Breast Cancer Awareness Month begins on October 1 -- still 19 days away -- and already pink products, which already have quite a public presence, are out in full force. I've seen pink socks, pink umbrellas, pink sports bottles, pink coolers, pink shirts, and my favorite -- pink M&M'S®.

The M&M'S® brand proudly supports the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation and will donate 35 cents from each 14 ounce bag and 50 cents from each 21.3 ounce bag sold. A minimum of $250,000 will be donated to assist in eradicating breast cancer as a life-threatening disease. Funds will support the advancement of research, education, screening, and treatment. What a sweet deal.

Pink M&M'S® will be available on retailer shelves during September, October, and November.

A chemical found in hard plastics -- such as CD cases, baby bottles, food-storage containers, and even electronics parts -- has been loosely linked to incidences of breast cancer. Popular opinion cautions that if we were not worried about this news yesterday, we should not be worried about it today -- because studies are preliminary and nothing is definitive at this point. But there are definitely two sides to the debate over how harmful these hard plastics may be.

The chemical in question -- a pseudo-estrogen called bisphenol-A (BPA) -- appears to be absorbed by breast tumor cells, according to a new study published in the August 28 issue of Chemistry & Biology. Previous studies have linked small exposures of BPA to prostate abnormalities in mice that suggest a link between the plastic chemical and human prostate cancer. Some studies even theorize that embryonic and fetal exposure might influence mental retardation and birth defects. And because this pseudo-estrogen is a synthetic material that in human cells can trigger estrogenic effects, breast cancer now comes up as a disease that may result from this questionable chemical.

Critics say that average levels of the chemical found in urine is infinitesimally small -- about one part per billion. Some say the results of this research come from in-vitro studies that one expert says can never fully explain human disease. Yet the real crux of the matter, according to another expert, is that we are surrounded by all sorts of chemicals that are pseudo-estrogenic -- not just BPA -- and it's the cumulative effects that we do need to worry about.

"I will never forget what the experience has taught me....who I am, who I want to be, who I can never be again. It was a hard time but I'd rather have the really hard stuff than to never know what I know now." -- Sheryl Crow, Letter from the Road.

Sheryl Crow has returned to performing after her breast cancer diagnosis and treatment last spring, and she keeps an online diary. In the latest post Letter from the Road: The C, The Food, A Star, she shares some of her thoughts about being a cancer survivor and tips from her nutritionist. A few of the tips I already knew, some came as a surprise. Here is a sampling of what Sheryl said her nutritionist Rachel Bellar taught her:

• Don't drink water from a bottle that has been sitting in your car. Heated plastic will bleed toxic substances that can be carcinogenic.
• Do NOT cook in olive oil at high heat. This too is carcinogenic. It is fine to saute in olive oil but if you are browning or frying, use canola oil.
• Spices that are cancer preventative, particularly prostate and colon cancer, are cinnamon and tumeric.
• A high omega 6 diet consisting of fish, colorful vegetables, high fiber foods have proven to be cancer preventative. In Asian and Eskimo cultures, the rate of breast cancer is shockingly lower. Whenever you have a choice, go with color -- brown rice instead of white -- sweet potato instead of regular potato.
  

Basically, bright dark and green. I knew that olive oil is good for you, but I did not know that it is dangerous to cook with it at high heat. To read more tips, and to find out about the star in the title of her latest diary entry, go here.

The new Netscape launched today, offering a voter news-based format that looks sweet. I will like it better once they get all the kinks worked out and the news is a bit more fresh. As a blogger for Life Sciences, I first visited the Health & Fitness channel. The most voted for story is linked to The New Scientist's Organic ketchup helps fight cancer. Two years ago, in January 2005, it was reported that Agricultural Research Service researchers analyzed 13 different ketchup brands for lycopene content -- lycopene is a very well-known cancer prevention nutrient -- and found the organic brands of ketchup had more lycopene. One brand of organic ketchup had about five times as much lycopene per weight as a tomato. The darker the ketchup the better.

Jay Garcia made a valid point when he commented, "Organic ketchup in a plastic bottle sorta defeats the purpose unless of course you're putting it on an organic hamburger." I'd have to agree with Garcia. Maybe the ketchup companies have that figured out by now and are offering organic ketchup in a type of container that isn't linked to increased cancer risks. Otherwise, does sort of defeat the purpose.

Prostate cancer has been on the rise for the last thirty years. A small but growing group of scientists are beginning to prove with research what environmentalists and activists in the cancer community have been saying for some time -- the link between environmental toxins that mimic estrogens in the body and reproductive cancer is not coincidental. University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Cincinnati researchers have just completed a study that shows a direct link between the chemical, bisphenol A or BPA -- that leaks from plastic products we use in daily life -- to the development of prostate cancer in later life.

According to the researchers, these findings could have major implications for human disease, and could, at least in part, explain why the prostate cancer rate has surged. Used for about half a century, BPA is a key component in the manufacture of polycarbonate plastic and is one of the world's most widely used industrial chemicals. Unlike carcinogenic chemicals that can cause profound damage to DNA and trigger cancer, BPA seems to cause subtle changes that are passed from one generation to the next generation. It all starts in the womb. To read more, go here.