A new study casts doubt that a diet rich in vegetables might slow the progression of prostate cancer, a disease that kills about 33,000 Americans a year.
"We were hoping the diet would slow and maybe reverse the cancer," said Dr. J. Kellogg Parsons, urology professor at by the University of California, San Diego. "However, we found that even eating up to seven servings a day of vegetables did not have that affect.
But he said, "This is one study and no study, by itself, is definitive." But it is the largest study of its kind, involving more than 200 men with early-stage prostate cancer.
Take both calcium, vitamin D for bones
A fractured hip — one of the most common bone breaks experienced by the elderly — sends more than 300,000 people 65 and older to the hospital each year, said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. New research, however, suggests that taking both calcium and vitamin D supplements could trim that number.
Analyzing data from 17 studies, involving nearly 84,000 people, researchers found that those who took both supplements were about 16% less likely to break a hip and 6% less likely to break any bone. By comparison, no protection from bone breaks was found for those who took only vitamin D.
Depression may raise the risk of dementia
People with depression are at increased risk for dementia, researchers report, and the risk may persist for decades.
Using the Swedish National Patient Register, scientists identified 119,386 people older than 50 with depression and matched them with an equal number of people without that diagnosis. Dementia developed in 5.7% of those with depression, compared with only 2.6% of those without depression, over an average of more than 10 years.
The researchers also found that a person with depression was more than 20 times as likely as a sibling without depression to receive a diagnosis of dementia in the first six months after the diagnosis. The risk declined over time, but persisted for more than 20 years.
News services
