Extending Cancer Prevention to Improve Fruit and Vegetable Consumption

Consuming a diet that is rich in fruits and vegetables is critical for preventing cancer and cancer-related disparities. Food systems approaches that increase spatial-temporal, economic, and social access to fruits and vegetables may ultimately result in improved consumption patterns among Americans. Engaging the triad of Cooperative Extension Services, public health systems, and community health centers may yield maximal public health benefits from food systems interventions. These entities have a mutual interest in promoting health equity and community and economic vitality that provides common ground to (a) implement solutions through the dissemination of evidence-based programs and (b) share resources to foster grassroots support for sustained change. Working together, these systems have an unprecedented opportunity to build on their common ground to implement, evaluate, and disseminate evidence-based food systems interventions in communities and with populations experiencing disparate risk for cancer and cancer-related diseases.     

Cancer nursing education, 1992–93

This paper details our experiences in Post-Basic Cancer Nursing Education at the Lisbon centre of the 'Instituto Português de Oncologia Francisco Gentil', the Portuguese Cancer Institute, hereafter designated as IPOFG. The purpose, aims, methods and organization of the course will be described, and the role of the nurse in cancer prevention and early detection, stomatherapy, treatment, social reintegration and palliative care will be evaluated.     

Vegetables, Fruit Consumption and Risk of Lung Cancer among Middle-Aged Japanese Men and Women: JPHC Study

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the association between vegetable and fruit consumption and incidence of lung cancer. METHODS: Self-administered questionnaires were used to assess diet in two large population-based cohorts with 42,224 and 51,114 subjects in 1990 and 1993, respectively. After ten and seven years of follow-up, we ascertained 428 newly diagnosed case of lung cancer. Relative risk (RR) estimates were calculated using the Cox proportional hazards model with pooling of estimates from the two cohorts. RESULTS: Total vegetable and fruit intake was not associated with lowered risk of lung cancer, with RR approximating unity. The null relation between vegetable and fruit consumption and lung cancer incidence was consistent across strata of smoking status (never or ever smokers). When dividing lung cancers into adenocarcinoma and non-adenocarcinoma, risk for middle and high intakes of vegetables only, fruit only, and vegetables and fruit combined were all below one for non-adenocarcinoma and above one for adenocarcinoma, although no statistically significant differences were noted. Similar patterns of results were found when the two cohorts were analyzed separately. CONCLUSIONS: Contrary to popular belief, our results suggest that vegetables and fruit do not appear to confer protection from lung cancer.