good morning. this is news4 your sunday. good morning. i amat p lawson muse. it's estimated this year more than 150 people every day in this country will be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. for those who are diagnosed with this particular cancer it can be a really tough battle. joining me is maggie watch. stephanie taylors a cancer survivor and a volunteer.

also joining our discussion is christina, a team capin of purple stride here in washington and also a voluntaeer. thank you for being with us. i mentioned it's a tough battle when you are diagnosed. tell us what pan can does when you are diagnosed with this >> absolutely. we adjust the disease through our research and patient services, and advocacy efforts and for anybody who is touched by this disease we want to refer you and know we are here as a resource. we have an incredible patient service called patient central so you can call 877-2-pan can. we will help patients to get enrolled in clinical trials and

even a precision efforts. >> that h cancer been in the news a lot, is that because there's an increase in the diagnosing of this effort or because it's n a highber of people now diagnosed with the disease, ruth bader ginsburg, and alex trebek, and one of our own is working with your organization to fight this disease. >> joe krebs and alex trebek, they are strengths in our community and them using their voice is putting a spotlight on the disease, and we are thank for their courage and bravery, and i am sure stephanie as a ze

kerr ph survivor can attest to this disease. >> your story, stephanie? you dire nosed at stage one. >> stage 1b. >> which is unusual, because it's usually diagnosed at a later stage. >> absolutely. i was very fortunate. my diagnose happened after an inc ental fighting,and i was a minor pain in my belly that radiated to my back, and i told my physician about it and he said let's do a sonogram of your kidneys to make sure everything is okay, and when they did they thought they saw a mass on my spleen. from there they had to do more imaging sstudo i had a cat scan followed by an mri, and they found out it was not on the and n but the pancrease,

the final diagnoses happened. >> your father was diagnosed? >> yeah, by the time he was diagnosed, he passed very quickly and it w at that point that i started doing research because i did not pt know a lot about this disease, and i didn'h know anyng about it and i wanted to know more information, and that's when i found pan can and purple stride, and i was able to get with them and see how i help. >> tell us what pancreatic cancer is and why it's so tough to treat? >> we do not have an early detection method, and most patients are diagnosed at a late stage, and so the survival rate

is just %.9 >> that's not very high. is there a known cause?is it genetics? arehere other risk factors? >> wenow the symptoms. some symptoms while they can be vague, are abdominal pain, jaundice, sudden weight loss and loss of appetite and early on set of diabetes, and w seem to know that age, smoking, a family history, pan krdiabetes, these increa your chance at getting pancreatic cancer. >> is it more prevalent in men or women? >>i n't know. >> it's a tough cancer to treat no matter w gets it. >> we are going to tell you about an important walk and run coming up in june to raise awareness and funds. we'll be right back.

welcome back. we are talking aboutat pancreic cancer, and we are going to turn the crsation to the walk and run that is coming up on june 8th. >> yes. >> tell us about it. >> sure. purple stride washington, d.c., it's a walk to end pancreatic cancer. to celebrate pancreatic cancer survivors, remember all those we lost to the disease and bring awareness so we can double survival. and it's our tenth anniversary. >> maggie and christina, you are working really hard on this. you have several teams, and one of them is chaired by chaired by crest, and we have our own team and a lot of our colleagues plan to participate in the walk. what can they expect? >> they can expect a day of

overwhelming emotion and feeling to be partf an organization that is helping to find a cure. it's really been wonderful to be part of the experience, because no matter if you are just coming out on saturday by yourself or a team of 20, everybody you meet has a story and everybody wants tto talk and be p of this, and when we start the race we start together. when we finish the race we finish together, which is what is so important. >> you can create your own team and then if you are team captain, you get an app, you can put a app on your phone, is that right, stephanie? >> yes, this is my first time bng involved with purple stride. i will be working as a volunteer. >> the app worksgreat. it's right on your own, even for technologically challenged ople like myself, their customer service is fantastic and you get live information, when a donation is made you can

send e-mails straight from your phone and it's right at your fingertips, and it's wonderful. >> what are the most important things for viewers to know about this wcancer,ich is difficult to diagnose, and difficult to treat. >> yes. i think we want all viewers to know that pancreatic cancer is the third leading cause of cancer deaths and the five-year survival rate is just 9%, so this is a disease that everybodi can beolved in as a community, we all need to taker skwrup urgent actions, and we are here to support any loved one or support anybody on their journey. >> it says a person may be mo likely to get this cancer because of these risk factors, long-standing diabetes, and we know that puts you way up there in the risk category, if you had

hereditary pancrease. and men slightly more likely to get it than women. diets high in red processed meats and obesity, they all put you in the high risk category. if you have more than one of those or a couple of those risk factors, then what you need to do is go to the doctor. ephanie, you only went to the doctor when you felt pain. >> yeah. >> did you have any ofthose risk factors? >> well, african-american. no, i didn't have any of those, there's nobody in my family that i know of that ever has had pancreatic cancer. matter fact, when i went to the doctor i just had a physical and the numbers my physical, everything was great, you know. ng.it was very shoc my doctors were very, very

surprised when they found out my diagnosis. >> yet they and you are of hasizing the importance screening to try and get an possible?gnosis if >> yeah, there is not an early detection initiative, and that's why community events like purple stride is portant, and we are funding research such as the early detection initiative. >> the walk again takesplace on june 8th and starts at freedom plaza. >> yes. >> what time do you want the lkers together? >> 8:00, registrationnd opening ceremonies and we will kick it off. >> are there fees to >> there's a fee depending on if you want to walk or run, so when you go to purplestride.org, you

can receive 10% off registration. >> purplestride, trying to learn more about a very, very scary cancer and one that obviously we need to do a lot of work to learn about and to fight. thank you so much. all of you, maggie, stephanie and christina. >> thank you. we will see yo at the walk. next, how to save your kidneys. we'll be right back. gr. why? i can't handle beltway traffigeanymore. i gottin the express lane. you're kind of freaking us out.

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may is high blood pressure months, as you no doubt haveh rd over and over and over ndain, uncontrolled hypertension is the se leading cause of kidney disease. diabetes is the first. joining us now is a doctor who is the medical director of the

joy and ron kidney center and also director of the transplant institute. it's always good to talk to you because you have such good information about this issue. hypertension, high blood pressure, the root of many , evilsnd it's even the root of one of the evils we just discussed. pancreatic cancer, is ere a relationship there? >> yes, because disease of the vessels causes all the tissues in yo body to get less oxygen,wh and your tissues are lehave less oxygen, there's a link with smoking, because smoking does the same thing, so high blood pressure and smoking, they both cause disease so it's not just your common sort of things that cause cancer that can be a problem. anything that causes hardening

of the arteries will also as increyour risk of cancer. kidneys andalize in we know how prevalent kidney n disease is i the an community and here in this area. it's the second -- high blood pressure, theecond leading cause of kidney disease? >> yes. what ually happens is most of the patients that have kidneis dse can have a combination of high blood pressure and diabetes, and they go hand and hand because of hat you are eating and people are overweight. every 10 pounds of excess weight on the body is goingto cause your blood pressure uslly to increase by at least five points on your sblood pressure, and thn type t2 dbetes.

a poor diet will increase your risk of high blood pressure and diabetes. >> hypertension, it's like a monstereople wrestle with to gain control over it, and some peoples' blood pressure could be a little high and is treated as nol big dea by the patients and also the doctors, is that true? >> yes. it's called the silent killer for a reason. people will not have symptoms usually when their bld pressure is in the 150 to 160 range in the saw stallic side, however it's starting to kill you and it must be treated. we tend to try and ignore it in the medical community because you have this thing called hypertension, and you may get nervous when you go the see your doctor and your blood pressure could go up and it's not real

digh blood pressure, but that should be followep. in other words, when you go home and relax, you should have a means of b taking yourod pressure, and make sure that whatever was measured in the doctor's office, itk went bac to normal. if it doesn't then you do have high blood pressure and it must be treated, even if it's a little above the target, and ify somebo has blood pressu of 145 or 150 above 85, that's still a target. >> well, people don't want to take pills if it's just aittle high. >> well, i tell them you start to modify your lifestyle, exeising and drinking morewa er and less preservatives, so the more i know people are getting into the pure sort of ets, lots of fruits and vegetables and cooking at home and not adding a lot of salt,

and not buying canned or -- >> processed foods. >> those things can help, but again, it must be followed up on because you make the changes and you may lose some weight a you change your diet and i will check you in a few months and c then determine if it has improved your blood pressure, and if not then you may need medication. i have had many patients that don't like medications, and keis is li saving and sustaining. >> and in some onses medicati doesn't do the trick? >> yeah, again, some patients are being diagnosed later or at last waiting until later and more symptoms before getting treated, and if you wait the hardening of arteries hae eady began, and you will need more medication, and to that it's at a much more dangerous

stage now, and kidney disease and diabetes happen when the arteries arden. >> is that hard to rever? >> no, lifestyle modifications. taking the medicines will start to alleviate some of the problems, but in other words it's not going to be as easy to fix as it would have been had you started taking medicines up front, and you maywo need or even three medications andyou may need to lose instead of 10 15 pounds, you mayo need lose 25 and 30 pounds. but it's modifying. >> we are talking about your kie eys. we'll bght back. dale's little girl is heading to college.

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factors. let's talk a little more about the kidneys and the skfactors for kidney disease. hypertension, of course, is way up there. >> again, it'sigh blood pressure and diabetes and obesity, those are the three big problems that can lead to kidney disease and we have an epidemic in this country because we have an epidemic of high blood pressure and diabetes a obesity, and each are a risk separately, and together they are a bigger risk. when we diagnose people now they are more cognizant of whyar the e moving towards kidney disease if they don't have it already, and they are more open to lifestyle changes. i think there's more options than there used to be, even in poorer areas, they have better access to gardens and freshs fruitd vegetables and we on will transitiver to eating a

healthier diet. we are seeing that more and mor and i have seen miraculous transformations of some of my patients. >> what about early symptoms? >> early symptoms will be headaches, just like high pressure you will get headaches, and you can get headaches because your kidneysre starting to fail, and they are getting swelling in their feeth and teir legs will start to swell. yohecan water in the lungs wre people will feel like at night when they go to bed they have to have a couple extra pillows to slee comfortably, and these are signs of kidney problems, and a oater sign is itching, they really start tave terrible itching and they never had it before, and that's because the toxins are building up in the body. there are signs, swelling and headache because of the high blood pressure and then itchingu

>> once yo start to experience those types of ,symptoms where are you with the stages in terms of the disease? >> five stages of kidney disease, and usually you will not have symptoms until stage four or five which is u ortunate, because the first three stages are reversible. people that might have early kidney disease get diagnosed and have the an tdisease brought under control, you can revers those problems leading to the kidney disease. once you get to stage four or five, that's call instage reinle disease. >> where can people get more information? >> the website is

www.gwkidney.org. >> thank you so much. always good to talk to you. >> thanks for having me. >> thank you for being with us. o say of news4 your sunday programs, log on to our website and click on community. i am pat lawson muse. we'll s you next week. nothing says summer like a beach trip,

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