Hidden Kidney Killers

The Facts: Flavored noodle mixes, processed meats, packaged mac and cheese, soda, frozen dinners, other processed foods, and fast food are notorious for containing questionable levels of phosphate-laden ingredients that could promote kidney deterioration and weaker bones.

Healthy Tip: If you’re in a pinch and do reach for processed foods, avoid ones with ingredients like “sodium phosphate,” “calcium phosphate,” and “phosphoric acid,” or anything with “phos-” in the word.

Cereal Crimes?

The Facts: Breakfast bombshell: Residues of more than 70 pesticides have been found in individual boxes of cereal. Why? Many pesticides today, particularly the go-to chemical applied to genetically engineered crops, are systemic. That means the chemicals wind up inside of the food you’re eating.

Healthy Tip: Beware of “natural” cereals. Testing by the Cornucopia Institute found that “natural” cereals are often contaminated with crop pesticides, warehouse fumigation chemicals, and genetically modified ingredients (GMOs). Choose organic if you truly want to avoid toxic chemicals in your food.

Shorter Lifespan

The Facts: Letting your kitchen go dormant in favor of relying on processed foods could shave years off of your life. A 2012 study published in the journal Public Health Nutrition found that people who cooked at home at least five times a week were 47 more likely to be alive after 10 years than the people who relied more on processed foods.

Healthy Tip: To get your feet wet cooking fresh, seasonal ingredients, consider joining a vegetable community- supported agriculture program. Farmers often share recipes, cooking tips, and sometimes even hold cooking demonstrations to teach you the healthiest ways to prep the food they grow. Try a half share if you’re afraid you won’t have enough time to cook a larger share of the bounty.

Accelerated Aging

The Facts: Your face could start resembling crinkle-cut chips if you turn to munching processed foods on a regular basis. Research shows both the phosphates and the genetically engineered ingredients often added to processed foods promote aging.

Healthy Tip: Instead of processed foods, choose fare that actually promotes younger-looking skin, including alkaline-forming foods like kale, parsley, almonds, pears, and lemons. Foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids, such as pastured eggs, wild-caught Alaskan salmon, and walnuts, also help hydrate your skin, reducing wrinkles. Tomatoes help fight damaging sunburns, reduce skin roughness, and boost collagen.

Your Wallet

The Facts: Processed foods may seem like a deal in terms of convenience, but when you break down the cost, it’s generally cheaper–and way healthier–to make those same foods from scratch. For instance, a popular brand’s microwave bowl of chili costs $3.39 and includes harmful bisphenol A, fake food dye, and industrial meat raised using antibiotics, as well as other questionable additives.

Healthy Tip: You can whip up a batch of gourmet, 100-percent-organic chili from scratch using fresh ingredients, including omega-3-rich, heart-healthy grass-fed beef, for about $2.86 per serving. Cheaper, tastier, organic, and healthier!

Relentless Hunger

The Facts: Added sugars, specifically fructose from table sugar and the high-fructose corn syrup found in most processed foods, block the hormonal signal that tells your brain it’s time to stop eating, according to obesity research by Robert Lustig, MD, a pediatric neuroendocrinologist at the University of California – San Francisco. The result? Never-ending hunger that leaves you fatter yet feeling unsatisfied.

Healthy Tip: According to the American Heart Association, we down about 22 teaspoons of sugar a day; that’s about 25 pounds more than people consumed annually just a few decades ago. Watch out for surprising hidden sources of added sugars, such as bread, crackers, bottled tea, frozen dinners, and sauces and marinades.

Low-Fat Fraud

The Facts: Since the low-fat fad began, Americans have become fatter and sicker. One reason? Low-fat dairy products are stripped of conjugated linoleic acid, a healthy fat shown to fight weight gain and cancer. Added sugar often takes the place of fat, making you feel hungry and unsatisfied.

Healthy Tip: Know your fats. Industrial fats like partially hydrogenated oils are dangerous, but fat from organic, grass-fed animal products like yogurt actually benefit your heart and brain.

Colorful Lies

The Facts: Processed foods–even pickles, cake mixes, and “healthy” juices–often contain food dyes that make food appear fresher than it really is, in essence, tricking you, the consumer. Some berry juices contain 0 percent fruit juice, relying solely on artificial coloring. The problem? Some food dyes are tied to serious health problems like ADHD, asthma, allergies, and cancer.

Healthy Tip: Stick with organic foods, since organic standards ban the use of artificial food dyes, so organics are colored with food sources like turmeric and beets. Better yet, try your hand at making your own homemade pickles and other kitchen staples to avoid harmful additives.

Junky Tendencies

The Facts: Added sugar is the not-so-sweet trick the makers of processed foods use to get you hooked. In 2005, Princeton researchers found that eating sugar triggers the release of opioids, neurotransmitters that light up your brain’s pleasure center. Addictive drugs like morphine and heroin stimulate those same pleasure pathways. Scary fact? After 21 days on a high-sugar diet, you could start showing signs of withdrawal–chattering teeth, anxiety, and depression–when sugar is taken away.

Healthy Tip: Don’t replace a healthy breakfast like low-sugar organic oatmeal with a sugary coffee drink.

Airway Assault

The Facts: Kids who eat fast food two to three times a week face a significantly higher risk of developing asthma, possibly due to the processed foods’ ability to create inflammation in the body. The trans fats and sugar common in fast-food menu items trigger inflammation, an unhealthy condition tied to asthma.

Healthy Tip: Skip the drive-thru and eat fruits and vegetables at least three times a week, a move that research found was associated with lower rates of asthma.

Lab Rats

The Facts: Eat processed foods? If so, you’re an unknowing participant in a huge experiment. To date, more than 80,000 chemicals have been approved for use in the U.S., many of them used in processed foods. Unfortunately, only about 15 percent have been tested for long-term impacts on human health.

Healthy Tip: Cook like your great-grandmother. If an ingredient looks like it belongs in a science lab, avoid the product. Make a vow to visit your local farmer’s market regularly to experiment with fresh ingredients. Form a neighborhood cooking club, and hold get-togethers at which members whip up a different bulk meal from whole ingredients. Break the results down into smaller servings, swap, and share for a fridge full of healthy options all week long–without investing tons of time in the kitchen!

 

Brought to you be Yahoo Health

article by Leah Zerbe, Rodale.com

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Most often people think  pain and a dental problem go hand and hand.   Pain is not the only indication of something going on. Patients frequently ask me ‘why am I having this filling/crown/etc done when I am not feeling anything?’ I can speak from experience!

Alongside this article I have posted a digital Xray of tooth number #32, #31, and #30- known as the lower right molars. The last tooth to the left of the image is My wisdom tooth (#32) which is positioned in such a way referred to as  ‘mesially impacted’, in other words there is limited space in the jaw for this tooth, it is not functional in my bite and because of its angle, and is a food trap! If you look closely at the Image you will notice the large dark area eating into the second molar- the tooth in front of the wisdom tooth.  With the angle of the wisdom tooth it can make it almost impossible to keep the area clean opposed to the other areas of the mouth.

I had my lower wisdom teeth extracted over the summer. Now,
you would think with this large area of decay (commonly stated as a cavity) that I would’ve had a tooth ache or at least some sensitivity to temperature or sweets?! Surprisingly- I did not! This area of decay had appeared on the Xray so large that during removal of the decay it was a strong possibility of exposing the nerve which would’ve led to- you guessed it, a root canal. Fortunately that wasn’t the case.  This just goes to show that decay can be extensive without any of the assumed symptoms.

We are here to educate you! The more you understand about your dental care the more we can be on the same page with keeping your mouth healthy and remember- just because you don’t ‘feel’ anything, doesn’t indicate there isn’t something going on. Next time your faced with the possibility of postponing treatment, you may want to think twice.

BY: Amy M- Clinicial Assistant

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Every hour of every day in America someone dies of Oral Cancer. Oral Cancer is the sixth most common diagnosed form of cancer in the United States. Presently 30,000 patients are diagnosed annually with oral cancer. The 5-year survival rate is only 50%, accounting for 8,000 deaths each year. Oral Cancer risk factors include tobacco use, frequent and/or excessive alcohol consumption, a compromised immune system, past history of cancer, and the presence of the HPV virus. Recently however 25% of all newly diagnosed cases have been in patients under the age of forty with none of the known risk factors. Oral Cancer is one of the few cancers whose survival rate has not improved in the past 50 years. This is due primarily to the fact that during this time we have not changed the way we screen for this disease (a visual and manual examination of the oral cavity, head, and neck).

Oral Squamous Cell Carcinomas (OSCC) make up over 90% of all oral cancers, and because of its appearance it has been difficult to differentiate from the other relatively benign lesions of the oral cavity. Early OSCC and potentially malignant lesions can appear as a white patch (leukoplakia, or as a reddened area (erythroplakia), or as a red and white (erythroleukoplakia) mucosal change under standard white light examination. However, these cellular changes are often non-detectable to the human eye (even with magnification eyewear) under standard lighting conditions. Often, when the lesion becomes visible, it has advanced to invasive stages. The high mortality rate is directly related to the lack of early detection of potentially malignant lesions. When diagnosis and treatment are performed at or before a Stage 1 carcinoma level, the survival rate is more than 90%.

The cancers which have seen a major decline in the mortality rate have included colon, cervical, and prostate cancer and the primary reason is early detection and screening.

We can make a difference in the oral cancer mortality rate.

Early screening, diagnosis, and treatment planning saves lives.

How Does it work?

VELscope’s fluorescence technology aids in the early visualization of mucosal diseases and enhances effective oral mucosal screening

VELscope® is a revolutionary hand-held device that provides dentists and hygienists with an easy-to-use adjunctive mucosal examination system for the early detection of abnormal tissue. The patented VELscope technology platform was developed in collaboration with the British Columbia Cancer Agency and MD Anderson Cancer Center, with funding provided in part by the NIH. It is based on the direct visualization of tissue fluorescence and the changes in fluorescence that occur when abnormalities are present.

The VELscope Handpiece emits a safe blue light into the oral cavity, which excites the tissue from the surface of the epithelium through to the basement membrane (where premalignant changes typically start) and into the stroma beneath, causing it to fluoresce. The clinician is then able to immediately view the different fluorescence responses to help differentiate between normal and abnormal tissue. In fact, VELscope is the only non-invasive adjunctive device clinically proven to help discover occult oral disease.

Typically, healthy tissue appears as a bright apple-green glow while suspicious regions are identified by a loss of fluorescence, which thus appear dark.
VELscope provides a more effective oral cancer screening protocol with immediate benefits for the patient, clinician and practice

When used as an adjunctive aid in combination with traditional oral cancer examination procedures, VELscope facilitates the early discovery and visualization of mucosal abnormalities prior to surface exposure that may be, or may lead to oral cancer. In one or two minutes, with no rinses or stains required, a VELscope examination helps oral healthcare professionals assure their patients that the standard of care for oral mucosal screening has been utilized. Through the CDT code D0431, an increasing number of insurance companies are recognizing VELscope as an adjunctive screening device. VELscope combines minimal per-patient costs with more effective screening.

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Tooth sensitivity is one of the chief complaints dental offices receive. It results when gums recede and expose the tooth roots. Tubules in the tooth roots lead directly to the tooth’s nerve, allowing stimuli such as hot or cold to reach the nerve and cause the associated pain. Several factors contribute to gum recession, including:

Brushing Technique – Brushing aggressively or with a hard-bristled brush can wear down the tooth enamel and expose the sensitive layers of dentin. Improper brushing can also damage the gum tissue and expose tooth roots.

Cracked Teeth – Even small cracks in tooth enamel can fill with bacteria, irritate the pulp, and cause tooth sensitivity.

Teeth Grinding – Over time, teeth grinding can lead to enamel erosion and hairline fractures.

Gum Disease – The leading cause of gum recession and tooth loss, gum disease eats away gum tissue and leaves tooth roots vulnerable to outside stimuli.

Age – Tooth sensitivity is typically highest between ages 25 and 30.

Tips for Tougher Teeth
Changing your hygiene products and habits can have an enormous impact. Brush with a desensitizing toothpaste and always use a soft-bristled brush. Fluoride rinses can re-mineralize softened areas of tooth enamel and curb sensitivity. Daily flossing and regular dental cleanings will help prevent gum disease, and your dentist can recommend other measures, such as a nightguard for teeth grinding. You don’t have to suffer tooth sensitivity. See your dentist for a thorough diagnosis and long-term solution.

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April is National Cancer Control Month, and you might not be aware of the fact that incidences of oral cancer are on the rise. Few people think about oral cancer, but it kills more people every year than brain cancer, cervical cancer, and testicular cancer put together. But the more you learn about oral cancer and its signs and symptoms, the better able you’ll be to get an early diagnosis and more effective treatment should oral cancer happen to you. Oral cancer responds very well to treatment in the earliest stages.

What are the risk factors for oral cancer?

The risk factors for oral cancer include smoking and chewing tobacco use, excessive alcohol consumption, and human papillomavirus (HPV), although some people develop oral cancer despite having none of these risk factors. It is believed that genetics, too, plays a role in the development of cancers, including oral cancer, as well as dietary factors. Because there are so many various contributing factors, everyone should get checked by their dentist for oral cancer at their dental checkups.

What are the symptoms of oral cancer?

The symptoms of oral cancer include:

• A flat, painless, white or red spot or sore.
• A sore that bleed easily or does not heal.
• A color change of the oral tissues.
• A lump, thickening, rough spot, crust, or small, eroded area.
• Pain, tenderness, or numbness anywhere in the mouth or on the lips.

It can be hard to see every spot in your mouth clearly, which is where your dentist comes in. He or she can take a look at any questionable areas and alert you if there’s a potential problem. Waiting until the symptoms become extremely obvious means wasting valuable treatment time that could save your life.

So why not make an appointment with your dentist for an exam during National Cancer Control Month? Set your mind at ease knowing that you’ve gone the extra mile for not only your oral health, but your overall health, too!

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Heavy consumption of diet soda can damage teeth as badly as methamphetamine or crack cocaine, a new study contends.

“You look at it side-to-side with ‘meth mouth’ or ‘coke mouth,’ it is startling to see the intensity and extent of damage more or less the same,” said Dr. Mohamed Bassiouny, a professor of restorative dentistry at the Temple University School of Dentistry in Philadelphia.

Methamphetamine, crack cocaine and soda — sweetened or not — are all highly acidic and can cause similar dental problems, Bassiouny said in a study published recently in the journal General Dentistry.

The acid in soda is in the form of citric acid and phosphoric acid, Bassiouny said. Without good dental hygiene, constant exposure can cause erosion and significant oral damage, he said.

In his study, he found that a woman in her 30s who drank 2 liters of diet soda daily for three to five years experienced tooth rot and decay remarkably similar to that suffered by a 29-year-old methamphetamine addict and a 51-year-old habitual crack cocaine user.

The younger man had used methamphetamine for three years, and often downed two or three cans of regular soda a day because the drugs made his mouth so dry. The older man reported an 18-year history of crack abuse.

The woman said concerns about weight gain led her to choose diet soda over regular, and admitted that she had not seen a dentist in many years, according to the study. She also associated sweetened beverages with a higher risk of tooth decay.

Her teeth were soft and discolored, with many destroyed by erosion. She usually sipped the beverage directly from a can or a bottle, and held the soda in her mouth before swallowing, Bassiouny said.

“She also mentioned that when doing so, she habitually leaned on her left side against the arm of the sofa while watching television,” he said. The “massive” damage to the left side of her mouth bore this out and resulted in what is called a collapsed bite.

“None of the teeth affected by erosion were salvageable,” Bassiouny said. The woman had to have all of her teeth removed and replaced with dentures.

Methamphetamine and crack are known to ravage the mouths of users, and the two drug abusers needed all of their teeth extracted.

Besides exposing teeth to damaging acid, these illegal drugs reduce the amount of saliva in the mouth, providing less opportunity for the acids to wash away. The drugs also cause systemic health problems that affect dental hygiene. Previous studies have linked “meth mouth” with rampant decay.

A group representing soft drink manufacturers said this case study should not be seen as an indictment of diet sodas generally.

“The woman referenced in this article did not receive dental health services for more than 20 years — two-thirds of her life,” the American Beverage Association said in a statement. “To single out diet soda consumption as the unique factor in her tooth decay and erosion — and to compare it to that from illicit drug use — is irresponsible.

“The body of available science does not support that beverages are a unique factor in causing tooth decay or erosion,” the group said. “However, we do know that brushing and flossing our teeth, along with making regular visits to the dentist, play a very important role in preventing them.”

Dr. Eugene Antenucci, spokesman for the Academy of General Dentistry, said he was not surprised by Bassiouny’s findings.

“From my experience, the damage that happens to people’s mouths from cocaine or methamphetamine are degrees greater than what I see from soda, but I see a lot of damage from soda,” said Antenucci, a dentist in Huntington, N.Y.

Damage from excessive soda consumption can cause “very deep brown stains, where it’s actually eroded into the tooth, and the teeth are soft and leathery,” he said.

Prevention is the best cure, Bassiouny said. How often you drink soda, how much you drink and how long it’s in your mouth all are important factors. “You can help prevent it from happening by reducing any of those,” he said.

Sugar-free soda is no better than regular soda when it comes to dental decay, Bassiouny added. “Both of them have the same drastic effect if they are consumed in the same frequency, the same amount and the same duration,” he said.

Antenucci said people need to keep in mind that they are drinking something that is highly acidic when they pick up a soda.

“Knowing that, you limit it and understand that you need to clean your mouth afterward,” he said. “Even simple water will wash away the acidity. And everyone should brush twice a day, if not more often.”

Should people give up drinking soda? “You’d be better off if you didn’t drink the soda,” Antenucci said, “but in my mind there’s not a reason for that extreme.”

Article by Dennis Thompson A HealthDay Reporter via Health.com

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You probably often hear that 120 over 80 is the “sweet spot” for blood pressure, but the normal blood pressure for men can vary. As an adult male, your age actually plays a role in your blood pressure, as do other factors. Knowing what numbers are healthy is critical to your overall health. Even if your blood pressure is slightly elevated, this could eventually lead to problems down the road.

To demonstrate how much the average blood pressure reading can vary among age ranges, let’s look at the difference between what is average for men ages 20 to 24 and men ages 60 to 64. For men ages 20 to 24, the average reading is 117 over 77, and for men ages 60 to 64, the average reading is 134 over 87. As you can see, the normal blood pressure for men does rise slightly as they age.

Men under the age of 55 have a higher chance of experiencing high blood pressure than women. When looking at different races and cultures, African American men have the greatest risk of experiencing high blood pressure.

Men who are overweight have a greater chance of developing this issue over men who maintain a healthy weight. Men who have conditions such as Type 2 diabetes and high cholesterol – especially when these are not well-controlled – are at a greater risk of hypertension. If you smoke any form of tobacco, you increase your risk of developing high blood pressure. Alcohol can also play a role if you have more than two drinks each day. Other controllable factors include things like a high saturated fat diet and a sedentary lifestyle.

In some cases, high blood pressure will stem from something you have little to no control over. Having a family history of the condition is one of these factors. If you have a medical condition in which high blood pressure is a known symptom or complication, you may not be able to control whether or not you develop it. With such factors, avoiding the controllable factors can be beneficial to you in many cases. Your health care provider can also help you keep a handle on your blood pressure, and if it does get high, he or she can help you to maintain it.

Article By R. Elizabeth C. Kitchen VIA Yahoo Health

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Fifty years ago, the US Surgeon General first warned of the dangerous effects of smoking. On the anniversary of that announcement, the current Surgeon General has released new data.

In a report released January 17, the Surgeon General noted that while progress has been made to curb smoking, more and more dangers tied to the habit have been uncovered.

According to the report, nearly 45 million Americans still smoke, and the habit is now tied to conditions like liver cancer, diabetes and problems with the immune system.

This report, released by acting Surgeon General Boris D. Lushniak, MD, MPH, and titled “The Health Consequences of Smoking—50 Years of Progress,” estimated that over 20 million Americans have died because of smoking in the years since the 1964 Surgeon General’s report — 2.5 million of whom were secondhand smokers.

Efforts to reduce cigarette use have proven successful over the years. It was estimated that in 1964, 42 percent of American adults smoked — a number which has dropped to 18 percent in the latest estimates for 2014.

And though this drop shows huge progress, Dr. Lushniak’s report stressed that this 18 percent still represents a huge number of Americans — an estimated 42 million adults and 3 million middle and high school students are current smokers.

Because of the continued problem, almost half a million Americans die an early death each year from smoking and over 16 million live coping with a smoking-related disease.

As cigarettes have changed over time, including changes to chemical levels and ventilated filters, they have become more complex and more deadly in the process, the report explained. Despite the fact that today’s smokers tend to smoke fewer cigarettes than the smokers of 50 years ago, they are more likely to develop lung cancer.

And though the connection between smoking and certain conditions like lung cancer, heart disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) has been known for some time, the latest Surgeon General’s report provided new information tying cigarette smoking to a number of additional diseases, like colorectal cancer, liver cancer and even strokes in nonsmokers who are exposed to secondhand smoke.

“The report also concludes that smoking causes diabetes mellitus, rheumatoid arthritis and immune system weakness, increased risk for tuberculosis disease and death, ectopic (tubal) pregnancy and impaired fertility, cleft lip and cleft palates in babies of women who smoke during early pregnancy, erectile dysfunction, and age-related macular degeneration,” noted the Surgeon General’s office.

In the report’s preface, Dr. Lushniak explained that a concerted effort needs to be made to help encourage smokers to quit and discourage non-smokers from ever starting, through methods like media campaigns, smokefree policies, taxes on tobacco products and reducing barriers to smoking cessation treatment programs.

“It is my sincere hope that 50 years from now we won’t need another Surgeon General’s report on smoking and health, because tobacco-related disease and death will be a thing of the past,” wrote Dr. Lushniak. “Working together, we can make that vision a reality.”

“My foremost concern is for the innocent victims of secondhand smoke. This population represents mostly children who, against their will, are routinely exposed to over 4,000 toxic chemical compounds,” said Dr. Mark Mincolla, legendary health care practitioner and author of “Whole Health: A Holistic Approach to Healing for the 21st Century” and dailyRx Contributing Expert.

“Research shows that secondhand smoke is solely responsible for some 3,000 lung cancer deaths here in the US and over 21,000 deaths worldwide. More than 50 of these poisonous chemicals have been directly identified as cancer-causing agents, including arsenic, vinyl chloride, benzene and nickel. Living with a smoker increases one’s risk of lung cancer by nearly one third. The 2006 Surgeon General’s Report revealed that even brief secondhand smoke exposure can lead to pulmonary damage and lung cancer,” Dr. Mincolla told dailyRx News.

“To my way of thinking, our primary focus should be on protecting the innocent from the addicted. I’d like to see an even stronger movement toward smoke-free policies, higher smoking taxes, greater access to non-smoking rooms, flights and cabins, world wide,” he said. “I believe we should protect the innocent victims of secondhand smoke by getting progressively tougher on smokers and smoking regulations. Protect the right to breathe!”

Article By Morgan Jones VIA Yahoo Health

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Urine and teeth are two things you’d rather not associate with each other, but new research into stem cells shows one may be someday used to grow the other.

Researchers from Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health and other Chinese research centers have developed a novel way to grow teeth in mice, using stem cells gathered from urine.

In a study published Tuesday in the journal Cell Regeneration, the scientists showed that a specific type of cells—pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs)—can be engineered from urine and developed into cells to regrow teeth.

The approach could potentially solve a major problem for adults who break or lose teeth through injury or disease.

Teeth Grown from Urine Stem Cells

The research team, led by Dr. Duanqing Pei, made a cellular cocktail of iPSC-based epithelial cells—the most prolific type of cells found in the body—and mouse embryotic cells before transplanting them into mice.

After three weeks, the cells were structurally and physically similar to human teeth. These “teeth” also contained the dentin and pulp found in human teeth, as well as cells capable of forming enamel.

While exciting in terms of cell regeneration, the teeth only had a 30 percent success rate and were only about a third as strong as human teeth, making their consistency closer to chalk than something you could chew with.

Still, the research team concluded that the iPSCs derived from urine could have the potential to one day grow patient-specific dental tissues.

For now, continue to keep your toothbrush away from your toilet.

Article by By Brian Krans VIA Yahoo Health

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Cancer is generally a disease of an aging population. Cancer risks typically start to increase around the age of 50. But recent trends signal an alarming jump in a certain type of cancer among people under the age of 45.

Cancers that develop in areas of the mouth and throat have increased greatly among young people in recent years, according to a new study.

The biggest increases were seen in whites, while incidences of oral cancers have actually declined among blacks.

”

Visit your doctor if sores in your mouth don’t get better.”

Farzan Siddiqui, MD, PhD, director of the Head & Neck Radiation Therapy Program in the Department of Radiation Oncology at Henry Ford Hospital, was the lead investigator in this study.

“The growing incidence in oropharyngeal cancer has been largely attributed to the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, which led to an increased transmission of high-risk HPV,” said Dr. Siddiqui in a press release.

The human papillomavirus (HPV) is exchanged through sexual activity and is linked to a number of cancers including genital and oral cancers.

This study was looking at oropharyngeal cancer, which can develop in the throat (pharynx), back of the tongue, tonsils or soft palate (back roof of the mouth).

Nearly 41,500 Americans will be diagnosed with oropharyngeal and other oral cancers this year. This cancer is almost three times more common in men than women.

For this study, the researchers examined the Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) database to identify individuals under the age of 45 who had been diagnosed with invasive squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) oropharyngeal cancer between 1973 and 2009.

SEER does not have HPV data, so the researchers looked at tumor grade as an indicator of HPV involvement.

A total of 1,603 individuals were identified, with 73 percent of them being white and 90 percent of the cases being in people aged 36 to 44.

Here’s what the data revealed:

• Oropharyngeal cancer incidence among white people increased 113 percent during the 36-year study period.
• Surprisingly, rates of this cancer have declined by 52 percent among black individuals.
• Proportion of grade III/IV SCC rose from 28 percent in 1973-79 to 43 percent in 2000-2009.
• 50 to 65 percent of the oral cancer patients underwent surgery to remove the tumors.
• Five-year survival for the study group was 54 percent, with no gender differences in survival rates.
• Patients who were treated with both surgery and radiation had the highest survival rates.
• Black individuals tended to have significantly lower survival rates than people of other races.

“Not only were we surprised to find a substantial increase in young adults with cancer of the tonsils and base of tongue, but also a wide deviation among Caucasians and African Americans with this cancer,” Dr. Siddiqui said in a prepared statement.

The authors concluded that the predominance of oropharyngeal cancer in the under-45 age group “suggests either non-sexual modes of HPV transfer at a younger age or a shortened latency period between infection and development of oropharyngeal cancer.”

Findings from this study were presented at the American Society for Radiation Oncology’s (ASTRO’s) 55th Annual Meeting.

It should be noted that research is considered preliminary before it is published in a peer-reviewed journal.

This study was funded by the Henry Ford Hospital. No conflicts of interest were disclosed.

Article by By Laurie Stoneham VIA Yahoo Health

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