According to Breast Cancer UK, maintaining a healthy weight is one of the best ways to reduce the risk of developing cancer. The organization is featuring the efforts of three women and one man as they chronicle their progress in the Ten Top Tips ten week weight loss program.

Led by specialist dietician Weight Concern Alison Chipperfield, the four volunteers Liz Ainsworth, Emma Russell, Stacey Delaney and Mike Chapman will share the personal efforts of losing weight with diet and lifestyle changes in reaching a greater level of health. To follow the weekly updates, visit Ten Top Tips Reduce the Risk.

Cancer Research UK also features a Healthy Eating area of the organization's website highlighting comprehensive information and resources in cancer prevention through diet and healthy eating tips.

According to Cancer Research UK, "Experts think that about a quarter of all cancer deaths are caused by unhealthy diets and obesity. Our diet influences our risk of many cancers, including cancers of the colon, stomach, and breast. You can reduce your cancer risk by eating a healthy, balanced diet that is high in fiber, fruit and vegetables, and low in red and processed meat and saturated fat."

Through support in funding, Cancer Research UK is involved in the EPIC study. The study -- called the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) -- is an enormous undertaking involving 521,483 individuals in 10 different European countries. EPIC is unique because the populations being tracked are so diverse in eating habits. But this is precisely what gives the study the advantage it has in making comparisons and noting trends.

In celebration of his 50th birthday, fitness enthusiast Patrick Thompson and his over-sized inflatable penguin Percy start the epic journey to cycle across Australia to raise funds for child cancer research today.

His fundraiser was inspired by the loss of three friends to cancer. Thompson estimates it will take 80 days to finish the journey from Margaret River in WA to the Manning River at Taree in NSW. He hopes to raise more than $50,000 for the Children's Leukemia and Cancer Research Foundation.

According to if it's bloody easy, everybody would be doing it Thompson, he has been training most of his life for this unusual and challenging event. The Pedalling Penguin Appeal website has been launched where you can learn more about Thompson, Percy the Penguin, check his progress at Where is Patrick? and donate a few dollars to a worthy cause.

According to the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR), the world's most comprehensive cancer study being conducted in establishing the link between diet and cancer risk has been going on for over a decade and few people hear about it. Over 80 scientific papers based on the study have been published in journals such as the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, the Lancet, the Journal of Nutrition.

The study -- called the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) -- is an enormous undertaking involving 521,483 individuals in 10 different European countries. EPIC is unique because the populations being tracked are so diverse in eating habits. But this is precisely what gives the study the advantage it has in making comparisons and noting trends.

According to EPIC, a few of the emerging results found in the link between diet and cancer are:

• Consumption of meat sharply increased risk of stomach cancer and esophageal cancer. For every 100 grams of meat consumed by subjects, risk for stomach cancer more than tripled. The association between meat intake and stomach cancer was considerably stronger among subjects with populations of H. pylori bacteria in their stomachs.
• Two indicators of abdominal obesity, waist circumference and waist-to-hip ratio, were strongly associated with colon cancer risk in both sexes. Men with the largest waist circumference had 39 percent higher risk of colon cancer than men with the smallest, for example, while women in the study with the largest waist circumference has a 48 percent higher risk than women with the smallest waists.
• Blood samples of women with breast cancer were compared to blood samples of women without breast cancer. Women over 60 whose blood was given under non-fasting conditions, high levels of serum C-peptide, that could reflect insulin resistance -- long suspected of contributing to cancer risk -- was associated with a doubling of breast cancer risk.
• The risk for oral and pharyngeal cancers drop by 9 percent for every 80 grams of fruits and vegetables consumed per day.
  

Researchers are beginning to come to some conclusions involving the data they have to date that clearly shows that globally, diets that are high in fruits, vegetables, fiber and fish are associated with greater cancer prevention -- with obesity and sedentary lifestyles much larger factors in increasing cancer risk.

Cancer ... it's kind of a big deal. That is the tagline for the Cross Country for Cancer blog. In a benefit to raise awareness and funds for cancer research at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center of Johns Hopkins University and for the American Cancer Society, six international college students are spending 45 days of summer cycling across America. The Cross Country for Cancer cycling team, who began their 4,000 mile journey in San Francisco, California, 13 days ago, plan to finish in Baltimore, Maryland.

Cross Country for Cancer is blogging the daily challenges and adventures of the cycling journey across America where this group of college students -- John Lian of Amherst; Ezra Pierce of Oxford; Jacob Pierce of UC Santa Barbara; Patrick Garfjeld Roberts of Oxford; Max Capener of Oxford; and David Lauterbach of Wheaton -- basically came up with a big idea and without any self-admittedly realistic sense of what is possible, simply agreed to go for it.