Colon cancer patients are 24 times more likely to die within 5 years if they had this habit before their diagnosis
Here's the bottom line — nearly 53,000 Americans are projected to die from colorectal cancer this year.
The overall five-year survival rate for the disease is around 65%. Several factors significantly influence prognosis, including the stage of the cancer at diagnosis, its location within the colon and the effectiveness of treatment.
A new study suggests that a popular habit may negatively affect colon cancer outcomes, significantly increasing the risk of death within five years of diagnosis.
Advertisement
The overall five-year survival rate for colorectal cancer is around 65%. Here, a colon cancer patient looks at her ostomy bag in the mirror.
Sheila – stock.adobe.com
'This study adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting that heavy cannabis use may have underrecognized impacts on the immune system, mental health and treatment behaviors,' said lead study author Raphael Cuomo, an associate professor at the UC San Diego School of Medicine.
An estimated 17.7 million Americans reported using marijuana daily or nearly every day in 2022, a rise that correlates with the decriminalization and legalization of pot and increased societal acceptance.
Advertisement
About 30% of cannabis users meet the criteria for addiction.
Cuomo wanted to see how addiction impacts colon cancer survival.
He analyzed the electronic health records of nearly 1,100 colon cancer patients treated across the University of California Health system between 2012 and 2024.
An estimated 17.7 million Americans reported using marijuana daily or nearly every day in 2022, a rise that correlates with the decriminalization and legalization of pot and increased societal acceptance.
Yakobchuk Olena – stock.adobe.com
Advertisement
Patients who frequently used cannabis had a substantially higher five-year mortality rate (55.88 %) compared to those who didn't have the same habit (5.05 %).
Furthermore, those diagnosed with marijuana addiction before they were stricken with colon cancer were 24.4 times more likely to die within five years of diagnosis compared to their peers, Cuomo determined.
The findings were published online this month in the Annals of Epidemiology.
Advertisement
'This isn't about vilifying cannabis. It's about understanding the full range of its impacts, especially for people facing serious illnesses,' Cuomo said.
'We hope these findings encourage more research — and more nuanced conversations — about how cannabis interacts with cancer biology and care.'
Some studies suggest that cannabis may help cancer patients manage their symptoms and potentially even reduce tumor growth.
Cuomo noted that frequent cannabis use is often associated with depression, anxiety and other mental health struggles that may compromise a patient's ability to engage fully with cancer treatment.
'Socioeconomic disadvantage, stigma and competing health concerns may further limit access to timely, high-quality oncologic care among patients with [cannabis use disorder],' he wrote in the paper.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Los Angeles Times
an hour ago
- Los Angeles Times
NIH scientists publish declaration criticizing Trump's deep cuts in public health research
WASHINGTON — In his confirmation hearings to lead the National Institutes of Health, Jay Bhattacharya pledged his openness to views that might conflict with his own. 'Dissent,' he said, 'is the very essence of science.' That commitment is being put to the test. On Monday, scores of scientists at the agency sent their Trump-appointed leader a letter titled the Bethesda Declaration, challenging 'policies that undermine the NIH mission, waste public resources, and harm the health of Americans and people across the globe.' It says: 'We dissent.' In a capital where insiders often insist on anonymity to say such things publicly, 92 NIH researchers, program directors, branch chiefs and scientific review officers put their signatures on the letter — and their careers on the line. An additional 250 of their colleagues across the agency endorsed the declaration without using their names. The four-page letter, addressed to Bhattacharya, also was sent to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and members of Congress who oversee the NIH. White House spokesman Kush Desai defended the administration's approach to federal research and said President Trump is focused on restoring a 'Gold Standard' of science, not 'ideological activism.' The signers went public in the face of a 'culture of fear and suppression' they say Trump's administration has spread through the federal civil service. 'We are compelled to speak up when our leadership prioritizes political momentum over human safety and faithful stewardship of public resources,' the declaration says. Bhattacharya responded to the declaration by saying it 'has some fundamental misconceptions about the policy directions the NIH has taken in recent months.' 'Nevertheless, respectful dissent in science is productive,' he said in a statement. 'We all want the NIH to succeed.' Named for the agency's headquarters location in Maryland, the Bethesda Declaration details upheaval in the world's premier public health research institution over the course of mere months. It addresses the termination of 2,100 research grants valued at more than $12 billion and some of the human costs that have resulted, such as cutting off medication regimens to participants in clinical trials or leaving them with unmonitored device implants. In one case, an NIH-supported study of multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis in Haiti had to be stopped, ceasing antibiotic treatment mid-course for patients. In a number of cases, trials that were mostly completed were rendered useless without the money to finish and analyze the work, the letter says. 'Ending a $5 million research study when it is 80% complete does not save $1 million,' it says, 'it wastes $4 million.' Jenna Norton, who oversees health disparity research at the agency's National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, recently appeared at a forum by Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, D-Md., to talk about what's happening at the NIH. At the event, she masked to conceal her identity. Now the mask is off. She was a lead organizer of the declaration. 'I want people to know how bad things are at NIH,' Norton told The Associated Press. The signers said they modeled their indictment after Bhattacharya's Great Barrington Declaration in 2020, when he was a professor at Stanford University Medical School. His declaration drew together likeminded infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists who dissented from what they saw as excessive COVID-19 lockdown policies and felt ostracized by the larger public health community that pushed those policies, including the NIH. 'He is proud of his statement, and we are proud of ours,' said Sarah Kobrin, a branch chief at the NIH's National Cancer Institute who signed the Bethesda Declaration. As chief of the Health Systems and Interventions Research Branch, Kobrin provides scientific oversight of researchers across the country who've been funded by the cancer institute or want to be. Cuts in personnel and money have shifted her work from improving cancer care research to what she sees as minimizing its destruction. 'So much of it is gone — my work,' she said. The 21-year NIH veteran said she signed because she didn't want to be 'a collaborator' in the political manipulation of biomedical science. Ian Morgan, a postdoctoral fellow with the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, also signed the declaration. 'We have a saying in basic science,' he said. 'You go and become a physician if you want to treat thousands of patients. You go and become a researcher if you want to save billions of patients. 'We are doing the research that is going to go and create the cures of the future,' he added. But that won't happen, he said, if Trump's Republican administration prevails with its searing grant cuts. The NIH employees interviewed by the AP emphasized they were speaking for themselves and not for their institutes nor the NIH. Employees from all 27 NIH institutes and centers gave their support to the declaration. Most who signed are intimately involved with evaluating and overseeing extramural research grants. The letter asserts 'NIH trials are being halted without regard to participant safety' and the agency is shirking commitments to trial participants who 'braved personal risk to give the incredible gift of biological samples, understanding that their generosity would fuel scientific discovery and improve health.' The Trump administration has gone at public health research on several fronts, both directly, as part of its broad effort to root out diversity, equity and inclusion values throughout the bureaucracy, and as part of its drive to starve some universities of federal money. At the White House, Desai said Americans 'have lost confidence in our increasingly politicized healthcare and research apparatus that has been obsessed with DEI and COVID, which the majority of Americans moved on from years ago.' This has forced 'indiscriminate grant terminations, payment freezes for ongoing research, and blanket holds on awards regardless of the quality, progress, or impact of the science,' the declaration says. Some NIH employees have previously come forward in televised protests to air grievances, and many walked out of Bhattacharya's town hall with staff. The declaration is the first cohesive effort to register agency-wide dismay with the NIH's direction. The dissenters remind Bhattacharya in their letter of his oft-stated ethic that academic freedom must be a lynchpin in science. With that in place, he said in a statement in April, 'NIH scientists can be certain they are afforded the ability to engage in open, academic discourse as part of their official duties and in their personal capacities without risk of official interference, professional disadvantage or workplace retaliation.' Now it will be seen whether that's enough to protect those NIH employees challenging the Trump administration and him. 'There's a book I read to my kids, and it talks about how you can't be brave if you're not scared,' said Norton, who has three young children. 'I am so scared about doing this, but I am trying to be brave for my kids because it's only going to get harder to speak up. 'Maybe I'm putting my kids at risk by doing this,' she added. 'And I'm doing it anyway because I couldn't live with myself otherwise.' 'In recent years, Americans have lost confidence in our increasingly politicized healthcare and research apparatus that has been obsessed with DEI and COVID, which the majority of Americans moved on from years ago,' spokesman Kush Desai said. 'The Trump administration is focused on restoring the Gold Standard of Science — not ideological activism — as the guiding principle of HHS, the NIH, and the CDC to finally address our chronic disease epidemic.' Woodward and Ellgren write for the Associated Press. AP writer Lauran Neergaard contributed to this report.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
How many Americans would lose health care coverage under the Republicans' megabill?
There's some understandable confusion over just how many Americans would lose their health care coverage under the Republicans' domestic policy mega bill — the inaptly named 'One Big Beautiful Bill Act.' For example, Russell Vought, the far-right director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, told CNN last week that 'no one will lose coverage as a result of this bill.' That might've sounded encouraging to health care advocates, but there's overwhelming evidence to the contrary. A report from The Associated Press, for example, on the latest Congressional Budget Office score, said that 10.9 million Americans would lose their coverage if the GOP legislation became law. Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, however, said 'nearly 14 million' would join the ranks of the uninsured. Meanwhile, a variety of prominent Democrats, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, have said the actual number would be 16 million. So, which is it? I reached out to the nice folks at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities to help sort this out, and they referred me to the CBPP's helpful breakdown of the data. Roughly 16 million people by 2034 would lose health coverage and become uninsured because of the Medicaid cuts, the bill's failure to extend enhanced premium tax credits for ACA marketplace coverage, and other harmful ACA marketplace changes, according to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). This gets a little wonky, but according to the CBO's nonpartisan analysis, the Republicans' Medicaid cuts alone, if implemented, would strip coverage from 7.8 million people. The same analysis added, however, that 4 million people would become uninsured due to cuts to Affordable Care Act marketplaces, and an additional 4.2 million people would lose their coverage because the Republicans' package fails to extend the Biden-era subsidies (the premium tax credit enhancements) that made ACA plans far more affordable. And that is where the overall tally comes from: 7.8 million + 4 million + 4.2 million = 16 million. When Trump and his party tried to 'repeal and replace' the ACA eight years ago, the CBO determined that the Republicans' plan would take health coverage from 23 million people, which was enough to cause a couple of Senate Republicans — Maine's Susan Collins and Alaska's Lisa Murkowski — to balk. (The late Sen. John McCain also gave the bill a thumbs-down, objecting to the party's rushed and incoherent process.) Eight years later, there's a reason the new Republican plan is being derided as 'Obamacare-repeal lite': Scrapping coverage from 16 million is certainly within shouting distance of ending coverage for 23 million, especially given the fact that the GOP's reconciliation package isn't exclusively a health care bill. To date, no Congress has ever approved legislation that would force so many people to lose their health security. Watch this space. This article was originally published on
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Why Is Elon Musk Tweeting About Me at 3 A.M.?
If elected, I would be the poorest member of Congress—and the world's richest man just attacked me in a 3:00 am tweet for supporting universal healthcare. You might have seen a clip of me on CNN last week, debating with Scott Jennings on whether healthcare is a basic human right. In that clip, Jennings—a long-time Republican strategist and pro-Trump contributor at CNN—asks, 'Even illegals?' To which I respond, 'Every single person in the world deserves healthcare... How is this controversial?' It shouldn't be controversial. And I'm not afraid to say that as a person or as a congressional candidate. The state of our country's healthcare has been front and center for many Americans over the last few weeks, as President Trump's so-called 'Big Beautiful Bill' threatens healthcare coverage for 11 million people—including thousands of families right here in Illinois' Ninth Congressional District, where I am running. Why? So Republicans can slash taxes for the ultra-rich, decimate oversight for AI, and spend $125 billion on a 'Golden Dome' which will make America less safe – all for the low, low price of workers' health, food, and clean air. Our healthcare system is one of the worst in the developed world. Medical debt is the cause of 66% of bankruptcies in the US. In Canada, the runner up in this bleak competition, that number is 19%. We spend more on healthcare than any other wealthy country and yet have the worst outcomes. We take Ubers instead of ambulances, take fish antibiotics instead of prescriptions, and often skip medical treatment altogether because of the expected cost. These hardships are uniquely American. In 1944, Franklin Delano Roosevelt proposed a Second Bill of Rights to Congress, encouraging legislators to enshrine into law additional rights not already enumerated in the Constitution. His proposals were prescient, reflecting trials many Americans face today: the right to earn a decent living, the right to trade free of monopolies, the right to education. He also said that every American should be guaranteed 'the right to medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health.' Congress did not pass it. It's been more than 80 years since FDR proposed his Second Bill of Rights and healthcare is still not a legal right for any American. While the Affordable Care Act made progress on this front, treatment and prescription costs are still expensive, insurance bureaucracy is still predatory, and most Americans' coverage is still tied to their employment. I lost my own health insurance for over a year when I was laid off last May. Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill' would continue the death by a thousand cuts approach to the ACA that Republicans have pushed every time they're in power. Donald Trump and the Republicans want to make this worse. By creating even more hoops for Americans to jump through just to get care that is often lackluster, by demonizing the poor, and by insisting healthcare is something you must earn, this administration is bragging about its own inhumanity. When I said, 'Every person in the world deserves healthcare,' Jennings couldn't fathom that idea. His first instinct was to blurt out, 'Even illegals?' The answer is yes. If you are a person, you deserve healthcare, no matter where you are or who you are. No one deserves to die because they can't afford insulin or because they're too scared of bankruptcy to seek medical attention. If you show up at my doorstep starving or injured, I am not going to ask for papers before I help you. Conservatives struggle with this idea. Elon Musk seems to think this idea and my comments are 'suicidal empathy.' Illinois Republicans were so incensed that my campaign office stocks food, clothes, and other resources for whoever needs them, that they thought I was somehow breaking the law. But in most other wealthy countries, this mindset is barbaric. In much of the rest of the world, if you need care, you get it. In fact, I have needed to see an emergency doctor in three foreign countries since I was a kid and all of those visits cost less than any urgent care clinic visit I've had in the United States. But when you say any of this, the Republican instinct is to ask, 'How will we pay for this?' The answer is pretty simple and we've known it for a long time. Universal, single-payer healthcare—a system where our tax dollars pay for our healthcare without the private insurance middleman—would actually save us money and lead to better health outcomes. We save lives, reduce waste, and guarantee a baseline of human dignity. Of course, predatory insurance companies would lose the ability to profit off of our basic existence, but that's a sacrifice we should all be willing to make. One of the main reasons I'm running for Congress is because our leaders have conditioned us into thinking we don't deserve good things, especially if we aren't rich. But we do. You do. Every American deserves to afford housing, groceries, and healthcare with money left over to save and spend. We deserve to thrive, not just survive. And every single human being in every single country deserves to know that they can find the help they need on the worst day of their lives, when they are at their weakest and most vulnerable. For most Americans this concept isn't hard to grasp, but when it comes to Elon Musk and right-wing pundits, they simply can't fathom having even an ounce of basic humanity.
