What could be a better goal than to complete a 5k this summer for charity?

Entries are still available for the Cancer Research UK’s Race for Life series this June and July. Whether you want to walk for fun alongside girlfriends and family members, or get competitive with your work colleagues, you can improve your own health and fitness whilst also helping to raise money for Cancer Research UK, whose work has saved millions of lives in the UK and across the world.

5k is an achievable distance for most people and women are being encouraged to come together to walk, jog or run to help raise over £60 million to fund Cancer Research UK’s life-saving work into all types of cancer. 5k is also a good distance to attempt if you are beginning starting a fitness program and with a little bit of training through the summer you may be ready for one of Cancer Research UK’s Run 10k events that occur in the Autumn, when the men in your life can also enter.

Cancer Research UK’s Race for Life continues to be the most successful and largest women-only fundraising event series across the UK and has raised a staggering £290 million for the charity’s life-saving research. The 2009 series was the biggest yet with over 730,000 women taking part. This year is Race for Life’s 16^th Birthday and since it began there has been a 15% drop in the death rate from cancer, something that Race for Life has helped to achieve.

If you are looking for something to wear during the event then visit the online shop, where you can buy your fancy dress accessories including fairy wings, bunny ears and pink glitter cowboy hats. If you want to show your support in other more subtle ways there are also socks, sweatbands, caps and key-rings as well as essential T-shirts. These include the new Race for Life 2010 celebrity T-shirts designed by choreographer, Arlene Phillips; girlfriend of Arsenal star Theo Walcott, Melanie Slade; and fashion designer Tracey Boyd.

This year there are over 230 Race for Life events throughout England, Scotland and Wales.  Women from across the UK of all ages and abilities aged are invited to enter, whether you are a cancer survivor, want to test your fitness, celebrate or remember a loved or simply do something positive to raise money for a great cause. Entry fee is only £12.99, although participants are encouraged to also get sponsorship and help is available to set up on an on line fund-raising page. Enter by clicking on the banner below or visiting www.Raceforlife.org.

'Appetizing' vegetarian food.

I have been vegetarian for 20 years, although I have issues with the way some animals are farmed, it wasn’t for any animal right belief. I simply don’t like the smell, taste or texture of meat, before I gave up meat I always had to disguise the taste with tomato ketchup or cheese. For me the worst smell (apart from fish) is the smell of roasting chicken behind supermarket deli counters, or the smell of bacon being grilled on a Sunday morning.

It’s hard to be a vegetarian. 20 years ago the only vegetarian products out there were nut roast or tofu and I really don’t believe anyone who says tofu is nice, no matter how long you marinate it for, or how you cook it. Eating out was a nightmare and you always felt an inconvenience to your host whenever you visited someone for dinner. Then vegetarianism became more popular and I had more options. Whilst I won’t eat soya products designed to imitate meat, restaurants began catering for us, as vegetable lasagne and macaroni cheese appeared on menus; normal everyday food that just happened to not contain meat.

All was well with being a vegetarian; I wasn’t considered an animal rights, hippy, do-gooder, where I had to justify my diet to everyone, up until recently. Chefs suddenly became adventurous, why make a simple mozzarella and tomato sandwich when you can make one with smoked goats cheese and walnut? Carbohydrates left the menu to be replaced by salads and nasturtium flowers. But worse times for the vegetarian were to come when it became the latest cause to get renewed celebrity endorsement.

Last month we were encouraged to have a ‘Meat Free Monday’ by Paul McCartney and friends. Monday, the day when most people are likely to have leftovers from their Sunday roast, but who can argue with practicality when you have alliteration. The Meat Fee Monday (MFM) website proudly list veggie celebrities, as if Gwyneth Paltrow, Joss Stone or Peaches Geldof are going to be role models you want to emulate. But the amusing idea behind MFM campaign is not to improve your health or reduce cruelty to animals but to slow climate change.



Sir Paul says that the livestock industry produces more harmful green houses gases than the transport sector. The transport sector which must be contributed to a lot by fellow campaigner Sir Richard Branson with his airline, or the transatlantic journeys carried out by many of the celebrities on hand on launch day. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, meat is responsible for 18% of greenhouse gas emissions, more than transport’s 13%. Reading the messages on the online forums of Farmer’s Weekly, a leading UK farming magazine, the campaign has upset a few farmers whilst also tarnishing all us vegetarians with the same brush.

But today my vegetarian lifestyle has been validated with the publishing of research in the British Journal of Cancer. For more than 12 years 61,566 British men and women (32,403 meat eaters, 8562 ate fish but no meat and 20,601 vegetarians) were followed. During that time there were 3350 incidents of cancers (2204 among meat eaters, 317 among fish eaters and 829 among vegetarians). Adjusting the results for variables such as age, smoking, alcohol and physical activity, they found that some cancers may be lower in fish eaters and vegetarians than in meat eaters. They examined the relative risk (RR) of different cancer sites compared to meat eaters and found

• Stomach cancer -RR of 0.29 in fish eaters and 0.36 in vegetarians.
• Ovarian cancer -RR of 0.37 in fish eaters and 0.69 in vegetarians
• Bladder cancer -RR of 0.28 in fish eaters and 0.47 in vegetarians
• Cancers of lymphatic and haemopoietic tissues-RR of 0.85 in fish eaters and 0.55 in vegetarians.

Previous studies have found that a vegetarian diet is beneficial against colorectal cancer and breast cancer although, this study did not find the benefit to be significant.

So whilst I’d hate to become one of those people who preach the virtues of vegetarianism, I’m glad there are some proven health benefits to my diet. I’m sure there will be some carnivores, environmentalists and farmers who will disagree with my opinions, so feel free to leave your comments and opinions below.

One man dies from prostate cancer every hour in the UK (10,000 each year). Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men in the UK, with 35,000 men diagnosed with it every year in the UK although over 70% of newly diagnosed prostate cancer patients survive over 5 years.

What is prostate cancer?

In men the prostate gland lies underneath the bladder and its main job is to make most of the fluid that carries sperm. Prostate cancer can develop when cells in the prostate gland start to grow in an uncontrolled way. In most men prostate cancer grows slowly and may not cause any problems. But some prostate cancers grow quickly and need early treatment to stop or delay them from growing

What are the risk factors?

• Age: Most men diagnosed with prostate cancer are over 50, although more than 8 out of 10 cancer cases (85%) are diagnosed in men over the age of 60.
• Ethnicity: African Caribbean men are 3 times more likely to develop prostate cancer than white men.
• Family: 2 ½ times more likely to develop prostate cancer if your father or brother has had it.
• Diet: No one knows how to prevent prostate cancer but diet and a healthy active lifestyle may be important in protecting against the disease. A diet high in animal fat will increase your risk so you should eat more fruit and vegetables and maintain a healthy weight

What are the symptoms?

Some men with prostate cancer may have no symptoms at all although some symptoms may include:

• Weak or reduced urine flow
• Needing to urinate more often, especially at night
• A feeling your bladder has not emptied properly
• Difficulty starting to pass urine
• Needing to rush to the toilet
• New pain in the lower back, hips or pelvis
• Problems getting or keeping an erection
• Less commonly may experience pain when passing urine, ejaculating or in the testicles, or have blood in the urine or semen (but this is rare)

You don’t need to have all these symptoms to have prostate cancer nor does having some of these symptoms mean that you have it. Other prostate problems such as Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia (BPH) or prostatitis, which is caused by an infection of the gland have similar symptoms and the only way to know for sure to is go to your GP to get checked out.

What are the tests for prostate problems?

There are a few tests the doctor may carry out to find out if you have a prostate problem.

• A urine ‘dipstick’ test to check for infection
• A blood test called a prostate specific antigen test, to test for a protein produced by the prostate gland
• A physical examination
• Test to measure speed of urine flow
• Ultrasound scan to test whether your bladder is emptying properly

Your GP may do all or some of these tests or send you to see a urologist at the hospital who specialises in urinary problems

More information you can contact your doctor or the Prostate Cancer Charity either online www.prostate-cancer.org.uk or you can call their free and confidential helpline on 0800 074 8383.