PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Common sense health for young adult cancer survivors

Study looks at factors that influence life expectancy of survivors of childhood cancer

2014-04-10
(Press-News.org) Many factors influence the life expectancy of childhood cancer survivors: not getting enough exercise, being underweight, and being worried about their future health or their health insurance. These are the findings of research led by Cheryl Cox of the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in the US, published in Springer's Journal of Cancer Survivorship. The study found that, on average, childhood cancer survivors passed away before they were 40 years old.

Health-related behavior, self-perceived health status, and health concerns often influence mortality in the general population. However, the study led by Cox is the first to assess how these factors impact the longevity of adult survivors of childhood cancer, whose life expectancy can be reduced by as much as 28 percent because of the late effects of their cancer and treatment.

Cox's team found that malignant tumors, (42 percent), and heart (20 percent) and lung (7 percent) problems cause most deaths among childhood cancer survivors, who, on average, pass away at around 37.6 years of age. Data collected between 1970 and 1986 for the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study were analyzed. Because the group about whom information was gathered has now aged, the researchers could assess the factors (other than those of the initial diagnoses and treatment) that influenced life expectancy. In all, the information of 445 participants who died from causes other than cancer or non-health-related events (such as accidents) were matched and compared with 7,162 surviving participants.

Many factors that increase the risk of dying in the general population were also found to be true for childhood cancer survivors. These include not having a life partner, not having gone far in high school, and living on an annual income of below $20,000. Black people were also at a higher risk. In addition, early deaths were linked to being underweight and making frequent visits to physicians, especially during the last two years of life. Male survivors who participated in exercise three times a week generally live longer than those doing no physical activity. Alcohol consumption increased life expectancy.

More uniquely, childhood cancer survivors' mortality risk saw a threefold increase due to other-related causes if they described their general health as being "poor" or "fair." It was also affected by being very worried about their future health and ability to obtain health insurance. Worry and anxiety can affect health, and ultimately mortality, indirectly through behavior such as smoking, poor nutrition and inactivity, and directly through changes in a person's immunity or endocrine and cardiovascular systems.

"Lifestyle behavior, self-reported health status, worries and concerns, and frequent use of medical care are associated with mortality in survivors of childhood cancer," concludes Cox. "These factors independently contributed to mortality in survivors who were, on average, less than 40 years of age."

INFORMATION: Reference: Cox, C.L. et al (2014). Noncancer-related mortality risks in adult survivors of pediatric malignancies: the childhood cancer survivor study, Journal of Cancer Survivorship. DOI 10.1007/s11764-014-0353-7


ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Iconic boreal bird species declining in the Adirondacks, study says

Iconic boreal bird species declining in the Adirondacks, study says
2014-04-10
A new study from the Wildlife Conservation Society finds that several iconic Adirondack birds are in trouble, with declines driven by the size of their wetland habitats, how connected these wetlands are to one another, and how near they are to human infrastructure. The Adirondack Park represents the southern range extent for several species of boreal forest birds in eastern North America. Like any species at the edge of its range, they face challenges in this environment. The habitats of these boreal specialists – cool, wet, sphagnum-draped bogs and swampy woods – are ...

Uncovering a new angle on mental distance

2014-04-10
Why does the second hour of a journey seem shorter than the first? According to research from University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC) and the Rotman School of Management, the answer lies in how we're physically oriented in space. In a series of six studies, Sam Maglio, an assistant professor in UTSC's Department of Management, demonstrated that a person's orientation — the direction they are headed — changed how they thought of an object or event. The research is forthcoming in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. "Feeling ...

Sunlight generates hydrogen in new porous silicon

Sunlight generates hydrogen in new porous silicon
2014-04-10
Porous silicon manufactured in a bottom up procedure using solar energy can be used to generate hydrogen from water, according to a team of Penn State mechanical engineers, who also see applications for batteries, biosensors and optical electronics as outlets for this new material. The surface area of this porous silicon is high," said Donghai Wang, assistant professor of mechanical engineering. "It is widely used and has a lot of applications." The standard method for manufacturing porous silicon is a subtraction method, similar to making a sculpture. "Silicon is ...

Extending terrorism insurance program could lower federal costs, study finds

2014-04-10
Federal spending after future terrorist attacks on the United States may be higher if the nation's terrorism risk insurance program is allowed to expire, according to a new RAND Corporation study. The analysis finds that in a terrorist attack with losses up to $50 billion, the federal government would spend more helping to cover losses than if it had continued to support a national terrorism risk insurance program. In the wake of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, terrorism risk insurance quickly became either unavailable or very expensive. Congress reacted by ...

Health of ecosystems on US golf courses better than predicted

Health of ecosystems on US golf courses better than predicted
2014-04-10
COLUMBIA, Mo. – Currently, there are more than 18,300 golf courses in the U.S. covering over 2.7 million acres. The ecological impacts of golf courses are not always straightforward with popular opinion suggesting that environmentally, golf courses have a negative impact on ecosystems. Now, researchers at the University of Missouri have determined that golf courses can offer a viable habitat for stream salamanders, and enhanced management practices may be beneficial to ecosystems within golf courses. "If you look at the literature on golf courses, historically they get ...

Researchers bolster development of programmable quantum computers

Researchers bolster development of programmable quantum computers
2014-04-10
University of Chicago researchers and their colleagues at University College London have performed a proof-of-concept experiment that will aid the future development of programmable quantum computers. Many complex problems are difficult and slow to solve using conventional computers, and over the last several years, research has grown steadily toward developing quantum computation. In particular, optimization problems such as the "traveling salesman" problem, which calculates the shortest possible route needed to visit a set of towns, become intractable as the number ...

MU researchers find rare fossilized embryos more than 500 million years old

MU researchers find rare fossilized embryos more than 500 million years old
2014-04-10
COLUMBIA, Mo. – The Cambrian Period is a time when most phyla of marine invertebrates first appeared in the fossil record. Also dubbed the "Cambrian explosion," fossilized records from this time provide glimpses into evolutionary biology when the world's ecosystems rapidly changed and diversified. Most fossils show the organisms' skeletal structure, which may or may not give researchers accurate pictures of these prehistoric organisms. Now, researchers at the University of Missouri have found rare, fossilized embryos they believe were undiscovered previously. Their methods ...

Gutting of campaign finance laws enhances influence of corporations and wealthy Americans

2014-04-10
PRINCETON, N.J.—Affluent individuals and business corporations already have vastly more influence on federal government policy than average citizens, according to recently released research by Princeton University and Northwestern University. This research suggests that the Supreme Court's continuing attack on campaign finance laws is further increasing the political clout of business firms and the wealthy. Martin Gilens, professor of politics at Princeton, and Benjamin I. Page, Gordon Scott Fulcher Professor of Decision Making, of Northwestern University used a unique ...

Pseudo-mathematics and financial charlatanism

2014-04-10
Providence, RI---Your financial advisor calls you up to suggest a new investment scheme. Drawing on 20 years of data, he has set his computer to work on this question: If you had invested according to this scheme in the past, which portfolio would have been the best? His computer assembled thousands of such simulated portfolios and calculated for each one an industry-standard measure of return on risk. Out of this gargantuan calculation, your advisor has chosen the optimal portfolio. After briefly reminding you of the oft-repeated slogan that "past performance ...

Name of new weakly electric fish species reflects hope for peace in Central Africa

Name of new weakly electric fish species reflects hope for peace in Central Africa
2014-04-10
Two new species of weakly electric fishes from the Congo River basin are described in the open access journal ZooKeys. One of them, known from only a single specimen, is named "Petrocephalus boboto." "Boboto" is the word for peace in the Lingala language, the lingua franca of the Congo River, reflecting the authors' hope for peace in troubled Central Africa. On a 2010 field trip to the Congo River of Democratic Republic of the Congo, in the riverside village of Yangambi-Lokélé, French ichthyologist Sébastien Lavoué of the Taiwan Institute of Oceanography and American ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Cercus electric stimulation enables cockroach with trajectory control and spatial cognition training

Day-long conference addresses difficult to diagnose lung disease

First-ever cardiogenic shock academy features simulation lab

Thirty-year mystery of dissonance in the “ringing” of black holes explained

Less intensive works best for agricultural soil

Arctic rivers project receives “national champion” designation from frontiers foundation

Computational biology paves the way for new ALS tests

Study offers new hope for babies born with opioid withdrawal syndrome

UT, Volkswagen Group of America celebrate research partnership

New Medicare program could dramatically improve affordability for cancer drugs – if patients enroll

Are ‘zombie’ skin cells harmful or helpful? The answer may be in their shapes

University of Cincinnati Cancer Center presents research at AACR 2025

Head and neck, breast, lung and survivorship studies headline Dana-Farber research at AACR Annual Meeting 2025

AACR: Researchers share promising results from MD Anderson clinical trials

New research explains why our waistlines expand in middle age

Advancements in muon detection: Taishan Antineutrino Observatory's innovative top veto tracker

Chips off the old block

Microvascular decompression combined with nerve combing for atypical trigeminal neuralgia

Cutting the complexity from digital carpentry

Lung immune cell type “quietly” controls inflammation in COVID-19

Fiscal impact of expanded Medicare coverage for GLP-1 receptor agonists to treat obesity

State and sociodemographic trends in US cigarette smoking with future projections

Young adults drive historic decline in smoking

NFCR congratulates Dr. Robert C. Bast, Jr. on receiving the AACR-Daniel D. Von Hoff Award for Outstanding Contributions to Education and Training in Cancer Research

Chimpanzee stem cells offer new insights into early embryonic development

This injected protein-like polymer helps tissues heal after a heart attack

FlexTech inaugural issue launches, pioneering interdisciplinary innovation in flexible technology

In Down syndrome mice, 40Hz light and sound improve cognition, neurogenesis, connectivity

Methyl eugenol: potential to inhibit oxidative stress, address related diseases, and its toxicological effects

A vascularized multilayer chip reveals shear stress-induced angiogenesis in diverse fluid conditions

[Press-News.org] Common sense health for young adult cancer survivors
Study looks at factors that influence life expectancy of survivors of childhood cancer