Dr. Hrach MD – ExtraCare January 2020 Newsletter

January 2020
ExtraCare Newsletter

The New Year brings some exciting medical news and changes to the practice including:

Cancer death rates down with the largest single-year drop ever recorded.
Mediterranean Diet is ranked #1.
I have been named a Southern California Super Doctor for the eighth year in a row.

https://www.superdoctors.com/california-los-angeles/doctor/Barbara-Ann-Hrach/c5aceaed-e434-4414-8791-2226350f8772.html

We have begun billing under the Santa Barbara Doctors PC organization. Expect all future insurance EOB’s to be processed under this name.

Cancer Death Rates Down

The American Cancer Society (ACS) published their annual statistics earlier this month and the results are exciting. The death rate from cancer in the US declined by 29% from 1991 to 2017, including a 2.2% drop from 2016 to 2017, the largest single-year drop ever recorded!
https://acsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.3322/caac.21590Lung cancer lead the decline with a reduction in death from about 3% per year from 2008 – 2013 to 5% from 2013 – 2017 in men and from 2% to almost 4% in women. However, lung cancer is still the leading cause of cancer death in the U.S. The other cancers showing significant reduction in death rates include breast, colon and prostate cancer.

The ACS attributes the decline in cancer death to early detection and treatment, lifestyle modification (specifically smoking cessation) and advances in cancer treatment, most notably, targeted therapy and immunotherapy.

Targeted therapy is a special type of chemotherapy that takes advantage of differences between normal cells and cancer cells. Targeted drugs zero in on some of the genetic changes that make cancer cells different. They target specific areas of the cancer cell that allow the cell to grow faster and abnormally. There are many different targets on cancer cells and many drugs that have been developed to attack them. Targeted drugs can work to:

Block or turn off chemical signals that tell the cancer cell to grow and divide
Change proteins within the cancer cells so the cells die
Stop making new blood vessels to feed the cancer cells
Trigger your immune system to kill the cancer cells
Carry toxins to the cancer cells to kill them, but not normal cells

Some targeted drugs are more “targeted” than others. Some might target only a single change in cancer cells, while others can affect several different changes. Others boost the way your body fights the cancer cells. This can affect where these drugs work and what side effects they cause.

Immunotherapy is a treatment that uses certain parts of a person’s immune system to fight diseases such as cancer. This can be done in a couple of ways:

Stimulating, or boosting, the natural defenses of your immune system so it works harder or smarter to find and attack cancer cells
Making substances in a lab that are just like immune system components and using them to help restore or improve how your immune system works to find and attack cancer cells

In the last few decades immunotherapy has become an important part of treating some types of cancer, especially lung cancer and melanoma. New immunotherapy treatments are being tested and approved, and new ways of working with the immune system are being discovered at a very fast pace.

While we are a long way from “curing cancer” the fact that cancer death rates continue to decline makes me optimistic that one day we may get there.

Mediterranean Diet is Best in 2020

For the third year in a row, the Mediterranean Diet was voted the best diet in 2020 by US News.
https://health.usnews.com/best-dietThey ranked 35 diets with input from a panel of nationally recognized experts in diet, nutrition, obesity, food psychology, diabetes and heart disease. In order to be top-rated, a diet had to be relatively easy to follow, nutritious, safe, effective for weight loss and protective against diabetes and heart disease. The Mediterranean diet, hands down, won in the easy to follow and healthy diet categories winning in the overall healthy and best diabetes diet category and only coming in second to the Ornish diet in the heart healthy category. While the Mediterranean diet was not ranked highly in the weight loss category, the lack of restrictions and overall health benefits are what moved it to the top.

The Mediterranean Diet is not actually a diet, it’s more of a lifestyle that reﬂects a way of eating that is traditional in the countries that surround the Mediterranean. For this reason, the diet encompasses a wide variety of choices which allows for a diversity of flavors, textures and colors that can satisfy even the most selective palate.

Here are some simple tips to get started on your path to healthy eating.

Eat lots of vegetables. From a simple plate of sliced fresh tomatoes drizzled with olive oil and crumbled feta cheese to stunning salads, garlicky greens, fragrant soups and stews, healthy pizzas, or oven-roasted medleys, vegetables are vitally important to the fresh tastes and delicious ﬂavors of the Med Diet.
Change the way you think about meat. If you eat meat, have smaller amounts – small strips of sirloin in a vegetable sauté, or a dish of pasta garnished with diced prosciutto.
Enjoy some dairy products. Eat Greek or plain yogurt, and try smaller amounts of a variety of cheeses.
Eat seafood twice a week. Fish such as tuna, herring, salmon, and sardines are rich in omega-3 fatty acids, and shellﬁsh including mussels, oysters, and clams have similar beneﬁts for brain and heart health.
Cook a vegetarian meal one night a week. Build meals around beans, whole grains, and vegetables, and heighten the ﬂavor with fragrant herbs and spices. Down the road, try two nights per week.
Use good fats. Include sources of healthy fats in daily meals, especially extra-virgin olive oil, nuts, peanuts, sunﬂower seeds, olives, and avocados.
Switch to whole grains. Whole grains are naturally rich in many important nutrients; their fuller, nuttier taste and extra ﬁber keep you satisﬁed for hours. Cook traditional Mediterranean grains like bulgur, barley, farro and brown, black or red rice, and favor products made with whole grain ﬂour.
For dessert, eat fresh fruit. Choose from a wide range of delicious fresh fruits — from fresh ﬁgs and oranges to pomegranates, grapes and apples. Instead of daily ice cream or cookies, save sweets for a special treat or celebration.