Advocates call for tougher sunscreen standards Baltimore Examiner, MD - ... of standard for regulating what is in [sunscreens] or how they market those products,? said Brittany Lietz, Miss Maryland 2006 and a melanoma survivor. ...
North Shore support groups The Salem News, MA - Nov 20, 2008 The Melanoma Foundation of New England hosts a melanoma support group the second Tuesday of each month at 6 pm in the Garden Conference Room on the first ... Health briefsGloucester Daily Times all 6 news articles »
Health briefs Gloucester Daily Times, USA - Nov 28, 2008 Melanoma Support Group meets the second Tuesday of each month at 6 pm in the Garden Conference Room, first floor, Beverly Hospital. Free. ...
Students rally support for '09 Relay for Life The Daily Toreador (registration), TX - Nov 18, 2008 During her senior year of high school, Novak was diagnosed with melanoma - a type of skin cancer. At the age of 16, she said, she had to miss many school ...
Watch for melanoma, local woman warns Wairarapa Times Age, New Zealand - Nov 19, 2008 By Jamie Morton A meagre prick from a rose thorn triggered two years of hell for a Masterton melanoma survivor. "It all started with those demon roses," ...
Ex-Miss Maryland Urges FDA to Intensify Skin Cancer Fight Southern Maryland Online, MD - Nov 20, 2008 About 62480 men and women are expected to be diagnosed with skin melanoma in 2008, with 8420 adults expected to die of the disease by year's end, ...
Survivors live strong YMCA program provides fitness for cancer victims The Ann Arbor News - MLive.com, MI - Nov 18, 2008 Then, in a single, shattering day last June, two different doctors, in two different checkups, found breast cancer and malignant melanoma, the most serious ...
Lung cancer: Prevention is underfunded Florida Times-Union, FL - Nov 21, 2008 1 cancer killer of American men and women; it kills more people than breast, prostate, colon, liver and melanoma cancers combined. ...
Source: Google News
Recent News and Articles on the Keywords: melanoma + survivor + support Related to the article below (Last Update: 8/5/2008)
Corrections and clarifications, Aug. 05, 2008 Chicago Tribune, United States - John McCain is a melanoma survivor who suffered severe sun damage from his years in Vietnamese prison camps. In fact, McCain was in solitary confinement for ...
McCain calls for increased oil production Bakersfield Californian (subscription), CA - Jul 29, 2008 ... speaks to reporters during a tour of the Red Ribbon Ranch Oil Lease, San Joaquin Facilities Management Inc. Three-time melanoma survivor John McCain had ...
Extra! Extra! McCain Makes as Much News as Obama Media Channel, NY - One story that could have dominated the week, had the news been bad, subsided (down to 2% of the newshole) after a mole removed from melanoma survivor...
John McCain - the ultimate survivor Reuters UK, UK - Jul 31, 2008 He is also a cancer survivor, having undergone surgery for two malignant melanomas in 2000. His success will depend on whether his strategy aimed at ...
Health Concerns Overshadow Political Agenda KSBW, CA - Jul 28, 2008 GOP presidential candidate -- and melanoma survivor -- Sen. John McCain's campaign hoped to gain more control of the agenda on Monday in the wake of ...
Health briefs Gloucester Daily Times, USA - Aug 1, 2008 Melanoma Support Group meets the second Tuesday of each month at 6 pm in the Garden Conference Room, first floor, Beverly Hospital. Free. ...
Search for meaning in long-term cancer survivors - SR Dirksen - Journal of Advanced Nursing, 1995 - Blackwell Synergy ... These findings support prior research in which unexpec ... is not an important concern
for many survivors. ... for those individuals who mentioned a melanoma cause were ...
Quality of Life for Long-Term Survivors of Cancer: INFLUENCING VARIABLES. - LW Pedro, OCN RNC - Cancer Nursing, 2001 - cancernursingonline.com ... modeling approach to investigate the relation of variables, including social support
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Health profiles in 5836 long-term cancer survivors - PN Schultz, ML Beck, C Stava, R Vassilopoulou- … - International Journal of Cancer, 2003 - doi.wiley.com ... were less likely to report that cancer had affected their health if they were
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Melanoma survivor offers support Former cancer nurse, in remission for 8 years, forms a local group
By Aubrey Westgate, Intelligencer Journal Staff
Intelligencer Journal
Published: Jul 07, 2006 8:13 AM EST
LANCASTER COUNTY, PA - It's one of the most rapidly spreading diseases in the United States, but in most cases, with a little common sense, it can be prevented.
Despite constant and prevalent warnings about the deadly skin cancer melanoma, numerous bronze-skinned-sun lovers continue to ignore and underestimate the disease.
According to The Skin Care Foundation, during the past 10 years, the number of melanoma cases has increased more rapidly than any other cancer. More than 51,000 new cases are reported each year to the American Cancer Society.
Nearly 75 percent of all skin cancer deaths are from melanoma, according to the American Academy of Dermatology.
"It's the most dangerous form of skin cancer," melanoma survivor and registered nurse Julia Walker said.
That's why Walker is starting a support group for those in Lancaster County who are fighting the disease.
In August the group will hold its first meeting, where members will discuss how often they plan to meet and what they hope to gain from the meetings.
A major problem, Walker said, is those diagnosed with melanoma, and even those in the medical community, often lack a firm understanding of the "unpredictable" disease.
While it is widely agreed that sun exposure contributes to the disease, Walker said there is a lot of uncertainty about how to treat melanoma.
"There are ways to help yourself, and I think some people would just like to know that they're not the only ones facing it," she said.
Walker, who has a long history treating melanoma patients -- she worked as a melanoma nurse for six years -- will be able to use her experience to encourage and help members of the group.
"Most patients view (melanoma) as a death sentence," she said. "They think this is it, and that's not always the case."
Walker said the prognosis for and treatment of melanoma continue to improve as the disease is researched.
If melanoma is diagnosed quickly and removed from the skin when it is still limited to the outermost skin layer, the disease is almost 100 percent curable, according to The Skin Care Foundation.
However, if the cancer is advanced and has metastasized (spread) to other parts of the body, it is difficult to treat.
Avid sun worshippers who are risking their lives in the name of beauty should consider their futures, Walker said. Not only can tanning kill them, but it also can prematurely age skin.
Walker, who advocates a ban on tanning beds, said those who use them "might as well be injecting melanoma right into their skin."
While Walker will bring a medical perspective to the melanoma support group, perhaps more importantly, she will be able to relate to members as a cancer survivor.
She was diagnosed with melanoma at the age of 45, when her children were 12, 14 and 15.
As part of an experimental procedure at Jefferson Regional Medical Center in Pittsburgh in 1997, doctors injected Walker with a vaccine in the hope it would enable her immune system to fight off the cancer.
"In my case, it worked," she said. Unfortunately, of 270 patients who underwent the procedure, fewer than half survived, she said.
Surviving the disease has given her a different outlook, Walker said. "You appreciate your family, your life, everything you have."
And although Walker has been in remission for eight years, she said she is "not out of the woods yet."
According to Walker and the Skin Care Foundation, people can help minimize their chances of contracting melanoma by taking the following steps:
·Avoiding the sun from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
·Applying sunscreen in the morning and reapplying it every four hours.
·Keeping newborns out of the sun.
·Always wearing a hat -- even in the winter.
The Melanoma Support Group will hold its first meeting at 7 p.m. Aug. 9. Anyone diagnosed with melanoma is welcome to join. If interested, call Julia Walker at 627-4485.
CORRECTION: Early drinking may speed alcohol dependence
Last Updated: 2006-07-07 14:44:11 -0400 (Reuters Health)
[Corrects story posted July 6, 2006. In the fourth paragraph, the first sentence has been deleted and the second sentence has been revised.]
By Anne Harding
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - People who begin to drink alcohol before the age of 14 years are not only more likely to become alcohol dependent than those who stay away from alcohol until they're 21; they also develop dependency faster and have a longer struggle with alcohol throughout their lives, a new study shows.
"It's not to say that people don't get over this, but...they're at greater lifelong risk, particularly if they develop dependence so rapidly that they have it this early in life," the study's lead author, Dr. Ralph W. Hingson of Boston University School of Public Health's Youth Alcohol Prevention Center, told Reuters Health.
There is mounting evidence that people who start drinking early are more likely to become alcohol dependent, Hingson and his team note in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. To investigate whether they may also become alcohol dependent at a younger age, the researchers analyzed the results of a 2001-2002 survey of 43,093 adults conducted by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.
Twenty-seven percent of the men and women who started drinking before age 14 were alcohol dependent within 10 years, compared with 4 percent of those who began drinking at age 21 or older.
Using statistical techniques, the researchers factored in the influence of other factors that could be related to early drinking and the development of alcohol dependence, such as antisocial behavior during childhood, a family history of alcoholism, depression and education level.
Even after controlling for such factors, people who started drinking early were 2.6 times more likely to have episodes of alcohol dependence lasting longer than one year and nearly three times as likely to have six to seven symptoms of alcohol dependence versus three to five symptoms.
The findings underscore the dangers of early alcohol use, Hingson and his team note, and raise the possibility that efforts to help prevent drinking among teens, such as raising the drinking age to 21, could reduce the rates of alcohol dependence.
"We think it's very important that adolescents routinely be asked about their drinking practices by their health care providers," Hingson told Reuters Health. "There are interventions that we know can make a difference."
SOURCE: Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, July 2006.
