Cancer

Nicotine levels in the nails can predict quite accurately the risk that a smoker - and a non-smoker exposed to passive smoke - has of developing lung cancer in the future.

Scientists from Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), in the United States, have developed a portable device that, coupled to a smart mobile phone, detects the proteins produced by cancer cells.

A study coordinated by researcher Manel Esteller, from the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL), has identified a substance that inhibits cancer growth by activating the so-called "dark genome" and micro-RNA molecules. The work is published this week in PNAS magazine.

An international team of experts has identified a genetic mutation, responsible for the short stature of a group of people in an Ecuadorian population, which prevents the development of cancer and diabetes, as well as various problems associated with aging, according to Science Translational Medicine.

Cancer is one of the leading causes of death worldwide. The WHO estimates that, in the absence of any intervention, 84 million people will have died of cancer between 2005 and 2015. These are some of the foods that, according to recent research, can help us curb the disease.

According to a study published by the British Medical Journal (BMJ), dogs are capable of detecting bowel cancer by smell even when the disease is in its early stages.

The first editorial of 2011 in The Lancet magazine looks back 100 years and analyzes another editorial that the magazine published, entitled "The Promises of 1911", in which it becomes clear that many of the medical issues relevant to a hundred years ago continue valid today.

Researchers at the University of Oxford, led by Peter Rothwell, have shown that taking a 75-milligram dose of aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid) daily reduces death rates from cancer of the esophagus, lung, stomach, pancreas, and possibly brain by nearly one third.