It's funny the random things you remember from your past. I was thinking the other day of a guy I went to high school with, who told us one day that, seeing as his uncle and grandpa both died of cancer, there was no doubt in his mind that he would too. 'He's fishing for sympathy', I scribbled furiously to a friend, 'What a whiner'. I'm not nearly as judgmental in adulthood, but some things don't change: I still don't like that kind of negative thinking. Yeah, my dad, grandparents and aunts died of cancer, but so what? I'm not them.

What reminded me of that story was this one, about Shirley McQueen, who's seen 14 relatives -- including all of the women in her family -- die of breast cancer. She says she feels like she's 'standing in the middle of the M25 waiting for a lorry to hit her', and with those odds, I don't blame her. But I truly believe in the power of positive thinking, and if I were in a similar situation, I hope with every fiber of my being that I can muster up enough faith to steadfastly ascertain that cancer will not, under any circumstances, be the end of me, like I've seen so many brave survivors do. I think without that sort of hope, we're just a bunch of lost souls, floundering, preparing for death and not looking towards the future.

How have you found hope in your battle with cancer?

The Sister Study is a clinical trial that is now enrolling patients to determine what environmental factors and genes play a part in developing breast cancer.

Researchers want to find what causes breast cancer, and through understanding this they can work to prevent the disease altogether. There are some known factors to contribute and or prevent the development of breast cancer -- diet, exercise, hormone therapy, breast-feeding and smoking. However, the prevalence of the disease suggest there are other factors at play that we are not aware of at this time.

Women who fit the following criteria are urged to enroll in the Sister Study and join the fight against this disease:

• A sister related by blood, alive or deceased, diagnosed with breast cancer.
• Ages 35 -74 years.
• Living in the United States or Puerto Rico.

The Sister Study is being conducted by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and will be evaluating women from all backgrounds, occupations, races and ethnicities to attempt to identify environmental and genetic factors that may be associated with affecting the risk of breast cancer.

Being susceptible to a particularly aggressive form of prostate cancer could be in your genes, according to this. Scientists have identified a genetic marker called 8q24 that ups your chances of getting prostate cancer or having a family member that will by a significant amount. The presence of the marker can be determined by a blood test, and those with it will have to ensure they're more careful about getting screened for cancer. Furthermore, African American men are more likely to be carriers than those of European ancestry.

I've had several family members who've been diagnosed with prostate cancer, and it's scary stuff, boys! Get yourself checked out for the sake of yourself and your loved ones.

The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences needs sisters -- 18,000 sisters to be exact -- to join the nation's largest research project aimed at pinpointing the causes of breast cancer.

The Sister Study ideally will enroll a total of 50,000 women whose sisters had breast cancer. Since the study launch in October 2004, 32,000 women have been recruited. But still more are needed.

The 10-year observational study requires very little time, is available in English and Spanish, and requires women to first answer questions about diet, jobs, hobbies, and breast cancer risk factors. Later, a female health professional collects small samples of blood, urine, nail clippings, and house dust for use in analysis of environment and genetics.

Women in the United States and Puerto Rico between the ages of 35 and 74 may be eligible for the study if their sisters -- living or deceased -- had breast cancer. The study participants must have never been diagnosed with breast cancer themselves.

The Sister Study, in partnership with the American Cancer Society, NIH's National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities, Sisters Network Inc., the Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the Y-ME National Breast Cancer Organization, and the Intercultural Cancer Council, is confidential and safe. Women are never asked to take medications, visit medical locations, or make any changes to their habits, diet, or daily life. They are simply asked to join this effort so that the mystery of breast cancer can continiue to unfold.

To volunteer or learn more about the Sister Study, visit www.sisterstudy.org or www.estudiodehermanas.org. Or call (877) 474-7837 or (866) 889-4747 for the hearing-impaired.

Health care provider Dr. Anthony Vendryes wrote Monday in the Jamaica Gleaner that he is distressed at the growing number of young women developing cancer -- especially breast cancer. He believes women are not working very hard at preventing the disease. He thinks we are just waiting for the problem to surface and then treating it with "painful and often ineffective" efforts.

According to Vendryes, research indicates a woman's risk of developing breast cancer is under her own control. If we live a lifestyle that promotes cancer, we are apparently likely to get the disease. Such a lifestyle would include gaining more than 11 pounds after the age of 18, exercising less than one time per week, eating less than five servings of fruits and vegetables per day, eating more than three ounces of red meat per day, ingesting too much fat and salt, consuming more than one alcoholic drink per day, and smoking cigarettes.

I am all for healthy living. And I believe achieving good health is under our control. I would personally recommend every woman take charge of her life in a healthful manner. But I do not believe as Vendryes states, "most women actually give themselves cancer by making poor choices in life." I think it's the word most that bothers me.

Obviously, there is a connection between lifestyle choices and chronic disease. And of course our level of health is under our control -- to some extent. But I don't believe it's fair to claim most women ask for breast cancer. I know I didn't.

I did not choose cancer. It chose me. Vendryes might say I am one of the disillusioned people who think cancer is entirely a matter of chance or entirely a matter of genetics. Actually, I suspect it's a combination of all factors. All I know for sure, however, is that my own lifestyle choices were pretty darn healthy prior to my diagnosis.

My weight has always been in a normal range -- and while I did gain more than 11 pounds twice in my life, it was due both times to the more-than-ten-pound babies I delivered into the world. I have always eaten a fairly healthy diet. I consume sweets, salt, and fats in moderation. I have never smoked and have consumed alcohol only minimally. And I have always consistently exercised.

I admit I have eaten red meat, although never daily. And I'm sure I fall short on the recommended intake of fruits and vegetables. But really, I cannot even begin to imagine that my lifestyle was an invitation for cancer. And it makes me sad that most other young women, shocked by a diagnosis of breast cancer like me, might think they asked for such a horrible disease.

It's been two years since my breast cancer diagnosis and subsequent "painful and often ineffective" treatments. And although I have made some lifestyle changes -- I never drink alcohol now, I exercise a little more, and I don't choose to eat red meat if other options are available -- my life is much the same as it was prior to cancer. And I am certain that if cancer makes a return visit to my body, it will not be because I asked for it.

Jack Osbourne, son of rock legend Ozzy and colon cancer survivor Sharon Osbourne, recently stated that he blames his alcohol and drug addiction on his father. During his mother Sharon's diagnosis and treatment for colon cancer, the young Jack used alcohol and the powerfully addictive prescription painkiller OxyContin as a way to cope.

Jack is quoted as saying, "My problems peaked when mom was sick and dad was dealing with his problems the same way as I was, by drinking, so I had no one to turn to. I was just hanging out with my crowd drinking and doing drugs." Jack ended up in an addiction rehab clinic to get clean and sober.

This is no way excuses the badly-decided choices that Jack made when he turned to alcohol and drugs as a way to cope with his feelings, but there is a sharp focus and more than a bit of snarkiness to the news reports concerning Jack's blaming comment that misses a great opportunity in regard to discussing the impact a parent's cancer diagnosis has on children.

As the American Cancer Society (ACS) states, "Families face many complex issues when one of their members has cancer. There will probably be a time during a family's experience with cancer when psychosocial support services will be helpful in meeting the emotional needs of the family. There are teams of experts, each with a different focus, who offer support and are trained in how cancer affects a family." ACS offers a terrific resource for the family with the online publication of Helping Children When A Family Member Has Cancer.

The Family Doctor states, "Every person has a different way of handling news that a loved one has cancer. Many people react with shock, disbelief and even anger when they're first given the news." The Family Doctor's Cancer: Helping Your Family Help You offers advice on different questions a parent might have, such as:

• How will my family react to the news that I have cancer?
• Should I tell my children that I have cancer?
• How do I tell my children that I have cancer?
• How can I help my children cope with their feelings?
  

In 2002, when I drove home after being told I had cancer, I wondered and worried about how I was going to tell my children, how I could avoid the unavoidable shattering of innocence in their world, how to protect them from their own fear and pain? I sat outside in the car, trying to stare through the walls of our home, knowing that in the next five minutes I would be changing our lives forever with the news of my cancer diagnosis. I wanted to freeze time, to save the innocence, to keep the awful news from being true.

In the ACS online resource for families, it states, "Parents can have a powerful effect on how their children react to a crisis in the family. In the beginning this responsibility can feel like a huge weight, but it is possible for family members to learn how to deal with and even grow through the experience of having cancer in the family."

Support services can include individual counseling, family counseling, and support groups. If you do not know where to start, ask your physician or call the local hospital or local ACS office. Someone will be able to help you help your children, and all family members, navigate through the crisis of cancer, so that everyone becomes a survivor of cancer in the best way possible.

I drove by the farm-like land for years and years, watching horses from my car window on my way to class, to the university hospital, to other parts of town. I was first a college student, merely noting the vast property. And then I was a mom with two little boys and a definite interest in this acreage. I acquired a passion for this corner lot -- across from the Cancer Center that ten years later became a typical haunt -- and I often found myself driving, pointing, gesturing, shouting, "horses, horses, look at the horses."

There are not many horses left on this land. There is, however, one very large building with a very important sign announcing its presence on the University of Florida campus. The sign reads, Cancer and Genetics Research Complex -- and what a complex it is.

On November 15, officials dedicated this $84.5 million, 280,000 square-foot facility, promising the University of Florida will be at the forefront at cutting-edge cancer research.

A five-story cancer research wing and a six-story genetics research wing are just two of the multidisciplinary entities housed in this new complex, designed to maximize collaborations among researchers and to convert science into innovative cancer therapies and technologies.

"This building is bricks and mortar, but it's much more than that, because it really provides hope for cancer patients, who know that we're going to do the research, we're going to find the answers, we're going to help them," says the director of the UF Shands Cancer Center.

I am one of those cancer patients. And while I'm sad for the horses who lost their homes and my boys who can no longer admire these creatures, I am happy for the beacon of hope that sits prominently on the farm-like land I've been watching for years and years.

There are various risk factors that can contribute to the development of breast cancer. Being female is the single biggest risk factor that on its own puts all women in jeopardy. But there are other risks -- many beyond our control and some more significant than others -- that can help explain why some women are diagnosed with the most common cancer in women in the United States. And why others are not.

Breast density has something to do with breast cancer. This is not really news. It's clear there is some kind of link, some kind of relationship, some kind of risk related to breast density for both pre- and post-menopausal women. It's just not clear how exactly breast density -- how much fat tissue fills the breast compared to other tissue -- contributes to breast cancer risk. But once it is clear, medical professionals will have a whole new arsenal of power in the fight against this deadly disease.

Cancer News in Context, a regular series of podcast commentaries produced by the Harvard Center for Cancer Prevention, highlights two recent studies that add weight to the fact that breast density is an important tool in breast cancer prediction and identifies two areas that with futher study might help determine why breasts that are very dense are associated with higher risks for breast cancer -- and why density may be as important a factor as age in determining risk.

Currently, mammograms are the chosen method for measuring breast density. But measurement is not required, and there are no national standards for how to measure. Once federal groups issue requirements and direction on how to classify density, women will receive more accurate assessments of their personal risk.

There is also speculation that altering breast density through hormonal therapy may lower risk. Perhaps genetics are the strongest indicator of risk, making short-term solutions ineffective, but perhaps certain interventions can override genetics, helping women protect themselves from breast cancer.

There are many issues that must be ironed out before we really understand how breast density affects breast cancer. There is no doubt that density, when added to other risk factors, will surely help improve the accuracy of prediction. It's one tool, among many, that is poised to open all sorts of doors.

No two people are alike. It could be that no two tumors are alike and might explain why one-size-fits-all cancer treatments do not work the same for all cancer patients. In the past, there was little in the way of determining beforehand which cancer patient would do well with treatment, and which patient would do poorly.

Increasingly, researchers are discovering methods of reading cancer, and interpreting what they find into individualized treatment for the cancer patient specific to the characteristics of their cancer. For brain cancer patients, University of Calgary scientists have found that molecular diagnosis and DNA testing of the genetic composition of brain cancers reveals that defining the tumor by genetics leads to more effective treatment.

"You wouldn't want to take treatment the doctor knows ahead of time wouldn't work," said Dr. Greg Cairncross, head of Clinical Neurosciences. "It's genetic changes that drive tumor growth." A new molecular diagnostics program is being developed in the Tom Baker Cancer Centre at the University of Calgary as a result of this diagnostic breakthrough.

The world was stunned to learn that Dana Reeve, a non-smoker, was diagnosed with lung cancer. Peter Jennings, who had quit smoking many years before his lung cancer death -- and who had only recently taken up the smoking habit again before being diagnosed with lung cancer -- was perhaps less confusing. Jennings publicly blamed smoking for his cancer. For many among us, spoken or unspoken, lung cancer has been thought to be a smoker's disease. With the loss of Dana Reeve, a non-smoker, new questions were asked, and conversation began, into all the causes of lung cancer. As a result of Dana Reeve's lung cancer death, non-smokers were asking out loud -- how much danger am I in for developing lung cancer. The every day person was soon to learn that not much is truly known about lung cancer, or clearly spelled out.

One of the most confounding truths about lung cancer and smoking, is that only 15 percent of smokers develop lung cancer, and almost 20 percent of lung cancer diagnosis involve non-smokers. University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center researchers are attempting to develop an assessment model to determine who is at greater risk for lung cancer. Here is some of the information they have come up with so far in the assessment model:

• Heavy smokers who have a previous history of emphysema exhibit nearly a four times increased risk of lung cancer than light smokers without emphysema.
• The risk of developing lung cancer increases to nearly 11-fold if a patient with the same medical history also has an inefficient DNA repair capacity.
• Individuals with a history of allergies have a 29 percent reduced risk of lung cancer.
• Such individuals, who also exhibit efficient DNA repair capacity, have a 56 percent reduced risk of developing lung cancer, compared with people who do not have allergies with poor DNA repair genes.
• Genetically, family members of lung cancer patients had more than a six-fold increased risk of developing lung cancer before the age of 50. Their risk of developing any type of cancer before age 50 was 44 percent higher.

Because there is such an increased focus on lung cancer now, this is just the beginning of information we can expect to learn in the near future to not only predict, but prevent by intervention, lung cancer for those who are at greater risk of developing the disease.

April is National Cancer Control Month, designated to recognize the increased understanding about cancer, research advances made in the treatments for cancer, and in raising awareness and education for early detection and cancer prevention. Cancer is an umbrella term for more than 100 diseases. Cancer is characterized by an unrestrained, out of control, abnormal growth of cells that can spread locally or be transported through the bloodstream and lymphatic system to other parts of the body.

Early detection is essential for improved survival of patients diagnosed with cancer. The seven warning signs of cancer are: change in bowel or bladder habits; a sore that does not heal; unusual bleeding or discharge; thickening or lump in breast or elsewhere; indigestion or difficulty in swallowing; change in a mole or wart; and nagging cough or hoarseness. In the earliest stage of cancer, there are often no symptoms. Getting annual cancer screenings for the earliest detection of cancer can make a significant difference in survival outcome. Cancer prevention involves reducing the risks that can lead to the development of cancer. Genetics, lifestyle, and environmental factors all play a part in the development of cancer.

To date, the primary focus has been on early detection and treatment. The success of that focus is in the nearly 10 million cancer survivors living today. But despite the technological advances and increased public awareness, education and early screening, cancer is still the second leading cause of death in this country. According to the National Cancer Institute, at the current projected rates of cancer, one out of two men and one out of three women will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime. Three out of four American families will have at least one family member diagnosed with cancer. The key to controlling and defeating cancer is to become more aggressive in funding and focus of the ways we can prevent cancer.   

Okay, you educate yourself for living a cancer prevention healthy life. You try to do all the right things to protect yourself from the scariest diagnosis a person can receive, only to find out, growing older is the greatest cancer-risk factor of all. Nobody has been able to hold back time, we all grow older. Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center researchers believe they have discovered in yeast a key to revealing why aging is the single biggest link to cancer in humans.

By tracking the life cycles of multiple yeast strains, they discovered striking similarities between humans and simple baker's yeast with regard to the changes their genes undergo as they age. As nearly 80 percent of cancers are diagnosed after age 55, the researchers are hoping to be able to understand the mechanisms and switches that lead to cancer as we age by studying the life cycles of yeast.

"People should still keep eating their broccoli," stated Dr. Daniel Gottschling, of Fred Hutchinson's Basic Sciences Division. "Our yeast were on a diet equivalent to steak and potatoes. We had the mother cells growing in a very rich, nutrient-dense environment. They were, in essence, pigging out the whole time. We'd like to do similar experiments in which we put the yeast on a 'lean and mean' diet to see if we could delay the switch that triggers the genetic instability," he said. "Yeast promises to be an excellent model system for testing various environmental factors, such as caloric restriction, to get at the mechanisms of cancer initiation."

A large study providing significant evidence towards the fact that blacks are more likely to get lung cancer from cigarettes has been brought to my attention. It is apparent after an eight year study that race does play a role in different health risks, and these differences must be addressed.

183,000 people were researched and the results are in, with findings that Hawaiians and blacks are 55% percent more likely to develop lung cancer than whites. Japanese Americans and Latinos are 50% less likely of developing skin cancer than whites. The study being published today in the New England Journal of Medicine is large and convincing. It is the best reference to date, that states a varying difference of risk of  people from different ethnic and racial make-up, who smoke cigarettes regularly.

The study brings up certain emotional debates about race. How important it is to tailor treatments, screening, and prevention for the individual races of the world. Genetic variations are an element to risk factors and percentages. It highlights questions about other drugs, and how they are metabolized. Is this going to spur yet another racial debate?