoint, the decision would rest on the dangers and disability of operation versus the danger of the cancer. But surely other considerations enter in. Removal of the breasts is a great emotional shock for a woman.

The danger of operation, while small, cannot be overlooked. And, too, this danger comes for a relatively young woman, for if prophylactic surgery is to be meaningful it would have to be performed when a woman is entering the time of life when cancer becomes a possibility. Thus, at 40 years, she may be exposed to the danger, discomfort, and psychological hazards of the operation, whereas even if she is destined to get cancer, it may not strike until she is 55 and she has a good chance of getting years of relief or even complete cure from surgery performed at that time. 

Prophylactic removal of the uterus after the childbearing years might seem more desirable if it were not for the Pap test, which makes it possible to detect precancerous lesions in the uterus and thus institute surgery that will be curative. And for men, prostate removal is a major operation with some risk of mortality and danger of impotence, which a younger man would not want to face. At present, then, primary preventive surgery does not seem a practical answer.

There are more practical methods possible for primary prevention of cancer even though we realize from the frequency of the disease that these are far from sufficient. First, as we have noted earlier, cessationof smoking can save thousands of lives otherwise doomed to be lost from cancer. And an appreciable additional number can be saved from cancers of lip, tongue, larynx, and possibly stomach and urinary bladder. Then there are the precancerous lesions which can be removed before they have a chance to become malignant.

 They include leukoplakia (white patches) on tongue and lips; senile changes in the vagina; skin lesions such as moles which begin to enlarge; certain polyps of the colon and rectum. These pre-cancers can be detected by the type of regular checkup we have described earlier in this book. There are cancers that follow heavy exposure of the skin to sun and wind -the so-called sailor's and farmer's cancers-which can be prevented by covering the skin and shading the face. Radiation can lead to cancer. There is much less danger from diagnostic than from therapeutic x-ray or other irradiation. But every exposureto radiation should be entered in your medical record and shown to your doctor and dentist whenever they suggest x-rays. Workers in the radiation industries should know every safety precaution. 

Aging and Allergies understanding the problem and prevention and treatment

The older person needs a good, understanding physician to help him with the more numerous illnesses and minor annoyances to be expected with aging. Also, as friends and relatives die, the doctor becomes a needed friend. What of so-called rejuvenation operations and other methods purporting to stop or even reverse aging? As far as medical science can determine, there is no validity to the claims for any of these methods: e.g., transplantation of animal glands, injections of Novocain. We are very much in the early in- fancy of biological and medical research into aging. 

It is entirely possible that some "Peter Pan" substance may yet be found to keep us young longer. We have to learn why the white rat rarely lives more than three years, a dog no more than twenty, and man seldom more than one hundred. Possibly out of such research, with animals as well as man, will become new knowledge to provide clues to longer, youthful life. Until then, we can only learn how to prevent the diseases and ravages of the years so we may enjoy to the full a near century of life. 

Note: Problems of the later years- e.g., retirement change of location, hospitalization for surgery, choice of physician-are discussed in additional detail in a book by one of us: The Complete Medical Guide, by Benjamin F. Miller, M.D., published by Simon & Schuster, 630 Fifth Ave., New York, N.Y. 10020. ALLERGY With all the talk about it, one might assume that nearly all Americans are allergic. This is not true, but allergic ailments are common enough if one considers all the people who have hay fever, asthma, hives, and sensitivity reactions to medicines, pets, foods, cosmetics, and industrial substances.

The term allergy means altered reaction. A person with allergy has become sensitive to a specific sub- stance which is perfectly harmless to the non-allergic population. The word specific is a key one because an allergic individual may have a violent attack of asthma, for example, when exposed to cat dander but may be perfectly comfortable with dogs, hamsters, canaries, or other pets. The offending substance is called an allergen and is protein in nature or has the capacity to combine with protein in the body. 

Thus a person may be sensitive to such proteins as those in milk, egg white, or lobster but be able to take fats, such as butter, and starches and cane sugar in any amount without symptoms. When a person becomes allergic to a non-protein substance such as iodine or penicillin, it is believed that the offending substance is itself a partial allergen and becomes. 

vacations help to destress and give relaxation to your muscles and brain

Still others benefit by arrangements that allow them to enjoy a series of four-day or five-day vacations, taken perhaps four times the more each year. 1f it is possible for you to have such flexibility, it could be well worth-while. 

Before You Go on Vacation It's a good idea to see your doctor before you go off on an extended vacation-so you won't have to see him after it is over. In fact, just before a vacation can be an especially suitable time for having your regular periodic checkup.

For one thing, your doctor can tell you how much and what kind of exercise you should undertake. If he finds you are not in condition to climb mountains or play tennis, you can select a place where you won't be tempted to engage in such activities. You will have more fun perhaps lying on a beach or sitting in a boat pulling in fish. 

Deciding where to go on your vacation can be important if you have a health problem such as hay fever, for example. Your doctor can advise about avoiding certain places at certain seasons. If you have a heart or lung problem, he can advise about altitudes and their possible effects.

Tell your physician not only where you plan to go but how you will get thereby train, plane, ship, or car. If you have any tendency to motion sickness, your physician can prescribe medication to help prevent it. Depending upon where you plan to go and the availability there of medical facilities, your physician may suggest that you take along a first-aid kit. 

A minimum one, under some conditions, might include the following items, and your physician can provide prescriptions for those that require them: Aspirin-for headache, fever, muscle aches and pains Antiseptic, such as hydrogen peroxide, tincture of iodine, or benzalkonium chloride Skin lotion-to protect against sunburn and windburn Anti-Nauseant for motion sickness Antacid-for mild stomach upset Sedative for emotional upset, overstimulation, or nervous upset Broad-spectrum antibiotic-effective against a wide range of bacteria, in case of serious illness; to be selected by your physician and used precisely as he instructs container of small bandages Sterilized gauze squares Roll of adhesive tape, one-half inch wide A pectinkaolate compound such as Kaopectate, or paregoric, or Lomotil for diarrhea and "tourist trots" 

How Much Sleep is essential? Age and timings of sleep

HOW MUCH SLEEP?

 Sleep is essential, but the amount required varies. The usual sleeping time for the adult is eight hours, but some people need less, some need more. Everyone has heard the story of Thomas A. Edison sleeping only two hours a night-and the romantic picture of Edison working on through the night to invent the electric light bulb suggests that any of us, strong willed enough, could cut down on sleep and have more time to become famous and rich. The fact is that Edison, though protesting that sleep was a loss of time and opportunity, was concerned about getting his own quota of sleep, according to his own diaries.

He napped often, and frequently drifted back to sleep for another hour or so after waking in the morning. Some physicians are firmly convinced that if shortchanging yourself on sleep does not catch up with you quickly, it will, and there will come the day when you suddenly appear to lose your energy, become prone to ailments, and suffer a general deterioration of health. There is no simple answer to the question of how much sleep is best. The essential test is whether you feel rested in the morning and have enough energy to carry on the day's activities.

Eight hours, as we have noted, is an average figure. If you do very heavy physical work or extremely exacting mental work, you may need more. Children need more sleep than adults since they are growing fast and are very active. Old people often have been thought to need less sleep; this is not necessarily true. They may need more, depending upon their activity and health. It could be a most worthwhile exercise to make your own investigation into your sleep needs, on the simple basis of experimenting to determine how much sleep makes you feel good, how much less makes you feel out of sorts, irritable, fatigued. 

FADS AND FALLACIES, Vitamins nutrition, fish and celery for body health and prevention of diseases

According to Food and Drug Administration studies involving regular market basket sampling, foods available at ordinary groceries and supermarkets contain ample quantities of vitamins. Many food additives are now in use. Times and distances involved in getting products from farm to consumer are often great, and additives are used by processors to maintain quality. In some cases, they are used to improve quality or add some advantage not found in the natural state. Thus, some foods are fortified with vitamins and minerals.

Flavoring agents may be employed to add taste appeal. Preservatives have to be used for some foods that would otherwise be spoiled by organisms or would undergo undesirable chemical changes before use. Emulsifiers may be added to bakery goods to achieve fineness of grain; and stabilizers and thickeners, such as pectin and vegetable gums, may be used for maintaining texture and body. A federal food additives law requires that additives be tested and proved safe for consumption before they may be used. Much remains to be learned about additives-and much, too, about safe use of pesticides, but on a realistic basis, with a growing population, we need both additives and pesticides and must learn to use them to best advantage.

FADS AND FALLACIES

 Perhaps no other area of human concern is as surrounded with fads and fallacies as nutrition. We have had blacks trap molasses and wheat germ offered as virtual panaceas and, more recently, vinegar and honey. Although no food has any special health virtue all its own, it would be hard to find any that at some time or other has not been touted as such. Do oysters, raw eggs, lean meat, and olives increase a man's potency?

Hardly, they have their nutrient values but confer no special potency benefits. Are fish and celery brain foods? The idea could have arisen because brain and nerve tissue are rich in phosphorus, and fish provides phosphorus-containing materials. But so do meat, poultry, milk, and eggs. And celery, it turns out, has relatively little phosphorus. 

Are white eggs healthier than brown? The fact is that the breed of hen determines eggshell color, and color has nothing to do with nutritive value. Some magical powers once attributed to foods have been explained by scientific research. For example, lemons and limes were once considered panaceas for scurvy; it is their vitamin C content, of course, which did the work. Rice polishing was indeed fine for preventing beriberi, but solely because of their vitamin B1 content. 

Goiter was once treated with sea sponge, and the seeming magic stemmed not from something unique about sponge, but from its content of iodine. Food myths arise, too, from distortions of scientific fact. Thus, carrots considered to be good for the eyes.

They are-in cases of vitamin A deficiency. The yellow pigment of carrots, carotene, is converted by low body into vitamin A, which is needed to produce a pigment for the retina of the eye. Incidentally, carotene is plentiful, too, in green vegetables where the yellow color is masked by chlorophyll. Food fads and fallacies might be amusing were it not for the danger that they can interfere with the selection of a proper diet. 

How drugs Interacts with our body mechanism? And Outdated Medicines

OUTDATED MEDICINES

 If your physician has prescribed a drug for you and instructs you to discontinue its use before the supply is all gone don't save what is left over for another time. Discard it. It may seem like a waste to throw away expensive medication; actually, it is an important safety precaution. Some drugs lose potency with time; some gain potency. Either way, their use after a lapse of time can be dangerous.

 Moreover, it has become clear that some drugs, in the process of aging, not only change in potency; they undergo marked chemical changes that can make them dangerous. Not long ago, for example, physicians at three New York hospitals reported on several patients who had suddenly experienced nausea and vomiting and then developed symptoms like those of diabetes. The trouble in each case was traced to chemical deterioration of an antibiotic, a tetracycline, taken long after it should have been thrown away.

DRUG INTERACTIONS 

when one medication is being used, the addition of another sometimes can be helpful but sometimes can be harmful. When two agents used in concert do not harmonize, the interaction or interference can cause trouble. Moreover, even effects on dosage requirements must be considered when two or more medicines are being used. Recently, for example, a patient who had had a heart attack and recovered from it was released from the hospital. 

Ten days later, an alarming condition developed. While in the hospital the patient had received an anticoagulant medication as part of treatment-a compound aimed at preventing clotting. At home, he continued as directed to take the same compound in the same dosage. But now the drug was thinning.

 The blood too much

 Something had changed. It had indeed: in the hospital, the patient had been given phenobarbital upon retiring. The sedative, in the course of its activity in the body, had stimulated certain liver chemicals which broke down the anticoagulant faster. At home, without the phenobarbital, the anticoagulant activity continued longer and was more potent. In effect, without the sedative, the patient was getting an overdose of.

The anti-coagulant

The matter, once understood, was quickly adjusted. But it illustrates what is coming to be virtually a new science in medicine, concerned with understanding and taking into account inter- actions between medicines. This, of course, is not the place to go into complex technical details. 

But as indications of how important interaction can be, here are some recent findings: When a patient is taking aspirin, addition of an anticoagulant drug may lead to bleeding. If a patient is receiving a medication such as amitriptyline for mental depression and is also given guanethidine for high blood pressure, the antihypertensive activity of the latter is lost. 

How much is drug overdose? How to measure medicine intake?

With many common sleeping medicines, it is possible to get a 3/4 grain size as well as 1-1/2 grain so

that one of each may be used. For Amy talit there is also a 1 grain size, which many women find is just the right amount. Some men like to take two of the 1 grain capsules and find that this dosage gives them a pleasant night's sleep. 

Delicate assaying of dosage is often possible with liquid medications -for instance, tincture of belladonna, an old standby for stomach cramps and indigestion. Some doctors say, arbitrarily, take 15 or 20 drops.

The expert therapist uses a different approach. His instructions to a patient may go something like this: "1 want you to get the full effect, which is just short of the beginning of toxic symptoms which are dryness of the mouth and blurring of vision. 

So start with 15 drops just before each meal and at bedtime. Then, each day, increase by 1 drop so Ih.,1 you will be taking 16 drops four times a day the second day, 17 A Special Word About Medicine Taking / 41 drops the third day, and so on. Keep increasing until you notice one of the toxic symptoms.

Then drop back by 1 drop each day until there are no toxic manifestations. You may settle on 18 drops or you may need 22, or some other amount. The strength of the tincture may vary slightly from drugstore to drugstore, and sometimes the size of the drops varies too. 

Once you have standardized the dosage you need, keep it and use the same bottle and get the prescription refilled by the same• drugstore." Thus, what seemed like a simple prescription turns out to be some- thing of a scientific experiment. But for you, such experimenting to find exactly the right dose you as an individual need may mean the difference between having and not having disagreeable dyspeptic symptoms. 

Modern medicines and Health Issues

Modern medicines serve a purpose and very often can provide relief for minor problems. In themselves, they are generally safe as long as the dosage recommendations on the package are not exceeded. It's important to keep in mind, however, that such medications, as any others, may produce undesirable effects in relatively small numbers of people who happen to be particularly sensitive to them.

So if you notice any such side effects as rash, nausea, dizziness, visual disturbances, or others, which seem to follow use of a particular medication, you may well have sensitivity to that particular medication, and no matter how popular it is with other people, it is not for you. If in doubt, you should check with your physician. Absolutely vital when you prescribe for yourself is the need to keep in mind that you may be making a mistake in diagnosis, treating the wrong illness, or masking minor and superficial symptoms while an underlying serious problem gets worse.

For example, a "simple" head cold may really not be simple when there is fever, sharp pain in the chest, sputum discoloration, rapid breathing, or nausea; it may, in fact, be a serious bronchial infection or pneumonia. If you do treat yourself, never continue to do so for more than a day or two unless you are certain there is steady improvement-and if your symptoms get worse or change, don't wait even that long before consulting your physician. 

Weight Change-Shortness of Breath- Bleeding Causes and possible diseases in your body- How to prevent it?

WEIGHT CHANGE 

Rapid weight gain in some cases may reflect a need to alter the diet, and this can be important enough to call for medical aid. In some cases, rapid gain may be the result of fluid accumulation in the body because of a heart or kidney disturbance or improper functioning of the thyroid gland. If weight loss occurs on an adequate non-reducing diet, sickness must be suspected. The body may not be utilizing food properly or may be burning it up too fast. Diabetes and hyperthyroidism (over-activity of the thyroid) are among the possibilities the physician will check.

SHORTNESS OF BREATH

This can be an important symptom. It is not always easy to evaluate. In climbing stairs or running, almost everyone, of course, becomes short of breath. Unless breathing difficulty occurs at rest or with only minor activity, you may have only an impression that you are puffing more than you used to do when performing certain activities. This may be an indication that you have become too sedentary, are not as fit or perhaps as light in weight as you once were. But shortness of breath also may serve to indicate the beginning of heart trouble, lung disorder, chest disease, anemia, some forms of cancer, and other conditions.

BLEEDING

Bleeding without obvious explanation requires investigation without delay. Blood in the urine may indicate urinary infection, kidney tumor, or wart like growths in the bladder, for example. The blood mayor may not look like blood; blood can impart anything from a faint pink tinge to a mahogany brown color in the urine. Blood in the stool may appear bright red if the bleeding is low in the intestinal tract or from hemorrhoids. But if the bleeding is from the stomach or upper intestinal tract, bowel movements may be colored black.

The coughing or vomiting of blood calls for prompt action. The fact is that the body sometimes provides only one warning. Don't wait for a repetition of the bleeding. Consult your physician immediately, and the chances are he can establish what is wrong and treat it effectively. Similarly, the woman who experiences unexpected vaginal bleeding between menstrual periods or after menopause should see her physician at once. The problem may be nothing more than a harmless polyp, but it may also be early, still curable cancer.