The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, February 16, 2005, Page 6, Image 6
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Drinking coffee might help prevent liver cancer
, By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — That hot cup of
j coffee may do more than just provide a
tasty energy boost. It also may help
prevent the most common type of liver
cancer.
A study of more than 90,000
Japanese found that people who drank
coffee daily or nearly every day had half
the risk of liver cancer as those who
never drank coffee.
The American Cancer Society
estimates that 18,920 new cases of liver
cancer were diagnosed in the United
States last year and some 14,270 people
died of the illness. Causes include
hepatitis, cirrhosis, excess alcohol
consumption and diseases causing
chronic inflammation of the liver.
Animal studies have suggested a
By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — The government is
setting up a special monitoring board to
keep checking on medicines once they’re
on the market, responding to complaints
that officials reacted too slowly to
reports linking prescription painkillers
to heart attack and stroke.
Plans for the board were announced
Tuesday on the eve of a three-day
scientific meeting on the safety of
painkillers such as Vioxx and Celebrex,
drugs that blossomed into a $5 billion-a
year business before risks from potential
side effects came to light.
Meanwhile, a medical journal
questioned whether continued use of
such products was justified.
Vioxx was pulled from the market in
September after a study showed an
increase in heart attacks and strokes
among people using it. Other studies
have also raised questions of heart
problems with the similar drugs
Celebrex and Bextra.
• “Because there are well-established
options for treatment of all the approved
indications for these drugs, it is
protective association of coffee with liver
cancer, so the research team led by
Monami Inoue of the National Cancer
Center in Tokyo analyzed a 10-year
public health study to determine coffee
use by people diagnosed with liver
cancer and people who did not have
cancer.
They found the likely occurrence of
liver cancer in people who never or
almost never drank coffee was 547.2
cases per 100,000 people over 10
years.
For people who drank coffee daily
the risk was 214.6 cases per 100,000, the
researchers report in this week’s issue of
the Journal of the National Cancer
Institute.
They found that the protective effect
occurred in people who drank one to
two cups of coffee a day and increased at
three to four cups. They were unable to
compare the effect of regular and
decaffeinated coffee because decaf is
rarely consumed in Japan.
It’s the caffeine in coffee that makes
some people nervous and it has been
shown in other studies to prompt
mental alertness in many people. Some
studies have suggested caffeine
aggravates symptoms of menopause or
intensifies the side effects of some
antibiotics. Heavy caffeine use has been
linked to miscarriage. Studies have also
shown that a skin cream spiked with
caffeine lowers the risk of skin cancer in
mice.
“It’s an excellent, interesting and
provocative study and their conclusions
seem justified,” commented Dr. R.
Palmer Beasley of the University of
Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in
Houston.
“It will provoke a lot of new work
Board to monitor prescription drugs
reasonable to ask whether the use of the
drugs can now be justified,” Dr. Jeffrey
M. Drazen, editor of the New England
Journal of Medicine, wrote in an
editorial published online.
That is the question facing the Food
and Drug Administration’s arthritis and
drug safety and risk management
advisory committees at their meeting
beginning Wednesday.
The new drug safety board was
announced by Health and Human
Services Secretary Mike Leavitt, who
said it has become clear that people want
more oversight and openness from the
FDA.
“They want to know what we know,
what we do with information and why
we do it,” Leavitt said, promising to
create “a new culture of openness and
enhanced independence.”
The board will recommend what
information and updates to put on the
government’s Drug Watch, resolve
disputes over drug safety issues, and
oversee the development of a drug safety
policy. It will include FDA employees
and medical experts from other
government agencies and will consult
with outside medical experts as well as
consumer and patient groups.
Lester M. Crawford, the acting FDA
commissioner who was nominated
Monday by President Bush to assume
the post permanently, said the agency
now “understands that the public
expects better and more prompt
information.”
Drazen’s editorial was accompanied
by three studies of these drugs, known as
Cox-2 inhibitors, being released early by
the journal.
The reports add detail to indications
of heart problems associated with the
drugs.
The prescription drugs have become
widely popular pain killers for people
with chronic conditions such as arthritis
because they avoid the stomach and
intestinal problems that have been
associated with many other pain killers.
“Unfortunately,” Drazen said in his
editorial, “as the evidence began to
suggest unexpected toxicity of this group
of agents, the same zeal that had driven
the clinical investigators to show their
gastrointestinal safety was not evidenced
by studies designed to show their
cardiovascular safety.”
The unexpected findings raise
questions about the integrity of the
American drug-safety system, according
to a second editorial in the journal by
researchers Bruce M. Psaty of the
University of Washington and Curt D.
Furberg of Wake Forest University.
“Physicians are dismayed,
pharmaceutical companies are
embarrassed and financially threatened,
and patients are injured,” they wrote.
Dr. Mark Fendrick, an internal
medicine specialist at the University of
Michigan, said a decision on the drugs
“should be considered one of competing
risk and benefits.”
“Until we know for sure about the
cardiological safety of the Cox-2
inhibitors, I believe they should be
limited to those individuals who have a
risk of stomach injury and those who are
at low risk for cardiac problems,”
Fendrick said.
People who have a heart risk or who
take aspirin to protect the heart should
consider a traditional pain killer, he said.
Many people who take the Cox-2
drugs to avoid stomach problems also
take aspirin to protect the heart, he noted,
and that cancels the gastrointestinal
protection of the Cox-2 drugs.
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here,” said Beasley, who was not part of
the research group.
While the study found a statistically
significant relationship between
drinking coffee and having less liver
cancer, the authors note that it needs to
be repeated in other groups.
And the reason for the reduction
remains unclear
Inoue’s team noted that coffee
contains large amounts of antioxidants
and several animal studies have indicated
those compounds have the potential to
inhibit cancer in the liver.
In their study, the team also looked
at green tea, which contains different
antioxidants, and they found no
association between drinking the tea and
liver cancer rates.
“Other unidentified substances may
also be responsible” for the reduction in
cancers, they said.
A separate study reported in the same
issue of the journal reported no
relationship between drinking
caffeinated coffee or tea and the rates of
colon or rectal cancer.
That analysis did find a 52 percent
decline in rectal cancer among people
who regularly drank two or more cups of
decaffeinated coffee.
In that study a team led by Karin B.
Michels of Brigham and Women’s
Hospital in Boston analyzed data from
two large studies — the Nurses’ Health
Study of women and the Health
Professionals’ Follow-up Study
involving men. The analysis of nearly 2
million person years found 1,438 cases
of colorectal cancer.
While they did not find any
association between cancer rates and
consumption of caffeinated coffee or
tea, people who regularly drank two or
more cups per day of decaffeinated
coffee had about half the incidence of
rectal cancer as those who never drank
decaf
The rate of rectal cancer was 12 cases
per 100,000 person-years among those
who consumed two or more cups of
decaffeinated coffee per day. For those
who never drank decaffeinated coffee,
the rate was 19 cases per 100,000
person-years.
That difference may, however, be
due to differences in lifestyle, the
researchers commented, suggesting
that drinkers of decaffeinated coffee
might be more health conscious
overall.
The Japanese study was funded by
the Ministry of Health, Labor and
Welfare of Japan. The U.S. study was
funded by the National Institutes of
Health.
STEPHEN J. BOITANO/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt addresses Food
and Drug Administration employees in Rockville, Md.,on Tuesday
to announce the FDA will establish a new independent Drug Safety
Oversight Board to monitor FDA-approved medicines once they’re
on the market.
■ RUNOFF
Continued from page 1
first election is more important.
“It will definitely be down,” Scott
said. “We are really, really happy with
the turnout today.”
Brewer added that most of time spent
counting ballots was used to discern and
count the hand-written ballots.
Treasurer candidate Preston said he
thought experience was a deciding factor
in his race. He added that he was
impressed with voter turnout.
“It is great to see that 20 percent of
students came out for elections," Preston
said. “I think the number of candidates
immobilized people, but many came
because of grass-roots campaigning.”
The 2005 elections were littered with
motions for campaign violations, but
Brewer said it was no worse than in
previous years.
“I don’t think there were more or less
this year,” Brewer said. “I haven’t looked
at all the violations, but most were
mistakes.”
Treasurer candidate Cook said she
feels campaign managers and staff
should be responsible for making sure
their candidate does not commit
violations.
Vice president-elect Ryan Holt said
when there are nine candidates vying for
an office, there will always be “sparks
flying.” Holt also said he feels lucky to
be finished with campaigning.
“I am certainly grateful because I
know how difficult it will be for people
to runoff,” Holt said after the
announcement. “I am thankful that it
was decided tonight.”
With general elections finalized,
runoff candidates are contemplating
whether to change campaign strategies.
Williams said he does not feel the need
to change his strategy because his
message will remain the same.
“I am all about the people,” Williams
said. “My platform is concrete, what I
want to do is all for the students.”
After securing the vice presidency,
Holt added that he is giving his full
endorsement to Tommy Preston for
treasurer in the runoff.
“I think he is the best person for the
job,” Holt said. “And I think he will get
the job done."
After more than a week of
campaigning, the candidates still in the
runoff will be exhausting every financial
and physical resource at their disposal to
finish strong, they said.
“I thank God I am still alive,”
Williams said.
Comments on this story? E-mail
ga7necocknetos@gwm.sc.edu
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