Sunday, April 30, 2017

A Prescription for Prevention? - Cancer Today

Scientists are working to understand the molecular processes that transform normal cells into cancer cells in the hope they can prevent the disease before it starts.By Marci A. Landsmann


When Therese Bevers was a physician in residency at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio in the 1980s, she would order standard blood panels for her patients. At the time, doctors would note high cholesterol as a risk factor for heart disease and counsel their patients to eat healthier and keep their weight down. But they could offer little else. Then, in 1987, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first commercial statin, lovastatin. Since then, studies have shown that by lowering cholesterol, statins reduce the overall frequency of heart attacks by approximately 25 to 30 percent.

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