News digest – New food labels, coffee, HPV vaccine and… can singing fight cancer?

• The Royal Society of Public Health has suggested that food packaging should show how much physical activity you need to do to burn off the calories from that food. It claims these new prompts could be one of the many measures that help combat obesity. The BBC was one of many who covered this story. And for more information about how obesity can cause cancer check out this blog post.
• The Independent and Forbes magazine reported on a US study claiming that coffee could reduce the risk of bowel cancer. But at the moment it’s not clear whether there is a link, so the jury’s still out. We wrote about the evidence on coffee and bowel cancer a little while ago on our blog.
• An opinion piece in the Telegraph asked whether more could be done in the UK to raise the issue of side-effects of cancer treatment.
• An experimental drug that stimulates the immune system, used in combination with chemotherapy, shrank tumours in patients with pancreatic cancer, according to a preliminary US clinical trial. Here’s our news report.
• A new study suggests that longer nighttime fasting could reduce the chance of breast cancer coming back, reports Reuters. But we’ll need more research to help get a clearer picture. And as one of the study’s authors, Ruth Patterson, aptly put it: “In science we have a pretty good rule, we don’t go from one study to a public health recommendation.”

Number of the week

70

The percentage of people our researchers polled who had never heard the term “overdiagnosis” before.

• Our scientists identified a potential double drug combination against a type of leukaemia. Find out more in our press release.
• Vice News questioned why gay men aren’t being vaccinated against the human papillomavirus (HPV) in the US despite the links between the virus and anal cancer. Experts have recently recommended vaccinating men who have sex with men in the UK but at the moment no such programmes are in place. There’s more information about HPV and the vaccine on our website.
• The Royal College of Physicians found that UK hospitals are failing to inform family members when their loved ones are about to die. The Telegraph reported this and we’ve also blogged about this and other issues with end of life care before.
• The Conversation wrote an excellent piece on the taboos surrounding bowel cancer screening. There’s more information about bowel cancer screening on our website.
• Focusing on the prostate cancer drug abiraterone, another interesting piece in The Conversation examined the cost of cancer drugs in the UK. You can read more about our involvement in the development of this drug in this blog post.
• An early study in mice showed how cancer steals blood vessels from other parts of the body to keep growing even after chemotherapy. The Daily Mail has more.
• Huffington Post covered a study suggesting the genes responsible for boys going through puberty later could be linked to a decreased risk of dying from prostate cancer. But more research is needed to determine exactly why that may be.
• Our researchers found that more than two out of three members of the public between the ages of 50 and 70 don’t understand the term ‘overdiagnosis’. More details in our press release.
• If, like us, you’re fascinated by the potential of a ‘cancer blood test’ you should check out this article from Bloomberg. It gives a great overview of what’s happening in terms of research and what kind of hurdles scientists (and investors) will need to jump before such a test could even be a possibility.

And finally…

• “Singing in choir could help beat cancer” was the headline many newspapers bellowed earlier this week. While it may have sounded pleasant, the tune didn’t ring completely true. Singing was found to help boost the immune system and decrease stress and anxiety, which theoretically could be beneficial during cancer treatment. But it will by no means actually beat cancer, as this excellent article from NHS Choices explains.

Misha