• Wear a headset or earphones to keep the device as far away from your head and/or other vital organs as possible.
• Turn the device off whenever it is not being used.

If you are a heavy user, consider incorporating one of the following proven cell-phone radiation mitigating substances:

• Bee Propolis – A compound found within bee propolis, which is like the mortar the bees use to repair and maintain the structural integrity of their hive, known as caffeic acid phenethyl ester (CAPE), has been experimentally tested to protect the kidneys, hearts and retinas of cell-phone exposed mice.  Our bee propolis research page actually lists 12 studies on its radioprotective properties, including protecting against diagnostic and/or “therapeutic” (e.g. radiotherapy) gamma-radiation.
• Melatonin – Melatonin is released during deep, restful sleep – which is always the best way to obtain this natural protective secretion. Melatonin has been studied for its ability to protect against cell-phone induced retinal and kidney damage.  Like propolis, melatonin has also been shown to have powerful radioprotective properties against gamma-radiation induced oxidative stress and tissue injury.
• EGCG (green tea polyphenol) – Green tea contains a potent antioxidant known as EGCG (epigallocatechin-gallate) and which has been shown to protect the liver against mobile-phone induced radiation damage.
• Ginkgo Biloba – This plant never ceases to amaze. Not only is it the oldest living plant (a “living fossil”) known to man, but it seems to provide a broad range of benefits to brain and cognitive health.  It has been experimentally confirmed to prevent mobile-phone induced oxidative stress in the rat brain.
• N-acetyl-cysteine (NAC) – NAC is the the precursor to glutathione, a powerful cell-protective antioxidant that your body produces, given it has adequate cofactors available.  It has been shown to protect the liver against mobile-phone induced damage.

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The combination of the biologic lapatinib (Tykerb) and capecitabine (Xeloda) chemotherapy appears to shrink brain metastases from HER2-positive breast cancer without need for radiation, a phase II trial showed.

Two-thirds of patients saw their previously-untreated brain lesions shrink by at least half with the treatment regimen, Thomas Bachelot, MD, of the Centre Léon Bérard in Lyon, France, and colleagues found in the LANDSCAPE trial.

The median time to whole-brain radiotherapy (WBRT) was 8.3 months, the group reported online in the Lancet Oncology.

“Traditionally, most of these women receive WBRT which can impair cognitive function. Delaying such a treatment for those patients is potentially a big advance, which is particularly relevant for a population with short overall survival,” Bachelot noted in a press release.

The efficacy of lapatinib and capecitabine was similar to whole-brain radiotherapy, noted Rupert Bartsch, MD, and Matthias Preusser, MD, both of the Medical University of Vienna, in an accompanying commentary.

The primary systemic strategy “might already be a valid treatment option” in this population with minimal clinical symptoms and good performance status, they suggested.

However, they cautioned about limitations of the treatment and the study.

Serious adverse events weren’t uncommon with lapatinib plus capecitabine — 49% of the women faced grade 3 or 4 adverse events, most commonly diarrhea and hand-foot syndrome.

Side effects were “manageable,” however, compared with those of brain radiation, which include delayed side effects of cerebellar dysfunction and cataracts, according to the researchers. Only four of the women discontinued treatment because of adverse effects.

But the group provided no data on neurocognitive function in the open-label, single-arm study of 45 patients.

“Furthermore, more than 40% of all patients did not present with neurological symptoms at baseline, which raises the question of whether screening for brain metastases was done and raises doubts about the feasibility of extrapolation of their findings to the general population of patients with symptomatic brain metastases,” Bartsch and Preusser pointed out.

“More than 95% of all patients presented with Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status of 0–2, which is better than would be expected in an unselected population of patients with brain metastases.”

Nevertheless, it’s clear that a phase III study is warranted, they agreed with the researchers, who said they are planning such a trial.

The brain metastasis response was “much higher than we expected” and greater than the 27% to 50% response rates seen with whole-brain radiotherapy alone in prior studies, Bachelot’s group noted.

For the primary endpoint, 29 of the 44 evaluable patients had an objective CNS response marked by at least 50% volume reduction of brain metastases, all partial responses.

Notably, nine of the women (20%) got a CNS volumetric reduction of 80% or greater. Median time to CNS progression was 5.5 months.

The researchers cautioned that direct comparison cannot be made between these results and those of whole-brain radiation alone or other regimens, such as monotherapy.

The study was funded by GlaxoSmithKline-France and UNICANCER.

Bachelot and another co-author reported consultant or advisory roles at GlaxoSmithKline-France and research funding by GlaxoSmithKline-France. A third author declared research funding by GlaxoSmithKline-France.

Bartsch and Preusser reported having no conflicts of interest to disclose.

Primary source: The Lancet Oncology
Source reference:
Bachelot T, et al “Lapatinib plus capecitabine in patients with previously untreated brain metastases from HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer (LANDSCAPE): a single-group phase 2 study” Lancet Oncol 2012; DOI: 10.1016/S1470-2045(12)70432-1.

Additional source: The Lancet Oncology
Source reference:
Bartsch R, Preusser M “Primary systemic treatment of breast-cancer brain metastases” Lancet Oncol 2012; DOI: 10.1016/S1470-2045(12)70449-7.

Daily aspirin use is associated with a modest decrease in mortality from cancer, particularly for malignancies of the gastrointestinal tract, a large retrospective study confirmed.

Individuals who were current daily users for 5 years or more at baseline had an 8% decrease in cancer mortality compared with non-users (RR 0.92, 95% CI 0.83 to 1.02), according to Eric J. Jacobs, PhD, and colleagues from the American Cancer Society in Atlanta.

The association was stronger, with a 16% decrease for those with daily use for 5 years or more, when the analysis included data collected periodically during 2 decades of follow-up (RR 0.84, 95% CI 0.75 to 0.95), the researchers reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

A recent pooled analysis of more than 50 trials involving aspirin use for cardioprotection found a 37% reduction in deaths from cancer among users, which was considerably greater than in observational studies and trials of alternate-day aspirin.

To clarify the magnitude of the association between aspirin use and overall cancer mortality, Jacobs and colleagues analyzed data from the Cancer Prevention Study II, which began in 1992 and included 100,139 participants who completed questionnaires with information on demographics, medical history, and behavioral influences.

Beginning in 1997, participants also provided information about aspirin use, and continued to provide updates every 2 years.

The 1997 questionnaire was considered the baseline for the analysis, at which time 23.8% of participants were using either low-dose or adult-strength aspirin.

More than half of participants were older than 60 and female, and almost all were white.

During the 20 years of follow-up, there were 5,138 deaths from cancer.

Among those who reported aspirin use in 1997, three-quarters said they were still taking it in 2003, while among those who were non-users at baseline, 25% had begun doing so.

Baseline aspirin users tended to be more educated, former smokers, and obese, as well as to have a history of cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

Male users also were more likely to have a history of prostate specific antigen (PSA) testing, and women users were more likely to have a history of mammography.

Overall mortality was slightly lower even for individuals who had been users for less than 5 years (RR 0.84, 95% CI 0.76 to 0.94).

Relative risks were similar for users of low-dose and full-strength aspirin, and for those with and without a history of cardiovascular disease, ranging from 0.82 (95% CI 0.72 to 0.91) to 0.95 (95% CI 0.86 to 1.04).

Current users who had never smoked had considerably lower mortality (RR 0.68, 95% CI 0.57 to 0.81), a reduction that was not seen for former smokers (RR 0.92, 95% CI 0.82 to 1.04) or those currently smoking (RR 0.91, 95% CI 0.70 to 1.19).

Even after discounting lung cancer deaths, the only lower mortality among aspirin users was for never-smokers (RR 0.67, 95% CI 0.56 to 0.81).

A possible explanation for the lack of effect on cancers other than those in the lung among ever-smokers is that smoking may attenuate the antiplatelet activity of aspirin, and activated platelets are thought to promote tumor metastases, the researchers explained.

Aspirin use at the 1997 baseline was not significantly associated with mortality from specific cancers, but differences were seen when data through 2008 were included in the analysis:

• Cancers within the gastrointestinal tract, RR 0.61 (95% CI 0.44 to 0.84)
• Cancers outside the gastrointestinal tract, RR 0.88 (95% CI 0.78 to 1)
• Colorectal cancer, OR 0.64 (95% CI 0.42 to 0.98)
• Esophageal and stomach cancer, RR 0.56 (95% CI 0.37 to 0.86)

“The reduction in overall cancer mortality was driven by both a substantial reduction in mortality from gastrointestinal tract cancers and a small, but statistically significant, reduction in mortality from cancers outside the gastrointestinal tract,” they stated.

They noted that their study was observational, which was an important limitation, in that confounding factors could have resulted in either an underestimate or an overestimate of the effects of aspirin on mortality.

Also, the absolute risk for cancer mortality between non-users and daily long-term aspirin users — approximately 100 per 100,000 person-years for men and about 40 per 100,000 person-years for women — would represent an important benefit of aspirin use if it were causal, the authors stated.

“However, even if causal, differences in absolute rates are likely to differ between our predominantly elderly population and younger populations at much lower risk of cancer mortality,” they warned.

They concluded that the “relatively modest benefit” seen in their analysis could “meaningfully influence the balances of risks and benefits of prophylactic aspirin use.”

In an accompanying editorial, John Baron, MD, of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, offered a word of caution. Baron was the lead author of the meta-analysis on aspirin use and cancer risk.

“Just because aspirin is effective does not mean it necessarily should be used,” he argued.

“Aspirin is a real drug, with definite toxicity. As for any preventative intervention, the benefits must be balanced against the risks, particularly when the benefits are delayed whereas the risks are not,” Baron stated.