Today’s post is unfortunately a sad one. We lost a very close family member this weekend to a long battle with a number of ailments including Cancer. It was one of those situations where our loved one was taken decades before her time, but at least it was not something that just occurred suddenly.

It’s been a very sad weekend, but at the same time one that reminds me how precious life is. I also came to the personal realization that grief is for the living, not the dead. We have to continue on through this world forever missing a part of ourselves that can never be refilled.

This weekend also reminded me of a commitment I made some time ago to help Stanford University’s Folding@Home project which researches fundamental causes of diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Mad Cow (BSE), CJD, ALS, Huntington’s, Parkinson’s disease, and many Cancers and cancer-related syndromes. Cancer and Parkinson’s have both impacted my family and I believe that with enough emphasis we can cure these crippling diseases.

And you can help Stanford’s research by simply running a tiny piece of software on your computer that only uses the spare cycles when you don’t need them.
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First of all, NO… my blog is not digressing into another porn site! Actually it’s sad, but I really debated about reporting this because nudity is involved. But I decided that it was for the common good and that the vast majority of my readers would probably appreciate the link…

The popular women’s magazine Jane has launched a Breast Health Guide, and a related Boob Blog called Show Us Yours!

The blog encourages regular women to send in a photo of their own breasts and a description about what they like about them. A LOT of women have taken up the challenge and they range from small to very, very large, and also including brave women with mastectomys, the site proves that boobs come in all shapes and sizes and that the most important thing is not what they look like, but that you are loved for who you are.
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I was so amazed at what I’m about to share here that I struggled for some time to come up with the right title. Other titles I considered:

• Florida Man Saves the World
• Man Cures Cancer and Solves Energy Crisis With One Invention
• Accidental Discovery Eliminates Need for Oil
• Saltwater Combustion - The Incredible Energy Solution

In the end, no title seems worthy of this discovery. And I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if it changed the world.
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A new study due out in June is going to show that North Americans are suffering from a huge Vitamin D deficiency and that it may be contributing to cancer rates as well as a number of other diseases.

The data suggests that hiding from the sun, or constantly wearing sunscreen could actually bring on really harmful forms of cancer such as breast, prostate, etc. as opposed to the relatively mild risk associated with skin cancer.
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I came across the following article on Wired today.

Light Therapy Spares the Scalpel and the Chemo
Cyrus Farivar 04.02.07 | 5:00 AM
Imagine you could treat cancer by taking a pill, then directing a laser light toward the location of the tumor. The growth would dissolve with no chemotherapy, and no harm to healthy tissue.

It might sound futuristic, but a select number of cancer patients already benefit from the method, called photodynamic therapy. An upgrade for the procedure could save thousands more cancer patients from the horrors of chemotherapy.
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This is the kind of thing that is so unbelievable that, well, I just don’t know whether to believe it or not. But I’m going to go ahead and believe it because I’m assuming that Ellen DeGeneres did her homework before putting this kid on national television.

Ben Underwood is a 14 year old who had cancer in his eyes when he was 2 and had them both removed. When he was around 7 he somehow figured out that if he makes a clicking noise with his tongue he can navigate from the echolocation.
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There are a lot of people out there right now hoping for some good hard evidence (no pun intended) linking sexual activity with long life. Well, if this article doesn’t convince you, I don’t know what will.

Before we get started though, it should first be stated that the benefits derived from sexual activity are more than offset by the risks associated with a promiscuous lifestyle.

That is to say that researchers almost universally agree that a healthy sex life is normally only beneficial in terms of monogamous relationships. Studies have shown that a promiscuous lifestyle can increase risks of disease by 40% due to increased risk of STDs.
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I sure hope either my current, or soon to be, sister-in-law (both doctors) responds to this article with some commentary (hint, hint)…

This article courtesy of New Scientist, and brought to my attention by Cash Struck.

It sounds almost too good to be true: a cheap and simple drug that kills almost all cancers by switching off their “immortality”. The drug, dichloroacetate (DCA), has already been used for years to treat rare metabolic disorders and so is known to be relatively safe.

It also has no patent, meaning it could be manufactured for a fraction of the cost of newly developed drugs.
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Did you know there are over 1,000,000 computers chained together across the Internet creating a giant super-computer attempting to break down the building blocks of proteins in order to find a cure for some of the world’s worst diseases. And you can join too!

If you live in the US, you can print and fax in this form for a free subscription to Cure magazine.

Cure has excellent overview articles both for laypeople and physicians.
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The US National Cancer Institute team in Bethesda, MD has successfully completed the first successful gene therapy treatment to rid a human of cancer.

For Mark Origer, 53, the treatment completely eliminated his skin cancer and another tumor on his liver shrunk enough that it could be removed surgically.
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Note to all those in the hospitality industry that if you work around a bunch of smokers, even if you don’t smoke, the second hand smoke is 45% more likely to kill you.

My favorite quotes from this article:

“…individuals with the highest levels of exposure to passive smoking of 22 hours or more a week may increase their risk of heart attack by about 45%.”

“…if current trends in smoking continues, a billion people will die this century from tobacco-related illnesses…”

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