Thahy-roid Kan-ser [ Thyroid Cancer ]

Please enjoy my beautifully composed analysis of thyroid cancer. If I were a teacher, I would make a new grade just for this paper and give it an A++, but that's just me. In lieu of pictures throughout the paper, you can view my also A++ worthy powerpoint that is fairly incoherent when I am not there talking and filling in the blanks, but knock yourself out.

Matt Pendo
2-13-11

Thyroid Cancer

Thyroid Cancer is cancer that occurs in the thyroid gland. Cancer of the thyroid was discovered slightly before the end of 19th century by Dr. William Stewart Halsted, an American surgeon who was also a cocaine and morphine addict. Thyroid cancers take up about 1% of all diagnosed cancers and the survival rates are generally very high, particularly if the cancer has not metastasized. (University of Texas Medical Branch) Thyroid cancer is fairly rare, and one out of every 111 people will be diagnosed with thyroid cancer over the course of their life. (National Cancer Institute) This is .9%, an extremely low number that shows just how uncommon thyroid cancer is. Although it is uncommon, every year around 25,000 women and 8,000 men learn that they have thyroid cancer. (NCI)

The thyroid gland is a butterfly shaped hormonal gland located just below the Adam’s apple that is wrapped around the windpipe and makes and stores hormones. These hormones regulate heart rate, metabolism, blood pressure, and growth. The thyroid uses iodine to make hormones that every cell in the body relies on. In particular, the hormones thyroxine (T4) and triiodinetyronine (T3), play a large role in the regulation of metabolism and are extremely important. Hormonal production of the thyroid is controlled by thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) in feedback mechanism similar to the renal feedback mechanism. When levels of T3 and T4 become too low, the pituitary gland in the brain signals for TSH to be secreted and regulate the hormone levels. Conversely, if hormone levels are too high the pituitary gland secretes less TSH until the hormonal level is normal. Another hormone made by the thyroid is calcitonin. Calcitonin is made by the C cells of the thyroid rather than the follicular cells that make T3 and T4 and helps bone cells add calcium to the bone. Thyroid cancer affects the normal production of these hormones and can cause many problems if not treated.

There are four main types of thyroid cancer, and they are all carcinomas, meaning they all occur in tissue cells. The most common type of thyroid cancer is papillary carcinoma, which makes up around 80% of all thyroid cancer cases. This cancer occurs in the follicular cells and is usually very treatable if found before metastasis. The second most common form of thyroid cancer is follicular carcinoma, which also occurs in the follicular cells. This type of thyroid cancer accounts for about 15% of thyroid cancer cases and is also treatable if found early. The third most common variety of thyroid cancer is Medullary carcinoma, which occurs in the C cells of the thyroid and affects the levels of calcitonin. This variety makes up about 3% of all thyroid cancer diagnoses and is also treatable when found before it has metastasized. The final form of thyroid cancer and the most uncommon is anaplastic carcinoma. This form of thyroid cancer occurs in the follicular cells of the thyroid and only accounts for about 2% of all thyroid cancer cases. Although this is the most rare, it is the most deadly. Anaplastic carcinoma grows rapidly and is extremely difficult to control. All of these cancers form growths on the thyroid gland that are called nodules. These nodules are basically tumors on the thyroid, but only 10% of thyroid nodules are malignant.

Although thyroid cancer is a fairly uncommon form of cancer, there are several risk factors that can increase one’s chances of obtaining thyroid cancer. One of these risk factors is radiation, either from high dose x-rays or radioactive fallout. Dental x-rays from the first half of the 20th century along with association with nuclear weapons or energy puts one at an increased risk of getting thyroid cancer. Family history also plays a role in thyroid cancer. Growths on the colon or goiters can increase somebody’s chances of getting papillary carcinoma. Also, Medullary carcinoma can be passed down genetically. Specifically, a mutation in the RET gene can be passed down. Almost everyone who was born with this mutation gets Medullary carcinoma. In addition, females are three times more likely to get thyroid cancer than males. Studies are also being done to see if iodine levels are associated with thyroid cancer. Preliminary research hints that low iodine levels can cause follicular carcinoma and that high levels of iodine can cause papillary carcinoma. Finally, there is some research that suggests increased consumption of shellfish or seafood could be associated with thyroid cancer risk.

Cancers are caused by mutations in the cell cycle, and scientists have been able to pinpoint some of the exact mutations that cause thyroid cancer. As I mentioned before, Medullary carcinoma can be caused by the heredity of a mutated RET gene. Papillary carcinoma is usually caused by one of three genetic mutations. The mutation usually occurs in the RET gene, the BRAF gene, or the RAS gene. When radiation is not an associated factor, the mutation usually happens to the BRAF gene. The BRAF gene fuses with part of the AKAP9 gene and the combined gene stimulates normal cells to turn in to cancerous cells. In anaplastic carcinoma, the RhoB tumor suppressor gene stops functioning and a cancerous growth is the result. When radiation is associated, the mutation usually occurs in the RET gene. Although these cancers happen when the cell cycle functions improperly, there are several ways to treat thyroid cancers.

There are several treatment options for one who has thyroid cancer. One of the major treatment options is surgery. Two of the most common surgical procedures are a thyroidectomy or a lobectomy. In a thyroidectomy, the whole thyroid gland is removed. This removes the nodule, but without a thyroid pills will have to be taken for the rest of one’s life in order to regulate hormone levels. A lobectomy is a procedure sometimes used on patients with follicular or papillary thyroid cancer and only part of the thyroid is removed. Another treatment option is thyroid hormone treatment. These are usually pills that regulate blood pressure, heart rate, weight, and body temperature and are often prescribed after thyroid surgery. Another option is treatment with radioactive iodine. This is used on some patients with papillary or follicular thyroid cancer and consists of the patient consuming radioactive iodine which kills the thyroid cells, both cancerous and non cancerous. Yet another option is external radiation therapy. This is when radiation from outside of the body is concentrated at the affected area and is only used when surgery and radioactive iodine treatment cannot be used. For anaplastic thyroid cancer, the deadliest, chemotherapy is often used. In chemotherapy, the patient consumes radioactive medicine that kills cancerous cells. Another treatment for anaplastic thyroid cancer is a drug called RS5444. This drug activates the RhoB tumor suppressor that is dysfunctional in anaplastic thyroid cancer cells. Drugs that activate deactivated genes are rare, but this drug does exactly that. Although thyroid cancer is rare, there are many treatment options and survival rates are high.

When the cell cycle does not function correctly in the thyroid, cancerous nodules are sometimes the result. However, these cancerous nodules are often treatable. From treatments such as radioactive iodine therapy to RS5444, thyroid cancer has one of the highest survival rates. Even though it has a high survival rate, it is already an uncommon cancer. Ever since its discovery in the late 19th century, research has allowed most people with thyroid cancer to live normal lives after diagnosis.

Sources:
http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=5778
http://www.endocrineweb.com/conditions/thyroid/how-your-thyroid-works
http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/types/thyroid
http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/wyntk/thyroid/page9
http://www.medindia.net/news/view_news_main.asp?x=3200
http://www.medindia.net/patients/patientinfo/thyroid-cancer-symptoms-risk.htm
http://www.medindia.net/news/New-Drug-To-Turn-On-Tumor-Supressor-Gene-In-Thyroid-Cancer-Cells-46631-1.htm
http://www.utmb.edu/otoref/grnds/thyroid-ca-021204/thyroid-ca-021204.htm
http://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/thyro.html




Check out my powerpoint that won't make sense unless you read the paper.

Thyroid cancer ppt

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Gout of Town

Recent findings have just proven that the increased consumption of fructose in post-menopausal women heightens the chances of gout. Now what is gout, you ask? According to its Mayo Clinic page, "Gout is a complex form of arthritis characterized by sudden, severe attacks of pain, redness and tenderness in joints, often the joint at the base of the big toe." Gout occurs when uric acid, a waste product, crystallizes in the joints instead of passing through the kidney and exiting via urine. This is similar to how kidney stones occur, which is when uric acid crystallizes in the kidneys. An early indicator of gout is high levels or uric acid in the blood, known as hyperuricemia. Hyon Choi of Boston University School of Medicine and his research team, having researched and made findings of gout for the past decade, set about looking to see if fructose levels heighten the risk of gout in women. A previous study done by Choi and his team proved that fructose does indeed increase the risk of gout in men, so now they ran trials to see if that transferred over to women. The correlation between gout risk increasing factors in women and men may seem like pointless work, but gout itself is much more prevalent in men, and women are already at much less of a risk. 

The study was based on data taken from 79,000 pot menopausal women. Women who are not post menopausal are at an extremely low risk of contracting gout because they still produce a hormone that regulates uric acid levels. The study found, out of these 79,000 women, that consuming one sugar sweetened soft drink a day as opposed to one a month drastically increases one's chances of getting gout, a disease which is extremely painful.There are some pretty nasty looking pictures of gout, so considered yourself warned and think twice before watching my Animoto video below.

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

In addition to proving that fructose consumption affects the possibility of getting gout, the article discusses the soft drink industry and the corn syrup industry. High fructose corn syrup is the chief sweetener in almost all non-diet soft drinks. Every time one woman drinks a Coke, she is increasing her chances of getting gout.  For a long time, health advocates have been protesting the use of high fructose corn syrup as a sweetener. Unlike table sugar, which has the same amount of glucose as fructose, high fructose corn syrup usually contains about 58% fructose. In addition to raising the possibility of gout, fructose, which is broken down in the liver, can cause extra fat synthesis to occur.  Consumption of soft drinks has also been linked to an increased chance of pancreatic cancer.

Overall, even though non-diet soft drinks (especially Mtn Dew) are extremely tasty, they stealthily carry many health risks.

Even though I now know that these health risks are valid, I will just forget that I ever wrote this article and continue consuming Mtn Dew in excess. 



Sources:

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/003476.htm 

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/gout/DS00090 

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/65355/title/Fructose_poses_gout_risks_even_in_women 

Sally: Grandma's Hairless Cat

You may or may not have a cat as a pet, but you have most likely seen one. While you were at your grandma's house observing her hairless cat, did you take the time to look at the magic of how he or she drinks? A recent paper has gone into detail of the wonderful complexity of just exactly how cats go about drinking. After reading those first sentences, you may be wondering what I could possibly be talking about. In your mind, you've most likely thought that cats drink in a simple manner. They form a ladle with their tongue and scoop the liquid into their mouth. Wrong. The method I just described is used by dogs, but cats employ a completely different method. Cats, being the intelligent creatures they are, take advantage of the liquid's inertia. Inertia is the laziness of an object, in simple terms. Inertia is the unwillingness of an object to change unless it is manipulated by another force. In this case, we will make the liquid milk and the manipulator gravity. As your grandma's hairless cat stealthily approaches the milk filled bowl (while wearing kitten mittens), he prepares to take full advantage of the inertia of the milk. Your grandma's cat, henceforth known as Sally, dips her tongue, which is the same color as her fur (or lack thereof), into the milk. Almost as quickly as the tongue enters the milk, she pulls it, yanking the milk up into the air. For a split second, the inertia of the milk suspends it in the air, and in this moment, Sally surrounds the milk with her mouth and swallows it. After that split second of suspension, gravity, the manipulator, kicks in, snapping the milk back down into the bowl. Still thirsty, Sally repeats the complex and intricate process again until her thirst is quenched.

The intricacy of this seemingly simple process was discovered by a team of scientists led by Pedro Reis. The team went about observing this by using high speed cameras, as cats dip their tongues down into the liquid an astounding three and a half times per second. Even more astoundingly, when the tongue shoots back into the mouth, it moves at a speed of seventy-eight centimeters per second. When Reis first began the experiment, he and his team figured that the roughness of the cat's tongue would play a role; a prediction that was drastically wrong. In actuality, the tip of the tongue that penetrates the surface of the liquid is smooth, and the smoothness is actually very good for lapping up the milk or water. Throughout the research, Reis and his team found that the viscosity of the liquid, and least between the bounds of what a cat would logically drink, did not affect the process. Rather, the determining factors were the inertia and gravitational pull. One may think that this is an odd thing to research or that somebody must have done it before, but as Rebecca Z. German of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine says, "What we know about mammalian feeding is woefully incomplete."

Here are some videos, one of a cat lapping up milk in slo-mo, and the other of a simulator demonstrating the inertia of water.


FAST LAPS from Science News on Vimeo.


TONGUE SUBSTITUTE from Science News on Vimeo.


So now you know, and next time you see your grandma's hairless feline lapping up some milk, you can explain to all your friends what Sally is really doing.

Source:

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/65379/title/Cats_drink_using_lap-and-gulp_trick
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-481062/Puss-Hood-Hairless-Sphynx-cat-keeps-warm.html