Health Highlights: July 22, 2008

Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by editors ofHealthDay:

Study Examining High Cancer Incidence in U.S. South

Researchers plan to recruit 90,000 people in 12 Southern states in an effort to learn why the South has become the cancer belt of the United States and why blacks have higher rates of several kinds of cancer,United Press Internationalreported.

Brain cancer and lung cancer are among those that disproportionately affect people living in the South.

"When you look at a map of brain cancer incidence in the United States the Southeast just lights up in red," Dr. Reid Thompson, of Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center in Nashville said in a news release.

The researchers will look at study participants' lifestyles, family medical histories and risk factors for cancer and other serious diseases,UPIreported.

"We're asking patients about their diets, possible job-related exposure to cancer causing chemicals, and we're collecting DNA samples," Thompson said.

-----

Plant-Based Cancer Vaccine Shows Promise

A plant-based cancer vaccine that kick-starts the immune system and can be tailored to target specific tumor types shows promise, according to U.S. researchers who tested the vaccine on 16 people with incurable follicular B-cell lymphoma.

More than 70 percent of the patients developed an immune response and none of them showed any significant side effects,Agence France-Pressereported. The study appears in the journalProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"The idea is to marshal the body's own immune system to fight cancer," said study senior author Ronald Levy of the Stanford Medical Center. "We know that if you get the immune system revved up, it can attack and kill cancer."