Do you have less energy than you did before cancer? Do you sometimes crash in the middle of the afternoon? If you answered Yes to these questions and wonder why your energy is zapped, you may want to consider something completely outside the realm of cancer. Like your diet.

Canyon Ranch nutritionists say lack of energy is not always related to diet. It can also stem from lack of sleep and exercise, depression, anxiety, low-grade infection, medication, reaction to alcohol, and caffeine withdrawal or dependence. But diet surely plays a part, and sometimes a very large part. So in the interest of energetic and healthy living, you might want to give some thought to these energy-building diet tips.

Start the day with a healthy breakfast. When kids don't eat breakfast, they don't think as clearly and don't do homework as well as their well-nourished classmates. Adults are no different. Everyone needs a jump-start in the morning. It's good for metabolism and blood sugar. It's good for the brain.

Take it from Bob Greene, the supercoach who helped Oprah get into the best shape of her life, when he says we all can acquire great health and great fitness -- without calorie counting and deprivation and hardship. He details it all in his new book The Best Life Diet, and he shares a series of how-to guides in the January 2007 issue of Oprah Magazine.

One tool Greene offers as we take on the new year is a hunger scale -- to help us avoid eating mindlessly, to encourage us to get in touch with our hunger, to train us away from always watching calories.

The scale goes like this:

10: Stuffed. Approaching nausea.
9: Very uncomfortably full. Need to loosen clothing.
8: Uncomfortably full. Bloated.
7: Full. A bit uncomfortable.
6: Perfectly comfortable and satisfied.
5: Comfortable. More or less satisfied but could eat more.
4: Slightly uncomfortable. Beginning to feel signs of hunger.
3: Uncomfortably hungry. Stomach is rumbling.
2: Very uncomfortable, irritable, and unable to concentrate.
1: Weak and light-headed. Stomach acid is churning.

Greene says we should eat only when we find ourselves feeling 1, 2, 3, or 4. He instructs us to put our forks down at 5 and 6 and wait for our next scheduled meal. For those trying to lose weight, he says stop eating at 5. This is the point at which you're eating less than your body is burning.

Not too many days left until Christmas, but for those of us who still have some shopping left to do, Shopexa is an opportunity to benefit charity while we finish finding perfect presents for family and friends.

It won't cost you anything extra to shop and buy this way, and Shopexa will donate 50 percent of its profits from the purchases you make to the charity of you choice. Some of the charities included will benefit cancer, end hunger, save the environment, children, women and the homeless.

Shopexa was launched on December 15th, with Jay Siva as the founder. According the background information provided on the Shopexa website, Siva is a self-published author and webmaster who seeks to create and develop new innovative projects that will fill real needs. Shopexa is affiliated through Amazon, and Amazon handles all transactions and purchases.

You can make Shopexa your home page, choose your charities and invite friends to join you. From what I can tell, Shopexa will be a year-round service. As for Christmas shopping, unless you are one of those extremely efficient shoppers who completed their holiday shopping weeks ago, this is a chance to make a difference in the life of someone we may never meet, while spending money we would be spending anyway. It is the essence of the Christmas spirit.

Thanks Mike Marshall for this tip!

And too, our very own Allie Beatty has created an advertising portal for the largest shopping sites to benefit research in finding a cure for cancer, diabetes, lung and heart diseases. Shop4Cures earns advertising commissions when visitors click through and shop her affiliates, and her profits are donated to cure research. By offering coupons, free shipping, and other incentives she hopes to encourage people to use Shop4Cures for their online shopping.

Some campaigns just make me sad. UK's Age Concern, a charity that works to promote the health and welfare of older citizens, has launched a campaign called Hungry To Be Heard because it seems nine of of ten nurses do not have time to make sure elderly patients are getting enough to eat during their stay in the hospital. As a result, over half of the elderly patients are at risk for malnutrition. As hospital patients, if the elderly are malnourished, they simply are not going to recover or heal as quickly; they are at greater risk for post-surgical complications and they suffer a higher rate of death.

There is a vaccine that Scripps Research Institute in California researchers are working with that shows positive results in slowing down a key hunger hormone that keeps rats from gaining weight regardless of how much the rats ate -- although they caution that just because it works in rats does not mean it will work the same way in humans or that it will be a safe vaccine for humans.

This is all relatively new science, as the hormone, called Ghrelin, the researchers are testing the vaccine on was just discovered about seven years ago. The researchers do know that the hormone controls appetite in animals and humans and the current research might prove valuable in discovering more about the connections between hunger and weight gain; how the body stores fat and how to influence the hunger hormone.

At this point in time, if you are a rat concerned about controlling your weight, it's good news. Long-term, if it does show the same benefit for humans, the researchers speculate a vaccine might be developed that helps people who struggle with weight gain and loss maintain a steady and healthy weight. You know it is only a matter of time before they discover and develop something along this line, as obesity is a major threat to health for a number of diseases including cancer.

After 16 days, the hunger strike colon cancer patients launched in protest over a broken campaign promise has ended. During Israel's last election, colon cancer patients were promised that their medications would be included in the 2006 health basket, and when that promise was not honored, they staged a hunger strike.

For 16 days they sat outside in the Rose Garden in Jerusalem, refusing to end the protest. They were willing to die of hunger before they were willing to die from cancer because of medications denied. During the hunger strike, one of the protestors collapsed and had to be hospitalized at Hadassah University Hospital, Ein Karem. The protest has ended because the government has now assured the cancer patients they will receive the drugs they need to fight their cancer. But, if the promise is broken again, I suspect these strong-willed and resolute people will be right back protesting again. Cancer can make people that way -- from all the fighting against a disease that is trying to take life away. The government might want to just keep the promise.

In an earlier post, we told you about the desperate situation playing out in Israel, where colon cancer patients have gone on a hunger strike in a public protest over lack of access to potentially life-saving cancer drugs. Now on the ninth day of their strike, Israeli billionaire Sammy Ofer has offered to pay for a month's supply of the needed drug for colon cancer patients until Ministry of Health officials can work something out to insure colon cancer patients receive the drugs they need to fight their cancer.

According to the newspaper account, supporters of the cancer patients expressed their appreciation to Ofer for his generosity but what they want is to ensure the accessibility of all new medications that have been proven effective and have been recommended by the pharmaceutical evaluation committee to all cancer patients.

MK Shelly Yechimovitch is quoted as saying that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and the State of Israel were ultimately responsible for the lives and well-being of Israeli citizens and should not have to rely on donations from private citizens. I couldn't agree more. While Ofer's offer is a generous one, cancer patients should not be put in a position of relying on the charity of others for medical treatments, because then it always becomes a matter of uncertainty of where and when the next aid will come. The hunger strike continues.

The Jerusalem Post is reporting that colon cancer patients have launched a hunger strike in front of the prime minister's residence in Jerusalem. A promise that their medications would be included in the 2006 health basket was made before the election, and until the promise is honored, they will stage the hunger strike. According to the news report, the colon cancer patients say they will keep up the hunger strike until the medication they need to help them fight and survive cancer is made available through the national government health program -- or they die where they sit in protest.

Ron Harush, one of the hunger strikers in need of the currently denied medications stated, "We have nothing to lose. The shame must end and the drugs must be approved or we will be returning our souls to our creator." More and more, I am coming to the belief that the future global trend in cancer survival will be a luxury of the wealthy -- if surviving cancer depends on the newest cancer drugs and treatments.