Therapy may cut lung cancer risk

Smoking raises the risk of lung cancer

Treatment with a derivative of vitamin A called retinoic acid may help to cut former smokers’ risk of lung cancer, research suggests. It is suspected that lung cells damaged during years of smoking may continue to grow and evolve into cancer even after that person has quit.

Scientists found the therapy reduced growth among those lung cells.

The University of Texas study is published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

These early results are intriguing, but much more work is needed before we know for sure whether these chemicals could prevent or slow lung cancer growth Josephine Querido Cancer Research UK

Tobacco smoking accounts for 90% of the attributable risk for lung cancer, but the risk of the disease remains elevated for many years after people give up and never decreases to the level of that for non-smokers.

Nearly half of newly-diagnosed lung cancers occur in former smokers.

The researchers, from the university’s MD Anderson Cancer Center, work focused on 225 people who were once heavy smokers, but who had quit the habit.

The volunteers either received a three-month treatment combining a form of retinoic acid with vitamin E; a different form of retinoic acid in isolation; or a placebo.

Tissue samples

The researchers examined samples of lung tissue taken from all the volunteers before and after treatment.

They measured proliferation of the cells by recording levels of a tell-tale chemical “biomarker” called Ki-67.

Both treatments reduced cell proliferation in one layer of the lung cells - the parabasal layer.

But the researchers were surprised that neither reduced cell growth in a second, the basal layer.

They say more work will be needed to tease out the exact effects of retinoic acid treatment.

But writing in the journal, they said decreased proliferation of lung cells should slow tumour development by reducing the number of cells in which things could go wrong, and minimising the potential for uncontrolled cell growth.

Dr Eva Szabo, of the US National Cancer Institute, agreed that more research was needed before the therapy could be tested in more advanced clinical trials.

She said: “We do not have a full understanding of the effects of these agents on [lung cells] or their effects during the full spectrum of carcinogenesis.”

Josephine Querido, of the charity Cancer Research UK, said: “The effect of vitamin derivatives and supplements on lung cancer is unclear - so giving up smoking is by far the best way for smokers to reduce their risk of the disease.

“These early results are intriguing, but much more work is needed before we know for sure whether these chemicals could prevent, or slow, lung cancer growth.”

Clock change may cause tiredness

Even a small change can damage sleep routines, says Dr Stanley

Many people use the clocks going back to gain an extra hour in bed - but a sleep expert says the change can actually leave people tired. Even such small changes, said Dr Neil Stanley, can disrupt sleep routines and cause semisomnia - low grade exhaustion caused by inadequate rest.

He estimated that it could take three days to fully adjust to the change.

The Norfolk and Norwich Hospital expert said people should set aside time to wind down before going to bed.

“People may feel relaxed and refreshed as they wake up this morning after an extra hour in bed, but it will actually take three days for their body to catch up with this one-hour time shift.

The key to getting a good night’s sleep lies in winding down effectively before bedtime Dr Neil Stanley, sleep expert

“With more than 30m people up and down the country suffering from ’semisomnia’, it’s very important for them to realise just how much of a toll daylight saving takes on their body,” he said.

Dr Stanley, in a report commissioned for drinks company Horlicks, suggests that the best way for Britons to help their bodies cope with the impact of daylight savings is to set some extra time aside to relax before bedtime during the next three days.

He said: “The key to getting a good night’s sleep lies in winding down effectively before bedtime, but six out of 10 people are failing to do this regularly and are suffering as a result.

“People need to prepare for sleep in the same way they warm up before exercise.

“This is particularly important in light of the clocks going back, but I hope people will seize the opportunity to adopt new habits and start a permanent new wind-down routine.”

Museum shows 116-year-old orange

The pips can be heard rattling when the orange is shaken

A dried-up orange from the lunchbox of a miner fatally injured on the day he was due to eat it has gone on display in a Staffordshire museum. The fruit belonged to Joseph Roberts who was injured in an explosion at a Stoke-on-Trent colliery in 1891.

It had been kept by his family but has been donated to the Potteries Museum.

Spokeswoman Deb Klemperer said it may just be a piece of dried fruit but the story behind it made it an amazing piece for the museum.

Underground blasting

She said Mr Roberts, 37, of Hanley, had taken it to work at the Racecourse colliery in Etruria for his lunch on 19 February.

Unfortunately, he was badly injured when underground blasting at the colliery went wrong.

He died in hospital leaving a wife and six children.

The lunchbox was one of his effects handed back to his family, who kept it.

Now his great-granddaughter Pam Bettaney has donated it to the museum.

The orange is completely blackened and dried out - the pips can be heard rattling when it is shaken.

“His death was just one of many of the tragedies of the time. He was just one of many who died while working down the mines,” Ms Klemperer said.

The art of Sharpening Pencils

Welcome to the world of pencil sharpening - this may sound like a dull topic but there is actually a lot more to it than you think. There are a number of different sharpening styles and methods; all good artists should know them. The trick is using the right one at the right time.

Sharpening styles

There are four main points to select from; the one you choose will depend on the type of pencil you use, and the style of your drawing.

The standard point

Everyone knows about this one, its trademark conical point is the most common and the most versatile of sharpening styles. If you’re looking for a good all-rounder for most types of pencils then this is the best. Plus if you don’t have a sharpening knife then you probably don’t have a choice.

There are a couple of drawbacks with this style however. The standard point can get blunt quickly, particularly if you are using softer pencils such as charcoal. On larger drawings you will find yourself constantly sharpening the damn thing. Often lower quality pencils will contain a smaller diameter core of graphite; if this is slightly off-centre you will find the wood comes so close to the point on one side that it’s almost unusable. This can very be frustrating.

See one of my drawings done with the standard point style: Winged Skeleton: graphite pencil drawing.

The chisel point

This is a rarely seen style where the end of the pencil is cut with a knife into a chisel shape. The main benefit of the chisel is its ability to draw two types of marks on the paper; thin dark lines from along the sharp edge and softer, wider lines from the flat faces. The soft lines are great for rough construction at the start of a drawing and simply turning the pencil on its edge gives you extra precision when you need it. Another neat feature is its ’self-sharpening’ property. As you use the chisel on its face it actually helps keep the edge sharp. This means you can spend more time drawing and less time sharpening - great for softer pencils! The straight edge can also be used on an angle to give lines a calligraphy style.

One problem with the chisel design is it can be difficult to master. When drawing with the flat face it’s all too easy to accidentally roll your wrist and wear away the corners of the chisel shape. It can also take a bit of work to carve the chisel to begin with. If you can overcome these minor annoyances then the chisel point may be for you.

See one of my drawings done with the chisel point style: Sitting girl in red: Sitting nude pose in red chalk

The needle point

This is a specialist design that is carved with a knife into a sharp concave point. The idea is that such a fine point can wear down a long way before it actually becomes too blunt to use. This style is great for perfectionists who want precise control over their lines and extra fine detail.

There are a number of potential problems with this design. A fine point such as this is prone to constant breaking so it’s only suitable for harder pencils. The needle point can only make the one type of mark too, a fine line, so there is not a lot of flexibility here. Colouring in large sections of solid tone can be very time consuming so you are limited to smaller sized drawings.

See one of my drawings done with the needle point style: Man with white beard: Graphite pencil portrait

The bullet point

This is my personal favourite and one I devised myself. In this style the wood is removed from the last centimeter of the pencil then the end of the lead is sharpened into a bullet shape. Two types of marks can be made from this design; a softer line from the side of the bullet and a sharp line from the point. Like the chisel, it has a ’self-sharpening’ property. The bullet point is also good for hard and soft pencils.

There are not many drawbacks with this design except to say that it does take a minute or two to carve the design to begin with. If you haven’t tried this before, give it a go.

See one of my drawings done with the bullet point style: Man on tall stool: Soft charcoal pencil rendered drawing

Methods of sharpening

Here are the four main methods that I use.

• 
  

  Traditional pencil sharpeners

  It’s always handy to have one of these in your pencil case for a backup. If you like experimenting with lots of different media then it’s a good idea to get your hands on the double sharpeners that have two different sizes. There are a lot of great pencils out there that are a little bigger than normal so if you forget your knife then you can still sharpen them.

• 
  

  Sharpening with a knife

  A knife is the most versatile method of sharpening a pencil. It can take a little practice but it’s a very useful skill to master. Make sure you cut away from yourself and preferably over a bin. With softer leads try cutting smaller bits at a time to prevent breaking.

• 
  

  Using sand paper

  This is a neat little trick that I use regularly. Try clipping a little piece of sandpaper to your drawing board and if your pencil starts getting a little blunt just run it over the paper a few times to bring the point back. This is especially useful during quick figure drawings when there is no time to get out your sharpener.

• 
  

  Paper wrapped charcoal

  This is a very neat way to sharpen charcoal pencils. Simply pull back the string a little then peel off a roll of paper. The best thing about this method is you are left with the ‘bullet point’ style of sharpened pencil, very nice!

My ‘Living Dead Dolls’ Sadie Pencil Sharpener

This is my favourite pencil sharpener. It’s a dolls head and you stick the pencil into her eye to sharpen it. There is a little button on the back of her neck that pushes the shavings out of her mouth, very nice!

Using short pencils

Most people throw away their pencils when they get too short but I actually find them easier to use. When drawing I hold my pencil in two different ways; on its side or on its point. I’m constantly moving between the two positions as I draw and I find my hand gets in the way if I use a long pencil. With a short pencil I can fluidly and rapidly move without restriction.

I find shorter pencils so much better that I have even started chopping my new pencils in half after buying them. You get two-for-one that way! One word of advice however, after the chop make sure you make a note of the hardness on the other end, otherwise you will have all these mystery grade pencils!

So there really is a lot to say about sharpening pencils. Now with all this extra knowledge there is only one thing left for us to do… Happy drawing folks!

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Quiting Addiction?

Eight Keys to a Happier Marriage

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Collis Ta’eed of FreelanceSwitch.

Newly weds are often asked ‘how’s married life?’ As with everything in life, the answer depends on you. For some, marriage is another word for frustration and even misery. For others it is the bedrock of strength and support they build the rest of their lives around.

What are the differences that lead such a fundamental part of daily life down two totally opposing avenues? I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but I can share with you the things that have helped me in my years of marriage to what I feel is a very strong and happy relationship.

1. Work on Your Marriage. Like most of us, I learnt what I know about marriage from my parents. When my father once said to me ‘marriage requires attention, the moment you stop working on your marriage is the moment it begins to falter’ I can remember thinking, this didn’t sound very much like the movies. After all a wedding is the culmination of a movie, that’s when everything is all sorted out and you don’t have to worry about anything any more, right? Alas, like in many other things, my father has proven correct.

As we’ll discuss in the proceeding paragraphs, maintaining a healthy marriage requires sacrifices, attention and care. It helps to think of your marriage as a living thing in itself. Like all living things, it needs nourishment and protection, healing when it is sick, and space to grow and flourish.

These are all nice words, but what does that mean on a practical level? It means you need to always think about your marriage and not take it for granted. It means you need to be vigilant against things that might threaten it, not just the obvious things like temptation, but the subtle things like imbalances in responsibility and duty, comparisons to others, jealousy and so on. It means you need to nourish your marriage with thoughtfulness for the other’s needs, find time together and sometimes even time apart. It means when things are going wrong you need to stop and think about how you can improve them and perhaps what sacrifices you need to make. It means that a marriage needs to go forward, to change as you both change and to grow stronger.

2. Don’t Leave Things Unsaid. I watched a movie once – I think it was one of those British romantic comedies – where a man is asked why his marriage failed and he replies “Because we left too many things unsaid” and though I don’t normally take advice from movies, this one I took to heart.

If you don’t voice your problems they have nowhere to go. Worse if you voice them to people not in your marriage – i.e. friends, coworkers, anyone else – then instead of airing your dirty laundry you let it fester.

No matter how long two people have known each other there will still be things that they don’t pick up when unspoken. Sure you may think your partner knows what you’re thinking, but what if they don’t? Which leads us to number 3…

3. Speak Plainly. The very worst thing you can do in a relationship is play games with each other. No, not the twister or monopoly varieties, I mean mind games. It’s tempting when you are in a bad mood or when you don’t want to be hurt to be passive aggressive, to not say what you mean, to make veiled hints in order to test the other person and so on. Tempting, but it doesn’t go anywhere except sour.

I think it’s fairly obvious why clear communication leads to a better marriage, and yet it can be difficult to do. But if you have something to say, whether it is to voice some upset, to show that you care or anything else, then you must speak plainly if you hope for the other person to understand. And if you weren’t hoping for them to understand, why are you talking?

Speaking indirectly usually begins during dating or courting. We do it because it avoids us opening up to being hurt. At this early stage if you were to tell someone how much you liked them and they shot you down it would be painful. So to compensate we move slowly and only hint at our feelings until we see enough back from the other person that we start to open up. This is OK.

The problem is when speaking indirectly continues on into the relationship. At that point you should be able to trust the person enough to express your feelings. If they abuse them then you leave. By keeping your guard up you only put huge barriers in the middle of your relationship.

Speaking indirectly is also a bad idea when one person just doesn’t get it. When you have one partner playing games and the other doesn’t really understand their behaviour at times they will begin to resent the other and inevitably this will lead to problems.

Passive aggression on the other hand is when a partner rather than voicing their upsets appears to be smiling, calm, and usually puts bite into words that shouldn’t have it. Over time passive aggression can become less and less veiled and turn into exasperation, distain even disgust.

Another bad habit is what is called stonewalling. This is when a partner simply shuts the other out, going silent, ignoring them or even leaving for a time. Stonewalling has obvious consequences of frustration and anger and quickly leads to cycles of increasing problems as one person stonewalls while the other becomes more and more frustrated, then becomes less and less reasonable leading to further stonewalling.

If you only take one thing away from my words, let it be to speak plainly, avoid passive aggression, avoid games and avoid speaking indirectly. When you say what you mean and communicate your feelings clearly the other person has a proper chance to respond.

4. Be Vulnerable. Too often we don’t want to put our feelings and thoughts out there. Particularly if we’ve had bad experiences when younger, or if simply taught to be that way by watching our parents and peers. Admitting that you are vulnerable – everyone is – is the corollary to speaking plainly.

It is important to remember that this is your partner and they love you and you love them. Between the two of you, if you both speak plainly and admit vulnerability, then you will be able to resolve problems. It may take time, you may have many hurdles to get over, but what other recourse is there than resolution? After all neither of you are out to get the other - remember you love each other!

The flipside to being vulnerable is you get hurt sometimes. Don’t let this close you off, remember this just means that wasn’t the right person, circumstances or perhaps even a little closer to home, there were other things going wrong. Whatever the case, you don’t need to hide away. Without being open to hurt, you won’t be open to the joys of marriage and relationships.

5. Accept your Partner. It is tempting to find a person and try to shape them into the partner you really want. Trying to change a person never works. People know when they are not accepted in their entirety and it hurts.

You shouldn’t go into a marriage or a relationship thinking to change someone. And if you do remember the most you can do is explain what it is, explain how it affects you or why it affects you and if it’s important, then they may change. And if they don’t, then think about all the things that they may wish changed in you.

Of course if there are too many things you want to change, it is important to face that this may not be the right person for you, or you may be expecting too much. People will be what they will be, spending your marriage life trying to shift habits and personalities is like trying to push boulders up a mountain, tiring and not very fun.

6. Spend Time Together. It’s obvious, but a relationship without any face time is going to have problems. I have met happy couples who spend months apart because of work commitments, but they are few and far between and more often than not, their happiness is more a testament to their character and emotional abilities than anything else.

Of course spending time together doesn’t simply mean being in the same room, it means actively finding time where you engage with each other. It may even take work and effort, but remember from above, a happy marriage takes work!

Spending time together, also often entails spending some time alone. Children, even pets can sometimes be barriers to engaging with one another. Even if you simply have a few moments while they run off, it’s important to be alone too.

7. Make Time for Both Your Ambitions and Goals. It is all too easy to focus on your own goals and ambitions and hope or even assume that your partner shares them. If you don’t know what your partner’s life goals are, ask them.

In my marriage, I have goals that are to do largely with working, whereas my wife wants to travel the world. If we did either and not the other, one of us would feel unfulfilled. The solution is of course balance. We try to do one then a little of the other, then switch.

8. Be Clear and Assertive. While it is important to be vulnerable, to make sure your partners goals are being looked after, that you accept your partner and all the other things we’ve talked about, it’s equally important not to be trampled over. You should always be clear and assertive about your own feelings, your own needs and your own goals. Remember that your own happiness is essential to a happy marriage.

Read more from Collis Ta’eed at FreelanceSwitch.