Latest news with #DrJulieGralow
Telegraph
2 days ago
- Health
- Telegraph
Influencers ‘putting cancer patients' lives at risk with fake cures'
Cancer patients are dying after following fake cures peddled online, according to the world's top doctors. AI and online influencers have persuaded cancer patients to reject conventional medicine in favour of intermittent fasting, essential oils, oxygen treatments and the Mediterranean diet, doctors said. In an unprecedented intervention in Chicago at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting, the world's largest cancer conference, they said they were 'losing the battle for communication'. Dr Julie Gralow, ASCO chief medical officer, said the global body wanted to counter the ability of AI to 'hallucinate' and spit out false information, and to guide patients towards the facts. In her own practice, she has faced repeated tragedies when patients had gone online to search for alternative medicines for cancer, ending up finding a clinic in Mexico promising vitamin C infusions, and caffeine colonics. She said she tried to 'gently ease' patients into more evidence-based treatments, often after a scan showed their tumour was not shrinking, but in several cases it was too late by the time patients changed their mind. 'It's tragic, we mourn,' she said. 'You think about what could we have done differently? What should we have offered? But we can't force anybody to do anything.' 'Miracle cures' warning England's most senior doctor last night said the same trends were sweeping the UK, warning of 'an alarmingly high level of misinformation' about cancer online. Professor Sir Stephen Powis, NHS national medical director, said lives were at risk because of 'miracle cures' and 'fairy tales' on the internet. He said social media could help to provide a supportive community for those diagnosed with cancer – but was instead fuelling 'an alarmingly high level of misinformation'. 'I would urge people to be sceptical of any 'miracle cures' you may see on social media around cancer, and use trusted, credible sources like the NHS website or your care team to verify anything you are unsure on – because these fairy tales aren't just misleading, they can be harmful,' he said. Meanwhile, Richard Simcock, chief medical officer at charity Macmillan Cancer Support, warned of an 'exponential' increase in misinformation. The oncologist said: 'I have recently seen two young women who have declined all proven medical treatments for cancer and are instead pursuing unproven and radical diets, promoted on social media. 'As a doctor, I want to be able to use the best available therapies to help people with cancer. 'A person is perfectly entitled to decline that therapy but when they do that on the basis of information which is frankly untrue or badly interpreted it makes me very sad. 'It's clear that we have work to do to build back trust in evidence-based medicine.' One paper presented at the conference found that all of the videos analysed on TikTok about prostate cancer screening presented 'low or moderate quality content' about the topic. Another study found that half the population surveyed 'did not trust' information from scientists about cancer. Doctors Rohit and Rahul Gosain, who gave a presentation on social media to the conference, warned of a rise in social media-fuelled alternative medicines, with some patients delaying treatment until their cancer has metastasised. The pair, who are both oncologists, create content on social media with the aim of bringing the latest scientific research to community doctors, under the handle The Oncology Brothers. They said patients who adopted approaches with no evidence to support them returned to seek help only when cancer was incurable, by which time 'we have missed the boat'. Such patients were 'in a lot of distress', they added. Texas University's Dr Fumiko Chino, co-author with Dr Brandon Godinich on the research about trust in doctors, warned that oncologists were 'losing the battle' against misinformation. Dr Liz O'Riordan, retired breast surgeon and breast cancer survivor, said her own book The Cancer Roadmap; Real science to guide your treatment path, was inspired by a reel on Instagram which claimed that mushrooms cure cancer. She said: 'There is a huge amount of cancer misinformation online – and that includes podcast clips as well as videos and Facebook posts. 'In my book I'm trying to educate the public by calling out the red flags that signal information is misleading and tackle some of the big myths – like sugar causes cancer, the keto diet can cure cancer, deodorants cause cancer etc. 'Every day I get messages from scared women who want to know if they need to stop eating dairy/soy/flaxseeds, do they need to stop wearing underwired bras/using deodorants, is it true that juicing can cure cancer?' Speaking at ASCO, the British medic said many doctors were 'clueless' about the extent of misinformation on the internet, saying her own eyes were opened when she became a cancer patient.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Exercise ‘better than drugs' to stop cancer returning after treatment, trial finds
Exercise can reduce the risk of cancer patients dying by a third, stop tumours coming back and is even more effective than drugs, according to the results of a landmark trial that could transform health guidelines worldwide. For decades, doctors have recommended adopting a healthy lifestyle to lower the risk of developing cancer. But until now there has been little evidence of the impact it could have after diagnosis, with little support for incorporating exercise into patients' routines. Now a world-first trial involving patients from the US, UK, Australia, France, Canada and Israel has found that a structured exercise regime after treatment can dramatically reduce the risk of dying, the disease returning or a new cancer developing. The results were presented in Chicago at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (Asco) annual meeting, the world's largest cancer conference, and published in the New England Journal of Medicine. For the first time in medical history, there was clear evidence that exercise was even better at preventing cancer recurrence and death than many of the drugs currently prescribed to patients, one of the world's top cancer doctors said. Dr Julie Gralow, the chief medical officer of Asco, who was not involved in the decade-long study, said the quality of its findings was the 'highest level of evidence' and would lead to 'a major shift in understanding the importance of encouraging physical activity during and after treatment'. Patients who began a structured exercise regime with the help of a personal trainer or health coach after they completed treatment had a 37% lower risk of death and a 28% lower risk of recurrent or new cancers developing, compared with patients who received only health advice, the trial found. Asked to put the effect of exercise on cancer patients' outcomes into context, Gralow said: 'We titled [the session it was presented in] As Good as a Drug. I would have retitled it Better than a Drug, because you don't have all the side-effects.' 'It's the same magnitude of benefit of many drugs that get approved for this kind of magnitude of benefit – 28% decreased risk of occurrence, 37% decreased risk of death. Drugs get approved for less than that, and they're expensive and they're toxic.' 'When I started three decades ago it was still the era where we'd be gentle and say, don't overdo yourself when you're on chemo. We've reversed that,' she added. 'I would say [exercise is] better than a drug.' Related: Bowel cancer rising among under-50s worldwide, research finds In the trial, researchers enrolled 889 colon cancer patients between 2009 and 2023. Most (90%) had stage three disease. Patients were randomly assigned to take part in a structured exercise programme (445) or to just receive a healthy lifestyle booklet (444). Those in the exercise group worked with a personal trainer twice a month for coaching sessions and supervised exercise sessions, and later once a month, for a total of three years. The exercise group were coached and supported to help them achieve set exercise goals. Their weekly target was the equivalent of three to four walks of between 45 and 60 minutes, but patients could choose how they got more active. Some went kayaking or skiing, for instance. After five years, patients in the exercise group had a 28% lower risk of recurrent or new cancers than those in the other group. After eight years, the same patients also had a 37% lower risk of dying than those just handed the healthy lifestyle booklet. 'After completing surgery and chemotherapy, about 30% of patients with high-risk stage two and stage three colon cancer will eventually experience recurrence of their disease,' said the study's lead author, Dr Christopher Booth, of Queen's University in Kingston, Canada. 'As oncologists, one of the most common questions we get asked by patients is 'what else can I do to improve my outcome?' 'These results now provide us with a clear answer: an exercise programme that includes a personal trainer will reduce the risk of recurrent or new cancer, make you feel better and help you live longer.' Prof Charles Swanton, the chief clinician of Cancer Research UK, which funded the UK arm of the study, said: 'This fascinating study captures the power of exercise to transform people's health and boost their chances of surviving cancer after treatment. For an intervention that isn't a drug, exercise offers remarkable benefits for patients.' Related: Early morning and evening activity could 'reduce bowel cancer risk by 11%' For some patients, 'physical activity can be a gamechanger that shifts the course of their recovery', Swanton added. 'The findings suggest that oncologists should consider recommending a structured exercise programme after surgery to improve people's chances of survival. 'But it's important to remember that exercise isn't the best option for everyone. My advice to cancer patients is to speak to your doctor before taking on any new physical activity.' The findings are likely to change global practice, with doctors worldwide urged to discuss exercise regimens with their patients following treatment, oncologists in Chicago said. While this study followed only colon cancer patients, Gralow said there was no reason to think the findings would not be applicable across other cancers. Booth said trials for other cancers would be needed, but added that data from this study suggested there were lower breast and prostate cancer occurrences in the exercise group. 'Exercise as an intervention is a no-brainer and should be implemented broadly,' said Dr Pamela Kunz, of Yale School of Medicine. Responding to the findings, Prof Sir Stephen Powis, the national medical director of NHS England, said it was 'really exciting' that tailored exercise after treatment could be 'life-changing'. 'These landmark findings suggest that focused steps to exercise, from walks to workouts, could help turbocharge the body's ability to prevent cancer returning after treatment and help save more lives. 'Being more active can have significant benefits in helping maintain a healthy weight, strengthen the immune system, reduce inflammation and lift mood – and it's now really encouraging to see that exercise really could have the power to help more people survive cancer.'
The Sun
3 days ago
- Health
- The Sun
Exercise boosts cancer recovery and slashes risk of death or relapse by a third, major study finds
EXERCISE is 'better than a drug' at stopping cancer coming back, a landmark trial suggests. Top doctors say recovering patients should be prescribed personal trainers to boost survival. 1 A Cancer Research UK study showed it could slash bowel cancer patients' risk of death or relapse. Following an exercise programme after treatment reduced their risk of dying within eight years by 37 per cent. And it reduced the chance of a patient's cancer growing back within five years by 28 per cent. Physical activity also appeared to cut the risk for breast and prostate cancers, the two most common types. 'Drugs are approved for less' Dr Julie Gralow, president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, said: 'This is the same magnitude of benefit as many drugs. 'Drugs get approved for less than that and they're expensive and toxic, so I would say it's better than a drug.' Dr Pamela Kunz, of Yale University in the US, said prescribing it was a 'no-brainer'. The world-first trial involved 889 people from Canada and Australia who had received surgery and chemotherapy for colon cancer, the most common form of bowel cancer. It affects around 32,000 people per year in the UK and develops in the large intestine. Half of the participants were given basic exercise advice and the other half were assigned personal trainers and given tailored exercise programmes for three years. The plan added the equivalent of three to four hours of walking on top of patients' normal daily activity. At the end of the 15-year trial, people in the personal trainer group were significantly less likely to have relapsed or died. Study author Dr Christopher Booth, from Queen's University in Kingston, Canada, said: 'These results are clear: an exercise program that includes a personal trainer will reduce the risk of recurrent or new cancer, make you feel better and help you live longer. 'Most patients chose a walking program and could reach their targets by going for a walk of 45 to 60 minutes three to four times per week. 'The benefit was substantial and in some cases exceeded the benefit of many of our very good medical therapies. 'This sets a new standard of care for colon cancer.' He said that one life was saved for every 14 patients who enlisted in the exercise programme. It cost an estimated £2,500 per patient over three years and the Canadian government is now looking at including it in hospital care. Dr Gralow added: 'If you start exercising after you get through your treatment you absolutely still get the benefits – it's not too late. 'Three decades ago it was still the era of doctors being gentle and saying don't overdo it, but we've reversed that and had a major shift in understanding the importance of physical activity. 'We should be doing all we can to help patients be active.' How much exercise should you do and when? There are guidelines issued by the NHS and the Government regarding how much exercise people should do each day. People should be active daily, and avoid sitting for long periods. The NHS recommends an adults – those aged 19 to 64 – should aim for 150 minutes of 'moderate intensity activity' a week. This works out to 21 minutes a day, or 30 minutes five days a week. Or, they could do 75 minutes of vigorous activity per week, which could be less than 11 minutes per day or 25 minutes three days a week. Adults should also aim to do strength exercises twice a week, at least. Examples of moderate-intensity activities include brisk walking, water aerobics, riding a bike, dancing, doubles tennis, pushing a lawn mower, hiking or rollerblading. Examples of vigorous activities include running, swimming, riding a bike fast or on hills, walking up the stairs, sports, like football, rugby, netball and hockey, skipping, aerobics, gymnastics or martial arts. Things like lifting heavy weights, sprinting up hills, spin classes or circuit training are considered very vigorous. What time should you exercise? Getting exercise into your day, no matter what time is a good idea. But you may want to be more selective depending on your goal. A 2023 US study on 5,285 middle-aged adults showed exercising between 7 and 9 am was the best time if you're looking to lose weight. Researchers found that early-bird gym goers had a lower body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference than those working out later. A 2022 study led by Prof Paul J Arciero, Skidmore College, New York, found that the optimal time of day to get your kit on might differ according to your gender. Prof Arciero said women wanting to lose fat around their belly and hips would do better to hit the gym in the morning, but those seeking to gain upper body strength or simply improve their mood might see more results from evening exercise. The results were the opposite for men. If you struggle to get to sleep, it's been found that exercise in the morning may help, but exercise in the evening may help you to stay asleep. Exercise, generally, can improve sleep quality.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Exercise may benefit colon cancer patients as much as some drugs
Exercise may significantly reduce the risk of colon cancer returning in patients after treatment, a new study has found. The late-phase trial, published Sunday in the New England Journal of Medicine and presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in Chicago, found that people who followed an exercise program after undergoing surgery and chemotherapy for Stage 3 or high-risk Stage 2 colon cancer could reduce risk of the cancer returning, a new cancer diagnosis or death by 28%. 'We approve drugs that have the same and in some cases less of a benefit than this,' said Dr. Julie Gralow, ASCO's chief medical officer. The Phase 3 randomized controlled trial included nearly 900 patients in six countries. The average age was 61 and about 90% of the participants had Stage 3 colon cancer, which recurs in about 35% of patients within five years post-treatment. The researchers followed each patient for about eight years from 2009 through 2024. After they finished surgery and chemotherapy, half of the participants were enrolled in an exercise program. The other half, the control group, was given a booklet encouraging them to exercise and eat well post-recovery. The ultimate goal of the exercise program was to get people to increase their exercise up to a certain amount each week from wherever they were starting out. That goal was a weekly increase of 10 MET hours — a unit that measures the metabolic equivalent of a task, or MET, which is the amount of energy the body uses during a task, whether it's sitting at a desk or running at full speed. How many METs a workout expends depends on how intense and how long the workout is. For reference, an hour of brisk walking is the equivalent of about 4 MET hours. The participants slowly worked up to their goal over the first six months of the program. For the first year, they met with a coach — either a physical therapist, a personal trainer or a kinesiologist — every two weeks to develop a personal exercise plan and do a supervised workout. After the first year was up, the participants met with their coach once a month for two more years. Each person's exercise plan was tailored to them. Their coaches build a regimen around what types of exercise the participants liked in the past and what types of workouts would fit into their lifestyle. 'What it translated to for most people is going on a brisk walk 45 minutes a day, four days per week,' said Dr. Christopher Booth, a medical oncologist and professor of oncology at Queen's University in Ontario, Canada. Booth, who led the trial, and his team first wanted to understand whether being assigned a coach would prompt people to exercise more after finishing cancer treatment. If so, they wanted to know whether that exercise would lower the risk of their cancer returning. The answers to both questions was yes. Eight years post-recovery, 90% of the people in the exercise program arm of the trial hadn't had a recurrence or a new cancer diagnosis, compared to 83% in the control group. Of the 445 people in the exercise group, 41 died within eight years of their cancer treatment, compared to 66 of the 444 people in the control group. People who exercised more also had a lower risk of several other cancers, including breast and other colorectal cancers. People who were not enrolled in the exercise program got between 5.2 and 7.4 fewer MET hours of exercise per week — the equivalent of 1.5 to 2.25 hours of brisk walking. 'It's not as simple as telling people to exercise,' Booth said. 'We know that for many people, getting an exercise habit is very difficult. We really need [insurers] to cover this.' The research was the first to randomize people into an exercise program who may not have otherwise exercised after cancer treatment. It builds on observational studies that have shown that people with Stage 3 colon cancer who exercise regularly live longer than those who don't. 'There is almost no downside to exercise. It should be a part of the standard treatment for colon cancer,' said Dr. Nancy You, medical director of the young onset colorectal cancer program at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. It's still not clear why regular exercise appears to have such a large effect on colon cancer recurrence, but a growing number of studies now show that exercise can decrease the risk of breast, colon and rectal cancer recurrence, sometimes by as much as 45%. 'There are potential hypotheses related to exercise's effect on insulin, body composition and basal metabolic rate, all which can have anti-tumor effects,' said Dr. Jeffrey Meyerhardt, co-director of the Colon and Rectal Care Center at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. Still, it will be challenging to help patients integrate more consistent exercise into their lives after cancer, especially if they don't have access to a coach or were not very active prior to their cancer diagnosis. It's also unclear what benefit exercise would have on extending the life of someone with later-stage colon cancers, which can be incurable. 'The exciting part of this is that it really does confirm the evidence that those who exercise after their diagnosis of colon cancer can lower their risk of recurrence and increase their survival,' Meyerhardt said, adding that people should understand that exercise is an additional therapy, not a replacement for the standard care. Everyone in the trial had undergone surgery and chemotherapy prior to starting the exercise trial. For oncologists, being able to give recent cancer survivors a research-backed way to continue their recovery post-treatment is going to be an important part of patient care, Booth said. 'One of the common questions that oncologists get asked when a patient finishes chemo is, 'What else can I do, doc?' And this is really definitive. We can now say a structured exercise program done with a coach can improve your outcomes,' he said. This article was originally published on
The Guardian
3 days ago
- Health
- The Guardian
Exercise ‘better than drugs' after cancer treatment, international trial finds
Exercise can reduce the risk of cancer patients dying by a third, stop tumours coming back and is even more effective than drugs, according to the results of a landmark trial that could transform health guidelines worldwide. For decades, doctors have recommended adopting a healthy lifestyle to lower the risk of developing cancer. But until now there has been little evidence of the impact it could have after diagnosis, with little support for incorporating exercise into patients' routines. Now a world-first trial involving patients from the US, UK, Australia, France, Canada and Israel has found that a structured exercise regime after treatment can dramatically reduce the risk of dying, the disease returning or a new cancer developing. The results were presented in Chicago at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (Asco) annual meeting, the world's largest cancer conference, and published in the New England Journal of Medicine. For the first time in medical history, there was clear evidence that exercise was even better at preventing cancer recurrence and death than many of the drugs currently prescribed to patients, one of the world's top cancer doctors said. Dr Julie Gralow, the chief medical officer of Asco, who was not involved in the decade-long study, said the quality of its findings was the 'highest level of evidence' and would lead to 'a major shift in understanding the importance of encouraging physical activity during and after treatment'. Patients who began a structured exercise regime with the help of a personal trainer or health coach after they completed treatment had a 37% lower risk of death and a 28% lower risk of recurrent or new cancers developing, compared with patients who received only health advice, the trial found. Asked to put the effect of exercise on cancer patients' outcomes into context, Gralow said: 'We titled [the session it was presented in] As Good as a Drug. I would have retitled it Better than a Drug, because you don't have all the side-effects.' 'It's the same magnitude of benefit of many drugs that get approved for this kind of magnitude of benefit – 28% decreased risk of occurrence, 37% decreased risk of death. Drugs get approved for less than that, and they're expensive and they're toxic.' 'When I started three decades ago it was still the era where we'd be gentle and say, don't overdo yourself when you're on chemo. We've reversed that,' she added. 'I would say [exercise is] better than a drug.' In the trial, researchers enrolled 889 colon cancer patients between 2009 and 2023. Most (90%) had stage three disease. Patients were randomly assigned to take part in a structured exercise programme (445) or to just receive a healthy lifestyle booklet (444). Those in the exercise group worked with a personal trainer twice a month for coaching sessions and supervised exercise sessions, and later once a month, for a total of three years. The exercise group were coached and supported to help them achieve set exercise goals. Their weekly target was the equivalent of three to four walks of between 45 and 60 minutes, but patients could choose how they got more active. Some went kayaking or skiing, for instance. After five years, patients in the exercise group had a 28% lower risk of recurrent or new cancers than those in the other group. After eight years, the same patients also had a 37% lower risk of dying than those just handed the healthy lifestyle booklet. 'After completing surgery and chemotherapy, about 30% of patients with high-risk stage two and stage three colon cancer will eventually experience recurrence of their disease,' said the study's lead author, Dr Christopher Booth, of Queen's University in Kingston, Canada. 'As oncologists, one of the most common questions we get asked by patients is 'what else can I do to improve my outcome?' 'These results now provide us with a clear answer: an exercise programme that includes a personal trainer will reduce the risk of recurrent or new cancer, make you feel better and help you live longer.' Prof Charles Swanton, the chief clinician of Cancer Research UK, which funded the UK arm of the study, said: 'This fascinating study captures the power of exercise to transform people's health and boost their chances of surviving cancer after treatment. For an intervention that isn't a drug, exercise offers remarkable benefits for patients.' For some patients, 'physical activity can be a gamechanger that shifts the course of their recovery', Swanton added. 'The findings suggest that oncologists should consider recommending a structured exercise programme after surgery to improve people's chances of survival. 'But it's important to remember that exercise isn't the best option for everyone. My advice to cancer patients is to speak to your doctor before taking on any new physical activity.' The findings are likely to change global practice, with doctors worldwide urged to discuss exercise regimens with their patients following treatment, oncologists in Chicago said. While this study followed only colon cancer patients, Gralow said there was no reason to think the findings would not be applicable across other cancers. Booth said trials for other cancers would be needed, but added that data from this study suggested there were lower breast and prostate cancer occurrences in the exercise group. 'Exercise as an intervention is a no-brainer and should be implemented broadly,' said Dr Pamela Kunz, of Yale School of Medicine. Responding to the findings, Prof Sir Stephen Powis, the national medical director of NHS England, said it was 'really exciting' that tailored exercise after treatment could be 'life-changing'. 'These landmark findings suggest that focused steps to exercise, from walks to workouts, could help turbocharge the body's ability to prevent cancer returning after treatment and help save more lives. 'Being more active can have significant benefits in helping maintain a healthy weight, strengthen the immune system, reduce inflammation and lift mood – and it's now really encouraging to see that exercise really could have the power to help more people survive cancer.'
