No Visits This Week

I have gone all week without a visit with one of my doctors...  and while it is nice not to have to see a doctor...  I am thankful that I have got all my visits behind me and can just stay home...

My Cardiologist says I no longer have to take Xarelto because the heart monitor I wore showed no signs of afib...  and, that my afib was probably only associated with a specific event like a staph infection and being sepsis.

My Urologist says that my PSA results are higher than normal but that might just be typical for me now especially after a recent biopsy of the prostate showed no signs of cancer...  plus, prostate cancer is very slow growing and fairly easy to control.

My Oncologist says that my recent CT scan showed that my two cancers had showed no signs of activity which is good but I am to continue with the Imbruvica (Lymphoma) and Opdivo (Melanoma) to ensure similar results in the future.  Because my treatments over the last 13 years have left me with a bad Thyroid, anemia, and an immune system that is almost non-existent, I will be receiving monthly IVIG treatment for a while.

My Dermatologist says that my full body scans are showing no signs of any pre-cancers but I am encountering a skin infection that will require on-going medication to correct.  It is an antibiotic and my concern is that it could damage my organs or not be affective down the road.

Those are good results to have for a person with my age and diseases but it was nice not to have to get cleaned up and go anywhere...

Weight Loss Tips

 

Losing weight is rarely easy—you need to find the mix of eating and lifestyle habits that are best for you. That said, there are some universal tips to follow… and many of them aren't the ones you think you should be following.

"We've been so programmed to think that improved health is dependent on restricting calories, cutting out food groups, and eating less palatable meals—like grilled chicken salad for lunch and dinner every day," says Laura Burak, MS, RD, author of Slim Down with Smoothies. "Or that we need to buy a diet program made up of pouches of powder, processed snacks, and frozen meals."

For starters, those unappetizing and costly efforts can't be sustained. "Ideally, something that's done today for weight loss should be doable for the long term," says certified health and wellness coach Alisa Bloom, MPH, RDN, CHWC, ACLM.

So, if you want to lose unhealthy excess weight, try following these sane, science-backed suggestions from top dietitians and health experts. And for even more weight loss tips, check out our list of 15 Underrated Weight Loss Tips That Actually Work.  READ MORE

Oatmeal...

If you craved oatmeal throughout the past year, you're not alone. Americans have been eating more of this hearty whole grain during the pandemic and, based on what research tells us about the benefits of oatmeal, there are good reasons to continue that trend. Oatmeal is comforting and delicious, but it's also incredibly good for you; and it's more versatile than you might think. Here are five reasons to make oatmeal a staple of your diet, as well as healthy ways to incorporate it—even beyond breakfast.

Oatmeal is nutrient-rich
A half cup of dry, quick-cooking oats contains about 150 calories, 5 grams of plant protein, 27 grams of carb with 4 grams as filling fiber, and a few grams of fat. Oats are also bundled with a variety of vitamins and minerals, including iron, magnesium, zinc, selenium, B vitamins, and smaller amounts of calcium and potassium. That's an impressive vitamin and mineral package for a relatively low-calorie food, which makes oatmeal a nutrient-dense ingredient.  READ MORE

Cancer Research

The Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research...

National Programs

Overview

The Frederick National Laboratory is a shared national resource that offers access to a suite of advanced biomedical technologies, provides selected science and technology services, and maintains vast repositories of research materials available to biomedical investigators nationwide. It’s the only U.S. national laboratory wholly focused on research, technology, and collaboration in the biomedical sciences- working to discover, to innovate, and to improve human health.

The laboratory undertakes scientific challenges of national importance through its work to accelerate the development and delivery of effective preventive, diagnostic, and therapeutic products to people living with cancer and HIV/AIDS.

National Programs and Initiatives
COVID-19 Research
FNL pivoted resources in an interagency collaboration responding to COVID-19. FNL has leveraged the expertise and advanced technology it applies to cancer research to investigate the virus at the cellular and molecular levels, and to develop and standardize critical assays that may contribute to diagnostic tools.



ATOM
The Frederick National Laboratory is a founding member of ATOM (Accelerating Therapeutics for Opportunities in Medicine). The consortium is a public-private partnership with the mission of transforming drug discovery by accelerating the development of more effective therapies for patients. The ATOM consortium was officially established in October 2017.

RAS Initiative
More than 30 percent of all human cancers- including 95 percent of pancreatic cancers and 45 percent of colorectal cancers- are driven by mutations of the RAS family of genes. NCI established the RAS Initiative in 2013 to explore innovative approaches for attacking the proteins encoded by mutant forms of RAS genes and to ultimately creative effective, new therapies for RAS-related cancers.




Cancer Moonshot℠
Announced in 2016 by then Vice President Joe Biden, the Cancer Moonshot℠ to accelerate cancer research aims to make more therapies available to more patients, while also improving the ability to prevent cancer and detect it at an early stage.

The Frederick National Laboratory supports several Cancer Moonshot projects, including:
Moonshot Pediatric Core: The Moonshot Pediatric Core (MPC) was established as a dedicated resource to support the research teams from the Pediatric Immunotherapy Discovery and Development Network (PI-DDN) and the Fusion Oncoproteins in Childhood Cancers (FusOnC2) Network.

High-performance computing/DOE partnership: The laboratory plays a significant role in a national partnership to expand the use of high-performance computing in cancer research. Through work with the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the Department of Energy (DOE), the Frederick National Laboratory is developing a promising strategy for using exascale computing capabilities hand-in-hand with urgent scientific applications.

Precision medicine clinical trial: The laboratory is in key components of an ambitious nationwide precision medicine clinical trial (NCI-MATCH) that matches cancer patients to potential therapies based on the genetic makeup of their tumors, rather than tumor location in the body.

Genomic Data Commons: Frederick National Laboratory supports Cancer Moonshot through the Genomic Data Commons, a data sharing platform designed to give researchers the capability to share genomic and clinical data from cancer research programs to promote precision medicine in oncology.  READ MORE

Exercise and Health

The growing realization that exercise doesn’t really help with weight loss can dampen the motivation to be active in many people — one reason why I advocate for decoupling exercise from the notion of weight loss altogether. Unfortunately, then, what I’m about to tell you may elicit a response of, “Oh, come on!” But keep reading, because the news isn’t all bad.

When I heard about a new study that concluded that being physically active in midlife doesn’t appear to prevent age-related cognitive decline in women, my first thought was, “No … that can’t be.” Then I read the actual study and thought, “Darn it!” It’s practically been gospel that staying active helps us stay sharp as we get older. I believed it, and I’m pretty sure I’ve given that advice to both readers and clients. The research backed me up — or so I thought.

But this new study, part of the Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation, did something that most previous research did not — it enrolled a diverse group of 1,718 women when they were 45 years old, on average, then followed up with them for 21 years. The women were asked about their activity habits — both “formal” exercise and other general household-type activity. Their cognitive performance was tested nine times. The researchers also factored in information about socioeconomic status, education level, chronic disease and health behaviors such as smoking and alcohol use.

“The main reason we did this study is that we wanted to explicitly study the relation between physical activity and cognition in midlife women,” said lead study author Dr. Gail Greendale, a researcher and professor of medicine at UCLA. “The overwhelming majority of observational research — research that does not treat people, but observes what they do and collects information — about physical activity and cognitive performance has been done in people who are, on average, 70 years of age.”

Greendale also points out that almost all of the research has been cross-sectional — looking at a single point in time — rather than longitudinal, which requires taking many measurements of physical activity and cognition over many years. “Results of these cross-sectional observational studies conducted in older people may not be applicable to younger individuals,” she said.

Not only that, but if I measured your cognitive health right now and asked you how much you were exercising right now, it doesn’t tell me as much as you might think. It doesn’t tell me how much you used to exercise, or how sharp you were a year — or 10 years — ago compared with now. Also, when someone has poor cognitive health and low activity levels, it becomes a chicken-or-the-egg situation. In other words, which came first? You might assume that low activity levels caused a cognitive health decline, but the reverse could be true, a phenomenon known as “reverse causation” in research-speak.  READ MORE/

Weight Loss

 

Breakfast

 

From the NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE...

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