Colon

Disco legend Donna Summer, 63, died Wednesday night, reportedly of lung cancer. As of press time, her family hadn't released details about her illness, so it was unknown what type of lung cancer she had, and how long she may have been ailing. According to the American Cancer Society , lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in both women and men, killing more than 150,000 people per year -- more than colon, breast, ovarian and prostate cancers combined. In 2012, the group estimates, there will be about 226,000 new cases of lung cancer in the U.S. Survival rates of people with lung cancer are low. Only about half of people diagnosed with early-stage non-small-cell lung cancer (the more common type)

Robin Gibb, a singer and songwriter who joined two of his brothers in forming the Bee Gees pop group that helped define the sound of the disco era with the best-selling 1977 soundtrack to"Saturday Night Fever," has died. He was 62. Gibb died Sunday after battling cancer and while recuperating from intestinal surgery, family spokesman Doug Wright announced. This spring Gibb had been hospitalized in London with advanced colorectal cancer. He had intestinal surgery in March and, after contracting pneumonia, was unable to attend the April 10 premiere in London of "The Titanic Requiem," a classical composition he wrote with his son, Robin-John, to coincide with the 100th anniversary observance of the luxury ocean liner's sinking.

Judging from all of the yogurt and laxative ads on TV, lots of people have their minds squarely lodged on their digestive tracts. Concerns about colon health have definitely been a boon for the alternative medicine industry. Herbalists, naturopaths and other alternative practitioners often claim that they can improve a person's overall health, mood and energy levels simply by cleaning and detoxifying the colon. People who don't want to hire a professional have lots of options for a do-it-yourself colon cleaning.

Was the entire month of March, when Albert Pujols was crushing balls all over the Cactus League, the Angels were scoring runs in bushels and the starting pitchers were dominating, just a desert mirage? Twelve games into the season, which continued to spiral with Wednesday night's 6-0 loss to the Oakland Athletics, the Angels are 4-8, six games behind the Texas Rangers in the American League West and looking every bit as listless as they did for much of 2010 and 2011. They began 2012 with World Series aspirations and a $151-million payroll filled with All-Stars, but their performance hasn't come close to matching expectations.

Final laboratory reports showed Saturday that a polyp removed from the colon of Defense Secretary-designate John Tower is benign, confirming that he is free of cancer after the removal of malignant cells Dec. 27. Tower, 63, a former senator from Texas, was in good condition at Baylor University Medical Center. Doctors removed a 4-centimeter polyp and 12 inches of Tower's colon on Thursday, his surgeon said during a news conference Friday.

Juan Antonio Samaranch, 68, president of International Olympic Committee, is expected to remain hospitalized in Barcelona, Spain, for another two days undergoing treatment for a bleeding colon ulcer that doctors say is not serious.

Amgen Inc. said its cancer drug Vectibix was effective for advanced colon cancer patients as a second-line therapy, a finding consistent with results released Aug. 6 for the therapy as an initial treatment. A study found that Vectibix "significantly improved" the time before symptoms worsened in advanced colon cancer patients with a certain gene mutation, the Thousand Oaks company said.

Want to have a best seller? Easy, just stick a colon in your title. Of the top 15 titles in your Aug. 24 "best-seller" list, nine had colons, and they weren't all about losing weight or gaining years, either. E. S. WALKER Culver City

AGUSTIN, really now. Are you sure you were in Panama ["Panama, Primed," by Agustin Gurza, June 25]? Someone has given you a snow job! The Hotel Panama has poor service, the roads are a disaster, the "freeway" to Colon (the second-largest city in the republic) was never completed. Portobelo is a national disgrace, rotting and deteriorating like Colon, the most crime-ridden city on the Caribbean side. If this country doesn't do something about its basic infrastructure -- and soon -- it's going to implode.

President Juan Antonio Samaranch of the International Olympic Committee took a brief stroll outside the Barcelona clinic where he is being treated for a colon ulcer and said he will be released today. Samaranch, 68, told reporters that he plans to leave Quiron Clinic and return to his IOC work in Lausanne, Switzerland, but joked he is staying another day "because it's comfortable and I'm being cared for better than at home."

Rep. Donald Payne, the first African American elected to Congress from New Jersey and the dean of that state's delegation, died Tuesday after a long battle with colon cancer. He was 77. Payne represented New Jersey's heavily democratic 10th District, encompassing parts of Union, Hudson and Essex counties, including sections of Newark. He was a teacher, business executive and local officeholder before winning his seat in Congress in 1988. He was easily reelected 11 more times. Payne was chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation and had held several leadership roles in the House.

Here's your take-me-home-tonight Tuesday roundup of consumer news from around the Web: -- There's no sugar high for Hostess Brands, maker of the Twinkie and other fine products. The company is reportedly preparing to go back into bankruptcy just two years after completing its last bankruptcy proceedings. People familiar with the matter say the company is facing a cash crunch with more than $860 million in debt, high labor expenses and rising ingredient costs. When Hostess, then called Interstate Bakeries, filed for bankruptcy protection in 2004, it blamed low sales and high fixed costs.

Patients with a genetic condition that increases their risk of colon and other cancers who took aspirin daily developed colon cancer less often than patients who took a placebo, researchers reported Thursday. The study, which was the first randomized controlled trial to look at the effect of aspirin on cancer rates, was published in the journal the Lancet. Professor John Burn, a geneticist at Newcastle University in England, led the research team.  The group followed 861 people with Lynch syndrome, which increases the risk of developing colon and other cancers.  Some of the patients took two 600 mg aspirins every day, others took a placebo.

Ginger root supplements may help tamp down markers for colon inflammation, a study finds. The study, published online Tuesday in the journal Cancer Prevention Research , included 30 men and women who were randomly assigned to take 2 grams of a ginger root supplement or a placebo for 28 days. The participants were at normal risk for colon cancer -- they had no family history of the disease and no evidence of the disease. Ginger root is a popular supplement that's often used to treat stomach ailments.

In England, getting screened and treated for colorectal cancer -- the second leading cause of cancer death in the United Kingdom and worldwide -- is free.  So why do only about half of thepopulation go through with it? The answer, suggests a new study in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, is something of a self-fulfilling prophecy:people believe if they're going to get cancer, they'll die from it anyway, so why bother? This attitude, known as cancer fatalism, is known to be a factor in African Americans' lower rates of colorectal cancer screening in the U.S.  It may also be a key reason people of lower socioeconomic status in the U.K. fail to follow through on testing, reported University of London Psychologist Anne Miles and colleagues.

Colon cleansing? Seriously, why would anyone go get their guts irrigated out if they didn't have to do it, say, as prep for a colonoscopy?  OK, so I'm not a stellar housekeeper.  I first read of the practice back in the early 1990s in  an article by Cecil Adams , who answers readers' questions in his "The Straight Dope" column, and it made an impression. "We're talking about a high-tech enema here," Cecil wrote as part of his detailed -- too detailed -- response to a question about the practice.

Senior Food and Drug Administration officials are planning how to bring back to market a pill for a common bowel disorder despite new evidence that the risk of a life-threatening complication is far higher than thought when the drug was withdrawn in November, government documents show. The FDA began reconsidering the withdrawal amid an outcry from patients who say they benefited from the prescription drug, called Lotronex.

When viewers were first introduced to Javier Colon on "The Voice," he was just a guy with a backward baseball cap, crooning an affecting rendition of Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time. " Fast-forward nine weeks and Colon — now embracing sleek suits and a hat-free head — is booking appearances on "Today" and "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno" as the first winner of NBC's surprise hit talent competition. "I feel some pressure," Colon said Wednesday after the show's finale. The 34-year-old singer-songwriter from Stratford, Conn., beat runner-up Dia Frampton and fellow finalists Beverly McClellan and Vicci Martinez.

They survived the blind auditions, managing to entice the jaded ears of coaches Christina Aguilera, Cee Lo Green, Adam Levine and Blake Shelton to make it to the next round. And they duked it out (vocally) with fellow contestants during the battle rounds. Competing to be the inaugural winner of "The Voice" are: Vicci Martinez (Team Cee Lo) is an acoustic rock singer-songwriter who hails from Washington. Martinez, 26, has released multiple albums and won the regional tryouts for "American Idol" in its debut season.