Hormonal therapy for prostate cancer can cause many side effects, one being bone loss. The goal of the hormonal therapy is to reduce the levels of the male hormones, called androgens, in the body. The main androgen is testosterone. Androgens can stimulate prostate cells to grow and lowering the levels often makes prostate cancer cells shrink or grow more slowly.

The Annals of Internal Medicine published an article that says Fosamax (alendronate) can prevent and even reverse bone loss associated with hormonal treatment for prostate cancer.

A trial was conducted that showed after one year bone density had increased among patients treated with Fosamax but had decreased among patients who received a placebo.

If you are receiving hormonal treatment for prostate cancer ask your doctor about a bisphosphonate, like Fosamax to control bone loss.

Research published in the international medical journal Addiction showed that moderate exercise, such as walking, significantly reduced the intensity of smokers' nicotine withdrawal symptoms. Just five minutes of exercise can get the smokers past that need for a nicotine fix.

Nearly anything that distracts people from smoking is thought to help, but scientists have long suspected that exercise might have a more potent effect. Exercise could produce a mood-enhancing hormone dopamine, which could, in turn, reduce the smokers' nicotine dependence.

When you're dying for a cigarette, try some exercises or a walk to get past the craving. Remember, if you are trying to quit, a craving will only last about three minutes!

Researchers are beginning to tell us that being overweight increases cancer risks for a number of cancers. But then being overweight increases our chances of developing a number of diseases. While there are all kinds of diets, and gurus who claim they know the way, the remedy for long-term weight loss isn't going to change -- it's all about moving more, and eating less.

But what if you are moving more and eating less and the pounds stubbornly refuse to fall away? Amy Paturel, an expert in nutrition and public health, recently reviewed the top ten reasons why when you do all the right things, you aren't getting the expected results. The ten reasons Paturel discusses that can prevent weight loss are lack of sleep, synthetic chemicals in the environment, weather effects in temperatures being too hot or too cold, not smoking, prescription medications, giving birth at an older age, natural selection and overweight parents having overweight children.

Of course, this doesn't mean you are doomed to weight gain or being overweight but it might mean that you will need to take a look at some of the possible causes of why you are experiencing weight gain and not experiencing weight loss.

Paturel goes into an explanation of each of these causes in Ten More Fat Factors: It's Not Just the Cupcakes.

Fast food and junk food snacks are not good for health. Smoking is not good for health. Little sleep and non-existent periods of relaxation are not good for health. Lack of exercise and weight gain from stress eating are not good for health. But according to researchers, women who work long hours are prone to some or all these habits, and that is not a good thing for their health. Smoking, damage to the immune system due to unrelenting levels of stress, lack of exercise and weight gain all increase cancer risks.

Leeds University conducted a study that showed women typically respond to the stress of working long hours by engaging in negative habits that are detrimental to their immediate and long-term health. According to researchers, the reaction to stress can manifest in choosing unhealthy high fat and high sugar snacks before choosing healthier food.

The study compared how men and women respond to stress, and if there was a difference. Some experts stated that men are less likely to be affected by working long hours because they are not expected to multi-task when they get home from work in the same way women are expected to do. Researchers said most women agree to their take on the matter.

Knowing that some women alleviate stress in unhealthy ways, gives women an opportunity to step back and assess how they might choose better strategies for dealing with stress -- or in minimizing some of the causes of stress in their life. Aside from these research findings, I think both men and women in modern society are under enormous daily stress and we all need to step back and evaluate how much of our health we are willing to compromise.

Research and cancer prevention programs all suggest that obesity can lead to the development of a number of cancers. In a continuing series of posts looking at alternative weight loss programs, this one is about the Eat QOD diet. Basically, it is a simple dietary practice of eating what you like, within reason, on one day, and the next day is spent fasting, with a maximum caloric intake of about 300-400 calories. On Eat QOD, you lose weight gradually, without setting off the internal starvation alarm that tells your body to horde fat reserves as a survival means -- a cycle ultimately undermining most long-term diet success. According to Eat QOD practitioners, there is a Zen benefit to the Eat QOD fasting diet.

• Many cultures fast to clear the mind and get closer to themselves, to nature, and to higher spiritual powers gained by spiritual fasting.
• You may well feel some of this during the OFF days.
• At worst, you will have more free time, and will avoid after-meal drowsiness.
• At best, you might begin to get more in touch with yourself and with your body.
• You may start to feel truly hungry for the first time, for specific foods.
  

The Eat QOD website is nicely done and offers educational information and resources that include the Eat QOD blog, forum, book, mini-meal recipes and a weight loss charting tool to track your progress.