Patients turn to alternatives
As many as 61 percent of cancer patients use complementary therapies such as prayer, relaxation, meditation and massage, researchers from the American Cancer Society report.
For the study, published in the Sept. 1 issue of Cancer, researchers collected data on 4,139 cancer survivors. Of these, 61.4 percent of the patients used prayer; 44.3 percent used relaxation techniques; 42.4 percent used faith/spiritual healing; 40.1 percent used nutritional supplements such as vitamins; 15 percent used meditation; 11.2 percent used massage; and 9.7 percent participated in support groups.
On the other hand, only 0.4 percent of the patients used hypnosis; 1 percent used biofeedback therapy; and 1.2 percent used acupressure or acupuncture.
The benefits of these therapies are still unclear, researchers said.
Older neighborhoods good for you
People who live in older neighborhoods appear less likely to be overweight, according to a new study. The key, the researchers say, is walkability. Older communities encourage people to drive less and walk more, they said, because they tend to have better sidewalks, shady trees and businesses nearby to walk to.
The study, which is to appear in the September issue of The American Journal of Preventive Medicine, looked at the fitness and address information of more than 450,000 residents of Salt Lake County in Utah. With each extra decade of a neighborhood’s age, the researchers said, the risk of obesity was 13 percent lower for men and 8 percent lower for women.
Vitamin C used against cancer
New research with mice suggests that intravenous doses of vitamin C could one day reduce the size of cancerous tumors in people. The findings are preliminary and still must be confirmed in humans.
In the study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers found that intravenous vitamin C produced hydrogen peroxide, which reduced cancerous tumors in the mice by 43 percent to 51 percent.
