A generic drug is exactly the same dosage, safety, strength and quality as a brand named drug. Generic drugs also do not take longer to work in the body, again, its the same ingredients as the name you are more familiar.

The reason generic drugs are cheaper is because the makers of these drugs don't have the costs of the original developer of the drug. When the patent on the developer expires, 20 years, other manufactures can introduce competitive generic versions to the FDA for approval. This also creates greater competition in the industry once generic drugs are approved and keeps costs lower.

A great place to go is here for more information on your generic drugs.

Many Americans have begun taking folic acid supplements thinking that it can protect against colon cancer and also cut a person's risk of stroke and heart disease.

In the past, animal studies led researchers to believe that folic acid had these beneficial effects. The National Institutes of Heath funded a clinical trial that enrolled more than 1,000 men and women who previously had polyps removed from their colons.

Those in the study were randomly assigned to take daily pills containing either 1 milligram of folic acid or a placebo. The study showed that those who took the folic acid got just as many new colon polyps as those who took the placebo pills.

Robert Sandler, M.D., chief of the division of gastroenterology and hematology, told WebMD, "We are disappointed and surprised that it didn't work. In fact, there was some evidence that folic acid increased cancer risk."

We're still basking in the hot sun, bronzing our bodies in tanning beds, and playing outdoors without slathering on the sunscreen. What will it take, I wonder, for our society to catch on, to take real steps toward preventing skin cancer?

It seems education isn't enough. Most of us know by now all it takes is one bad sunburn to increase our risk of skin cancer, yet we continue to collect burn after burn after burn. Perhaps like all habit-forming behaviors -- think smoking -- it takes something tragic in our lives to inspire change. When someone we know gets lung cancer after a lifetime of smoking or someone we know develops melanoma after years of sunbathing, maybe we get the hint. Maybe

Now, I know you don't personally know this young woman -- she calls herself Miss Melanoma -- but I suggest you read her story. And I recommend you take what happened to her -- she lost part of her foot to melanoma and is currently battling a spread of the disease -- and allow it to really sink in, allow it to motivate you to take cover from the sun, before something like this happens to you. Because it can.

I'm no cook. And I'll never claim a recipe is my own. Anyone who likes my taco salad should thank my friend Kim and her mom Kathy. My turkey meatballs: all credit goes to my brother-in-law's mom. The brownies I once whipped up and now have given up: kudos to Betty Crocker. And this recipe I'm about to share comes straight from the pages of the May 2007 issue of Family Circle magazine. It's such a simple recipe -- takes five minutes tops. I probably could have invented it on my own. But I didn't.

Go With The Grain

Top 1 cup whole-grain cereal with:

2 tablespoons ground flaxseed
1/2 cup each strawberries and raspberries
1 cup 1% milk

Movie critic Roger Ebert expects to be back to work at his annual festival for overlooked movies this week. It will be his first public appearance since having cancer surgery last summer -- and while some say his appearance may attract the gossip papers, Ebert says, "So what?"

Ebert, 64, will be seen at the ninth annual Overlooked Film Festival, beginning today at the University of Urbana-Champaign, wearing a gauze bandage around his neck. And his mouth will be seen to droop, he says.

This is all because of Ebert's tracheostomy -- it opens an airway through an incision in his windpipe, rendering him speechless -- that resulted from his June 16 surgery to remove a cancerous growth on his salivary gland and a subsequent July 1 surgery to repair a burst blood vessel close to the same site.

On Tuesday, Ebert shared that his cancer began in his salivary gland but then spread to his lower right jaw. As a result, part of his mandible was removed and two surgeries were necessary to reconstruct the area. Both surgeries were unsuccessful, however, and led to unanticipated bleeding.

"The doctors now plan an approach that does not involve the risk of unplanned bleeding," Ebert, a film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times since 1967, says. "If all goes well, my speech will be restored."

This cancer survivor, who says we spend too much time hiding illness and is proud to be back in the spotlight, has also co-hosted the Ebert & Roeper television show with fellow Sun-Times columnist Richard Roeper since 2000. Film critics and filmmakers have been filling in for Ebert during his recovery.

The idea of music as a healing influence which could affect health and behavior is at least as old as the writings of Aristotle and Plato. The American Music Therapy Association (AMTA) promotes a vast amount of research exploring the benefits of music as therapy through publication of the Journal of Music Therapy, Music Therapy Perspectives and other sources. A substantial body of literature exists to support the effectiveness of music therapy.

You don't have to have a particular music ability to benefit from music therapy. No particular style of music is more therapeutic than any other. You just need to enjoy your experience. Music will lower stress and help you relax. It has been proven that it reduces acute and chronic pain. Even during child birth. It can elevate moods to counteract depression and it can counteract apprehension or fear.

So today just sit back and listen to some music, do some drumming or percussion rhythms, hum some tunes, blow on a flute or harmonica even if you don't know any particular songs. Be creative. Take advantage of the sunshine and beautiful weather and just step outside and listen to the birds, the wind, and the rhythm of mother nature. The stand by of anything else is to plug in a favorite CD and close your eyes and just let it sink in.

A new study shows certain genes may make some lung cancer patients more sensitive to chemotherapy. This is a good thing -- increased sensitivity in this case means lower doses of drug therapy work as good or better than higher doses.

Researchers looked at more than 21,000 genes in cells common to non-small-cell lung cancer, the most common type of the disease. Of these genes, 87 came up with heightened sensitivity to the chemotherapy drug Taxol. To be exact, the genes were 1,000 times more sensitive when exposed to the drug for 48 hours.

Chemotherapy is a very blunt instrument, says one researcher. Locating genes that make chemotherapy drugs more potent at lower doses is a critical step toward tailoring treatment and minimizing side effects for patients.

Two other drugs -- Navelbine and Gemzar -- were tested on six of the Taxol-sensitive genes. The genes did not respond to these drugs.

I'm never quite sure what to do about vitamin supplements. Should I take them? Or should I leave them?

Sometimes I think supplements could surely help me with whatever I'm lacking in my diet. Other times I don't want to mess with what might be working just fine in my body. Now if a doctor tells me my iron is low, I'll take a supplement to boost my levels. But if there is nothing apparently off kilter in my system, I tend to just leave things alone.

I'm glad at the moment for my current plan. Because nutritionists now suspect that high doses of vitamins and minerals -- believed by some to prevent cancer -- might actually be harmful.

Think about this:

The American Medical Association journal JAMA recently reported that high doses of antioxidant supplements can be harmful. Vitamin advocates challenged the analysis, saying it excluded large studies from China and Italy showing antioxidant supplements lowered mortality risk.

Consumers still should read labels carefully.

"Some of the things called daily vitamins can be higher than what we think is desirable," says one researcher who urges consumers to look for something about 100 percent of the daily value. That's really all people need, she declares. But a healthy diet is still most important and can prevent the need for supplements altogether. Yet for those who are sick, don't have access to nutritious food or for some other reason cannot eat well, the 100-percent rule is a good guide.

An article recently published in the journal Cancer says that middle-aged men who are obese at the time of diagnoses of prostate cancer have a significantly worse overall survival than those who are not overweight.

Researchers from the University of Washington and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center recently conducted a clinical study to further evaluate potential associations between obesity and outcomes among patients diagnosed with prostate cancer. This study included 752 middle-aged men diagnosed with the disease.

They concluded that the men with the highest body fat had an approximate 2.5 fold increase in risk of death from prostate cancer. Also, the obese men had a 3.5 fold increased risk of metastasis.

This year alone, 215,000 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer. And sadly, not all of them will be treated equally.

Researchers reported last Tuesday that breast cancer patients who are either obese or poor are more likely to receive lower doses of chemotherapy. This might be why some women relapse and others do not, according to the researchers whose findings appear in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

This treatment discrepancy seems to stem from doctors who mean well and want to save certain women from severe side effects of chemotherapy. Doctors may be under-dosing obese patients, for example, because a larger dose based on weight could lead to worse side effects. There is no evidence this is true, however.

As for socioeconomic status, researchers report doctors are assuming less-educated patients won't stick with a tough course of treatment -- and so they prescribe less, in hopes patients will complete the regimen.

Researchers found that severely obese women were four times more likely to get less chemotherapy than they need. Women with less than a high school education were three times more likely to receive low doses of chemotherapy. And women living in the South were almost six times more likely to come up short on the drugs they need to save their lives.

"We have new therapies and cures out there for many forms of cancer and sadly, sometimes we're not curing people because they are not getting the full doses that should be standard," says Dr. Gary Lyman who led the study at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York.

The world's largest drug maker -- Pfizer Inc. -- announced Monday it will cut 10,000 jobs and close at least five facilities due to fierce competition from generic drug makers. The goal, says Pfizer spokespeople, is to whittle away annual costs by $2 billion by the end of the year -- to combat the prediction that the company will lose 41 percent of its sales to generic drugs between 2010 and 2012.

Pfizer's other obstacles include expiring drug patents -- costing Pfizer about $14 billion in revenues between 2005 and 2007 -- as well as demands for lower prices by insurers and large purchasers, and repeated requests for evidence of products' worth.

The 10,000 layoffs amount to 10 percent of the company's global workforce and will take jobs from 2,200 United States employees. The company will cut 20 percent of its European sales force, will close three research sites in Michigan and two manufacturing plants in New York and Nebraska, and is considering selling a manufacturing site in Germany and closing two research sites in Japan and France. In the midst of all of this, the company will focus its efforts on transforming the way they do business.

"I believe we must transform the way we've done business in the past in order to be more successful in the future," said Jeffrey Kindler, CEO and chairman of Pfizer. " Incremental evolution is not enough. Fundamental change is imperative -- and it must happen now."

Pfizer's Monday announcement is the second declaration of budget cuts. A previous announcement has the company -- the maker of cancer drugs Aromasin, Ellence, Camptosar, and Sutent -- slashing costs by $4 billion a year until 2008.

You're in luck if you like fruit, vegetables, and milk -- because Italian researchers say these items appear to reduce the likelihood of developing liver cancer.

Diet plays a significant role in the risk of liver cancer, says the lead researcher of this study who singles out fruits and vegetables as the foods with the most protective effect.

Subjects of this study -- published in the International Journal of Cancer -- were 185 patients with liver cancer and a comparison group of 412 controls without cancer. Participants responded to questions about diet, and their answers showed that as intake of certain foods went up, the risk of liver cancer went down. Factoring out other issues possibly contributing to this indication, researchers found that high intake of milk and yogurt cut the risk of developing liver cancer by 78 percent. High consumption of white meat lowered the risk by 56 percent, and when combined with high intake of fruit, this number dropped to 52 percent.

These finding are particularly important for patients with hepatitis B and hepatitis C (HCV) infection. But overall, experts say anyone wishing to ward off liver cancer should adopt a diet rich in fruits and vegetables, limit alcohol consumption, and avoid HCV infection by practicing safe sex and never sharing needles.

United States drug company Merck hopes to offer the cervical cancer vaccine Gardasil to developing countries at much lower prices -- within months, if possible.

Currently, the three-dose vaccine is not affordable in the developing world -- where 80 percent of cervical cancer deaths occur and 95 percent of females have never had a Pap test . And while the exact discounted price has not yet been determined, Merck professionals report they are committed to slashing the price of Gardasil for these women.

Merck also aims to help developing countries receive drugs sooner. Right now, there is a time lag of 15 to 20 years between the approval of drugs in the West and the time they reach these countries.

In previous studies there has not shown to be an increase in survival when adding chemotherapy after surgery for gastric cancer compared with surgery alone. Most U.S. patients that are diagnosed with cancer of the stomach or lower esophagus have locally advanced disease that is hard to cure.

The MAGIC trial represents a landmark study in gastric cancer, as it is the first trial to demonstrate a survival benefit for pre- and postoperative chemotherapy. Researchers studied 503 patients with cancer of the stomach, esphagogastric junction or lower esophagus. One arm of the trial received three preoperative and three postoperative cycles of chemotherapy, the other arm of the study had only surgery.

The trial concluded that the chemotherapy group had smaller resectable tumors with negative margins, fewer patients had advanced nodal disease and the five year survival rate increased by 13 percent. It was noted that this is a significant advance for the treatment of this disease.

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.