Breast Cancer Warden

TIME recently published a breast cancer ‘heat map’ (link) mapping countries around the world according to their respective breast cancer incidence rates.

One of the things we observed on this map was that India and China have one of the lowest breast cancer incidence rates (19.1 and 18.7 per 100,000 people respectively). There would be several explainations to this, including regional factors, genetic makeup in the demography, etc

There is one more thing which sets apart India and China from rest of the countries in this demography which could be a possible reason for low breast cancer occurence rates compared to other similar countries - Regular usage of turmeric in daily foods. Turmeric regularly features in Indian and Chinese recipes, especially in its powdered form and its intake in India and China is higher than in any other country.

A 2005 study conducted by University of Texas on rats concluded that curcumin, an antioxdant found in turmeric, is effective in curbing the spread of cancer to other areas of the body and highlights its potential as an anti-cancer agent. Other studies have also found curmucin effective against Alzheimer’s disease.

For those wondering how to intake this otherwise bitter tasting spice, we have discovered an Indian recipe site which has a couple of turmeric recipes - Honey Turmeric and Turmeric Milk.

If you have more info/recipes to share on turmeric please comment below.

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It has been an unanimously accepted and well researched fact that breast feeding reduces the chances of breast cancer in young mothers.

As there was no scientific evidence that this is also the case in older mothers, many older women do not consider in their decision to breastfeed their babies. This is not the case anymore.

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The Windows Live Messenger team has come up with an unique charitable initiative where you can help raise money for various causes, including breast cancer research and awareness campgains, by… just chatting.

This is how it works, you only have to download the latest version of Windows Live Messenger and add to your display name the code of the charitable organization you wish to donate. Once done, a portion of ad revenue that MSN would earn from your chat usage will be donated to charity chosen by you.

There is choice of 9 charitable organizations each of them among the leading in their cause, these include Susan G. Komen For The Cure which has been working intensively in breast cancer cure research as well as awareness spreading campaigns. The other 8 institutions include big names like UNICEF, American Red Cross, stopglobalwarming.org and National Aids Fund.

So what are you waiting for? Download the software on the official Live Messenger Website.

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Kylie Minogue has been everyone’s sweetheart since the start. Her claim to fame in Australia was the sitcom Neighbours. Her music career got the boost with the popular and very catchy music video “Locomotion” which, following which Kylie skyrocketed in the music world, did some movie roles and was one of ’sweetheart-celebs’ throughout the late 80s and 90s.

While in Melbourne on her ambitious greatest hits tour Showgirl she was diagonised with breast cancer. The tour was cancelled but the fans were extremely supportive of her.

She received immense media attention and popular support, including from the then prime minister of Australia, John Howard. Media and fans began to congregate outside the Minogue residence in Melbourne, the Victorian Premier Steve Bracks had to warn the media and fans against disrupting the Minogue family’s privacy rights.

Minogue underwent surgery on 21 May 2005 at the private Catholic Cabrini Hospital in Malvern followed by intense chemotherepy in France.

The Showgirl tour resumed on November 11, 2006; she is said to have said she was “fashionably late” by 18 months

Her children’s book, The Showgirl Princess, written during her period of convalescence, was published in October 2006, and her perfume, “Darling”, was launched in November. On her return to Australia for her concert tour, she likened her cancer battle and chemotherapy to experiencing a nuclear bomb, and said that she is determined to resume her career. She is said to have collaborated with Boy George on a song called “Ready” and had been working on a new album, scheduled for release in late 2007.

We wish Miss Minogue a wonderful life ahead.

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MammaPrint - A gene test designed to predict chances of reoccurence of breast cancer in women already once diagonized with it - today got formal approval from Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of USA.

Although this is not the first time that such a test has been designed, this is the first one to get the official nod from FDA.

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