Stand Up To Cancer

It's not your imagination -- cancer is always in the news these days, and not just because we're having a nationally televised primetime fundraiser (September 5, on ABC, CBS and NBC, commercial-free. Just a reminder...).

Cancer affects everyone, and events around us are constantly driving this point home. It's not just science news hitting the papers, TV and internet; every day brings a fresh round of inspiring stories about people all across the country battling cancer.

Overcoming cancer in any way is incredible enough; what's even more astonishing is what so many survivors have gone on to do. We've been looking around and thought we'd share some stories.

This week's highlights:

We particularly enjoyed reading the story of a Chicago chef who won the "Academy Awards" of the restaurant business - after losing his sense of taste to stage IV lung cancer:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0610edit1jun10,0,3927525.story

Most people would find participating in a 178-mile relay daunting under even the best of circumstances. But last week, one Salt Lake City man ran all three of his legs of the relay after having a foot of his colon removed just six weeks before:
http://www.sltrib.com/sports/ci_9627060

Elsewhere, The Economist says that claims of a healthy lifestyle decreasing the odds of getting cancer aren't just "soft" science.:
http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11579121

Science Daily reports that obese patients who undergo bariatric surgery have more to celebrate than simply shedding 70% of their excess weight - they've also decreased their cancer risk by up to 80% in one fell swoop:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080619113705.htm

The folks up north are making moves. The Canadian Partnership Against Cancer just launched a landmark study during which they'll track 300,000 randomly selected Canadians for thirty years, monitoring their health and lifestyle to better determine the causes of cancer:
http://www.canada.com/globaltv/national/health/story.html?id=85d5ab15-f63c-45d0-a115-8085faa77055

Stateside, Newsweek's Jonathan Alter recently sounded a clarion call for Capitol Hill to respond to the brain cancer diagnosis of Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy by approving additional funding for cancer research.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/138510

Meanwhile, promising new treatments are constantly emerging. Researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern in Dallas recently tested a technique in which cancer cells are "cooked" into oblivion by carbon nanotubes. Some encouraging results:
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/33264/title/Cooking_cancer_cells

Finally, grab a box of Kleenex and check out our favorite video of the week. In this report from ABC News, Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital in New York transforms its cafeteria into a ballroom for one night, throwing a prom for the hospital's pediatric cancer patients.
http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=5041177&affil=kabc

That's our recommended reading for the week, but we want to see yours too. Post 'em below or e-mail us: blog@standup2cancer.org