Labor adds obesity to hit list

Health groups have backed Labor's promise to add obesity to the list of national health priorities, which the Coalition dismissed as another "wish-list" announcement.

 

Labor health spokeswoman Nicola Roxon said yesterday that the move would help boost efforts to tackle obesity. But Health Minister Tony Abbott said the Coalition's actions "speak louder than Labor's words".

He pointed the the $500 million Australian Better Health Initiative to promote healthy lifestyles and support early detection of chronic disease. There was also the $116 million Healthy Active Australia scheme to tackle childhood obesity through promoting healthy eating and physical activity in schools.

 

Diabetes Australia chief executive Matt O'Brien said the organisation had argued for some time that obesity should be a national health priority. "The announcement...is important recognition of the need to bring a greater focus to the health, social and economic consequences of obesity in Australia," he said.

 

 

Keeping disease dormant

Cancer patients could be given the power to "control" the disease after a major breakthrough by scientists. They have shown for the first time that the body's immune system can keep tumours dormant for years without them becoming dangerous.

 

The finding, described by medical experts as "startling" could lead to treatments which allow patients to live with neutralised cancers for the rest of their lives. A team led by Washington University School of Medicine Professor Robert Schreiber found some cancers are kept in a state of "equilibrium" for decades, unable to be completely wiped out but also unable to grow.

 

The findings published today in the online version of science journal Nature came from a study of mice which were genetically engineered to develop cancer. Professor Schreiber said "thanks to the animal model we have developed, scientists can now reproduce this condition of tumour dormancy in the laboratory and look directly at cancer cells being held in check by the immune system."

 

Australian co-author Mark Smyth of the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, said "we may one day be able to use immunotherapy to artificially induce equilibrium and convert cancer into a chronic but controllable disease."

 

 

 

The accuracy of a popular screening test for prostate cancer has been thrown into doubt after doctors found men carrying extra weight had more blood circulating, which could dilute levels of the cancer marker PSA.

 

US researchers have warned that prostate cancer detection could be compromised by any factor which cuts levels of prostate-specific antigen in the blood. Evidence of lower PSA levels in obese men was rising.

 

They said a phenomenon known as haemodilution occurred because men with a higher body mass index carried more plasma, the liquid part of blood, and this diluted the concentration of soluble tumour markers such as PSA.

 

Melanoma, the new asbestos

The building industry has been warned to become sun smart or face a flood of skin cancer claims similar to those over asbestos exposure.

 

With 1.2 million Australians working outdoors and receiving up to eight times more sunlight than those indoors, Ergosh safety management consultant Gary Thompson said employers had to take notice. "Workers compensation claims and litigation for skin cancer are rapidly increasing," Mr Thompson said. "It's very likely that in the next few years it could be a common occurrence for employers of outdoor workers to be held liable for their employees' skin cancers."