Fighters..............

[JamieGSE]

There are a lot more people who seem to get to be over 100 these days.

I think it's all the preservatives in our body and also the breakthroughs in medicines. eg. Infant deaths are lower, we can transplant just about anything these days including faces (I want Kate Hudson's when she's done with it) etc.

I don't know if all the healthy lifestyle stuff is true...hell in 30 years we will probably just clone ourselves...though I feel sorry for all those people who believed in Cyrogenics....it ain't gonna happen

[Quinn]

I hope more people than just the brothers post - because cancer can affect anyone at anytime unfortunately.

No doubt. Cancer has taken both my father and one of my best friends. Seeing my father rot from it was a real revelation for me. As far as I was concerned, up until that point, the man had been indestructible. In his case, it started as melanoma and worked its way into his brain. He died a horrible death.

I took him to Sloan-Kettering and saw to it that he had the very best doctors that money could buy. I used every fucking connection I had to get him into one of the most sought after experimental programs. Nothing made a difference. TO HELL WITH CANCER!!!

-Quinn

[MacShreach]

More on the red round things below. Interesting stuff. BTW, 2 tabs of aspirin a week have been shown to produce a reduction in bowel cancer.

A related but nonetheless significant point-- if you are in a heart attack risk group, you should consider carrying aspirin at all times. If it is safe for you to do so, take one tablet without water as soon as you think a heart attack is happening. This has nothing at all to do with pain relief but the aspirin will thin the blood and reduce its ability to clot, thereby possibly preventing further damage to the heart. Apparently this is "the smartest thing" anyone suffering a heart attack can do, apart from contact the emergency services, of course.

Remember to tell the paramedics when they arrive as they will probably try to give you another one!

PLEASE NOTE I am NOT a doctor! Though I do have first aid qualification, I am just doing a little spare-time research here to keep JWBL's initiative going. It's up to you to verify the safety of aspirin for your own use before using it. Aspirin can cause serious bleeding if you have a stomach ulcer.

Having said that, faced with the possibility of internal bleeding or a massive coronary, I'll take the bleeding. Personally.

Tomato & cancer
By Dr K.C. Kanwar and Dr Usha Kanwar

TOMATOES, known for their high vitamin content, may also protect people from developing cancer primarily of the gut and the prostate. Scientists recently reported that people living in northern Italy, who consumed seven or more servings of raw tomatoes every week, had 60 per cent less chance of developing colon, rectal and stomach cancer than those who ate only two servings or less (cf. International Journal of Cancer). The famous saying, “an apple a day keeps the doctor away”, is perhaps outdated and not fully scientifically substantiated. Besides being a nutritious fruit, apple certainly is neither a complete and balanced diet nor an item of established medicinal efficacy. “Eat enough tomatoes a day and keep cancer away” is a more appropriate slogan which is quite close to the scientific truth. The consumption of tomatoes provides better protection from cancer than eating fruits and consuming fresh green and other types of vegetables.

Dr Graham Colditz of Harvard University corroborated these views when he reported in 1985 that older Americans “who often ate tomatoes in abundance were only half as likely to die from all cancers combined”.

Lately, Harvard researchers, in a massive survey, studied the eating habits of more than 47,000 men over six years and concluded that a diet high in tomatoes (four to seven servings per week) might significantly protect men from prostate cancer. Such individuals were 20 per cent less likely to develop prostate cancer than men who avoided tomatoes. According to these findings published in The Journal of the National Cancer Institute, a diet rich in tomatoes, tomato sauce and tomato juice seemed to have a dramatic protective effect against prostate cancer, the second most common cancer in men. Those who had more than 10 tomato servings a week had 35 per cent reduction in the rate of prostate cancer.

This is a boon for those who have a weakness for a high-fat diet since the latter is directly linked with the enhancement of prostate cancer. Such individuals on a high-fat diet are advised to neutralise their food fad with a diet rich in tomatoes.

What is in particular responsible for the anti-cancer effect of tomatoes? In the view of Prof George Truscott of Keel University, England, which also stands corroborated by the Harvard scientists involved in the above-mentioned survey, it is the red colour which makes the ripened tomatoes look attractive and tasty. Lycopene — the pigment that turns tomatoes red when they ripen — is now proved to be a powerful antioxidant, the substance which is able to disarm unstable free radicals that damage the biological systems, enhance aging and contribute to a variety of diseases including cardiovascular ailments and cancer.

The free radicals are toxic by products of the normal metabolism which damage cells, accelerate aging and are involved in the pathophysiology of many diseases including cancer.

The natural biological antioxidants of which lycopene is perhaps the most potent, selectively scavenges the free radicals as soon as they are formed and render them harmless. But when the body’s antioxidants run low, free radicals let themselves loose and play havoc with various systems.

A diet rich in antioxidants, nutritionists believe, can snare the unstable molecules (the free radicals) before they do any harm, thereby not only cutting down the risk of cardiovascular diseases but also substantially lowering the overall danger of cancer and a variety of other age-related diseases.

Above all, these antioxidants, if available in abundance, retard the ageing process.

According to Dr Colditz, tomatoes are one of the few foods rich in lycopene — a member of the carotenoid clan that has been overshadowed, so far, by its famous cousin, beta carotene — a predominant plant pigment and a precursor of vitamin A, both of which themselves are antioxidants of considerable merit. Tomatoes, it is estimated, supply as much as 90 per cent of the total lycopene many of us get in our daily food.

All carotenoids are antioxidants. The most common of these is the beta-carotene found in pumpkins, carrots, and fruits like cantalupes, papayas, ripened mangoes, apricot, peaches and many more such fruits which have pinkish or yellow pulp. The other carotenoids include beta-cryptoxanthine found in oranges, tangerines and canthaxanthine used as natural food colourant in jellies, salad-dressing and soft drinks.

Scientists feel that antioxidants from vegetables and fruits serve as natural commandos against free radicals, the root cause of many human diseases. Besides lycopene, tomatoes have vitamin C and certain chlorogenic acids which too are potent antioxidants and hence protective against cancer.

Tomatoes, therefore, are a store-house of natural antioxidants making these protective against cancer especially against tumours of the G.I, tract (particularly colon cancer) as well as bladder and prostate cancers.

According to Prof Truscott, the lycopene in tomatoes, is three or four times more effective as an antioxidant and anti-cancer agent than the other beta-carotenoids in general. Working with Dr Fritz Bohm of the Humboldt University in Berlin, Professor Truscott recently carried out tests that showed in vitro protection of human cells against NO 2 (a form of free radical) by a factor of 3.4 for beta-carotene and 8.6 for lycopene.

Professor Truscott, who recently reported his findings to a conference in California, suggested that lycopene in tomato juice is a worthwhile supplement to the diet of anyone at the risk of cigarette-smoke of air-pollution (both these generate free radicals).

According to WHO estimates, an inhabitant of Delhi daily inhales toxic gases equivalent to smoking three or four packets of cigarettes. If true, tomatoes may emerge as saviours of the Delhiites subjected to the worst kind of air pollution. Professor Truscott, however, warned that excessive and prolonged intake might cause an artificial tanning of the skin. “I am sure, people will not mind this latter effect”, remarks Professor Truscott. According to him, “it is, at any rate, safer to colour your skin than sunbathing which among the whites particularly could be hazardous”.

Luckily, lycopene survives heating and withstands cooking. So even if it is monotonous and at times difficult to procure ripened tomatoes everyday, think of tomato sauce, tomato chutney, tomato ketchup and tomato purree which can be prepared and stored when tomatoes are inexpensive, and made use of later.