HEALTH BULLETIN .CO

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

We don't need to know any more about sex, Mariella

There’s one subject we really don’t need to know any more about: SEX.

Like Michael Gove and Simon Cowell, sex is constantly thrust in front of us, impossible to ignore. From car ads to dish cloths, sex is used to sell.

Forget procreation or private leisure time fun, these days bonking is being touted as another activity we can all fail at — like having enough friends or being able to make one of Kirstie Allsopp’s handcrafted cards.

Next Monday, three couples will copulate in a box in a TV studio and then a panel of 'experts' will have a chat with them. You couldn't make it up. Sex Box is fronted by Mariella Frostrup (pictured) and Phillip Hodson

Sex has become something we need lessons, therapy and advice to get right, and there’s a massive industry making money out of our (imagined) lack of prowess.

Take a look at where modern society’s disproportionate obsession with sex has got us.

We are rightly concerned that children are watching porn and being groomed on the internet.

There’s massive pressure on young girls to wear sexy clothes and make-up, cheating them out of their childhood before they are ready.

Peer pressure on youths to participate in sexual acts is intense — even without celebrities boasting about bonking on social media.

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My own sexual ‘journey’ started at ten — reading a little book about the facts of life I found in Mum’s knicker drawer. A bit later I was studying The Joy Of Sex with its strangely un-erotic illustrations of couples in very complicated positions.

I managed to enjoy sex and do it regularly. Then, in the Eighties, Linda Lusardi boasted in a tabloid that she and her partner Terry ‘did it every day’ and I started to worry. What’s normal?

Women have been lectured on the G-spot and multiple orgasms

We’ve had more than four decades of advice about sexual problems on the radio, in newspaper columns and online.

A third of all internet activity is to porn sites. Women have been lectured on the G-spot and multiple orgasms. There are sexual gadgets galore.

What’s left to talk about? Is there anything with a pulse we don’t know how to copulate with?

Channel 4 thinks so. Next Monday, three couples will copulate in a box (thankfully it’s soundproofed) in a TV studio and then a panel of ‘experts’ will have a chat with them. You couldn’t make it up.

Sex Box is fronted by Mariella Frostrup, and Phillip Hodson, former agony ‘uncle’ and psychotherapist, will be questioning the participants to encourage what he calls ‘fresh honesty’ to ‘reclaim sexual truth from the lies of pornography’.

He says the show is ‘inspirational’ — but as he was paid to appear, that’s to be expected.

Phillip Hodson is media relations spokesman for the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. In other words, he’s got a vested interest in promoting therapy and this programme is touted as ‘educational’ and having a social purpose.

I profoundly disagree. It is a reality show dressed up as something more serious. It’s a peep show pretending to be the Open University.

Frank Furedi, Professor of Sociology at the University of Kent, has said that we ‘institutionalise’ therapy, that there’s a culture of ‘vulnerability’ and a growing tendency to treat people as if they lack the coping skills to deal with life.

He’s trashed this show as ‘worse than seedy porn’, pointing out that sex ‘is not just a physical act’.

Tune in if you fancy — but don’t expect to learn anything new.

I'll keep my younger man a secret thanks, Bridget

Liz Jones says she’s addicted to Bridget Jones and can’t wait for the third instalment in the life of the world’s most famous singleton, which is out next week, entitled Mad About The Boy.

Bridget Jones has never had that effect on me; the idea of waiting around for some bloke to text is not on my radar and never has been.

On lists, my advice to Bridget Jones would be: never make any list with more than four things on it, and never make a list when you've consumed more than six units of alcohol

In the new book, Darcy has been killed and Bridget is a 51-year-old single mum, a widow with two kids and a 29-year-old toy-boy.

Yesterday’s extract shows Bridget immersed in the world of social media, addicted to texting, emails, Twitter and to-do lists.

I haven’t had the kids, but I’m not ashamed about a few 20-something boyfriends. They caused me grief and utter joy in equal measure — but I’d never share that with anyone.

As for lists, my advice to Bridget would be: never make any list with more than four things on it, and never make a list when you’ve consumed more than six units of alcohol.

Number one, you can’t read your drunken scrawl next morning. Number two, you’ll feel too crummy to do more than one thing on it and you’ll be starting the next day in to-do-list debit.

Only list what you can easily achieve and then you can feel smug and reward yourself.

Speaking the unspeakable about cancer

Jennifer Saunders reckons too many cancer sufferers wear their illness like a badge

Jennifer Saunders doesn’t mince her words — interviewed about her autobiography (My Life In Laughs), she relates her experience of breast cancer, which sounds grisly.

After surgery and a course of chemotherapy, her hair fell out. Then she took tamoxifen which brought on the menopause and depression.

Jennifer is a very can-do positive person (there are two on this page today) who has a prodigious work ethic, from writing Ab Fab to French And Saunders to Jam & Jerusalem and the ill-fated Spice Girls’ musical Viva Forever!

She’s also brutally honest — after she declared herself ‘free’ of cancer, some fellow sufferers complained.

Jennifer reckons too many of them wear their illness like a badge ‘because it is the job you don’t have to work for. You suddenly get so much attention, and if you’re not used to that, I bet it can sway you a little bit!

'My job gives me the attention I would otherwise crave. They must be so p***ed off when their hair grows back. And you think: “Oh, come on, cancer is so common now.” ’

Brave words which will offend quite a few people, but there’s definitely a nugget of truth there.

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My new role model is presenter and actor Nicholas Parsons: effortlessly courteous, totally optimistic and soon to join the over-90s club, peaking at more than 500,000 for the first time.

Nicholas has admitted he used to lie about his age, but next week he will celebrate his 90th birthday and still presents Radio 4’s Just A Minute, as he has done since it began in 1967.

I saw Nicholas at the Edinburgh Festival — it was nearly 11pm and he was immaculate in blazer and cravat. He’d just been to catch up with comic Russell Kane’s show and popped backstage for a chat.

Last Saturday, John Humphrys (70 and going strong) discussed the growing number of 90-year-olds on the Today programme — sadly, the producers didn’t manage to invite any on to give their point of view, preferring a couple of experts!

Once again, old people got discussed in terms of a ‘problem’ and not something to celebrate.

Anyone for leftovers?

More from Janet Street Porter...

Heston Blumenthal was awarded more Michelin stars last week — his three restaurants now have a total of six — and our favourite boffin in the kitchen is writing another cookery book, entitled Historic Food, in which he moves on from snail porridge and reinterprets recipes we cooked in our colonies more than a century ago.

In my house, historic food means something entirely different — stuff that’s (to put it bluntly) past the first bloom of youth, a bit like me.

I cannot throw food away, am expert at recycling left-overs (lunch yesterday, cooked runner beans turned into a salad) and buy fruit and veg with reduced stickers as generally it’s ripe and has more flavour.

According to Which? magazine, with food prices soaring 12 per cent over inflation, more of us than ever are eating food that’s past its ‘best before’ date as it’s frequently discounted.

One online company, Approved Foods, which sells products close to or past their ‘best before’ dates, has more than doubled the amount they send out daily, to 32,000 items.

‘Best before’ labelling ought to be scrapped, it’s confusing and encourages waste.

Sod Heston and his coffee table tome, I think I’ll write a cheap book called Leftover Lunches.

A revolutionary laser treatment could kill off breast cancer in 15 minutes - and with no need for a mastectomy. No wonder doctors are excited

Photodynamic therapy is approved to treat four cancers, including skin, lung

Scientists are testing its efficacy in curing breast cancer

A laser beam is directed into the tumour, made light-sensitive by a drug, killing the cancer

If successful, it works without affecting the surrounding healthy tissue

Some say, though, that the evidence PDT works is 'patchy'

Pioneering patient: Fiona is taking part in a trial of photodynamic therapy

Fiona Fisher was diagnosed with breast cancer this summer and was astounded when her doctors suggested that their first move should be to try to kill the tumour by blasting it with a laser for 15 minutes.

This involved injecting a drug into the tumour to make it sensitive to light. Then, via a needle, they shone an intensive laser beam into the cancer to kill it.

'The whole thing was less invasive than the biopsy that I had to confirm the diagnosis of cancer,' says Fiona, 57, a self-employed management consultant living in Primrose Hill, North London.

While this may sound like the kind of story that has cancer doctors in despair at the gullibility of patients who fall for an expensive and unproven treatment, in fact Fiona is at the centre of one of the most carefully considered and authoritative - as well as potentially revolutionary - experiments in the field of breast cancer.

Just eight weeks ago, Fiona became concerned when the top of her left breast felt thickened and granular. Within a fortnight, she'd become one of the first four patients - there will be 30 in all - being given photodynamic therapy (PDT) in the initial phase of a new trial at the Royal Free Hospital in North London.

Photodynamic therapy was first pioneered as a cancer therapy in the UK 25 years ago, and is now approved by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) as treatment of four cancers: the skin (though not melanoma), early or late cancers of head and neck, lung and oesophageal.

'It's an extraordinary treatment that cuts the cost and time involved, and means patients don't have to undergo other treatments that cause very unpleasant side-effects,' says David Longman, founder of the charity Killing Cancer.

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'It's also quick; patients and their families know within a short period of time whether the cancer has been destroyed.' Until recently, the treatment had a major drawback: it stayed in the body for weeks, causing patients to be ultra-sensitive to ordinary light, and be unable to leave the house for weeks after treatment.

What's made the current breast cancer trial possible is the introduction of new drugs that leave the body within 48 hours.

As with all the trial participants, Fiona spent 48 hours after her treatment in a darkened room in a private ward of the Royal Free Hospital. 'It was a wonderful and quite luxurious rest,' she recalls.

Experts predict that photodynamic therapy could eventually make the non-invasive treatment the norm for some types of breast cancer. In other words, a cure without the need for surgery.

Light show: After a drug is injected into the tumour to make it sensitive to light, an intensive laser is beamed into the cancer to kill it

'The beauty of this technology is that, if successful, it works without affecting the surrounding healthy tissue, leaving the breasts completely intact,' says Professor Mohammed Keshtgar, a breast cancer surgeon at the Royal Free who is leading the new research.

This trial of photodynamic therapy is the first to test it for primary (newly diagnosed) breast cancer.

The initial stage of the trial is 'a dose-escalating study' to discover the most effective combination dose of drugs and light, with the patients receiving an MRI scan before and after the treatment to gauge its impact on the tumour.

As the treatment is unproven, the women in the trial have had to agree to undergo a full mastectomy afterwards: the trial cannot put the participants at any risk of their cancer returning. But the tissue removed during mastectomies will be analysed to check the effects of the photodynamic therapy.

Which is why, just a couple of days after emerging from the Royal Free's private wing, Fiona returned to the NHS operating theatre at the hospital to have a full mastectomy, as well as a reconstruction of her left breast. And next week she will embark on chemotherapy and radiotherapy, followed by a course of hormone tablets.

'The beauty of this technology is that, if successful, it works without affecting the surrounding healthy tissue, leaving the breasts completely intact.'

'I may be getting no benefit myself, but to know my contribution might change the experience of breast cancer for women in the future makes it worthwhile,' she says.

The Royal Free team is determined to discover the truth about photodynamic therapy in cancer treatment. While other centres, including University College London, have studied PDT, there's been a lack of properly funded, authoritative research. And Cancer Research UK also insists that the evidence is 'too patchy'.

What's more, NICE's approval of photodynamic therapy for skin and oesophageal cancer comes with warnings that the evidence in favour of it is 'of poor quality', and that hospitals should consider this when deciding whether to use it.

It's hoped the new trial will convince more people in the field to try PDT.

'Surgeons are largely comfortable with PDT because they are used to using equipment such as lasers,' says Dr Mahendra Deonarain, honorary reader in antibody technology and therapeutics at Imperial College London, and chief science officer at Photobiotics, a company pioneering more targeted ways of delivering the treatment.

'But cancer treatment today is decided by a multi-disciplinary team. It's difficult for these different specialties to communicate the benefits well enough to bring about a dramatic change in treatment.'

The first phase of the three-stage Royal Free study is recruiting patients, but this should be completed within two years.

The next phase will involve recruiting a larger group of women who have been diagnosed with breast cancer but refuse a mastectomy for personal reasons, or are unfit for surgery.

Foregoing mastectomy: Fiona Fisher had a full mastectomy after taking part in the trial, but if it's proven to be effective, those undergoing photodynamic therapy will not need surgery

'We will be asking them to undergo PDT without any further treatment - and then follow their progress over several months to discover whether the age of the patient and the sort and grade of the tumour affects the efficacy of the treatment - and compare the results with women treated conventionally,' says Professor Keshtgar.

'It's essential that we leave no room for doubt about the outcome of this trial.

'If it works, we want the treatment to be fully approved by NICE and to be widely available for breast cancer patients.'

Dr Keyvan Moghissi, clinical director of the Yorkshire Laser Centre in Goole, East Yorkshire, says it's important that patients' expectations of the therapy are realistic.

'It's hugely effective for the right cancers, but it doesn't work for every patient,' says Dr Moghissi, who, as editor of the journal Photodiagnosis and Photodynamic Therapy, has overseen the publication of scores of papers on the treatment.

More importantly, at the centre in East Yorkshire, he has been using PDT as a cancer treatment for over 20 years, but says he usually recommends the treatment for only around one in ten of patients.

'It doesn't work for many cancers such as leukaemia, and it's only successful when the tumour is very localised,' he says. 'What's more, often the best results are achieved when PDT is used alongside the conventional therapies: surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy.'

Yet such a view may change with the new study. So far, four women have received photodynamic therapy and MRI - and in at least some of these it seems the cancer has cleared completely.

While Professor Keshtgar gives little away, he admits 'the whole team is feeling very encouraged' and that, aged 50, he hopes to see the introduction of photodynamic therapy for newly diagnosed breast cancer 'within my career lifetime'. But there is a long journey ahead.

'The purpose of the research at the moment is to get the dose right, not treat the tumour. But we are noting whether the tumour is visible in the second, post-treatment MRI scan and in the mastectomy tissue under the microscope. And there are hopeful signs.'

Tiny, gas-filled beads could treat erectile dysfunction even better than Viagra

The spheres are injected into the penis where they slowly release nitric oxide

This widens blood vessels, improving blood supply to the area

Tiny plastic beads filled with gas may help men overcome impotence - and early results show that the treatment is more effective than Viagra.

The beads - less than 1mm wide- are injected into the penis, where they slowly release a gas called nitric oxide. This helps widen blood vessels, improving blood supply to the area.

Alternative: Tiny plastic beads, which improve blood supply in the penis, have been shown to be a more effective treatment than Viagra

An erection is caused by blood flowing into special chambers along the length of the penis.

These chambers are supplied by a network of delicate blood vessels - and so anything that damages these vessels will disrupt blood supply and could lead to impotence. It is for this reason that men with high blood pressure, cholesterol and diabetes are at increased risk of erectile dysfunction. Some estimates suggest that 50 to 75 per cent of diabetic men are affected.

Several drug treatments - including sildenafil, sold as Viagra - have been shown to be successful for erectile dysfunction, but for some reason a third of men do not respond to them.

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Now the beads may provide an alternative. Previous trials on heart disease patients have suggested that nitric oxide helps widen blood vessels. Other studies suggest levels of the gas may decline as men age.

In a new trial at Rice University in the U.S., scientists injected the spheres into the corpus cavernosum, the regions of the organ that fills with blood and triggers an erection. Results showed a boosted erectile function for three weeks, and a greater improvement than with sildenafil.

The treatment was given to animals with induced type 2 diabetes, but the researchers believe the treatment could be used for erectile dysfunction due to other conditions.

Now the team behind the study, which was published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, is planning to test the beads in human trials.

The scientists say the treatment could also be used alongside drugs for erectile dysfunction, and it could be available within five years if trials are successful.

Commenting on the trial, Professor Raj Persad, from Bristol Urological Institute, said the beads may also have benefits for overall health, as they could help boost blood flow throughout the whole body - even if they are placed only in the genital area.

'This new technology is a welcome approach to the management of erectile dysfunction.

'The beneficial effects of the nitric oxide may be seen not only in erections but in protective and beneficial cardiovascular effects. I look forward to this treatment being licensed for use in the UK as it seems both safe and effective on the data presented.'

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Saddle up: Scientists have developed a new type of bike seat they say could reduce the risk of impotence

Meanwhile, scientists have developed a new type of bike saddle that they say could reduce the risk of impotence.

Previous studies suggest cycling regularly can compress blood vessels in the groin that supply the penis. In one trial of male cyclists, blood supply to the penis was reduced in 70 per cent of them.

This could have several adverse effects. Previous research suggests that riding a bike for more than three hours may increase the risk of developing erectile dysfunction.

It has also been suggested that regular cycling may increase the risk of an inflamed prostate - prostatitis - though experts say more evidence is needed.

Now researchers at the University of Alicante in Spain say they have developed a saddle that may avoid this problem.

It has a hinge in the middle and allows the front to be dropped to a variety of angles, relieving pressure on the groin.

The device is in the prototype stage and is undergoing tests to see just how effective it is at reducing the risk of impotence and or prostatitis.

Pages

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

We don't need to know any more about sex, Mariella

More...

I'll keep my younger man a secret thanks, Bridget

Speaking the unspeakable about cancer

Anyone for leftovers?

More from Janet Street Porter...

A revolutionary laser treatment could kill off breast cancer in 15 minutes - and with no need for a mastectomy. No wonder doctors are excited

More...

Tiny, gas-filled beads could treat erectile dysfunction even better than Viagra

More...