News digest – prostate cancer chemo, Cuban lung cancer vaccine treatment and … walnuts?

• The big news this week was in prostate cancer. A trial we part-funded found that giving advanced prostate cancer patients chemotherapy drugs early in their treatment added almost two years of life compared with current treatments. The BBC and The Daily Telegraph covered this.
• Earlier this week, Wired published a story about a Cuban lung cancer ‘vaccine’ treatment, called CimaVax, that is going to be trialled in the US thanks to the countries’ new trade agreement. This story was a bit over-hyped, and got tons of coverage throughout the week.  For more information on CimaVax read this.
• Our researchers found that breast cancer is slightly more common in men who have higher levels of oestrogen (although the disease is rare overall). The Daily Telegraph and Techie News reported on this. And here’s our press release.
• According to Which?, the product-testing magazine, some sunscreens aren’t meeting the stated SPF. The Guardian has the full story, while for more advice on how to enjoy the sun safely check this out.
• A small study by Australian researchers found that a daily dose of vitamin B3 could reduce the chances of basal or squamous cell skin cancers (the less-serious kinds) from recurring in patients who’d already had them. This doesn’t, however, mean that taking the vitamin can in any way substitute for staying safe in the sun in the first place. Check out our blog post.
• The Daily Express and Yahoo News covered research looking at obesity in childhood cancer survivors. American researchers analysed data from almost 2,000 people who were diagnosed and treated for cancer as a child. They found that a childhood cancer diagnosis coupled with brain radiation treatment increased the risk of obesity later in life.
• The Conversation wrote an interesting article about how junk food affects our gut bacteria, and whether that’s linked to our risk of obesity, heart disease and cancer.

• There was a lot of coverage of the UK launch of a campaign aimed at making sure doctors don’t ‘overtreat’ their patients. The BBC has more.
• The Financial Times gave us a sneak peek at what exciting new drugs will be presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) conference, which kicks off in two weeks time. Check back here for our coverage of the conference.
• We’re keeping a close eye on the exciting new immunotherapy drugs for diseases such as lung cancer. Bloomberg and Reuters reported that one of these, called MPDL3280A, doubled survival rates for patients with lung cancer, according to the interim trial results. But we want to see the full results before we get too excited.
• Exam stress seems to be getting to kids even earlier, as the BBC reported that children as young as 10 were smoking before their exams.
• New research from Norway looked at the benefits of exercise in old age and found that elderly people who were physically active lived five years longer than those who were inactive. The BBC has more.
• The Wall Street Journal ran an interesting piece on smarter ways of using conventional treatments to treat ovarian cancer.
• Cancer patients in the UK will be able to be treated using proton beam therapy at the Newport centre as soon as Christmas 2016. BBC has the details.
• BT’s news feed looked at a report from the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, suggesting that there need to be more children involved more in clinical research. Read it here.
• And speaking of clinical research with children, Reuters reported about a study that found personalised treatment helped cure more kids with kidney cancer.
• We wrote a guest post for the UK Bioindustry Association about the exciting potentials of personalised medicine in cancer research. It’s worth a read.

• Last month, Round Up, one of the most commonly used herbicides, was deemed ‘possibly carcinogenic’ causing a flurry of media coverage. This week The Guardian wrote an interesting piece on how agencies actually figure out if a chemical is dangerous or not. It’s not as straight forward as you would think.

And finally…

The Daily Mail ran this gem: “A daily handful of WALNUTS can slow the growth of bowel cancer by ‘reducing blood supply to tumours’.”

But before anyone goes stuffing their face with walnuts you should know that the study was conducted in mice and, as we’ve said time and time again, eating a certain food is unlikely to have an impact on cancer. For more information about food controversies click here.

Misha

Image

Walnuts by Jonas Tana via Flickr under CC-BY-2.0