On March 2, 2007, a dietitian with the Jay Monahan Center at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center released some simple steps to reduce colorectal risk. For a healthy colon, they recommend to eat a rainbow. Here are their tips:

1. Eat nonred, nonprocessed meat sources of lean protein.

2. Choose a rainbow of vegetables and fruits (eat a rainbow).

3. Increase fiber intake.

4. Add more calcium to the diet.

5. Add vitamin D, the sunshine vitamin.

6. Add folic acid to the diet.

7. Drink plenty of water.

8. Stay active.

For more information on this release, contact [email protected].

Using gene chips to profile tumors before treatment, researchers at Harvard and Yale Universities found markers that identified breast cancer subtypes resistant to Herceptin, the primary treatment for HER2-positive breast cancer according to a press release on February 20, 2007, from the American Association for Cancer Research, which is the world's oldest and largest professional organization dedicated to advancing cancer research. This advance could help further refine therapy for the 25% to 30% of breast cancer patients with this class of tumor. They also discovered that resistant tumors continue to overexpress the HER2 growth factor protein-an important finding given that many scientists had thought that loss of HER2 was likely responsible for Herceptin resistance. For more information, contact [email protected].

A panel of experts has recommended major changes to the guidelines used to determine treatment via intraspinal infusion for patients suffering from severe chronic pain according to a press release from the Polyanalgesic Consensus Panel on February 21, 2007. The 2007 Polyanalgesic Consensus Panel brought together a group of national leaders in chronic pain management for the purpose of updating their current algorithm. Physicians treating patients with severe pain can now turn to increasingly sophisticated pump-and-catheter drug delivery systems. However, they must choose from a growing number of novel drugs created for these systems, as well as existing drugs newly approved for intraspinal infusion. For more information, contact [email protected].

Working in a critical care environment is stressful for both nurses and physicians. Stress and burnout are always a possibility. Several studies have reported high incidences of burnout syndrome, depression, posttraumatic stress disorder, and anxiety. All of these can affect the quality of the work environment, work hours, and interdisciplinary relationships. Strategies to reduce the stress in critical care include improving nurse-physician communication and enhancing interdisciplinary collaboration. For more information, contact http://ajrccm.atsjournals.org/content/vol175/issue7/index.shtml.