Time to test your smarts -- about sleep, sun, food, and alcohol.

Just read the following questions, pick an option and then scroll down to determine if you really know what's best for your health.

• Is it healthier to sleep an extra hour or force yourself out of bed in the morning to exercise?

• Is it healthier to spend 15 minutes in the sun without sunscreen or two hours in the sun wearing SPF 30?

• Is it better to have a second glass of wine at dinner or a sinful dessert?

Blogger Kristina Collins wrote on February 11 about three great steps for reducing the risk of cancer. Her suggestions -- eat well, get fit, and stop smoking -- are such good tips and could certainly account for major health changes in those who heed this advice.

Each one of these recommended lifestyle alterations is a major undertaking. And if you're like me and find big, swift, sweeping changes a sure recipe for defeat, then this short to-do list may seem a bit intimidating. So I'd like to offer a bit of my own advice for accomplishing these health feats -- take baby steps.

Kristina has taken baby steps. She first quit smoking -- I'm not sure there's anything small about this success, however -- and now she's taking on membership at a gym. Cutting down on red wine comes next, she says, as she pursues a life driven by health.

I have just recently taken a baby step myself. I stopped drinking soda -- or pop as I called it before relocating from Ohio to Florida. I'd known for some time I wanted to rid myself of the sugar that comes packaged in my favorite drinks -- Dr. Pepper and root beer -- but for some reason, I was dragging my feet when it came to giving up this vice. Yet I did it. I stopped drinking soda, replaced it with water, and now have no desire for sugary drinks of any kind.

I am a creature of habit. I know this because I spent years drinking only water. But when cancer struck, I turned to the carbonation of soft drinks to settle my upset stomach. With time, my stomach stopped bothering me. But I didn't stop drinking soda. I kept drinking it for no other reason than pure habit. And when I convinced myself this practice was not necessary in my life, I cut it out.

Perhaps I'll tackle chocolate next. Or exercising more. Who knows. I'm just happy I accomplished one small task. And I hope you'll consider taking baby steps in your pursuits for better health. Just remember, we didn't hop up one day and start sprinting in infancy. It took years to fine-tune our ability to run on our own. And it may take years to carve out a healthful way of living.

When she asked her teenage daughters whether or not she should accept the American Cancer Society's Mother of the Year award, the response was a resounding, "Mom, of course." So Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, accepted the anti-cancer honor this week and told ABC's George Stephanopolous on Sunday why she is a good mom and a healthy role model.

"They see that I go running, I get on my bicycle, I do yoga, pilates, whatever else I do," Ferguson said. "Do you know what they do? Get up off the sofa, turn the television off, walk to work, walk around the block, more vegetables, more fruits at school, less soda pops, less fast food."

Ferguson, 47, says cancer prevention starts with good role modeling -- which is exactly what she has done as mom to princesses Beatrice and Eugenie.

"I can safely say one of the best things I've done is be a good mother," Ferguson said.

Ferguson, author of memoir My Story and spokeswoman for Weight Watchers, first became known as the wife of Britain's Prince Andrew, the Duke of York. The pair divorced in 1996, but Ferguson's positive public persona has remained untarnished.

The flu is what caused Australian pop star Kylie Minogue to cut a live London show short on Saturday. Her cancellation had nothing to do with breast cancer, her spokesman says.

Minogue, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in May 2005, has endured both surgery and chemotherapy and is back on the Showgirl Homecoming Tour she had to postpone just after her diagnosis. The revival of her tour represents Minogue's cancer comeback -- and this recent health setback is nothing more than a temporary bout with the flu. It is reported that several of her band members also have the bug.

Minogue, 38, kicked off the British leg of her tour on New Year's Eve. She has already played seven dates at London's Wembley Arena.

By popular vote, Australia's beloved pop diva and breast cancer survivor has been chosen as the most inspirational celebrity of 2006. Sugar magazine teen readers indicated that Minogue represents their first choice as an inspirational role model for young women.

From the beginning of her breast cancer diagnosis, Minogue has shared her very personal battle with breast cancer in a very public way, raising awareness for the disease among a younger generation of women whose attention to breast health might not have been as focused otherwise.

Earlier this month, Minogue was named the Gold Choice Celebrity of the Year in the Sydney Confidential People's Choice Awards by Australia's Daily Telegraph readers.


For a retrospective of Kylie Minogue's breast cancer journey:

• Kylie Minogue: voted favorite traveling companion of men.
• Kylie Minogue: world exclusive interview with Sky One.
• Kylie Minogue loses close friend and personal chauffeur to cancer.
• Kylie Minogue: back on stage as a breast cancer survivor.
• Kylie Minogue: laughter is the best medicine for cancer cure.
• Dannii Minogue: sings under pressure about sister Kylie.
• Kylie Minogue breast cancer survivor glows in health.
• Kylie Minogue: cancer survivor writes children's book.
• Kylie Minogue joins women in fight for Herceptin.
• Kylie Minogue in breast cancer remission.

When Australian pop star Kylie Minogue was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2005, there was a sudden surge in the number of young women requesting breast cancer screening. Minogue's breast cancer diagnosis at the age of 37 raised concern among a younger population of women that breast cancer is a diagnosis that could potentially happen to them. Knowledge is power and education saves lives. The increase in breast cancer awareness became known as the Kylie Effect.

However, the awareness that younger women can develop breast cancer has led some women to age-related conclusions about breast cancer that are not true, and this is also being referred to as the Kylie Effect. According to a recent survey of 2,289 women conducted by Cancer Research UK, 77 percent of the survey participants said that breast cancer risk was higher for women under the age of 70, and 33 percent said that women under the age of 50 were most at risk. The fact is cancer risk increases with age, and four out of five women diagnosed with breast cancer are over the age of 50.

"Celebrities with breast cancer like Kylie Minogue and Caron Keating have attracted a lot of publicity -- especially in magazines aimed at younger women. This is very beneficial in that it raises awareness of breast cancer. But the down side is that it may also set up a chain of panic among young women, while misleading older women to think that ageing is not a relevant factor in breast cancer," stated Dr Lesley Walker of Cancer Research UK.

For a retrospective of Kylie Minogue's breast cancer journey:

• Kylie Minogue: voted favorite traveling companion of men.
• Kylie Minogue: world exclusive interview with Sky One.
• Kylie Minogue loses close friend and personal chauffeur to cancer.
• Kylie Minogue: back on stage as a breast cancer survivor.
• Kylie Minogue: laughter is the best medicine for cancer cure.
• Dannii Minogue: sings under pressure about sister Kylie.
• Kylie Minogue breast cancer survivor glows in health.
• Kylie Minogue: cancer survivor writes children's book.
• Kylie Minogue joins women in fight for Herceptin.
• Kylie Minogue in breast cancer remission.

What should younger women do to be breast cancer smart? Do a monthly self exam and if they notice any abnormalities or lumps, insist that tests be done to rule out breast cancer. Realize that while any woman at any age can get breast cancer, the chances increase with age and 80 percent of breast cancer diagnosis happen for women 50 years and older.

We are all adults here. I am assuming we are all adults here. If not, before you follow the link to this video, you might want to do it when the kids are not in the room. Not because there is anything they should not see, but because knowing kids the way I do, they might ask what the lady in the video is doing with the plum.

There are times when you just don't feel like being creative enough to explain innuendo in a way that prevents the school calling the next day to discuss what your child is discussing in class about daddy watching the lady with the plum video. The translation of double entendre can take interesting detours when repeated during graham crackers and milk time.

After all, as a parent, you are already explaining away the sexual innuendo of children's shows like Cow and Chicken, Dexter's Laboratory, Ed, Edd n Eddy, The Fairly OddParents, Johnny Bravo, The Ren and Stimpy Show, Rocko's Modern Life, and SpongeBob SquarePants.

Back to the lady with the plum. It's a bit of genius if you ask me. Rachel Gets Fruity! is part of the Everyman campaign to raise awareness on the ease and simplicity of a testicular self exam. It's short, sweet and to the point. Starring pop star Rachel Stevens, the video is sexual suggestive in a soft porn kind of way. There is no nudity. It's likely to grab attention of the audience it is aimed at and effectively raise awareness. Because awareness needs to be raised.

According to a survey, only 28 percent of men check their testicles regularly for signs of testicular cancer. The Everyman campaign is attempting to change that in innovative and creative ways. Here's the Rachel Gets Fruity! video. To find out more information on the Everyman campaign and other efforts Everyman is involved in to raise awareness, go here.

After diagnosing Freddy Fender with lung cancer, the doctors told him there is nothing they can do for him. At the beginning of the year, he went in for an operation to remove the upper left lobe of his lung due to a fungal infection when the surgeons found two large tumors. A PET scan revealed nine smaller tumors in his pleura - membranes covering the lungs and lining the chest cavity.

Grammy award-winning musician Fender, known for Hispanic/pop, country western and blues, became famous for hits like Before The Next Teardrop Falls, You'll Lose A Good Thing, and Wasted Days and Wasted Nights.

According to his bio, in 1960, Wasted Days and Wasted Nights proved to be prophetic. Fender and his bass player were arrested and sent to prison for possession of two marijuana cigarettes. Three years later, Fender went to New Orleans, where he spent the next five years developing his talent in rhythm & blues and Cajun funk.

Fender had a role in Robert Redford's film the Milagro Beanfield War and you can hear his voice in national radio and television campaigns for McDonald's and Miller Lite.

Caller-Times Cassandra Hinojosa quotes Fender in her news article as saying, "I feel very comfortable in my life. I'm one year away from 70 and I've had a good run. I really believe I'm OK. In my mind and in my heart, I feel OK. I cannot complain that I haven't lived long enough, but I'd like to live longer."

In September, with his wife Vangie Huerta at his side, he will visit the Cancer Treatment Centers of America at Southwestern Regional Medical Center to consider available treatments.

David Letterman recently introduced Fender to his Late Show audience as "one of the greatest voices in all of music."

Back in June, when Pamela Anderson stood nude in the window of fashion designer Stella McCartney's London clothes shop to bring attention to PETA, she was making a statement she would rather go nude than wear fur. Anderson chose to deliver that message in a way certain to be heard. It was an outrageous stunt but it worked -- and whether you tsk-tsk or applaud her effort, Pamela Anderson and PETA made headlines around the globe that day.

It worked for the global cosmetics company Avon in Bulgaria this week, when in a continuing effort to raise awareness for breast cancer, they launched an eye-catching public campaign using three well-known sexy celebrities of Bulgaria. Posing in a larger-than-life banner hung outside the National Art Gallery in Sofia, the three beauties stared back at passers-by with a suggestion that when the large pink ribbon covering the women in the banner in just the right places came down, the public would be in for a nude shock.

As it turns out, when the pink ribbon was pulled down, the bare-shouldered bare-legged smiling women in the poster -- television star Natalia Simeonova, pop diva Maria Ilieva and film actress Koyna Rousseva -- were holding up pink tees with a breast cancer message printed on them.

Will the public or the paparazzi ever tire of sexy or the hint of nudity or actual nudity? No -- and I am not suggesting they do. Only that this type of campaign risks becoming cliche. If I were head of a large organization with a goal to raise awareness in eye-popping ways, I would hire the brightest, most innovative and creative minds in the advertising world, and let them create something intelligent and fresh and new. But for now, Pamela Anderson and Avon know what works -- and they work it.

Fast food and junk food snacks are not good for health. Smoking is not good for health. Little sleep and non-existent periods of relaxation are not good for health. Lack of exercise and weight gain from stress eating are not good for health. But according to researchers, women who work long hours are prone to some or all these habits, and that is not a good thing for their health. Smoking, damage to the immune system due to unrelenting levels of stress, lack of exercise and weight gain all increase cancer risks.

Leeds University conducted a study that showed women typically respond to the stress of working long hours by engaging in negative habits that are detrimental to their immediate and long-term health. According to researchers, the reaction to stress can manifest in choosing unhealthy high fat and high sugar snacks before choosing healthier food.

The study compared how men and women respond to stress, and if there was a difference. Some experts stated that men are less likely to be affected by working long hours because they are not expected to multi-task when they get home from work in the same way women are expected to do. Researchers said most women agree to their take on the matter.

Knowing that some women alleviate stress in unhealthy ways, gives women an opportunity to step back and assess how they might choose better strategies for dealing with stress -- or in minimizing some of the causes of stress in their life. Aside from these research findings, I think both men and women in modern society are under enormous daily stress and we all need to step back and evaluate how much of our health we are willing to compromise.

South Beach, FL Producer/Recording Artist Sandra Grace is donating part of the proceeds of her new CD "Do You Have A Lover?" to breast cancer research and awareness in honor of her mother, aunt, and some dear friends who have survived breast cancer and inspired the music on the album. She will personally autograph and mail out each CD ordered from her website in July 2006. The CD sells for $9.99.

As for the music, "Do You Have A Lover?" can best be described as Madonna meets Fran Drescher! It's a good work-out album: electronica with dance and progressive house influence, and a pop ballad snuck in for cool-down. I know I for one can use a new work out CD to exercise to. To get an advance copy of "Do You Have A Lover?", please visit her website here. 

Sandra Grace was just recently featured on the cover of  Express, a South Florida newspaper, with Lily Tomlin and George Bush!

UK's Food Standards Agency, FSA, is suggesting a ban on television advertising of junk foods in a continuing effort to curb the rising number of overweight children. The FSA's three possible actions that could be taken in relation to television food ads, as reported by Reuter are:

1. Ban all food and drink ads during television programs that are made specifically for children, or that appeal to children of nine and under, which covers a broad range of programs like The Simpsons.
2. The first ban option except the restricted food advertising would simply be for junk food high in fat, salt or sugar.
3. Limits on the number of food and drink ads shown per hour at any time when children are likely to be watching.

No celebrities or animated figures will be allowed in food commercials aimed at children. What happened to the parental NO? Unless you have your child doing the grocery shopping alone, how is junk food making it into the home? I can understand a need to make certain lunch programs at school are regulated to ensure healthy foods are being served to our kids while they are away from home, but are we really all that incapable as parents of saying no when asked for the latest sugary-treat? Or, while the regulatory agencies wrestle over the fine print of the new proposed bans, why don't we just turn off the television, get up and go take a walk with our kids?

Two topics of conversation sure to make people uncomfortable are obesity and poverty. But both are necessary to conversation about cancer prevention because both increase the risk of cancer and death from cancer. Obesity is a cancer concern because being overweight is linked to an increase for some cancers. Obesity often reflects a nutrition-deficient fat-laden diet and a physically-inactive lifestyle that increase the risks for cancer. This is why the topic of obesity is so important to cancer prevention. Poverty often prevents people from seeking medical care because they cannot afford to see a doctor or undergo early cancer screening tests or cancer treatments once diagnosed with cancer. Researchers and organizations are beginning to devote more time and money into understanding the problem and in finding the solution to the rising obesity epidemic. No where is it more important than in the lives of our children.

The Food and Drug Administration, FDA, announced it has identified the following soft drinks as containing high levels of benzene, a chemical known to cause cancer:

• Crush Pineapple
• Safeway Select Diet Orange
• Crystal Light Sunrise Classic Orange
• Giant Light Cranberry Juice Cocktail
• AquaCal Strawberry Flavored Water Beverage
  

Dr. Laura Tarantino, director of the FDA's Office of Food Additive Safety, said drinking sodas high in benzene does not pose a health risk -- while the people at the Environmental Working Group accuses the FDA of past and present suppression of information about benzene in soft drinks and views the benzene levels in soft drinks a problem. "FDA's test results confirm that there is a serious problem with benzene in soda and juices," said Richard Wiles, senior vice president at Environmental Working Group.

Basically, the problem is sodium benzoate and ascorbic acid, which together form benzene. Benzene is a known cancer-causing chemical.

This is a problem that has been going on for years -- both here and in Europe. Over the months we have reported on the possible cover-ups and controversy related to the cancer risks of some soft drinks and about the good guys and bad guys of this continuing story. You can read a bit of background on this issue here and here.

From the beginning, I was a fan of the music of Jamaican singer, guitarist, songwriter and activist Bob Marley. Once while playing a game of Trivial Pursuit with a group of brainiacs -- that I was sure I was going to lose -- I won because of Bob Marley. So, it was a sad day when the news came that Marley, only 36, had died of cancer. In 1977, Marley found a wound on his right toe. He thought it was a sports injury, but it was melanoma under the toe nail. He refused to have his toe amputated because of his Rastafarian beliefs that the body must be whole. In time, the cancer spread to Marley's brain, lungs, liver, and stomach. Marley finally did seek medical help, and went to Munich in order to receive treatment from cancer specialist Josef Issels, but the cancer had already progressed to the terminal stage. Marley lost his life to cancer in May 1981. He died without a will.

Recently, and over twenty years after Marley's death, Marley's bass player Aston Barrett, attempted to sue Island Records and the Marley family for 60 million pounds stating he did not receive royalties and songwriting credits. Last Monday the suit was dismissed. But not before Barrett had a chance to malign the late Marley as nothing more than someone good at playing sports -- not the music that gained him worldwide popularity.

"We always felt this would be the outcome, and it was hard to listen to Aston Barrett reduce his friend Bob to someone who was more interested in playing football than making music," the family said in a statement. Now, Barrett will be liable for court costs and forced to sell two properties in Jamaica as a result of the ruling. Greed will get you, one way or the other. I was happy to hear the ruling went the way it did.