Lung Cancer Facts Made Simple

Are you the kind who likes to take a lighthearted look at the serious issues of life? If that’s the case, you might like this book:

57 Good Things About Chemotherapy (Paperback)
Authors - Alec Kalla, Andy Williamson
ISBN: 0970914903

The whole purpose of this book is to help cancer patients laugh at cancer diagnosis and chemotherapy. How is that possible? Well, you’ve got to read the book to find out.

Keep in mind that gifting this book to a lung cancer patient involves quite a bit of risk. Why? Because the book makes fun of their situation in many ways. Life-threatening diseases are highly sensitive issues for many people and they may not like to have any aspect of their situation made fun of.

But if you are a cancer patient yourself and would like to explore the lighter side of the disease, do check this out. You do need a bit of a morbid sense of humor to digest this one, though. But in the end, humor is a matter of personal taste, not social dictum. So it’s really up to you.

If you haven’t already, check out these useful articles on the causes of lung cancer and the early symptoms of lung cancer for some must-have information.

Here’s another book worth reading for cancer patients and their families:

Eating Well Through Cancer: Easy Recipes & Recommendations During & After Treatment Authors - Holly Clegg, Gerald, M.D. Miletello
ISBN: 0961088877

Patients on cancer-treatment drugs often find that their appetite vanishes into thin air and their taste buds seem to have a mind of their own. If that’s you, you may find the recipes in this book very useful. The recipes themselves are mostly quite easy to make and use everyday food items readily available in your kitchen.

The authors have specific recipe recommendations depending on the kind of treatment you are taking. They also take into account side effects you may experience and suggest recipes accordingly.

For those whose treatments are over, the authors have helpful ideas on healthy eating to build up the body’s strength and resistance power.

Overall, an excellent, practical read for all cancer patients including those affected by lung cancer.

The first one to check out is:

Lung Cancer: A Guide to Diagnosis and Treatment
by Walter J. Scott M.D.
ISBN 1886039437

Has a fair bit of information for the layman. The author covers areas like diagnosis of lung cancer (with an emphasis on early detection), cancer staging and its uses, treatments for lung cancer including radiation, surgery, chemotherapy, etc.

He also digs into clinical trials for lung cancer drugs and why they are important. There is a section on alternative treatments that some will find useful. The emotional side of lung cancer is a must read section. By the way, here is an article with some useful answers to the question how do people cope with cancer.

Strangely enough, lung cancer receives less funding than some other cancers, despite being the number one killer cancer in America and other nations. The author speaks out about this situation as well.

Here’s another book to check out.

Chicken Soup for the Surviving Soul: 101 Healing Stories About Those Who Have Survived Cancer (Paperback) by Jack Canfield et al
ISBN: 1558744029

The Chicken Soup series are worldwide bestsellers. Perhaps you have read a few of those books. They contain heartwarming stories, words of wisdom and wit from people right around the world who have lived through various life situations with varying degrees of success.

In this book, 101 cancer survivors talk about their experiences. Their words will not fail to light the lamp of hope, determination, positive attitude and much more that are essential to successfully fighting this disease. This book will help you face your situation with greater calmness and a sense of peace. Well worth a read. It’ll be available at a bookstore near you.

Did you know that lung caner kills more women every year than breast cancer? After heart disease, lung cancer is the leading cause of death in both men and women. What makes it worse is that women, it seems, have an increased susceptibility to lung cancer as compared to men.

As usual, it is smoking that is the single biggest risk factor when it comes to women developing lung cancer. Even exposure to passive cigarette smoke — where the women does not smoke herself, but is exposed to second-hand smoke from other smokers in the vicinity — increases the risk substantially. In fact, passive smoking may be even riskier because the smoke enters the body without any filtering.

See this article to know how many people have cancer in the United States.

It is estimated that about 20 percent of women in Western societies still smoke. This is in spite of sustained media campaigns that highlight the dangers of smoking, in practically all countries.

The Journal of Clinical Oncology notes that women who smoke are at greater risk of developing lung cancer as compared to men who smoke. Even women who have never lit up a smoke in their entire lives are at greater risk of going down with lung cancer than men in comparable situations.

This difference is on account of metabolic, hormonal and other differences between men and women.

Nor is it only smoking that increases risks of cancer. Does make-up cause cancer? Apparently it does, see that article for more information.

If a woman quits smoking, does her risk of developing lung cancer come down to that of women who never smoked? Unfortunately, no. Once you have smoked for at least some length of time, you will always have a higher risk of developing lung cancer. However, the overall risk does come down once you quit smoking. So it does make plenty of sense to get rid of smoking forever.