Lung cancer patients are blamed for their disease. A majority of Americans, including many health-care workers, believe that people who have lung cancer are at least partly to blame for their disease, a new survey finds. In the poll of nearly 1,500 American adults, researchers found 59 percent of respondents agreeing with the notion that lung cancer patients helped bring the disease on themselves. It’s a bias that over time has led to fewer resources to investigate the No. 1 cancer killer in the United States and added shame to the burden that lung cancer patients carry, experts said. “Sadly, the stigma has been used to justify underfunding, not only of research but also of programs for early detection and treatment,” said Laurie Fenton Ambrose, president and CEO of Lung Cancer Alliance, a private organization providing support and advocacy for people with lung cancer. He added that too many people blame lung cancer on individual patients because they mistakenly believe that smoking causes all cases of the disease. Lung cancer is among the leading causes of cancer deaths in the United States. The American Lung Association estimates that more then 215,000 Americans will be diagnosed with lung cancer this year, and more than 161,000 will die of the disease. Between 10 percent and 15 percent of lung cancers are diagnosed in nonsmokers, the association estimates.

A little music does the heart good. Keep the gospel playing on your iPod or throw on a little Beyoncé and sit back and relax, knowing that your blood vessels are expanding wide open, letting the blood flow freely.  Turns out that hearing a joyful noise does the heart good. In fact, nothing could be healthier for your heart, a new study suggests. “Listening to music that makes you feel good may also be a good preventive measure for heart health,” said study author Dr. Michael Miller, director of the Center for Preventive Cardiology at the University of Maryland Medical Center, in Baltimore. “There’s no downside. It’s simple, economic and it may pay off dividends in regard to a healthy heart.” Dr. Carl Lavie, medical director of cardiac rehabilitation and prevention director of the Stress Testing Laboratory at the Ochsner Heart and Vascular Institute in New Orleans, also told HealthDay: “Although this was just [a short-term] study, it suggests that laughter and listening to relaxing music may provide cardio-protection or be heart-healthy. I suspect that the authors are correct in this theory. But the important thing to know is whether regular performance of this or similar activity would have long-term benefits on the cardiovascular system, similar to… such things as regular aerobic exercise that has been extensively studied and proved to have substantial long-term benefits.” Previous studies had found that music could affect heart rate and blood pressure. Prayer has also been shown to improve cardiac performance. And Miller’s group previously found that laughter improved vascular health.
  

Can you tell if he’s HIV-positive? A new feature at BET.com asks if you can tell by looking at someone whether he or she is HIV-positive. “Are You Positive?” provides information about HIV and AIDS as well as HIV-testing information and a site locater as part of a special feature that appears in advance of the BET News special of the same name. To find out more, go to BET.com/lifestyle.
(www.bet.com/lifestyle/bodysoul)

TAGS: blamed, Heart, HIV, Lung cancer, music, patients, positive

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