According to the American Cancer Society, smoking damages most organs in the human body and is linked to at least 10 different cancers. Smoking accounts for nearly 30 percent of all cancer deaths. Yet one in four Americans still lights up. So how many days are you taking away from the longevity of your life every time you light up.

According to studies on smokers, if you smoke 1 pack of cigarettes a day for 10 years you lose 2 years of your life. If you smoke 2 packs in 10 years time you lose 4 years. If you have smoked one pack of cigarettes a day for 20 years you lose 4 years off of your life and if you smoke 2 packs a day in 20 years you lose 9 years off of your life.

You are just as much at risk if you are breathing second hand smoke. Make the commitment today to quit smoking and live longer or help someone you love give up the habit that strips away years of their lives.

For those of you living for the moment, you are about to lose 60 whole minutes come Sunday when Daylight-saving time strikes once again.

This may throw you off a bit if you are one to maximize every second, minute, and hour you are afforded in this tenuous life. And while I can't offer you any secrets for recapturing this lost time, I can share some thoughts, compliments of professional organizer Linda Richards of Organize and More, on how you might compensate for Sunday's lost hour.

Think about this:

• Go to bed 15 minutes earlier and get up 15 minutes earlier starting a few days before the time change.
• Move any important meetings to later in the week so you body isn't as tired.
• Snack on healthy foods such as fruits and nuts to replenish energy.
• Shorten your to-do list to your top three to five priorities.
• Print out a copy of your calendar and appointments for March and make sure your computer has a patch to handle the earlier time change this year.
  

There's no mystery about how we might help prevent cancer. In fact, we don't even need to venture out of our own minds to figure it all out.

Consider this.

"We estimate that more than 50 percent of cancer incidence could be prevented if we act today on what we already know," says Graham Colditz, M.D., Dr.P.H., and associate director of Prevention and Control at the Siteman Cancer Center at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Barnes-Jewish Hospital.

And now consider these seven methods for acting on what we already know about cancer prevention.

One. Lose weight and exercise more. It is estimated that 20 to 30 percent of the most common cancers in the United States are directly attributed to being overweight or physically inactive.

Two. Eat right. Plant-based diets help prevent cancer. Eating fruits and vegetables help prevent cancer. Diets high in red meat and animal fat increase the risk of cancer. End of story.

Three. Quit smoking. We all know smoking is associated with lung cancer, but it's also linked to cancer of the colon, kidney, pancreas, cervix, and stomach. Within five years to 10 years, there is a 50 percent reduction in cancer risk for those who stop smoking.

Four. Limit alcohol intake. While a few studies claim there are health benefits to drinking wine and other alcoholic beverages, most data show overconsumption of alcohol increases the risk of oral, esophageal, and breast cancers.

Five. Increase folate intake. Epidemiological studies suggest that low folate levels promote cancer development. Experts recommend taking a multivitamin with folate every day.

Six. Stay in the shade. Limiting long-term exposure to the sun and tanning beds, booths, and lamps minimizes the risk of developing skin cancer.

Seven. Avoid sexually transmitted diseases. Human papillomavirus (HPV) can cause cervical cancer. Hepatitis B and C viruses can cause liver cancer. Helicobacter pylori causes stomach cancer. It's critical that we protect ourselves during sexual contact if we wish to protect ourselves from cancer.

I never got a chance to call for the results of my breast biopsy the day after it was performed -- because my phone rang hours before I was told to inquire about the pathology of my lump. That one phone call changed everything. Forever.

November 2004

The next day, November 24 and the day before Thanksgiving, my phone rang at 10:00 AM and the doctor who did the biopsy said the pathology report was back already. He said that unfortunately, cancer cells were found. He said I would need a lumpectomy (surgery to remove the lump), radiation, and possibly chemotherapy. He told me to buy a book called Dr. Susan Love's Breast Book. I got the book that day.

Somehow, I made it though the Thanksgiving weekend, with my thoughts jumping from the hope that this would turn out okay to the fear that I would not see my boys grow up. My mind wandered and worried about surgery and what treatments I would have. I wondered if I could have more kids and whether or not I would lose my hair. I cried and lost sleep and was hopeful too.

I learned a lot from reading my new book. I learned that many women do go on to have kids after cancer but I also learned that chemotherapy in young women can cause early menopause. I learned that I have an 85 percent survival rate and also that I will get tiny little tattoos surrounding my breast to aid in the proper delivery of radiation. These permanent tattoos will also alert any future doctors that my breast has had radiation because I can never have it again in that same area. The book helped me feel positive about this journey but it also helped me face reality.

I have since faced reality. And now I am surviving the reality of breast cancer. Following my diagnosis, I endured a lumpectomy, four rounds of dose-dense chemotherapy, more than six weeks of radiation, and one year of Herceptin treatment. Through it all, I learned that I am okay, that I will likely see my boys grow up, that my early menopause was only temporary, that I am physically able to have more children, that I did in fact lose my hair, that my 10 tiny tattoos are so small I can barely see them, that my survival rate is much higher than 85 percent.

I knew I had breast cancer the day I detected a lump in my breast. It just took eight days to confirm my suspicion. And now it's been two years. I have survived for two years.

When my treatment for breast cancer was just around the corner, I asked a nurse about a dietitian on staff who I might talk to -- or a nutritionist or anyone who could help me wrap my head around eating right and staying healthy and maintaining my weight during treatment. I was told that I didn't need to talk to anyone -- that I would likely not lose any weight and would be fine. I was aware at the time that a referral to a dietitian often occurs with weight loss associated with treatment -- but it seemed that a referral for merely staying on track was just as important. Yet this seemed not to be an issue.  And I never was referred to anyone. So I found someone on my own -- and independent nutritionist who came to my house just after my first dose of chemotherapy, on a day when I felt nauseated and foggy and sick. It was a perfect time to talk to someone about how to eat during this difficult time, and the wisdom that was shared with me is as fresh in my mind today as it was 18 months ago -- when I sat at my dining room table with my mom and a young woman who knew exactly what I wanted to know.

Ontario's and Quebec's province-wide smoking ban in all public places went into effect on Wednesday -- to coincide with World No Tobacco Day. This is what Heather Crowe, a non-smoker who recently passed away from lung cancer, worked so passionately to make happen. As a waitress who worked in smoke-filled restaurants most of her adult life, she felt that second-hand smoke was the cause of her lung cancer. Crowe wanted to insure that no other person be subjected to second-hand smoke and suffer the same fate she did in being diagnosed with terminal lung cancer.

Many approve of the new law banning smoking in all public places, but not the bingo halls that raise money for charity. Ontario's 100 charity bingo halls state the smoking ban will result in the closing of 48 bingo halls over the next year. The Committee to Save Charity Bingo representing the bingo halls indicate that charities will lose $50 million dollars that would normally have been raised during bingo because 70 percent of customers who play at charity bingo halls smoke. They fear the players won't be coming around if they cannot smoke while they play bingo. While it is not in the nature of people to welcome change -- especially when it comes to lifestyle changes -- they do have the enormous capacity to adapt to new situations and circumstances, and in time, I think everyone will become comfortable with the new way. Or at least find alternative ways to make everyone comfortable.

Want to lose weight and cut your cancer risks associated with weight gain? Get more sleep. Researchers found that women who slept for five hours per night were 32 percent more likely to experience major weight gain and 15 percent more likely to become obese compared with women who slept seven hours a night.

While researchers are certain about the results of the study, they cannot explain why women who get less sleep gain more weight. "Prior studies have shown that after just a few days of sleep restriction, the hormones that control appetite cause people to become hungrier, so we thought that women who slept less might eat more. But in fact they ate less," stated Sanjay Patel, M.D., Assistant Professor of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University. "That suggests that appetite and diet are not accounting for the weight gain in women who sleep less." They speculate it might be women who sleep less are more tired and somehow not moving as much during the day.

During the Great American Eat Right Challenge, Weight Watchers is releasing its new cookbook, Super Foods, featuring recipes using fruits, vegetables, whole grains and other foods that focus on weight loss and nutritious cancer prevention. For each Super Foods cookbook sold, Weight Watchers will contribute $1 dollar -- up to $150,000 dollars -- to the American Cancer Society to help raise awareness for cancer prevention and educate people about cancer risk, prevention, treatment, and support.

Weight Watchers offers these nutrition tips in healthy eating for weight control and cancer prevention:

• Maintain a caloric intake that prevents weight gain.
• Eat a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains and legumes.
• Limit consumption of processed and red meats.
• Limit alcoholic beverages to no more than 2 per day for men, and 1 for women.
• Eat a variety of whole foods rather than taking supplements for powerful antioxidant cancer prevention.
  

The Super Foods and In No Time cookbook bundle is available for sale in participating Weight Watchers meetings rooms across the country. You can visit the Weight Watchers website for free recipes published online.

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.

Public Citizen, a consumer watchdog group, has petitioned the Food and Drug Administration, FDA, to remove Xenical, a prescription obesity drug, off the market due to fears it can lead to breast and colon cancer. At this time, there is also the possibility the weight loss drug will be approved for over-the-counter sales, and the consumer group is asking the FDA to refuse approval of that move. However, last week, in a potentially disturbing turn of event, the FDA granted drug company GlaxoSmithKline conditional approval for the drug to be sold without a prescription as long as it met certain undisclosed criteria.

Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of Public Citizen's Health Research Group, said in a statement, "The failure to ban the prescription version of this drug or worse, to make it much more widely available by allowing OTC sales, is a decision that is likely to increase cancer incidence."

In the past, Public Citizen has alerted consumers about the dangers of Vioxx, Ephedra, Bextra, Rezulin, Baycol, Propulsid and many other drugs years before the drugs were pulled from the market.