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Patrick Swayze’s battle against pancreatic cancer will be a difficult one, as survival rates for the disease are low, according to estimated figures from a cancer charity.

Cancer Research estimates that, of the 7,400 people diagnosed with a pancreatic tumour each year, only about 3% of people are still alive five years later.

The pancreas, which lies across the body at the bottom of the breastbone, behind the stomach, produces digestive juices, insulin and other hormones that aid digestion.

Pancreatic cancer is the UK’s 10th most common form of cancer, excluding non-malignant skin cancer.

It mainly affects older people, with 63% of cases diagnosed in those over 70, and tends to strike in men and women equally.

Smoking is known to significantly raise the risk of developing pancreatic cancer, with up to a third of diagnoses related to it. Scientists believe nitrosamines, carcinogenic chemicals found in cigarette smoke, may be the cause.

Diet, alcohol consumption, being overweight and inactive are all thought to increase the risk of pancreatic cancer.

Doctors think their may be some genetic link in up to one in 10 cases of the disease, but the vast majority of pancreatic cancer cases do not run in families.

Common symptoms of pancreatic cancer include jaundice, back or abdominal pain, weight loss and loss of appetite. These can vary depending on the form of cancer and where in the pancreas the cancer is located.

Rarer types of cancer – endocrine pancreatic tumours – can lead to hormones being produced.

If the cancer is contained within the pancreas, treatment for the disease may include surgery.

But in many cases, if the cancer has spread, surgery can be used only to relieve symptoms, and remove blockages in the digestive system. Radiotherapy may be used to shrink the tumour, and chemotherapy is often used after surgery or as the first treatment in advanced cases.

Overall, pancreatic cancer has a poor prognosis. Often the disease can be quite advanced by the time a patient notices symptoms, goes to a doctor and cancer is diagnosed.

Only about 15-20% of pancreatic cancers diagnosed are suitable for surgery, and only 10 to 15 of every 100 people diagnosed are still alive a year later.

Screening for pancreatic cancer is currently only given to people over 40 with hereditary pancreatitis, and some people with a high incidence of pancreatic cancer in the family.

By T.M. Shultz
The Daily Courier

Tuesday, June 03, 2008

At least nine states, including Arizona, are reporting an outbreak of salmonella infections involving uncooked tomatoes.

So far the Yavapai County Health Department has not reported any cases in Yavapai County, but that could change at any time, said Michael Murphy, spokesman for the Arizona Department of Health Services.

“There are numerous suspect cases,” Murphy said.

So far a strain called Salmonella St. Paul has sickened five people from Maricopa, Pima, Apache and Coconino counties and sent one person to the hospital. No one has died, Murphy said.

The outbreak began in late April in Texas and New Mexico and then spread to Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Utah and Arizona.

So far the St. Paul strain of salmonella has infected at least 70 people nationwide and hospitalized at least 17.

Until inspectors can find the source of the outbreak, the state has a simple recommendation: “Don’t eat tomatoes,” state public information officer Janey Pearl said.

She recommends that people wash them or cook them really well.

Once the Food and Drug Administration identifies the specific grower of the tainted tomatoes, officials likely will issue a tomato recall, said Kenneth Komatsu, state epidemiologist for the Arizona Department of Health Services.

“The Food and Drug Administration is tracing back from individual food histories to find the distributors, the growers and how they were contaminated,” Komatsu explained. “The FDA typically works with the stores, distributor and grower to conduct voluntary recalls.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Arizona state health officials also are recommending people take the following steps:

• Do not eat raw Roma or red round tomatoes other than those sold attached to the vine or grown at home, especially if you are at increased risk of infection – this group includes infants, elderly people and those with impaired immune systems.

• Avoid buying bruised or damaged tomatoes and discard any that appear spoiled.

• Thoroughly wash all tomatoes under cool, running water.

• Refrigerate within two hours cut, peeled or cooked tomatoes, otherwise discard.

• Separate raw tomatoes from raw meats, seafood and other raw produce.

• Wash cutting boards, dishes, utensils and counter tops with hot water and soap when switching among food types.

• Cook tomatoes at 145 degrees Fahrenheit for at least 15 seconds to kill salmonella.

• Wash hands often, especially after going to the restroom, before preparing or serving food, and after changing a diaper.

Most people infected with salmonella develop diarrhea, fever and abdominal cramps within 12 to 72 hours. The illness usually lasts four to seven days, and most people recover without treatment. Some people may need hospitalization because of severe diarrhea.

Salmonella may spread from the intestines to the bloodstream and then to other body sites, and can cause death. In severe cases, antibiotic treatment may be necessary.

For more information visit the CDC website at www.cdc.gov/salmonella/saintpaul.

Contact the reporter at tshultz@prescottaz.com

By LYNN DOAN | The Hartford Courant
May 25, 2008

HARTFORD, Conn. – It’s still fruit, just fizzy.

That’s how a food service contractor for about 20 Connecticut school districts and private schools is describing Fizzy Fruit _ pieces of oranges, apples and grapes pumped with carbonation to give them a soda taste. Sodexho has been incorporating the Pop Rocks-like snack into school lunch menus, hoping that it will turn kids on to fruit.

In Danbury’s South Street School cafeteria, the Fizzy grapes are a hit.

“It tickles my throat,” Dakota Lancey, 8, said Thursday, swallowing his second serving of the snack, which contains the same nutritional content as regular fruit.
Dakota’s classmates crowded the booth where a cafeteria worker hurried to fill plastic cups with plump grapes, stuffed with air bubbles. It’s been a weekly snack at the elementary school this year, a part of the regular lunch menu and available at no extra charge.

“They go crazy over them,” said Meg Kingston, Sodexho’s general manager for the Danbury area. “You put regular grapes out in a bowl, and you say it’s the fruit of the day, and they walk right by it. You tell them it’s Fizzy Fruit, and they can’t get enough.”

Sodexho, an international food management contractor, buys the “Fruit Fizzolators” _ the equipment and powder to make carbonated fruit _ from Portland, Ore.-based Fizzy Fruit for $1,056. One shipment produces 450 servings. Cups of the fruit snack are also expected to be on grocery store shelves within two months, said company President Jim Jones.

But there are some who hope that the idea of children eating carbonated fruit fizzles out.

Holly Fydenkevez, who has an 8-year-old son at Goodwin School in East Hartford, where Sodexho plans to serve Fizzy Fruit in the fall, said that she would rather see schools serve regular fruit.

“A lot of kids haven’t been introduced to soda, so why introduce them to anything carbonated?” she said. “They’ll try a piece of the orange and think, `Oh, now I know how orange soda tastes.’ And then you’ve turned a kid on to soda when he never knew soda before.”

Critics also say they fear that Fizzy Fruit will cause kids to turn their backs on regular fruit in favor of the carbonated kind, which would cost more in retail stores.

A 7-ounce cup of Fizzy mandarin oranges is expected to cost between $1.50 and $2 at stores, and a 4-ounce cup of Fizzy grapes, apples or pineapples will cost about $2, Jones said.

“I’m afraid they’re just trying to exploit our children, selling them a product that ultimately doesn’t give them any additional nutritional benefits,” said East Hartford school board member Ram Aberasturia.

But Jones said that parents and school administrators should see Fizzy Fruit as more of a fruit snack than a replacement for fruit. After all, he said, only certain fruits with enough water content can be “fizzolated.”

The process relies on the chemical reaction between citric acid and baking soda, which produces the carbonation in the fruit, Kingston said. But that reaction requires water, which not all fruits have enough of — like bananas. The fizzy effect fades within an hour.

“So as far as getting them hooked on just Fizzy Fruit,” Jones said, “there’s not a wide enough variety of fruit that we’re going to be able to fizz.”

Jones said that he sees his competition as junk food rather than regular fruit.

“We love fruit,” he said, “and if we can replace a bag of Doritos or a can of Pringles or a candy bar with this natural, sweet, fun snack, we’re going to do it.”

Back at South Street School, Axel Ortiz, 7, was too busy attempting to make a business transaction with a cafeteria worker Thursday to think about junk food. He’d already had his third serving of Fizzy Fruit, and he’d been refused a fourth.

Explaining that he wanted more because “it tastes like soda,” he turned to the worker and said, “I’ll pay you. How much?”