Dr. Ivo Janecka, a CEO with Harvard Medical International’s Center for Healthcare Planning and Quality in Dubai (United Arab Emirates), received Walden University's 2007 Contribution to the Profession Award. He earned a Ph.D. in Applied Management and Decision Sciences, and his dissertation title was Prevention and Management of Colon Cancer Through Physical Activity.

“Colon cancer is a serious worldwide public health hazard, and the traditional medical approach to its management is post-hoc, expensive and traumatic to the patients and their families,” says Dr. Aqueil Ahmad, who chaired Janecka's dissertation committee. “Dr. Janecka was looking for a non-medical, inexpensive and risk-free lifestyle-preventive mechanism for this dreaded disease.”

Janecka is a surgeon by training and a former professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School as well as a former executive vice president and head of cancer control for the Florida division of the American Cancer Society.

Finding a Missing Link
“Dr. Janecka observed that medical research has long recognized the positive role of physical activity in colon cancer risk reduction, but the mechanism through which this relationship might work remained obscure,” Ahmad says. “He also observed that a similar body of research indicated that a substance called melatonin decreased in all known colon cancer etiologic categories but increased significantly with regular physical activity.”

Putting two and two together, Ahmad says, Janecka concluded that the missing link—the common denominator between the dependent variable, colon cancer risk reduction, and the independent variable, physical activity—was indeed the substance melatonin.

“It is obvious that the professional and social change implications of this discovery would be significant in Dr. Janecka's profession, medical research, encouraging further verification and advancement of his discovery,” Ahmad concludes.

Dr. Janecka’s dissertation was supervised by Ahmad and dissertation committee members Dr. Raghu Korrapati, Dr. Robert O’Reilly and Dr. Jose Quiles.

About the Award
Read more about the Contribution to the Profession Award and other recipients.

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