Category Archives: Research

A Thank You for Supporting Breast Cancer Research (and Survivor Video)

Posted on by
Reply

All of us at AICR know it can be tough to decide which cancer research organizations to support. The headlines over the last few days may have been unsettling for some — but it’s a reminder that funding cancer research is important, and that public support is central to the collective effort to stop cancer. 

That’s why we want you to know that your donation to AICR funds vital cancer research and the development of tools that help millions of people prevent and survive cancer.

Our research has shown, for example, that 2 in 5 breast cancers could be prevented through healthy everyday choices — that’s 74,000 cases every year, in the US alone. Continue reading →


Alcohol Ups Colorectal Cancer Risk: Family Matters

Posted on by
Reply

The research showing that alcohol increases the risk of colorectal cancer is clear. But now a large new study suggests that people who have a family history of colorectal cancer may be especially susceptible to the effects of alcohol increasing their risk of the cancer.

The study was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition and you can read the abstract here. (One of the authors, Harvard University researcher Edward Giovannucci, spoke at last year’s AICR Research Conference.)

In the study, researchers looked at alcohol consumption patterns among approximately 135,000 men and women, starting in 1980 (for the women) and 1986 (for the men). Every few years the participants answered questionnaires about how much alcohol they drank and reported whether they had been diagnosed with colon cancer.

After following the participants through 2006, the study first looked at the whole population. It found that those who drank the most alcohol — over 30 grams of alcohol per day on average, which is about 2 drinks – had an increased risk of colon cancer when compared to those who didn’t drink any alcohol. Continue reading →


Cancer Screening Headlines and Prevention

Posted on by
Reply

Everyone’s talking about that report released last Thursday from the US Centers for Disease Control. The news isn’t good: Not enough Americans are getting screened for cancer, and the numbers are distressingly low among Asian-Americans and Hispanics.

The CDC report, published in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, finds that we are not meeting national targets for cancer screening; experts acknowledge that some patients are confused by conflicting advice over the timing of screening, and that access to care remains a huge issue, but they stress that screening saves lives.

Here at the American Institute for Cancer Research, we agree that early detection is key; this page provides the latest CDC information about screening of breast, colorectal and cervical cancers, as well as information about screening for lung, prostate, ovarian and skin cancer. Continue reading →