Something New for Halloween: Trick or Flu Sho

By Tom Secrest

October 17, 2010

Each autumn, along with the arrival of pumpkins, ghosts and goblins, we start hearing Public Health announcements reminding us that it’s time for our annual flu shot, or as the British would say, our annual flu jab. Most people shrug off the suggestion, feeling that they are constitutionally strong enough to handle four or five days of a running nose, a slight fever, muscle aches and joint pains. For the most part they are probably right. Part of their apathy stems from busy schedules; however, some comes from stories they have heard about people who got the flu shot and then got the flu and some comes from rising public apprehension regarding vaccines in general, especially after the swine flu fiasco of 2009.

There’s not much I can say about the Swine Flu–Chicken Little situation, or perhaps I have more to say than a have paper to say it. Either way it’s not the topic of this article. On the other hand I can quickly and easily cast aside the myth about getting the flu from a flu vaccine: It can’t happen, it doesn’t happen and it won’t happen to you. Some people may have very, very mild flu-like symptoms (usually in the form of muscle aches) for 24 hours, but that’s usually the extent of it. If you actually come down with the flu after the vaccine, it simply means you were already infected when you got the vaccine or you were infected very shortly after getting the flu vaccine. The vaccine takes 2-3 weeks to work, so if you’re already infected when you get your flu shot or you are infected shortly after, you will still get sick, but it’s not because of the vaccine.

Even though there are many people who opt out of the annual flu shot, many people, including myself, go out of their way to find the time needed to get the jab. People get the flu shot for many reasons; some are specific health related reasons, while others, this would include me, find it much easier to find an hour to get a flu shot than to find 4 or 5 days when we can stay home sick.

Perhaps you’ve been sitting on the fence just waiting for that little piece of information that prompts you to become a regular flu shot recipient. Well this might be the piece of news you’ve been waiting for.

A new study from the United Kingdom, published in the September 21, 2010 issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal, found that the flu vaccine is associated with a 20% reduction in the risk of a first heart attack or myocardial infarction (MI). Any way you cut it, 20% is nothing to sneeze at. The authors noted that there was no reduction associated with the pneumococcal vaccine, which is also routinely recommended for those with pre-existing health complications.

The study also found two things that were a bit surprising; (1) earlier vaccinations (i.e. given before the middle of November) were associated with greater reductions in the risk of a first MI than vaccinations given after the middle of November and (2) the benefits extended to those aged from 40 to 65 in the same way as those 65 and older.

Historically, flu shots have been aggressively recommended only for those over 65. In an interview with Heartwire, the lead author, Dr. Siriwardena, was asked if he thought flu vaccine recommendations needed to be changed. Dr. Siriwardena responded that recommendations won’t likely be changed until the cause and effect of the MI risk reduction was established, but added that if it is established, recommendations might be extended to those between the age of 40 and 65 who are at increased risk of heart attacks (i.e. smokers, those with high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, etc.).

Now when you consider the inconvenience of going to get a flu shot you must also consider the inconvenience of having a heart attack. With a potential 20% reduction in your risk, finding the time seems like a pretty good value. Remember, don’t delay, the study showed you can reduce your risk even more if you get your flu shot before the middle of November.

Live long and well.

Smoke your way to breast cancer

What makes a woman a woman? If you said breasts you’re partially correct, but if you said a second X chromosome you would be spot on. Whether it is the second X that makes women more likely to get breast cancer is beyond this scope of this little article. What is not beyond the scope is a new study that has, hopefully, driven another nail into the cigarette coffin.

More than likely you are not actually the target audience for this article. However, the target audience is not likely to be reading this, so it falls to you to become the messenger. While tobacco companies don’t view Europe or the U.S. as their most profitable markets, they haven’t entirely abandoned them either. These companies view you, the reader, pretty much as a lost cause. Either you already smoke and are unlikely to switch brands, or you don’t smoke and are not likely to start. Either way, they’re not particularly interested in you. On the other hand, a teenager is a different story. A teenager represents a desirable target, which, if acquired, represents perhaps 50, or more, years of sales. Therefore, my hope is that when you read this you will carry the message to the people I can’t reach; to your daughter or niece, or to your friends and colleagues, who can then pass it on to their daughters and nieces. This article may not be THE message that makes the difference, but it might be part of an overall message that stops a young woman (girl) from becoming a smoker.

Women, especially western women are breast centric. This is in no small part because men are also breast centric and the fashion and advertising world has been well aware of this for a long, long time. Whether breasts should define a woman is irrelevant, the fact is, in part, they do. Few things scare a woman more than the idea of breast cancer. While treatments today are less disfiguring that those of the past, the psychological trauma is no less real. Breast cancer strikes at both a woman’s body and her mind. In many ways it would be similar to a man dealing with testicular cancer, although, in my opinion, society has made it more difficult for a woman. If you disagree I only ask that you watch a little TV tonight or flip through a magazine and count how many times you encounter suggestively exposed testicles. On the other hand, if you were counting suggestively exposed breasts, I think you would get tired of counting pretty fast.

Now to the point; in a recent study, presented by lead author Dr. Dejana Braithwaite, at the 9^th Annual American Association for Cancer Research international conference, she describes that current and former smokers had an alarming 39% higher rate of dying from breast cancer than those that had never smoked. The prospective study was large and involved 2265 women with a follow-up period of 9 years. In the past the link between smoking and dying of breast cancer was not well established and the studies that suggested a link where not technically strong. However, the size and scope of this study greatly increases its statistical predictive power. What that means is, you can’t ignore this study and hope it goes away.

What is important to note is NEVER SMOKING is key. The study included both current and former smokers. What was found was that former smokers were still at risk.

As important as what the study says, is what it leaves unanswered. The relationship between smoking and an increased risk of breast cancer is controversial. What is known is that many of the chemicals found in tobacco smoke can be found in breast milk; this means that known carcinogens are, at the very least, interacting with a woman’s breast tissue, a tissue which, by its very nature, tends to be more susceptible to cancer than many other body tissues. Additionally, there have been studies in animal models (rodents) that have suggested a strong link between chemicals in tobacco smoke and breast cancer.

I’m not one given to lecturing, but before you give in to peer pressure, social pressure, or any of the myriad of other factors that persuasively encourage you to take that first puff – stop take a deep, smoke-free breath and think long and hard about your future. Then look down at those delicate symbols of femininity and imagine a cancer growing inside one of them. Now ask yourself – do you really, really want to become a smoker?

Live long and well.

Beam My Brain Mr. Scott

By Tom Secrest

06 FEB 2010

With the exception of implantable cardiac devices, there are few pieces of technology with which we have such intimate contact. Depending on how much time you spend on the phone the amount of contact can range from less than a minute per day to perhaps hours per day. What makes mobile phone use special is that we press these devices against our heads as part of normal use.

People have been worried about potential health effects of mobile phones for many years. The concern may date back to April 3, 1973 when Martin Cooper of Motorola, made the first modern mobile phone call to, his engineering rival, Joel Engel of Bell Labs. With almost forty years of use, you would think we would have a respectable amount of data regarding potential health effects.

As it turns out there have been numerous studies that have examined the link between various forms of tumors and cancers and mobile phone use. However, at best, the results of these studies are inconclusive. Some studies found links to both benign and malignant tumors, while other studies actually found that mobile phone use was protective and reported odds ratios less than 1.

The question becomes what to do with multiple studies that present conflicting results. The well-established answer is to do a meta-analysis. In the November 20, 2009 issue of Journal of Clinical Oncology, Seung-Kwon MD presented the results of his meta-analysis on this subject. His conclusion was that the use of mobile phones was not significantly associated with the risk of tumors compared to people who infrequently or never used mobile phones.

However, the beauty of a meta-analysis is that you can create subsets of studies and then draw additional conclusions. In a subset of 13 studies, the research group found that those with more than a 10 year history of mobile phone use did have a significantly higher risk of tumors.

In another subset, they found that research that had, at least in part, been funded by groups associated with the mobile phone industry, generally showed protective effects from phone use, while a subset without any association with the mobile phone industry, generally, reported higher risks of both benign and malignant tumors, or no effects at all.

While we scientists like to believe that we are beyond corruption, this inconclusive meta-analysis may offer a valuable lesson – sometimes you get exactly what you pay for.

Additionally, the meta-analysis may provide us with a good reason to go buy one of those ear-piece microphone headsets. But be prepared, we will, no doubt, have to wait another 30 years before there is a meta-analysis of studies regarding the effects of sticking a short length radio wave transmitter, i.e. Bluetooth, in your ear.