Broken heart syndrome linked to cancer

Image by Sakazaki used under Creative Commons license

CANCER DIGEST – July 20, 2019 – While the headlines grab the attention of the romantically inclined, there really is a medical condition affecting the heart resulting from traumatic emotional events called takotsubo cardiomyopathy.

The new international study led by Swiss researchers in the Journal of the American Heart Association, shows that a substantial number of patients with takotsubo syndrome (TTS) have an increased risk of cancer.

Limiting sugary sodas and fruit drinks may lower cancer risk

Image used under
CreativeCommons license

CANCER DIGEST – July 13, 2019 – Sugary drinks are associated with an increased risk of cancer, especially breast cancer, a new observational study shows.

The study led by French researchers followed 101,257 healthy French adults over a maximum of 9 years. The participants completed at least two standardized questionnaires over the course of the study. They were asked about their usual intake of more than 3,000 different food and beverage items. The study appears in the July 10, 2019 British Medical Journal (BMJ).

Earlier studies have shown a link between sugar intake and obesity and visceral or gut fat that is stored around the liver and pancreas. Also sugary drinks have been linked with diabetes and inflammation, which are also linked to higher cancer risk.

Coffee burns brown fat, may help with weight control

Image courtesy University of Nottingham

CANCER DIGEST – July 5, 2019 – Chock up another benefit of drinking coffee. A group of British researchers have found that a cup of coffee can stimulate 'brown fat,' the body’s own fat-fighting defenses. 

Brown adipose tissue (BAT) or brown fat is the "other" fat in your body. Brown fat plays an important role in burning calories for energy. The white fat most people think of or see when trimming a steak before cooking is stored by the body.

New combination chemo aims to improve surgery in pancreatic cancer

CANCER DIGEST – June 15, 2019 – Researchers at West Virginia University have found

a promising new combination chemotherapy improved survival for patients with pancreatic cancer. Their findings appear in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

New imaging agent is able to identify 30 types of cancers

⁶⁸Ga-FAPI PET/CT in patients reflecting
15 different tumor entities. Image Credit:
Kratochwil, Flechhsig, Lindner, et al

CANCER DIGEST – June 8, 2019 – A new imaging agent has been shown to be highly effective in identifying nearly 30 types of malignant tumors, according to a new study published in the Journal of Nuclear Medicine. The agent could be effective in providing physicians with a more complete picture of a patient’s cancer. 

The agent called 68Ga-FPI is used in positron emission tomography/computed tomography or PET/CT and targets cancer-associated fibroblasts and is taken up by a wide variety of tumors in very high amounts, making them clearly stand out on an image study.