New Drug Approved for Advanced Colon Cancer
New Drug Approved for Advanced Colon Cancer |
- New Drug Approved for Advanced Colon Cancer
- Donating Organs for Cash Sparks Controversy
- Progesterone Test Could Reveal Miscarriage Risk
- British priest bans ‘spiritual’ yoga from church hall
- Simple meditation helps in many ways
- The power of “not doing”
- 7 Life Changing Quotes from Will Smith
- How do we know someone is enlightened?
- The Mindful Life
| New Drug Approved for Advanced Colon Cancer Posted: 28 Sep 2012 01:00 PM PDT
A new drug has received fast-track approval to treat advanced colon cancer, the Food and Drug Administration announced today (Sept. 27). The drug, Stivarga, has been approved to treat patients with colorectal cancer that has progressed after treatment and spread to other parts of the body, the FDA said. The drug, manufactured by Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals, works by blocking several enzymes that promote cancer growth. The FDA said it received a fast-track review designated for drugs that offer major advances in treatment or that provide treatment when no adequate therapy exists. In a study, patients taking the drug lived about six weeks longer than patients taking a placebo. "Stivarga is the latest colorectal cancer treatment to demonstrate an ability to extend patients' lives and is the second drug approved for patients with colorectal cancer in the past two months," said Dr. Richard Pazdur, director of the Office of Hematology and Oncology Products in the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. Last month the FDA approved the Sanofi-Regeneron drug Zaltrap for use in combination with a FOLFIRI (folinic acid, fluorouracil and irinotecan) chemotherapy regimen to treat adults with metastatic colorectal cancer. Colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer in men and in women and the third leading cause of cancer death in men and in women in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 143,400 Americans will be diagnosed with colorectal cancer, and 51,690 will die from the disease in 2012, the government estimates. Stivarga was evaluated in a study of 760 patients with previously treated metastatic colorectal cancer. Patients were randomly assigned to receive Stivarga or a placebo in addition to the best supportive care, which included treatments to help manage symptoms and side effects of cancer. Patients received treatment until their cancers progressed or side effects became unacceptable. Patients treated with Stivarga and supportive care lived about 6.4 months, compared with five months for patients treated with placebo plus supportive care. Those who received Stivarga experienced a delay in tumor growth for about two months, compared with 1.7 months for patients receiving the placebo. The Stivarga label warns that severe and fatal liver toxicity occurred in patients treated with Stivarga during clinical studies. The most common side effects reported in patients treated with Stivarga included weakness or fatigue, loss of appetite, hand-foot syndrome (also called palmar-plantar erythrodysesthesia), diarrhea, mouth sores (mucositis), weight loss, infection, high blood pressure, and changes in voice volume or quality (dysphonia), the FDA said. Pass it on: The FDA has approved a new drug to treat advanced colorectal cancer. Follow MyHealthNewsDaily on Twitter @MyHealth_MHND. We're also on Facebook & Google+.  Read More @ Source 
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| Donating Organs for Cash Sparks Controversy Posted: 28 Sep 2012 12:00 PM PDT
Would you donate a kidney for cash? In a new survey from Canada, 45 percent of people said that money is an acceptable incentive for organ donations from living donors, while 70 percent of survey respondents said that cash is an acceptable enticement for people to donate their organs after death. "We do need to consider a system where we compensate people for their giving," said study researcher Dr. Braden Manns, professor of nephrology at the University of Calgary in Canada. The idea of paying organ donors is not new. "We have more patients on dialysis, but we don't have more donors; so we're looking at other ways to motivate people to donate," Manns said. However, while the survey found that many people's think cash incentives are acceptable, people's answers may be different than their opinions when faced with the grueling realities of donations. "Surveys are quick measures of people's feelings that may be relatively uninformed," said Peter H. Schwartz, a faculty investigator at the Indiana University Center for Bioethics who had no role in the new study. Cash for kidneys? In North America, "opt-in" organ donation programs are common; people must actively to choose to donate. In Europe, it's more common for countries to have "opt-out" programs, in which people become organ donors unless they expressely state they wish otherwise. "Every option raises at least some concerns," Schwartz said. In opt-in programs, relatives can still control whether a person's organs are actually donated after their death. "We need to do better at encouraging organ donations," he said. While selling organs is illegal, financial incentives are common in Canada and the U.S; these typically take the form of reimbursements from foundations for funeral expenses for deceased donors, and tax breaks from the government on expenses incurred during recovery for living donors, according to policy researchers. Manns and colleagues looked at whether people would find it acceptable for additional incentives, to compensate living donors for the time and inconvenience involved in having surgery. They conducted their web-based survey in October 2011, and included 2,004 people in the general public — a nationally representative sample from Canada — along with 339 health professionals and 268 people affected by kidney disease. Results showed that health care workers were least likely to support the idea of financial incentives for donors. Just 14 percent said it was a good idea, whereas 45 percent of the general public said so. The kidney disease patients fell in the middle range, with 27 percent saying paying for organs should be allowed. "Very often, the reason health professionals give for their opposition to financial incentives is that the public would find them to be objectionable, but as this study and others suggest, the greatest source of concern is the health professionals themselves," said Robert Truog, director of clinical ethics at Harvard Medical School. Though health care professionals may find financial incentives unpalatable, a regulated system would work, Truog said. What kind of system would work? One problem with offering financial incentives is that the organ transplant communitiy is deeply committed to the view that organs are always "gifts," and never "commodities." This view has always been problematic, but has become increasingly so as the shortage of organs has become more pronounced, and in the face of compelling arguments for the ethical use of financial incentives," Truog said. Public support for financial incentives does not mean that they would work to increase organ transplants, he said. "It's the physicians who actually perform the transplants; if they're not behind (financial incentives), they're not going to take part in it," George Annas, a bioethicist at Boston University School of Public Health, told MyHealthNewsDaily. "People need to stop looking at just the supply side, but look at the demand side," Annas said, including preventative and less invasive medical interventions along with figuring out the underlying causes of the diseases. "People can't let go of the notion of this as a cash-and-carry type of business," he said. The survey results are detailed today (Sept. 27) in the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology. Follow MyHealthNewsDaily on Twitter @MyHealth_MHND. We're also on Facebook & Google+. Read More @ Source 
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| Progesterone Test Could Reveal Miscarriage Risk Posted: 28 Sep 2012 12:00 PM PDT
In early pregnancy, abdominal pain and vaginal bleeding may be signs of a miscarriage, but current tests cannot always tell. A new study finds a single test of progesterone levels in women with these symptoms could help discriminate between a viable and nonviable pregnancy. In the vast majority of cases in the study, women with low progesterone levels had nonviable pregnancies, the researchers said. The progesterone test was most accurate when performed in conjunction with a transvaginal ultrasound, according to the study, which was published today (Sept. 27) in the British Medical Journal. Further trials should be conducted to examine whether adding this test to the existing protocol for assessing the possibility of miscarriage improves upon current practices, the researchers said. About a third of pregnant women have abdominal pain or vaginal bleeding during the first trimester. An ultrasound can suggest whether the pregnancy is viable, but in up to 30 percent of cases, the results are inconclusive. Doctors also can test for the hormone HCG, which is produced in pregnancy, but these tests often need to be performed more than once to be useful in diagnosing nonviable pregnancies, the researchers said. Progesterone is a female hormone that increases in concentration during pregnancy. Studies have suggested a single progesterone measurement in early pregnancy can distinguish a viable pregnancy from a nonviable one, but results are conflicting. In the new study, Ioannis Gallos of the University of Birmingham in England and colleagues analyzed information from 26 previous studies involving 9,436 women who were less than 14 weeks pregnant and had experienced abdominal pain or vaginal bleeding. About 2,300 women had an inconclusive ultrasound, while the rest had not undergone an ultrasound. Among women who had an ultrasound, 73 percent had nonviable pregnancies. But among women with progesterone levels below 3 to 6 nanograms per milliliter, the probability of a nonviable pregnancy rose to more than 99 percent. Among women who did not have ultrasounds, 96 percent of those with progesterone levels below 10 ng/mL had a nonviable pregnancy, while the same was true of 37 percent of those with higher progesterone levels. The researchers noted they also found that the progesterone test could not distinguish between women who had ectopic pregnancies (which occur outside the uterus, and are nonviable) and those who had miscarriages or normal pregnancies, and so should not be used for this purpose. Pass it on: Low progesterone levels in women who experience pain or bleeding in early pregnancy often indicate the pregnancy is not viable. Follow MyHealthNewsDaily @MyHealth_MHND. We're also on Facebook & Google+. Read More @ Source 
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| British priest bans ‘spiritual’ yoga from church hall Posted: 28 Sep 2012 09:00 AM PDT
Cori Withell told The Mirror that with just 10 days remaining in the two-month instruction, St. Edmund's Church in Southampton canceled her yoga and Pilates classes. She said a parish secretary explained that the hall must be used only for Catholic activities. The decision to ban yoga or other non-Catholic activities rests with individual priests and is not official Catholic Church policy, the diocese said. St. Edmund's priest, Father John Chandler, and … Read the original article » Read More @ Source
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| Simple meditation helps in many ways Posted: 28 Sep 2012 08:00 AM PDT
A simple form of mindful meditation can help breast cancer survivors stave off the symptoms of depression, new research suggests. But the potential benefits don't stop there. Meditation may help wipe out some of those repetitive thoughts about the past or future that can clutter the mind once treatment ends. It may also reduce loneliness and decrease the body's inflammatory response to stress — which can trigger serious illness — according to a small study published in the journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity. "Mindfulness meditation is particularly effective in buffering … Read the original article » Read More @ Source
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| Posted: 28 Sep 2012 07:00 AM PDT
Our lives are constantly tumbling into the future, and the only way back to here and now is to stop doing and just be. Even a few moments of un-doing, of suspended activity, a mini-meditation of just being still, can reconnect you with a sense of aliveness and caring. That connection will deepen if, during those moments, you intentionally establish contact with your body, breathe, and relax. A game I often play with myself is to see if I can spontaneously remember to pause in situations I usually charge right through. Washing the dishes. Walking from my office to the kitchen. Moving through e-mails. Eating popcorn. Pausing is a wonderful and radical way of plucking myself out of virtual reality and discovering myself once again at the hub, awake, open, and here. A deliberate meditative pause helps us to savor the often-forgotten goodness and beauty that is within and around us. One of my clients, Frances, experienced first-hand how the power of pausing and relaxing in the midst of all the doing in her life could actually change her experience of it. It began with the hurt and disappointment she felt when her two daughters chose to spend a holiday with their father (her ex-husband) rather than going on a trip with her. "You're no fun, Mom, you don't know how to relax," one had said. When she protested, they pointed out that she was "all business" and was even grim about setting up vacation activities. Frances recognized herself in their words. The oldest of five, she had prematurely become the caretaker of her siblings when her own mother had grown ill. "I don't know how to play," she confessed sadly. "I'm much more comfortable staying busy, getting things done."  If you like Tara's teaching, check out her audio titles in our meditation supplies store I suggested that she find a beautiful place to walk and do some of her meditation practice there. Her assignment was still to wake up from thoughts when she became aware of them; but rather than the breath, her home base was all of her senses. She would become aware of the pressure of her feet on the earth, the images and smells and sounds of the natural world. I asked her to pause anytime something struck her as beautiful or interesting and to offer that experience her full attention. When we met several months later, Frances gave me a meditation report: "Tara," she said, "my walks are one long linger!" She went on to tell me about the pleasure she was finding in other parts of life — eating a peach slowly and savoring its texture and flavor, taking long hot showers, and increasingly, during sitting meditation, simply relaxing with the movement of her breath. Most importantly, Frances was experiencing her daughters in a new way, appreciating one's infectious laugh, the other's grace. "I'm enjoying them," she said smiling, "and they seem not to mind hanging out with me!" Frances was discovering the blessing of choosing presence—becoming intimate with the life that is right here, right now. As Frances was discovering, all of our purposeful "doings" in meditation (naming our experience, mindfully scanning through the body, or focusing on the breath) can help us to pause and open ourselves to the life of the moment. Yet, because we can get so hooked by the need to do something more, we can help ourselves most deeply by our intention to let go. For me, I sometimes remind myself of a line from poet Rainer Maria Rilke:
Feel free to experiment with your own self-reminders. What word or phrase helps you to stop pedaling, to relax your habitual doing, and simply be? Hindu teacher Swami Satchidananda was once asked by a student if he needed to become a Hindu to go deeply into the practice of yoga. Satchidananda's response was, "I am not a Hindu, I am an undo." Just so, when meditation frees us, it does not turn us into something better or different, nor does it get us somewhere. Rather, meditation allows for an undoing of our controlling behavior, an undoing of limiting beliefs, an undoing of habitual physical tensing, an undoing of defensive armoring, and ultimately, an undoing of our identification with a small and threatened self. By undoing all the doings, we discover the vast heart and awareness that is beyond any small-self identity; the heart and awareness that gives us refuge in the face of any life situation. This is the gift of meditation practice—we find we can trust who we most deeply are. Read More @ Source
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| 7 Life Changing Quotes from Will Smith Posted: 28 Sep 2012 06:00 AM PDT  He has enjoyed success in music, television and film. He has been called the most powerful actor on the planet. In the late 1980s, Will Smith became famous through his music, and through the tv-series "Fresh Prince in Bel-Air". He's always been an inspiration to me, plus it doesn't hurt that most of his movies are way above average. He was born in Wynnefield, West Philadelphia, U.S. He is currently married to actress Jada Pinkett Smith. Now that we have some of the background information out of the way, let's jump right into the life-changing quotes: 1. Ignorance "Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects." We all have something to share. We all have at least one passion that we can follow. Comparing yourself to someone else doesn't work. We're all ignorant, yet we're all geniuses in our own way. You can sit there and make excuses and feel sorry for yourself all day, but it won't change anything. Start taking action now and doing what you think your passion is. It may change with time, but the important thing is to get going. 2. Determination "If it was something that I really committed myself to, I don't think there's anything that could stop me becoming President of the United States." Belief in yourself is vital if you want to do anything in this world. Of course, we all doubt ourselves. We get frustrated when things go wrong, but when you're determined to go after the life you want, you will grow stronger and stronger with time. 3. Authenticity "You can cry, ain't no shame in it." Life has its ups and downs. You will go through your fair share of bad, and good. There's nothing wrong in admitting that. Accepting it and saying yes to the pain will help you transcend it. It seems counter-intuitive, but the more you resist whatever it is you are resisting, the more it stays put. 4. Values "Too many people spend money they haven't earned, to buy things they don't want, to impress people they don't like." We're too focused on material things. We care too much about what others think, and we think buying more stuff will make us happy. More and more people are waking up to the fact that this simply doesn't work. This shift happens once you've indulged yourself in materialism and have had enough. 5. Failure & Success "My grandmother once told me, 'Don`t let failure go to your heart and don`t let success go to your head.'" And his grandmother was spot on. It's easy to let both success and failure affect you too much, but both will come, and both will pass. It seems stupid to not take advantage of success, but I'm not saying not to enjoy it. I'm saying to be calm, and not go crazy. 6. Purpose "I don't know what my calling is, but I want to be here for a bigger reason. I strive to be like the greatest people who have ever lived." Even Will Smith doesn't know what his calling is, but he keeps doing what he loves. He's continually evolving. He's done TV-series, music, movies and a lot more. You do not have to know exactly what your passion is, or what you will be doing ten years from now. Do what yo! u love. T! ake one day at a time. Start now. 7. Hate "Throughout life people will make you mad, disrespect you and treat you bad. Let God deal with the things they do, cause hate in your heart will consume you too." There's no need to get hung up on what ifs. It will only end up consuming you and wasting your energy. Focus on releasing all the stuff you're keeping inside of you. It's easier said than done, I know, but it will make a big difference in your life. You're here to do what you love and to follow your passion. Always remember that.
Do you have a bucket list? Here are 101 things to do before you die. Includes a tutorial on how you can create your bucket list too!      Read More @ Source 
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| How do we know someone is enlightened? Posted: 27 Sep 2012 05:00 PM PDT Enlightenment. It's an appealing notion. There I am, clueless, ignorant, unsatisfied, then bingo!, an enlightenment switch is flipped. Now I know what life is all about. I go around with a Buddha-smile for the rest of my days, blissed out because I'm no longer floundering blindly in cold cosmic darkness, but rather am basking on the always-sunny beach of enlightenment. Only problem is...some questions. Does enlightenment exist? Could I tell if I've got it? Is it possible to know whether someone else is enlightened? Are there various types of enlightenment? Short answer: nobody knows. Opinions abound. Demonstrable evidence is lacking. However, some people are able to address those questions I asked better than others. David Chapman, for example. (I've blogged about Chapman's Stress Reduction'y writings before; the Great God Google will point you to my posts.) A few weeks ago Chapman wrote about "Epistemology and Enlightenment." The entire piece is well worth reading. Here's some parts that particularly resonated with me. Much of what we think we know must be wrong, because it changes so often. This is obviously true of factual knowledge; but perhaps more importantly of ethical knowledge. Within living memory, everyone knew that it was fine to dump rubbish in the ocean, and premarital sex was wrong. Now, everyone knows dumping rubbish in the ocean is wrong, and most people agree that premarital sex is fine. Acting on mistaken "knowledge" often has bad results. Ways of sorting out what's so are precious. The great triumph of epistemology has been to point out that two traditional sources of knowledge—experts and holy books—are not necessarily reliable. ...Buddhism, and other religions, are attractive partly because they have supposed experts on meaning, who claim to have definitive answers. Should we believe them? Why? Buddhist answers usually involve "enlightenment," or similar terms such as "bodhi," "nirvana," "kensho," and so forth. I mostly find these answers unhelpfully abstract and theoretical. What can we know about enlightenment, and how? ...Different brands of Buddhism have stories about enlightenment that sound very different.
...Supposedly, only an enlightened person can say if someone else is enlightened. They have special magic insight. Ordinary people can't tell. So how does that work? A skeptical view is that a supposed enlightenment expert (such as a Zen master) will declare you to be enlightened if: -- You have been practicing hard enough for long enough to get enlightened, according to the sect's traditions ...According to some Stress Reduction texts, and some supposed experts, enlightenment is unmistakable. If you experience it, you know it, and it removes all doubt. This is particularly common in "experiencing Oneness" theories of enlightenment. When you first taste chocolate, you cannot doubt your own experience of it. You know what chocolate is like. Similarly, if you directly experience your Absolute Oneness With Everything, that is indisputable. You know The Ultimate Truth. No one can dispute this, because The Ultimate Truth is itself an experience, and like all experiences it is private and unmistakeable. There's a couple of problems with this. You can (apparently) be mistaken about what you have experienced, and (more importantly) you can be mistaken about what it means. ...Intense non-ordinary experiences often include what seem to be profound insights into the fundamental nature of reality. But the second problem is that those can be totally wrong. ...Buddhism is based on the dogmatic belief that:
There is zero evidence for this, and zero rational argument. It's pure mythology. In fact, it doesn't matter whether there was such a guy, or whether he really got it. The important thing is that the myth hides the unexamined assumption that there is exactly one thing to get. My guess is that some of the theories of enlightenment, told by different Buddhisms, describe real things—but they are about different things. That makes talk about "enlightenment" inherently confusing. It's like a barroom debate about whether Spain's La Roja or the New York Giants are the greatest football team, without anyone noticing that they play two completely different games that both happen to be called "football." ...The most popular modern Stress Reduction theory of enlightenment is that you discover that All is One, so your True Self is in fact The Entire Universe. This is taught by many Zen masters and some prominent Theravadins. There is some basis for it in the Mahayana scriptures, but it totally contradicts traditional Theravada. It probably comes mainly from Western monist mysticism. The theory is obviously false. All is not one; chalk is not cheddar. (Try making a melted chalk sandwich.) You are not the entire universe. You are about six feet tall, whereas the universe is about six hundred trillion miles across. Your mind is not the entire universe, either. You know nothing about most of it. (I've written more about problems with monist mysticism here.) ...As it happens, I think the Oneness experience does contain an important insight. It's just that mystics misunderstand it. What the experience actually points to is the fact that there is no objective separation between you and your immediate surroundings. That's quite different from your being the same as the entire universe; and it stands up to rational scrutiny. ...Some neuroscientists have an interesting guess about the mystical "Oneness" experience. If you are a monkey swinging through dense jungle, it's critical to keep track of where all your body parts are. You always need know where you end, and the air or branches begin. Otherwise, you'll slam into something. So, probably there is an evolved brain mechanism that keeps track of the physical self/other boundary at all times. Maybe what happens in the Oneness experience is that it stops functioning. You misinterpret your inability to feel where your body ends as having melted into the entire universe. 
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| Posted: 27 Sep 2012 02:00 PM PDT Imagine what life might be like if you de-stressed and de-cluttered your mind. "The Mindful Life," our introductory meditation online course, can lead you there. Our next session begins October 1. Learn more now » Read More @ Source
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USA Today: A British priest has banned yoga from the parish hall because it is "a Hindu spiritual exercise" and therefore "not compatible" with Catholicism, according to news reports from the kingdom.
Julie Deardorff, Tribune Newspapers: Regular practice shown to decrease symptoms of stress and depression.
Meditation students often ask me what will help them remember presence in the thick of things. My first response: "Just pause." My second response: "Pause again, take a few conscious breaths, and relax."
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