Almost 260,000 new cases of cancer are diagnosed in the UK each year, but despite the rates of incidence being on the rise, the good news is that less people are actually dying from cancer, thanks to advances in treatment and also early detection.
The trend is the same in both the USA and UK, with figures that trace incidence of and deaths caused by cancer over a period of 30 years from 1975 to 2005 showing that mortality rates for all cancers have decreased steadily over the last ten years, with stomach and prostate cancer displaying the most improvement in terms of people overcoming this deadly disease.
However, it's not all good news on the mortality front. Deaths from cancers of the kidney, liver and uterus are on the rise, as is mortality from malignant melanoma, especially amongst males.
Education, increased funding and the acceptance from males to visit the doctor at the first sign of any health problems (rather than grinning and bearing it until it's too late) are helping to decrease the mortality rate, especially with diseases such as prostate cancer.
However, lung cancer claims more female victims than any other cancer, including breast cancer, and the number of victims is rising. Deaths amongst women from lung cancer were recorded at 30 per 100,000 in 2005, compared to 18 per 100,000 women in 1971. Amongst men there has been a dramatic reduction in the number of deaths caused by lung cancer over the same period. In 1971 it accounted for 107 deaths per 100,000 but in 2005 was just less than half that figure at 53 deaths per 100,000 men in the population.
The overall drop in mortality amongst men is thought to be because of the reduction in tobacco consumption, as warnings about the links between smoking and lung cancer were identified towards the end of the twentieth century. The rise in the number of cases amongst women can be attributed to the uptake in smoking by females at the beginning of the 1980s. Since 1986 young women have consistently smoked more than young men, impacting on future mortality rates.
Although death rates from cancer are on the decline in general, there is a need for more education as people continue to put themselves at risk by indulging in excessive consumption of cigarettes and alcohol, even though both substances have been proved to increase the risk of contracting certain cancers. As well as extensive documentation available from the NHS and government sources, cancer charity organisations are also working hard to deliver messages about avoidance of cancer risks.
Adam Singleton writes on a number of topics on behalf of a digital marketing agency and a variety of clients. As such, this article is to be considered a professional piece with business interests in mind.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Monday, July 07, 2008
Dietary Supplement to avoid Breast Cancer
A compound found in red grapes and red wine suppresses abnormal cell formation that leads to most types of breast cancer, according to U.S. researchers.
The compound, resveratrol, is sold in extract form as a dietary supplement.
Breast cancer forms through a multi-stage process that differs depending on the type of disease, a person's genes, and other factors. However, it's known that increased estrogen fuels many types of breast cancer.
"Resveratrol has the ability to prevent the first step that occurs when estrogen starts the process that leads to cancer by blocking the formation of the estrogen DNA adducts. We believe that this could stop the whole progression that leads to breast cancer down the road," study author Eleanor G. Rogan, a professor in the Eppley Institute for Research in Cancer and Allied Diseases at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, said in a prepared statement.
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In laboratory testing, Rogan and her team found that as little as 10 umol/L of resveratrol could suppress DNA adducts associated with breast cancer. A glass of red wine contains between 9 and 28 umol/L of resveratrol.
Rogan and colleagues also found that reseveratrol suppressed expression of CYP1B1 and the formation of 2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin, two known risk factors for breast cancer.
Resveratrol induces an enzyme called quinone reductase, which reduces the estrogen metabolite back to inactive form and reduces breast cancer risk, Rogan explained.
The findings, which are in the July issue ofCancer Prevention Research, will have to be confirmed in human trials, she noted.
The compound, resveratrol, is sold in extract form as a dietary supplement.
Breast cancer forms through a multi-stage process that differs depending on the type of disease, a person's genes, and other factors. However, it's known that increased estrogen fuels many types of breast cancer.
"Resveratrol has the ability to prevent the first step that occurs when estrogen starts the process that leads to cancer by blocking the formation of the estrogen DNA adducts. We believe that this could stop the whole progression that leads to breast cancer down the road," study author Eleanor G. Rogan, a professor in the Eppley Institute for Research in Cancer and Allied Diseases at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, said in a prepared statement.
ad_icon
In laboratory testing, Rogan and her team found that as little as 10 umol/L of resveratrol could suppress DNA adducts associated with breast cancer. A glass of red wine contains between 9 and 28 umol/L of resveratrol.
Rogan and colleagues also found that reseveratrol suppressed expression of CYP1B1 and the formation of 2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin, two known risk factors for breast cancer.
Resveratrol induces an enzyme called quinone reductase, which reduces the estrogen metabolite back to inactive form and reduces breast cancer risk, Rogan explained.
The findings, which are in the July issue ofCancer Prevention Research, will have to be confirmed in human trials, she noted.
Barclaycard is Britain’s Most Powerful Credit Card Brand
Barclaycard was the most powerful credit card brand in the UK in 2007 according to the Issuer Brand Index (IBI) monitored in Cardbeat, a syndicated market research tracking study run by the Auriemma Consulting Group (ACG). This study considers the strength of the brand to be driven by a combination of card ownership and usage, perceived brand quality, brand awareness, and general brand characteristics. The study evaluates the strength of 17 top UK credit card brands.
Highlights from the latest study include:
- Barclaycard reported as the most powerful UK credit card issuer brand beating Capital One into second spot. Barclaycard’s top position came as a result of having the highest brand awareness and second highest card usage ratings in our study. Wide card ownership also contributed to Barclaycard capturing the number one spot.
- Lloyds TSB’s customers have higher outstanding balances and use their card more for purchases than any other brand included in the study.
- Marks and Spencer’s card brand holds the top spot driven by perceived high quality and general brand characteristics but languishes at number 11 spot in the research due to its low card usage and moderate brand awareness.
- Egg’s card brand was at number 3 in terms of general brand characteristics, just behind the Co-op and Marks & Spencer’s card brand.
- MBNA and Barclaycard’s card brands are joint first in card ownership market share but there is a marked difference in usage and brand awareness.
- The least widely held card brand tracked in the study was issued by the Post Office
Matt Simester, Director at Auriemma Consulting Group commented, "As the credit crunch continues to dominate the consumer agenda, a powerful brand is critical to maintaining high quality recruitment and retention. While consumers with a poor credit history will find it hard to move issuer, those with stronger credit histories will demand better quality propositions from their current provider. Pressure to reduce costs of servicing, higher average APRs and lower investment into marketing may also impact perceived brand quality this year. I anticipate that there will be a different set of winners and losers at the end of 2008"
About Barclaycard
Barclaycard is a multi-brand credit card and loans business which also processes card payments for retailers and merchants and issues charge and credit cards to corporate customers and the UK Government. It is one of Europe’s leading credit card businesses and has an increasing presence in the United States.
In the UK, Barclaycard comprises Barclaycard, Sky Card, Thomas Cook and Argos branded credit cards and FIRSTPLUS secured lending. Barclaycard also manages card operations on behalf of Solution Personal Finance.
Highlights from the latest study include:
- Barclaycard reported as the most powerful UK credit card issuer brand beating Capital One into second spot. Barclaycard’s top position came as a result of having the highest brand awareness and second highest card usage ratings in our study. Wide card ownership also contributed to Barclaycard capturing the number one spot.
- Lloyds TSB’s customers have higher outstanding balances and use their card more for purchases than any other brand included in the study.
- Marks and Spencer’s card brand holds the top spot driven by perceived high quality and general brand characteristics but languishes at number 11 spot in the research due to its low card usage and moderate brand awareness.
- Egg’s card brand was at number 3 in terms of general brand characteristics, just behind the Co-op and Marks & Spencer’s card brand.
- MBNA and Barclaycard’s card brands are joint first in card ownership market share but there is a marked difference in usage and brand awareness.
- The least widely held card brand tracked in the study was issued by the Post Office
Matt Simester, Director at Auriemma Consulting Group commented, "As the credit crunch continues to dominate the consumer agenda, a powerful brand is critical to maintaining high quality recruitment and retention. While consumers with a poor credit history will find it hard to move issuer, those with stronger credit histories will demand better quality propositions from their current provider. Pressure to reduce costs of servicing, higher average APRs and lower investment into marketing may also impact perceived brand quality this year. I anticipate that there will be a different set of winners and losers at the end of 2008"
About Barclaycard
Barclaycard is a multi-brand credit card and loans business which also processes card payments for retailers and merchants and issues charge and credit cards to corporate customers and the UK Government. It is one of Europe’s leading credit card businesses and has an increasing presence in the United States.
In the UK, Barclaycard comprises Barclaycard, Sky Card, Thomas Cook and Argos branded credit cards and FIRSTPLUS secured lending. Barclaycard also manages card operations on behalf of Solution Personal Finance.
How improving credit score can help you
If you can improve your credit scores, you will probably spend less money, perhaps hundreds or thousands of dollars less each year.
Here's how to raise your scores, so you can receive the best financing rates and deals, better rates on insurance and all the other benefits of having a high credit rating.
What's a good score? You have many credit scores. By far the most important are your FICO scores with each of the three major credit bureaus, Experian, Equifax and TransUnion. A mediocre score is 700, while a score above 750 should get you all the best deals and borrowing rates, said John Ulzheimer, president of consumer education for Credit.com and author of the book "You're Nothing but a Number."
Know the ingredients. Oddly, your credit score doesn't care about your net worth, your income, how much money you have in the bank or even whether you pay off your credit card bill in full every month. It only cares about what credit lines you have open and how you use them. If you're a cash-paying billionaire, you probably don't have good credit scores. Your maid and gardener might have better scores.
Understand the breakdown. The exact formula for calculating FICO credit scores is a secret, but we know that the biggest factor is your payment history. Paying your bills and loans affects 35 percent of your credit score. The amounts you owe account for 30 percent. The length of your credit history is 15 percent. Applying for new credit counts for 10 percent, as does the different types of credit you have.
Fix mistakes. There's really no such thing as "credit repair," as you might have heard advertised. Either you have mistakes on your credit reports or you don't. Disputing incorrect negative information is free and, in most cases, easy. Dispute mistakes while accessing your reports for free once a year at www.annualcreditreport.com.
Negative information, such as late payments, repossessions and bills in collection, can stay on your report for seven years. A bankruptcy can stay for 10 years. Some credit-repair companies will dispute all the negatives on your report, hoping creditors won't respond in the required 30 days. That will result in removal of the negative item from your report, at least until the creditor responds. Credit bureaus are wise to that strategy, so it doesn't necessarily work, Ulzheimer said. And if you wanted to use that tactic, you could just do it yourself rather than paying a credit-repair service.
Pay bills. Paying your bills on time, every time, won't raise your score, but it will keep it from dropping.
Mind your ratio. Besides paying bills on time, the best thing you can do for your credit rating is to continually use credit but use very little of your available limit. Imagine you have several credit cards that have a combined $5,000 limit. If you regularly have combined balances of $4,000 or more each month on those cards, that's bad. You have an 80 percent utilization ratio. Better is a ratio in the 30 percent range; best is less than 10 percent. Remember, you score doesn't care whether you pay off the balance, only how much of your available credit limit you're using at any given time.
"The score is incredibly sensitive to how much of your available credit you're using, particularly on your revolving lines of credit—typically, credit cards," said Liz Pulliam Weston, author of "Your Credit Score." "Having small balances on a number of cards is better than having a big balance on one card, in general."
Don't close accounts. Keep open your old credit accounts, even if you paid them off and don't use them. The more available and unused credit, the better for your score. Additionally, older credit accounts also boost your score. One caveat: If you know that you will spend unnecessarily just because you have the available credit, close the accounts.
Carefully raise credit limits. It helps to have a lot of available credit to help your ratio. But opening a lot of new credit accounts at once likely will hurt your credit score in the short term. A strategy to help your score without hurting it would be to regularly ask your current credit card company to raise your current limit "without pulling a credit report." You also could make two credit card payments a month, which artificially lowers your balance reported to credit bureaus. Just be sure to make the second payment after the closing date and before the due date, so you aren't socked with a late payment, Weston said.
Here's how to raise your scores, so you can receive the best financing rates and deals, better rates on insurance and all the other benefits of having a high credit rating.
What's a good score? You have many credit scores. By far the most important are your FICO scores with each of the three major credit bureaus, Experian, Equifax and TransUnion. A mediocre score is 700, while a score above 750 should get you all the best deals and borrowing rates, said John Ulzheimer, president of consumer education for Credit.com and author of the book "You're Nothing but a Number."
Know the ingredients. Oddly, your credit score doesn't care about your net worth, your income, how much money you have in the bank or even whether you pay off your credit card bill in full every month. It only cares about what credit lines you have open and how you use them. If you're a cash-paying billionaire, you probably don't have good credit scores. Your maid and gardener might have better scores.
Understand the breakdown. The exact formula for calculating FICO credit scores is a secret, but we know that the biggest factor is your payment history. Paying your bills and loans affects 35 percent of your credit score. The amounts you owe account for 30 percent. The length of your credit history is 15 percent. Applying for new credit counts for 10 percent, as does the different types of credit you have.
Fix mistakes. There's really no such thing as "credit repair," as you might have heard advertised. Either you have mistakes on your credit reports or you don't. Disputing incorrect negative information is free and, in most cases, easy. Dispute mistakes while accessing your reports for free once a year at www.annualcreditreport.com.
Negative information, such as late payments, repossessions and bills in collection, can stay on your report for seven years. A bankruptcy can stay for 10 years. Some credit-repair companies will dispute all the negatives on your report, hoping creditors won't respond in the required 30 days. That will result in removal of the negative item from your report, at least until the creditor responds. Credit bureaus are wise to that strategy, so it doesn't necessarily work, Ulzheimer said. And if you wanted to use that tactic, you could just do it yourself rather than paying a credit-repair service.
Pay bills. Paying your bills on time, every time, won't raise your score, but it will keep it from dropping.
Mind your ratio. Besides paying bills on time, the best thing you can do for your credit rating is to continually use credit but use very little of your available limit. Imagine you have several credit cards that have a combined $5,000 limit. If you regularly have combined balances of $4,000 or more each month on those cards, that's bad. You have an 80 percent utilization ratio. Better is a ratio in the 30 percent range; best is less than 10 percent. Remember, you score doesn't care whether you pay off the balance, only how much of your available credit limit you're using at any given time.
"The score is incredibly sensitive to how much of your available credit you're using, particularly on your revolving lines of credit—typically, credit cards," said Liz Pulliam Weston, author of "Your Credit Score." "Having small balances on a number of cards is better than having a big balance on one card, in general."
Don't close accounts. Keep open your old credit accounts, even if you paid them off and don't use them. The more available and unused credit, the better for your score. Additionally, older credit accounts also boost your score. One caveat: If you know that you will spend unnecessarily just because you have the available credit, close the accounts.
Carefully raise credit limits. It helps to have a lot of available credit to help your ratio. But opening a lot of new credit accounts at once likely will hurt your credit score in the short term. A strategy to help your score without hurting it would be to regularly ask your current credit card company to raise your current limit "without pulling a credit report." You also could make two credit card payments a month, which artificially lowers your balance reported to credit bureaus. Just be sure to make the second payment after the closing date and before the due date, so you aren't socked with a late payment, Weston said.
Saturday, July 05, 2008
Bad Credit Report Repair
Numerous people suffer with bad credit. Maybe you lost your job and had trouble getting a new one or maybe you fallen ill and couldn’t work for sometime. No matter what the reason is that caused you to fall behind on your bills, the fact is your behind and your creditors are reporting to the credit bureaus and your credit score is down. The great news is that there are affairs that can aid with bad credit report repair.
Experiencing a bad credit report can impact you in many ways of life. It can damage your opportunities of buying a mortgage, purchasing a automobile, obtaining credit at varies stores or credit card companies and it can yet have an impact on leasing property. It is critical for you to attempt to repair your bad credit report as quick and expeditiously as attainable. There are many free credit repair kits that you can get from local debt management companies as well as online and from the IRS or anyone who renders whatever type of credit repair services.
The first step you want to take is to get hold of all three for the major credit bureaus and request a copy of your credit report. You can also request a bad credit report repair kit. This will be step by step instructions, tips and sample credit repair letters that you can utilize to reach the companies that are listed on your report. When you find your copies of the different credit reports, you need to look into them soundly to check if there are any discrepancies. Sometimes you may learn that several entries will be replicated and this can effect your overall credit rating. Next you would send a credit repair letter to the defined parties that you noticed discrepancies and ask them to correct the problem.
Once you have gone through any discrepancies, you will want to verify what small bills you can pay right away. This could represent a returned check you forgotten about or possibly a small bill that you disregarded.
If you had to file bankruptcy, keep in mind that this will appear on your credit report for 10 years. You will learn that you can raise your credit score by doing the painless steps observed above. When you get to larger charges that exact to be taken care of to get them off your credit report, you may need to contact the company for which the debt is with and look into if you can work out any arrangement. Many times, companies will exercise what is named a settlement. This is where you would pay up a particular percentage of the debt and they will wipe out the rest of the debt. For Example, many medical bill companies will accept 60% of the bill and mark it paid in full.
Bad credit report repair is simpler than most believe although it does require time as you have to contact the companies listed on the reports in order to fix affairs and have the debts removed from your credit history. You will be delighted that you took the time to do all of this when you realize the end results on your improved credit report.
Experiencing a bad credit report can impact you in many ways of life. It can damage your opportunities of buying a mortgage, purchasing a automobile, obtaining credit at varies stores or credit card companies and it can yet have an impact on leasing property. It is critical for you to attempt to repair your bad credit report as quick and expeditiously as attainable. There are many free credit repair kits that you can get from local debt management companies as well as online and from the IRS or anyone who renders whatever type of credit repair services.
The first step you want to take is to get hold of all three for the major credit bureaus and request a copy of your credit report. You can also request a bad credit report repair kit. This will be step by step instructions, tips and sample credit repair letters that you can utilize to reach the companies that are listed on your report. When you find your copies of the different credit reports, you need to look into them soundly to check if there are any discrepancies. Sometimes you may learn that several entries will be replicated and this can effect your overall credit rating. Next you would send a credit repair letter to the defined parties that you noticed discrepancies and ask them to correct the problem.
Once you have gone through any discrepancies, you will want to verify what small bills you can pay right away. This could represent a returned check you forgotten about or possibly a small bill that you disregarded.
If you had to file bankruptcy, keep in mind that this will appear on your credit report for 10 years. You will learn that you can raise your credit score by doing the painless steps observed above. When you get to larger charges that exact to be taken care of to get them off your credit report, you may need to contact the company for which the debt is with and look into if you can work out any arrangement. Many times, companies will exercise what is named a settlement. This is where you would pay up a particular percentage of the debt and they will wipe out the rest of the debt. For Example, many medical bill companies will accept 60% of the bill and mark it paid in full.
Bad credit report repair is simpler than most believe although it does require time as you have to contact the companies listed on the reports in order to fix affairs and have the debts removed from your credit history. You will be delighted that you took the time to do all of this when you realize the end results on your improved credit report.
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