By Richard A. Kirkpatrick, MD

Reference: http://cme.medscape.com/viewarticle/702303?src=cmemp

Last month, pancreatic cancer took yet another former Longview resident, Dr. Karen Johnson Freeze. Karen was a very caring woman who created mission efforts in Czechoslovakia, wrote case studies for Harvard Business School, and was a professor in the Henry Jackson School of Government at University of Washington, specializing in Eastern Europe.

She was preceded in death by her father, former Reynolds Metals’ Longview mill manager, who also died of Pancreatic Cancer.

I can think of a dozen local people in my age group who have died from that deadly malignancy. I worry all the time that, if the City of Longview decides to feed it’s water supply system from wells under Reynolds/Fibre/Weyerhaeuser, even more locals might come down with the disease.

Medscape featured an article on May 5th about a study that projects risk for developing pancreatic cancer, based on a population study of over 450,416 people. The study’s 5-part index (participants scored 1 point for possessing each characteristic, with a total score of 0 being unhealthy and 5 being very healthy) included:

• Body Mass Index (BMI) between 18 and 25
• NonSmoker
• NonDrinker (alcohol)
• Following Mediterranean Diet
• Regular Physical Exercise

Only 7% of the 1,057 victims of Pancreatic Cancer had a score of 5. Smoking was the strongest predictor of pancreatic cancer. If none of the 450,000 patients smoked, statistics say that 14% of the patients who came down with cancer would have been spared.

We cannot control whether or not the City of Longview pumps Reynolds water into our homes. But we can avoid drinking and smoking. We can adopt the vegetables/fish/fruits diet and exercise regularly. And most of us can get the BMI up or down to the desired 18-25 range.

These lifestyle issues are common sense matters, which reduce the risk of many maladies, including heart attacks and strokes. Somehow, the successes our medical system has with cardiovascular disease, makes them not seem too ominous. But pancreatic cancer, with very, very few treatment options (which rarely succeed) should be a very strong motivator to “get your life in order.”

Tags: cancer, pancreatic cancer

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