Tofu-Rich Diet May Help Women With Lung Cancer Live Longer

Chinese study found eating high amounts before diagnosis boosted survival rates

By Mary Brophy Marcus

HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, March 26 (HealthDay News) -- Eating tofu and other soy foods may help women who develop lung cancer increase their odds of living longer.

A study of women from Shanghai, China, published in the March 25 issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology, links high soy consumption before a lung cancer diagnosis with longer survival.

"This is the first study to suggest an association between soy food consumption and lung cancer survival," said study author Dr. Gong Yang, a research associate professor of medicine in the division of epidemiology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, in Nashville.

Eating soy products in small amounts in the years preceding a lung cancer diagnosis didn't seem to pose a benefit, though.

Lung cancer is the leading cause of death among women in the world. It forms in the tissues of the lungs, usually in the cells that line the air passageways. The five-year survival rate is poor compared to breast cancer; it is estimated that by 2012, lung cancer will cause twice as many deaths as breast cancer, Yang said.

Cigarette smoking is the top cause of the disease in the United States, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but in the study, most of the women from China were nonsmokers.

One expert noted another difference between the two populations of women that does not bode well for Chinese women.

"Far more never-smoking women in Asia get lung cancer than in the United States," said Dr. Jyoti Patel, an associate professor of medicine at the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, in Chicago. "We're not sure why this is, but they may have a predilection for developing mutations ... that cause lung cancer to grow."

The study participants were part of a larger observational study called the Shanghai Women's Health Study, which tracked the incidence of cancer in about 75,000 women. Diet information was collected, including how much soy food -- such as soy milk, tofu, fresh and dry soybeans, and soy sprouts -- women ate.

The authors reported that about 450 women were diagnosed with lung cancer during the study. They were divided into three groups according to the amount of soy food they had eaten before their lung cancer diagnosis. The highest intake levels of tofu were equal to about 4 ounces a day, while the lowest soy consumers ate less than 2 ounces daily.

During the study, more than 300 of the lung cancer patients died, Yang said. Sixty percent of the women in the highest soy-eating group and 50 percent in the low soy consumer group were alive twelve months after diagnosis. A patient's risk of death decreased with increasing soy intake, but leveled off at 4 ounces of daily tofu consumption.

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Transfusions With Heart Surgery Might Raise Infection Risk

Delicate balance exists between treating anemia, avoiding side effects from infusion of red blood cells, study says

By Mary Elizabeth Dallas

HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, May 30 (HealthDay News) -- Patients who receive a red blood cell transfusion during or after heart surgery may be at greater risk for infection, according to a new study.

However, the use of platelets during transfusions does not appear to carry a similar risk. Limiting red blood cell use could result in fewer major postoperative infections, the researchers suggested.

The study is published in the June issue of the Annals of Thoracic Surgery.

"A common problem for many surgeons, and thereby the patient, is how to balance the risk of surgery-induced anemia with the increased risk of infection when using red blood cell transfusion to correct the anemia," study author Dr. Keith Horvath, at the U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, said in a journal news release.

"Through this study, we hoped to shed light on the problem and to encourage hospitals and surgeons to examine cell-salvage techniques and other alternatives to [red blood cell] transfusion during and after cardiac surgery," he explained.

The observational study, conducted by the Cardiothoracic Surgical Trials Network, involved nearly 5,200 adults who underwent heart surgery between February and September 2010.

"Our study enrolled a large population of patients from a number of different institutions who were undergoing any type of cardiac surgery," Horvath noted. "This large patient set enabled us to better examine the relationship between transfusion and infection in a very diverse population."

Of the study's participants, 48 percent received a red blood cell transfusion and 31 percent received platelets.

With red blood cell transfusions, 84 percent took place during a transplant or left ventricular assist device implantation. Meanwhile, 63 percent occurred during thoracic aortic procedures, 45 percent took place during isolated coronary artery bypass grafting surgery and 40 percent occurred during isolated valve surgery.

The study found that 65 days after surgery, 5 percent of the patients developed at least one major infection, such as pneumonia, C. difficile colitis (a bacterial infection in the colon) and bloodstream infections.

With each red blood cell unit transfused, there was a 29 percent increase in infection risk. In contrast, platelets transfused along with more than four unit of red blood cells was associated with a lower infection risk.

"Few in regulatory agencies have grasped the complex but real relationships between red cell transfusions, infection and ... readmissions," Dr. Bruce Spiess, from Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center, wrote in a related journal commentary.

Spiess concluded that improvements in blood management among cardiac teams would enhance patient safety, reduce hospital-acquired infections and reduce critical blood shortages.

However, the researchers pointed out that since this was an observational study, the reported associations cannot be considered as a cause-and-effect relationship.

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Ranting on Websites May Just Make You Angrier

Studies link Internet venting to short-term relaxation, long-term frustration

By Barbara Bronson Gray

HealthDay Reporter

FRIDAY, March 22 (HealthDay News) -- It's so tempting. You read something on a website about a hot-button issue that makes you mad and you've got to respond. Before you know it, you're verbally sparring with a stranger. But you may want to think twice before jumping into the fray.

While you might like getting your point of view off your chest, over the long term your rants may be making you less happy and more angry, suggest two new studies by a single research team.

The first study showed that while visitors to common "rant" websites reported feeling more relaxed immediately after posting a comment, overall they tend to experience more anger in general and can express their frustration in maladaptive ways.

The second study found that both reading other people's rants and writing your own are associated with negative mood shifts. The research was published online in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking.

"The Internet brings out impulsivity problems more than anything else," said lead author Ryan Martin, an associate professor of human development and psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. "It's too easy to respond right away when you are most angry."

Martin said while the study focused solely on rant websites that are devoted to back-and-forth virtual screaming, the research has implications for Facebook and Twitter, and even news sites and blogs. He said the combination of being anonymous by using a screen name and having what he calls "social distance" reduce an individual's sense of restraint or caution about how to interact.

Websites that function as virtual punching bags reinforce harmful behavior, Martin said. "Most of these sites encourage venting as a way of dealing with anger," he said. "They think of venting as a healthy adaptive approach, and it's not."

For some people, venting online is caused by a sense of powerlessness and a feeling that they just can't make a difference, Martin said. A third study he did related to the published research looked at the content of rant sites and found that "people are angry at big groups of people: Democrats, Republicans, illegal immigrants," he said. "People want to feel they're doing something and think just expressing their feelings to the world will help."

Martin said venting has been described as putting a fire out with gasoline. But it's not actually the anger that's detrimental, according to the researchers. "There is nothing wrong with being angry and there are lots of things to be angry about, and that is healthy," said Martin. But he added that a healthier and more effective approach is to get involved and do something to effect the kind of change you want, or focus on problem solving.

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In Dating Game, Narcissists Get the Girl

Self-admiring men attract mates more easily, study finds

By Kathleen Doheny

HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, May 30 (HealthDay News) -- Men with high levels of narcissism -- an unrealistically positive self-image coupled with feelings of entitlement -- have an easier time than others attracting a potential mate, new German research says.

"Narcissism is linked to mate appeal in a real-life situation," said Michael Dufner, a researcher at Humboldt University of Berlin, who led the study.

The research is published in the July issue of the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

Dufner and his team first measured narcissism levels in 61 men with an average age of 25, who were invited to join a courtship study in Germany. "We focused on narcissism as a personality trait, not the personality disorder," he said. "This means that everybody has a certain narcissism level -- for some it is higher, for others lower."

Next, the researchers asked the men to approach women they did not know on the street and get contact information. It could be a phone number, email or Facebook contact.

Research assistants followed the men (which the men were aware of), observing the interactions. Dufner decided to focus on men in this study because men traditionally court a potential mate in this way, compared to women's typically more subtle approaches, such as flirting, he said.

"We tested if individuals with higher narcissism scores are more appealing," he said.

On average, the men approached about 23 women. To rule out the possibility that the more narcissistic men were more selective in who they approached, the researchers analyzed each woman who was approached on her physical attractiveness and manner of dress. The narcissists weren't more selective.

The narcissistic guys did get the girl more often. The higher the level of narcissism, the more likely they were to get more contacts.

"The effect was not due to high self-esteem, but indeed the narcissism," Dufner said. The physical attractiveness and social boldness of the narcissists were the two likely reasons for their appeal to women, he said.

Dufner offered some caveats about the research, though. "We were not able to directly test the causality underlying the association between narcissism and physical attractiveness," he said.

One possibility, he said, is that physical attractiveness may be a partial cause of narcissism, as other researchers have suggested.

For narcissists -- and the women they seek -- the news is not all good, Dufner said. "Narcissists are charming and appealing at first sight, but they are not long-term romantic partners," he said.

The study findings confirm what many experts have long suspected, said Jean Twenge, a professor of psychology at San Diego State University who has written about narcissism. "Narcissists are very good at initiating relationships," she said. "On first impression, they come across as confident and charming. The problems arise later on, when you realize that he doesn't actually care about you -- it's all about him."

Twenge was not involved in the study, but reviewed the findings.

Caution is the byword for those attracted to narcissists, both experts agreed. "In the long run, narcissists made bad relationship partners," Twenge said. "They lack empathy and have a difficult time taking someone else's perspective."

Twenge said she does understand why women fall for narcissists. "The initial appeal of narcissists comes from their assertiveness and confidence," she said. "These are stereotypically masculine traits that many women find appealing."

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Sorry, but is everyone sending naked photos?

Your phone beeps. Ooh, it’s a picture message. A photo of that hot guy you met last night. And, um, yes, his penis! Shocked? Don’t be. This is techno flirting, says Zoe Williams, and everybody’s at it

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Millie Mackintosh engaged to Professor Green

The Made In Chelsea star made the surprise announcement on Twitter earlier this evening.

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how do you keep veggies from molding?

I mean, I go to the store and buy fresh fruits and veggies. The next day they seem to go bad.Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

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