Little Lukeee

It's Little Luke's Birthday!!!!! Look who's 2 years old! ( Human Years that is! )

Dear Doctor

Study Links Stress, Hormones in Ovarian Cancer

Study Links Stress, Hormones in Ovarian Cancer Persistent Tension May Fuel Cancer Progression in Some

Stress has been linked with cancer progression, but for the first time, researchers have demonstrated in a lab how “fight or flight” hormones might make ovarian cancer cells more invasive.

M. D. Anderson researchers have found that norepinephrine and epinephrine, hormones linked to behavioral stress, can enhance the potential of ovarian cancer cells to spread.
“If we knew the biological pathway by which stress is linked to metastasis, then we could investigate how best to avoid those deleterious consequences,” says the study’s lead investigator, Anil Sood, M.D., associate professor in M. D. Anderson’s Department of Gynecologic Oncology. “This study helps shed some light on those mechanisms.”Stress and cancer.

Sood presented the findings at the annual meeting of the American Psychosomatic Society, held March 3-6 in Orlando, Fla. His collaborators include researchers from M. D. Anderson and the University of Iowa.

When a person experiences excessive and persistent stress, the body reacts by releasing many hormones. Research has shown that these “stress” hormones can affect the immune system of cancer patients, and lead to cancer progression in some, but there has been little cell-based evidence for this link, and not much understanding as to why the connection exists at all.
Sood and his collaborators found the first clue when he discovered that ovarian cancer cells show high levels of “beta adrenergic” receptors that allow stress hormones to “dock” onto the cell, promoting a cascade of events inside the cell. Normal epithelial cells from the ovary have very few of the receptors.

Ovarian cell studies
Theorizing the extra receptors must somehow help cancer cells survive and thrive, Sood has conducted a series of studies to test the effect of stress hormones on ovarian cell cultures.
The researchers first demonstrated that stress hormones can directly result in elevated levels of a protein known as vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), which is important in cancer progression. Sood and his colleagues had found earlier that women with ovarian cancer who have greater distress and lack of social support tended to have higher levels of VEGF. In work published last fall, they discovered high levels of hormones prompted laboratory cancer cells to produce more VEGF.

Sood says that some other cancer cell types, such as breast and colon, also have been found to have an abundance of stress hormone receptors, although much of that work is in the preliminary stages. “Cancer cells will do whatever works to their advantage. If stress hormones help promote growth and invasion, they will acquire those abilities,” he says.

http://www.cancerwise.org/april_2004/display.cfm?id=b9a90fe6-8cdf-4c69-9e2d8ce4b512959c&method=displayfull&color=red

Every flower deserves a chance to wilt

Every flower deserves a chance to wilt March 5, 2001. Monday Morning I really need to go now! I said, hoping to provoke a sense of urgency, after all a Nor’easter was on its way. Okay, give me one more minute, he said. I was almost certain he winked, though I can’t be sure, because I turned on my heels too fast to prove or rather to refute. The said wink, annoyed me, though I’m not convinced why?

Thirty minutes later, he was still talking on the telephone. I interrupted him “ I’m just going to go by myself” adding I’ll be fine. No! Wait! he barked. “ Let me call you back later, I need to run out” he said to whomever it was on the phone. I was almost to the door, when he said, “ I don’t want you driving in this, give me one more second. I sighed knowing far to well what his impression of a second was. I heard him lock the bathroom door. I glanced into the hallway mirror catching my reflection; quietly I asked, “ why do I put up with this?” my reflection was without an answer, so was I.

I moved in closer to the mirror, so to examine this image in which I cast. I was certain if I looked long & hard enough I would uncover that flaw within myself, that allowed for me to “ put up with all that I put up with. I calculated, then revised, deliberated & devised “ Patience certainly is NOT a Virtue” I conceded as I often do these days, by my own tendencies, tendency to endure. I quickly justified the moment in his defense, he was after all, concerned for me, he must care, he must worry, after all he insists on driving me, I should be grateful; I need to be more patient. He ran past me and up the stairs, I’d be right down he said. I offered a fleeting smile; I looked back to the mirror and noticed that my smile seemed to breed contempt. I constructed a more pleasing smile, trying to remain patient.

I opened the front door to take a look at what it was that he thought I was unable to maneuver in, “ Give me a break” I thought, this is nothing, I’ve driven in much worse conditions. Infact, I thought the longer I wait, the worse it gets, “ why doesn’t he think the same?” I remembered reading recently that Aries & Libra’s are complete opposites, within the last few years this has proved to be quite apparent. I wondered why it never seemed to be so obvious years back? Had I changed? Had he changed? Had we both changed?

He came running back down the stairs with a new shirt on, his hair looked wet. He paused as though to put his shoes on, then ran back into the kitchen, I followed, he grabbed his cell phone, his keys, his coat off the back of the chair. He went into the family room, turned off the television, the lights, checking the glass slider, mumbling something about the electric bill. Then announced “ My Money” as though he had just been pick-pocketted. I watched while as he was feeling his pockets as though they themselves were missing. I watched as he checked his coat pockets, then he walked into the kitchen, searching, lifting up the day’s newspaper, checking drawers, cabinets, finally he went into the laundry room. I walked out the door and into the car. As I was pulling down the driveway, he appeared on the front porch looking somewhat flabbergasted. You couldn’t wait? he yelled sounding clearly disjointed. I answered, I waited one hour and eighteen minutes, and then I winked as I pulled away, leaving him and my virtues behind.