Word: cancers
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UNDERGOING TREATMENT. ELIZABETH EDWARDS, 55, wife of former Democratic vice-presidential nominee John Edwards; for breast cancer, diagnosed definitively a day after the election; in Washington. After four months of chemotherapy, Edwards is scheduled to undergo a lumpectomy to remove the tumor...
DIED. HOWARD KEEL, 85, beefy baritone who played opposite Betty Hutton, Doris Day and Jane Powell in such premier 1950s Hollywood musicals as Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Show Boat and Kiss Me Kate; of colon cancer; in Palm Desert, Calif. Keel rocketed to stardom as sharpshooter Frank Butler in Annie Get Your Gun, the first of a string of musicals he made for MGM. In the 1980s he revived his career on TV's Dallas as Clayton Farlow, the debonair tycoon who romanced matriarch Miss Ellie and confounded...
...each history, however, the section labeled FAMILY HEALTH HISTORY gave me pause. Few diseases are purely genetic, but plenty have genetic components. If my father suffered from elevated LDL, or bad cholesterol, my doctor should know that, because I'm probably at higher risk. If my mother had breast cancer, my sister (if I had one) would want her physician to be especially vigilant...
While I know something about the history of my parents' health--my father had prostate cancer at a relatively young age and suffered from macular degeneration and Parkinson's disease, and my mother died of lung cancer--there's plenty I don't know. What were my parents' cholesterol numbers and blood pressures? I assume I would have known if either suffered from diabetes, but I can't swear to that. And when it comes to my grandparents, whose genes I also have, I'm even more in the dark...
...typical. According to Dr. Richard Carmona, the U.S. Surgeon General, only about a third of Americans have even tried to put together a family-health history. That's why he has launched the Family History Initiative and declared Thanksgiving National Family History Day. Sitting around the turkey talking about cancer and heart disease may seem like a grim thing to do when you're supposed to be giving thanks for everything that's going right. But since many families will be gathering for the holiday anyway, it's a perfect time to create a medical family tree...