As evidence mounts, it's becoming more and more clear that chemo brain, a mental fogginess that can result from chemotherapy, is a real concern and not just a convenient excuse cancer patients use to explain away their flighty and forgetful tendencies. It seems the brain really can suffer cognitive damage from the poisonous drugs that fight off deadly cancer cells. And sometimes, this damage is present years after treatment.

Add to chemo brain the normal aging process as well as brain conditions such as mild cognitive impairment and even schizophrenia and the brain might not stand a chance of ever remembering anything. Unless we buy into the new concept of mental training -- somewhat like physical fitness training -- in which case we may be able to bring back a level of sharpness to our lives.

Research suggests this type of training may delay mental decline. And Betty Hall, 85, who is taking a brain fitness class at her senior living complex in Illinois, says brain-enhancing activities are definitely helping her.

Hall is participating in an eight-week program where she spends one hour per day, five days per week using a computer to match words and listen for details in stories. She says it's helping her remember where she places her keys and her grocery lists -- and it's even helping her in her bridge club.

"I've won four times out of the last five at bridge club, and I think the players are going to shoot me because I keep remembering the cards people have," she said. "It's much easier for me to concentrate . . . and I brag about it everywhere I go."

One clinical professor of neurology says brain health programs will explode over the next few years because of the stunning findings on this front. One study shows relatively short training regimens, lasting just five or six weeks, improve functioning for as long as five years. And booster sessions help advance these gains. Study participants says their everyday tasks, like managing finances, are much easier after mental workouts. Another study of the computer software Hall uses shows the program shaves an average 10 years off the mental age of users.

Not all mental training is alike, and different cognitive difficulties may call for different training protocols. But the simple fact that I can work out my brain like I can work out my body gives me hope that I can possibly reverse the effects of chemotherapy on my own foggy brain, that I can one day not worry anymore that I might find my check book in the refrigerator and my cell phone in my sock drawer. Bring on the workouts!

Thanks to Bev, my brainy friend, for this story tip!

If you are a woman, and you have noticed that your breasts are not exactly the same size and shape, new research has concluded you may be at greater risk for developing breast cancer. Breast Cancer Research published a study that found breast asymmetry could be a reliable independent predictor of breast cancer and the relative odds of developing breast cancer increased by 1.5 with each 100ml increase in breast asymmetry.

I am not a scientist. However, I was an art student. I can tell you, with absolute assurance that my statement is accurate, when I say, there are few, if any, physically symmetrical people walking the planet. For example, if you divide your face in half, you will find the two sides do not match. When you are an art student, it is helpful to know this, from a technical standpoint of being able to draw with any talent to the finished work. After reading the results of this study, the same knowledge seems useful today, because, before any woman is possibly put under any additional anxiety over her body image or breast cancer risks, I thought I should just point out the symmetrical fact that we are all physically asymmetrical.

Breast cancer risks for women are real issues we need to address and resolve with cancer prevention. I am not sure how relevant matching breasts will become, when the fact is, we are all physically asymmetrical in varying degree.