The Thin End

The Thin End has referred to the 'hidden' health cost of the COVID pandemic in previous articles.  Clearing the decks to prevent the National Health Service being overwhelmed meant that others had their diagnosis and treatment put on hold.  What the government should do now is to learn the lesson to build resilience into the system.  Else, we are saving the lives of those directly affected by a pandemic while allowing the health and lives of others to be lost.  This has been particularly evident in cancer services.  It is challenging to see the real ethics of that choice.  Sacrificing Peter to save Paul is not the best approach.   On the contrary, it had all the hallmarks of a panic response.  NHS England has now prioritised cancer services, but an analysis produced this month by The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) says that the UK government must now use the opportunity of restarting cancer services in the NHS to "build back better." ...

Consuming a diet high in fibre has been linked with a reduced incidence of breast cancer in an analysis of all relevant prospective studies.  The findings are published early online in CANCER , a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society. Because studies have generated inconsistent results regarding the potential relationship between fibre intake and breast cancer,  Dr Maryam Farvid of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and her colleagues searched for all relevant prospective studies published through July 2019. By pooling data from the 20 observational studies they identified, individuals with the highest consumption of fibre had an eight per cent lower risk of breast cancer. Soluble fibre was associated with lower risks of breast cancer, and higher total fibre intake was associated with a lower risk in both premenopausal and postmenopausal women.  Dr Farvid says that the study “contributes to the evidence that lifestyle factors...

Is your late night meal delivering cancer on a plate? Are late night meals affecting your health?  A new study suggests timing of late night meals is linked to cancer risk. Modern lifestyles have profoundly changed our eating habits. Our food consumption is now often out of step with our circadian rhythms. We eat to fit into our busy lifestyles, rather than adjusting our lives to our eating needs.  How many of us have late night meals and go to bed soon after eating?  A body of evidence now suggests that this mismatch,  or 'mistiming',  can  profoundly affect our health. Lifestyles driving eating habits.  Experimental and epidemiological evidence shows that long term disruption of endogenous circadian rhythms, in particular due to exposure to light at night, may be associated with a wide range of common diseases, including cancer, cardiovascular diseases, obesity and type 2 diabetes.  Now this new study provides some evidence to sh...

In addition to facing new concerns about their health, individuals who are diagnosed with cancer often worry about the financial burdens of treatment. A new study in the USA indicates that many patients feel that such ‘financial toxicity’ is not adequately addressed by their doctors and other clinicians. The findings are published online in   CANCER , a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society. Growing awareness of financial difficulties There is growing awareness that cancer diagnosis and treatment can create financial difficulties even for patients with health insurance, but it is unclear whether patients today are being helped by their doctors or staff with these challenges. To investigate, Reshma Jagsi, MD, DPhil, of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and her colleagues surveyed patients with early-stage breast cancer and their physicians: 2502 patients, 370 surgeons, 306 medical oncologists, and 169 radiation oncologists. Half of responding medical onc...