To your health

Breast cancer links

Women in the United States have a high risk of breast cancer even if they have no genetic predisposition or commonly-accepted risk factors, according to a report published by two San Francisco-based groups, the Breast Cancer Fund and Breast Cancer Action.

The report on the link between breast cancer and the environment says as many as half of breast cancer cases cannot be explained by lifestyle factors, such as a woman's age when she first had a child or alcohol consumption, or genetics.

The report implicates "some of the 100,000 synthetic chemicals in use today as contributing to the development of breast cancer, either by altering hormone function or gene expression." It also says radiation exposure, even from X-rays and CT scans, is the "longest-established environmental cause of breast cancer."

The report looks at about 350 scientific studies on environmental links to breast cancer. It was peer-reviewed by leading scientists at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, Tufts University School of Medicine, Columbia University and other research institutions.

In 2005, breast cancer was expected to kill more than 40,000 American women. U.S. women have a one in seven chance of being diagnosed with breast cancer at some point, nearly three times the risk 40 years ago.

Alzheimer's drug

Memantine helps treat patients with Alzheimer's disease, according to an open-label extension trial reported recently in the Archives of Neurology.

"Memantine treatment resulted in significant benefits compared with placebo in global, functional and cognitive assessments," write Dr. Barry Reisberg from the New York University School of Medicine, and colleagues. "In addition, memantine treatment of patients with moderate to severe AD receiving stable doses of donepezil was found to be safe and efficacious. Memantine treatment has also shown cognitive benefit in clinical studies on mild to moderate vascular dementia and efficacy in a study on patients who were severely demented and institutionalized."

The initial study was a 28-week, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of memantine, 20 mg daily, in 252 patients with moderate to severe AD. In the open-label, 24-week extension trial, 175 outpatients continued therapy and raters remained blind to the patients' initial study treatment. Efficacy assessments from the original study were continued and safety parameters were monitored.