Drugs currently in trials for obesity and diabetes may soon be fast-tracked for use in the fight against breast cancer. Typically, it takes many years to research and develop new drugs. But these already-developed drugs, if successful, could reach the market much quicker.

The drugs, believed to work by blocking the enzyme PTP1B, could help breast cancer patients because the enzyme is found in high levels in about 40 percent of these patients.

Studies on mice show blocking production of the enzyme significantly slowed tumor development. In some cases, it stopped the spread of the cancer and it might even stop some tumors from forming.

When she asked her teenage daughters whether or not she should accept the American Cancer Society's Mother of the Year award, the response was a resounding, "Mom, of course." So Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, accepted the anti-cancer honor this week and told ABC's George Stephanopolous on Sunday why she is a good mom and a healthy role model.

"They see that I go running, I get on my bicycle, I do yoga, pilates, whatever else I do," Ferguson said. "Do you know what they do? Get up off the sofa, turn the television off, walk to work, walk around the block, more vegetables, more fruits at school, less soda pops, less fast food."

Ferguson, 47, says cancer prevention starts with good role modeling -- which is exactly what she has done as mom to princesses Beatrice and Eugenie.

"I can safely say one of the best things I've done is be a good mother," Ferguson said.

Ferguson, author of memoir My Story and spokeswoman for Weight Watchers, first became known as the wife of Britain's Prince Andrew, the Duke of York. The pair divorced in 1996, but Ferguson's positive public persona has remained untarnished.

I just finished reading the words of Mark Raymond Clements -- and the words of his wife, Marianne, written when Mark was too ill to comment. I am overcome and overwhelmed with emotion because each string of sentences filling the pages of the Clements family homepage has touched me, inspired me, and saddened me all at the same time.

Clements was diagnosed in October 2005 with cholangiocarcinoma, a rare cancer of the bile duct normally found in people in their 70s.

"There is no known cure," writes Clements. "It does not respond well to chemotherapy. It is fast moving."

And fast moving it was. Surgery -- rarely a good option for this cancer -- was attempted but without success.

"After they opened him up, they discovered that the cancer had just spread too far," Marianne writes. "They closed him back up."

Chemotherapy came next and while there were some hopeful moments -- "overall distribution of the disease has decreased" -- the overwhelming course of Clement's disease continued on a fast track. And by June 2006, Clements realized, "the cruel reality of CANCER hits like a brick wall," when a CT scan revealed the presence of as many as 20 new tumors in his liver.

The Clements family never abandoned hope and were steadfast in their faith as cancer continued to dominate their lives. In October -- one year after diagnosis -- when Marianne believed doctors were sending a let's make you as comfortable as we can message, the family began pursuing alternative methods. But by December, when it had become clear treatment of any kind would no longer help, Mark Clements was welcomed by the loving arms of hospice -- where he remained until he passed away on January, 19, 2007. He was 40 years old.

On the very day of her husband's death, Marianne writes, "I know I am not alone in feeling complete anguish at this time. I know it will lessen over time. I know I will not understand 'why' until I'm with him again, but what I do know is that Mark loved me. He loved his children. He loved his family and friends. He will be waiting for me with our loving Father in Heaven. And we will be together again. Our Father in Heaven is aware of our pain and will comfort us still as he has through this past year."

And these are just some of the words that have has touched me, inspired me, and saddened me all at the same time.

The governments of Canada and the US are both closely involved in the delivery of health care. The main difference between the two is health insurance. In Canada, the federal government is committed to providing funding support. In the US health insurance must be paid for privately or is provided by the person's employer.

There are many uninsured Americans. I was lucky that I had a good insurance plan with my job. After my cancer diagnoses I didn't have to wait very long for appointments and medical procedures.

An article I read states that "American doctors and hospitals are more likely than their Canadian counterparts to purchase new and expensive devices and technologies. An American patient is more likely to be rapidly treated by a specialist with the most up to date equipment. Canadians are more likely to be treated by their GP and cared for over a period of time in the hospital."

Why is it that younger women have a more aggressive breast cancer? I don't think anyone really knows for sure. Throughout my cancer diagnoses and treatment I have met many young women who had pathology of grade three cancers. Grade one is the least aggressive and can also be called well differentiated. Grade three is the most aggressive and is also called poorly differentiated. Grade two falls in between and is considered moderately aggressive.

I belong to the Young Survival Coalition (YSC). I decided to poll women on the boards to see if the theory rang true that younger women have a more aggressive breast cancer. I polled the group and asked what grade their tumor was at diagnosis. One hundred and fourteen young women participated in the poll. Of course this is only a small sample of young women diagnosed with breast cancer.

Out of 114 women only 12 percent had grade one tumors, 22 percent had grade two and 67 percent had grade three.

A positive thing about having a highly aggressive cancer is that chemotherapy seems to work better on these tumors. Chemotherapy kills fast growing cells so it makes sense that the faster growing cells would be more susceptible to the treatments.

I had a grade one cancer. In a way it makes me happy that I did have a low grade and less aggressive cancer, however, I did have a positive lymph node. My tumor was not very large. It was only 1.5 centimeters. But it did already start to spread. I feel like that since my tumor was slow growing that it might take longer for metastasis to show up. So, I worry about that-among other things!

I do think that breast cancer in young pre-menopausal women is different from the post-menopausal group. It's good to see studies done on younger women so we can figure out better ways to treat our cancer. YSC seeks to educate the medical, research, breast cancer legislative communities and to persuade them to address breast cancer in women 40 and under.

Decide what you want, decide what you are willing to exchange for it. Establish your priorities. And go to work. - H.L. Hunt

NutritionData Nutrition Facts & Calorie Counter offers a comprehensive common sense approach to successful weight loss from experts in nutrition and fitness for those interested in losing weight. Following is the information provided by NutritionData.

• The 2 Most Important Facts about Successful Weight Loss
• The 6 Most Important Principles for Enabling Weight Loss
• The Best Way to Satisfy Your Hunger Without Overeating
• The Best Nutritional Supplements for Weight Loss
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• The Best Thing to Do if Your Diet Fails
• Summary of Weight Loss Secrets
• Where to Get Additional Weight Loss Help

The Secrets of Weight Loss is one area within the NutritionData website -- and it is a fantastic destination for anything and everything you might want to know about food and nutrition. At NutritionData you can analyze any food, compare multiple foods, find foods that match specific criteria, learn more about nutrition and dieting, estimate your daily needs, track your total consumption, analyze and improve your recipes, generate custom nutrition facts labels, read about the 50 most popular foods and learn fast food facts.

Warning: You will spend much more time there than you planned -- reading about nutrition, the better choices diet, the fullness factor and comparing foods -- as these are just a few of the sections within this website. Seriously, this place is deep and rich in content.

Health ministers will be taking a look at current food industry advertising rules, and if they are strict enough to protect the health of its country's children. The Cancer Council NSW does not think so, based on a study they conducted regarding snack and fast food companies advertising aimed at children.

Based on the study, Cancer Council NSW's nutrition manager, Kathy Chapman, accuses the junk food and fast food segment of the food industry of ignoring regulations and a voluntary industry code on how targeted the advertising is for children, when giveaway toys and movie tie-ins with fast food meals and similar products were central to many ads to which children are exposed. According to the research, nearly a third of all television advertising aimed at children is for unhealthy or nutrient-deficient foods.

The television advertising aimed at children is called pester power, and with the continuing rise in childhood obesity, the Cancer Council NSW wants food industry regulations enforced and the offenders penalized.

Every year many Americans are faced with cardiovascular disease, cancer, and diabetes. What do a lot of these diseases have in common? The way we as a society chose to eat and treat our bodies. Now I don't want to start a major debate on factors like heredity, environmental issues and the like but we need to face facts that we have become a fast food, fast-paced society dealing with a lot of stress and bad eating habits and are paying less attention to a well balanced diet and the necessary exercise to stay fit. I am as guilty as the next person.

Eating raw vegetables as snacks instead of chips, nuts, pretzels, cheese and crackers and more, will not only help you lose weight but it will help you with digestion and will help your body maintain a more alkalized ph balance where disease can not live. As your body becomes more acidic the acid wastes build up in tissues and stored fat. If your body is in an alkaline state it is like heaven for normal cells and like hell for cancer cells. Cancer cells thrive and multiply when your body reaches a low enough PH level. Even eating slightly steamed or grilled veggies is better than fully cooked.

In the continuing battle of the bulge, and realizing that more families eat out more often than ever before, the Food and Drug Administration, FDA, commissioned a report to discover ways to stop the growing weight gain epidemic. Based on the Keystone Report, the FDA is recommending that restaurants cut back on portions, serve more fruits and vegetables and provide nutritional and caloric information with the meals they serve.

You can imagine how well this is going over with the 900,000 restaurants and other food establishments in this country. For a restaurant to implement what the government is suggesting they do, the report itself notes that the laboratory work needed to calculate the calorie content of a menu item can cost $100, or anywhere from $11,500 to $46,000 to analyze an entire menu. That is not taking into account any menu changes. But who exactly is making us fat?

Few would disagree that the health care system in this country is breaking down. If you are one of the 45 million without health insurance you already know how difficult it is to get health care, and if you have medical insurance you continue to watch as your insurance premiums and deductibles go up year after year. Medicine has become more about money and less about patient care. We are told we spend more because we have the best health care system in the world.

But as Maggie Mahar points out in her new book, Money-Driven Medicine: The Real Reason Health Care Costs So Much, "We spend twice as much as Japan on health care -- yet few would argue that our health care system is twice as good." Mahar, a seasoned financial journalist, takes an in depth look at what she calls America's complicated and increasingly dysfunctional health care system, and what she finds is disturbing. Frankly, from a patient's perspective, it's reprehensible.

Doctors aren't allowed to function as doctors in putting a patient's needs first -- no -- medicine is business and corporations decide on a patient's treatment. To put it bluntly, medicine is a market-driven $2 trillion industry rife with competition. To cite just one example of what is taking place, and to illustrate how medicine truly sees itself  -- Milwaukee hospitals spent more in one year on advertising than fast food business did. Reviewers are calling Mahar's book a thoroughly researched and carefully reasoned study. I call it gutsy because she takes no prisoners and she isn't keeping any secrets. Until the day comes when doctors are allowed to practice medicine once again, with the priority on the patient and not corporate profit, the wheels on this buggy are going to keep falling off one by one until the axle completely splits in two. A must read for anyone who wants to understand how the system works and what motivates the players. The patients aren't even in the game. And that is what is truly appalling. 

Over the last two decades, the growing awareness about nutrition and the fact that all foods are not the same when it comes to good health, has spurred the trend of consumers demanding more food value for money spent. Companies vying for those dollars have been paying attention, according to a top ten list of functional foods published in an issue of Food Technology magazine. According to the Institute of Food Technologists, a nonprofit group that promotes sound science in the discussion of food issues, functional foods are foods or food components that provide a health benefit beyond basic nutrition.

Five of the ten functional food trends are:

• Food for kids that are lower in fat, calories, sodium and sugar and higher the nutrients.
• Organic foods that are grown without pesticides or cancer-causing toxic chemicals.
• Phytochemicals that provide the antioxidants known to lower the risks of cancer.
• Good fats in the way of healthier oils, like olive oil, that provide cancer prevention benefit. Foods that are rich in omega-3 fatty acids, like salmon.
• Small portions of food such as the 100-calorie snack.
  

Basically, the trends in what consumers want, and what the market is beginning to offer to meet that demand, are foods that provide good nutrition, taste good and are fun. To read more about functional food trends, go here.

For a health-informed public that is beginning to demand more nutrition and less fat in the food they are served -- fast food is falling out of its once favored position of popularity as a quick meal for kids. Who doesn't think that McDonald's and the golden arches are the unofficial defining symbol for fast food?

In response to the perception that fast food is not linked to good health, along with the negative image resulting from the book and movie Fast Food Nation -- and now the publication of a children's book Chew On This, which is co-written by Fast Food Nation author Eric Schlosser -- McDonald's has announced the creation of a Global Moms Panel. Nine women from six countries will advise the company on balanced and active lifestyle initiatives, restaurant communications and children's well-being.

Translation? McDonald's wants to find out how to market to moms who are interested in their children living long healthy lives free from obesity and the nutrition-deficient food that can increase the risks for major disease later in life, like cancer. Which has the potential for being a good thing if McDonalds does offer healthier food as a result of the recommendations from moms. If it's just a public relations campaign to improve a business image then I believe the public will see through it and the effort will backfire. According to Mary Dillon, McDonald's global chief marketing officer, "We want to become the best ally we can for moms and a true partner in the well-being of families everywhere." Time will tell.

Because cancer can take years to develop -- and because certain dietary habits have been linked to an increased risk of cancer -- and because helping children adopt informed healthy habits of eating during the early years seems a practical strategy to a lifetime of cancer prevention -- this headline Parents health food fads make children ill, grabbed my attention. According to eating disorder expert Dr. Steve Bratman, parents who encourage their children to choose healthy foods are dangerous role models. It seems that limiting the amount of sugar, fat, salt and artificial additives are putting children at risk of serious damage to their health, and in some cases, death by starvation. With great pain, Dr. Bratman shares that he is deeply disturbed to be receiving an ever-increasing amount of email from children interested in healthy eating habits.

Because no term exists in medical tomes to describe this condition, Dr. Bratman made one up. He calls the condition of junk food aversion and deprivation -- orthorexia. Dr. Bratman has written a book and developed a website devoted to this new life-threatening eating disorder where growing numbers of children, influenced by their parents, are taking an interest in eating healthy. To use the closing remark often used by John Stossel of ABC News 20/20 to a news story that defies sanity and common sense -- give me a break!

Brigham and Women’s Hospital researchers have determined that eating French fries during the early years of life is linked to a significant increase of developing breast cancer later in life. Researchers believe this study, involving 2,000 nurses, further demonstrates the effect diet has during the early formative years to health in later years. As part of the Nurses’ Health Study and the Nurses’ Health Study II, mothers filled out a questionnaire in which they indicated which of 30 foods their daughter ate between the ages of three to five years old.

According to the researchers, they found that each additional serving of French fries per week represented a 27 percent increased risk of breast cancer. Potatoes were not the problem. The cooking method of frying French fries in saturated fats and trans fats seemed to be what created the increased breast cancer risk. One more bit of bad news from the fast food nation.

What is hanging so toxic in the air? According to the latest data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, benzene from cars and trucks that burn gasoline or diesel fuel. Other toxins causing higher risks for cancer where air pollution is the worst are naphthalene and acetaldehyde -- also from vehicles.

Autoblog, one of our sister blogs, has launched AutoblogGreen, which will feature posts on living an eco-friendly lifestyle in all things auto-related in green car culture. They will be keeping a close ear to the ground and fingers to the keyboard to give readers an up-to-the-minute accounting on the auto industry's efforts to create transportation that is fuel-efficient and cleaner for the environment.

From our perspective here at The Cancer Blog, transportation going green means a giant step towards a cancer prevention environment. From air pollution to alternative fuels, check AutoblogGreen out! It's a very cool, forward-thinking blog.