Cancer

WHAT WOULD you say if I told you that you could profoundly cut your risk for cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer? Significantly decrease your risk for Alzheimer's disease, too? And, better yet, that you could do all this without spending a single dime? Impossible, right? Wrong. All that and more may be possible simply by following the sage advice of Dr. Michael Mosley, a British medical journalist and co-author of The FastDiet: Lose Weight, Stay Healthy, and Live Longer with the Simple Secret of Intermittent Fasting . The "Fast Diet" is all the rage in Britain and could take flight here as well.

JIM JOHNSON: 1941-2009

CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. - The summer's coolest temperatures and a sky as crystalline as Boston's John Hancock Tower, which glimmered on the near horizon, infused Boston College's stony, tony campus with a hint of autumn and football on this August Friday. As if they felt it, too, a family of visitors posed at the Doug Flutie statue outside Alumni Stadium, parents and children wrapped around the sculpted depiction of the Eagles quarterback as he wound up, Juan Marichal-like, to unleash his legendary Hail Mary pass.

Jim Marshall, the former Minnesota Vikings star who Tuesday revealed his battle with cancer, told a local television station that it is prostate cancer. He initially had requested that the form of cancer remain confidential. Marshall, 62, said he will go to the Mayo Clinic to consider treatment options.

RE THE "Beating Cancer" section: It's not going to happen. There is too much money to be made in the business of cancer. Pharmaceutical companies don't want you to be healthy. If you were, they'd be putting themselves out of business. Cancer, like polio and many other ailments, could be cured next month, but at the expense of closing hospitals, getting rid of doctors, closing so-called research hospitals, etc. Pharmaceutical companies seem to almost cure everything, but in reality they don't cure anything - on purpose.

LONDON - A respected international panel of scientists says cellphones are possible cancer-causing agents, putting them in the same category as the pesticide DDT, gasoline-engine exhaust and coffee. The classification was issued yesterday in Lyon, France, by the International Agency for Research on Cancer after a review of dozens of published studies. The agency is an arm of the World Health Organization, and its assessment now goes to WHO for possible guidance on cellphone use. Classifying agents as "possibly carcinogenic" doesn't mean they automatically cause cancer, and some experts said the ruling shouldn't change people's cellphone habits.

Claude Lewis' Op-ed Page column of July 7 on drug users being just plain stupid is one of the most realistic assessments of this horrendous, cancer- like problem that is destroying our youth and our nation from within. The bottom line is that only when we as a nation demand the death penalty for drug pushers on the first offense regardless of age or economic status; and only when our elected leaders get up the guts to heed such demands, and only when drug users are held accountable regardless of their station in life, will this cancer begin to be destroyed.

Houston Astros hitting coach Tom McCraw was diagnosed with prostate cancer the team said yesterday, and he will leave the team at the end of its current homestand on Sunday. McCraw, 58, is in his third season with the Astros and has helped Houston to a National League-best .295 team batting average this year. McCraw learned he might have cancer during a physical exam during spring training. A blood test revealed a high prostate-specific antigen level, which can indicate cancer.

Less than six months after he sat stunned as Arnold Palmer revealed he had prostate cancer, two-time Senior PGA Tour Player of the Year Jim Colbert had successful surgery yesterday on his cancerous prostate. Colbert, 56, was operated on at Scripps Hospital in La Jolla, Calif., said PGA Tour spokesman David Lancer. "Everything went well and the cancer appears to be localized," said Lancer, who spoke with Colbert's office. Lancer said there is no timetable for Colbert's return to competition.

The mother of Phillies slugger Jim Thome died yesterday afternoon. Joyce Thome, 68, died peacefully at home in Peoria, Ill. She had battled cancer for a year. "She was a wonderful woman," Andrea Thome, Jim's wife, said last night. "She was so much more than a mother-in-law. She was a great friend. We sat at so many games over the years and shared so many laughs. I can't tell you how much she'll be missed. " Doctors diagnosed her with lung cancer last winter, but Mrs. Thome made it to the Phillies' home opener in April.

JUST HOURS before dawn on May 14, Jackie Underwood's three daughters held her in their arms as the cancer stole the last breath from her broken body. For many days before, and almost every day since, her children - Makia Underwood, 32, Zakia Clark, 29, and Tasha Clark, 27 - have worn hats and shirts that read "F--- CANCER," with the "C" in "F---" replaced by a breast-cancer-awareness ribbon. "That's how we feel. It took our mom away. It's a demon. It's the devil," Zakia Clark said.

It was supposed to be a quick trip to the King of Prussia mall Sunday to pick out clothes for a funeral. It ended with an escort off mall property after a clash of individual expression and corporate sensibilities. At issue were black caps worn by two sisters - Zakia and Tasha Clark of North Philadelphia - mourning the loss of their mother, Jackie Underwood, to cancer May 14. The hats were imprinted with "F- Cancer" in pink, with a breast-cancer-awareness ribbon taking the place of the letter C . A security guard approached the two sisters, who were with a third sibling, Makia Underwood, while they were eating in the food court, and told them in no uncertain terms to remove the hats or leave.

Angelina Jolie 's preventive double mastectomy has sparked renewed media interest. Now Emma Stone has chimed in with a speech Tuesday at a Triple Negative Breast Cancer Foundation event in North Jersey that honored her mom, breast cancer survivor Krista Stone . Emma was 19 when her mom was diagnosed in '08. "I was oddly stoic, the opposite of how I usually am," the actor said at the event. "But it was terrifying. " Emma had recently moved to L.A. to pursue acting, but returned home to Arizona to see her mom through a double mastectomy and 18 months of chemo.

It is vanishingly rare for an experimental treatment to wipe out advanced, recurrent cancer, then keep the disease from coming back. Yet therapies driven by CARs have been doing exactly that in a small but growing number of blood-cancer patients at the University of Pennsylvania and other centers. In simplest terms, a CAR - chimeric antigen receptor - is a synthetic genetic structure that programs the patient's immune cells to recognize and attack cancer. But there is nothing simple about these molecular taskmasters.

A Delran woman admitted Monday that she faked bladder cancer two years ago and collected donations from supporters. Lori E. Stilley, 41, who was arrested in September, pleaded guilty to theft by deception in Superior Court in Burlington County. Family members and supporters raised more than $12,000 after she announced she had cancer in February 2011. Supporters helped prepare meals and planned Stilley's wedding in nine days, covering the cost. But people grew suspicious when Stilley postponed her hospice care after announcing on Facebook in November 2011 that a "miracle" was coming.

At the chemical plant in Toms River, nylon stockings would melt on the legs of secretaries sent on errands to production buildings. Noxious, colored smoke rose from the plant's stacks. Its effluent tinted the river, and fish caught there had a strange taste. At a nearby kids' swimming hole, a guy who took a dip came out with purplish foam clinging to his body. So when the children of Toms River began to be diagnosed with cancer - so many that one hospital doctor commented, "Another one from Toms River" - it was the plant's fault, right?

BY NOW, MOST people have heard of Matt Kemp's incredible act of kindness. On Sunday, after losing a game to the Giants in San Francisco, the Dodgers' centerfielder kept a promise to third-base coach Tim Wallach to sign an autograph for a fan. The fan turned out to be Joshua Jones, a 19-year-old from Tracey, Calif., who has inoperable tumors on his spine and only 3 months to live. Kemp first gave Jones an autographed ball. Then he removed his cap and handed it over, too. He then pulled his still-buttoned No. 27 jersey over his head and placed it on Jones' lap. Finally, he took off his Nikes and gave them to Jones.

A new genetic test to gauge the aggressiveness of prostate cancer may help tens of thousands of men each year decide whether they need to treat their cancer right away or can safely monitor it. The new test, which goes on sale Wednesday, joins another one that recently came on the market. Both analyze multiple genes in a biopsy sample and give a score for aggressiveness, similar to tests used now for certain breast and colon cancers. Doctors say tests like these have the potential to curb a major problem in cancer care - overtreatment.

IN THE BATTLE against ovarian cancer, three puppies at the University of Pennsylvania will be on the front lines. The pups - Ohlin and Thunder, both Labradors, and McBain, a springer spaniel - have been conscripted to lead the charge in a novel collaboration announced last week between Penn and the Monell Chemical Senses Center. Ovarian cancer claims the lives of more than 14,000 women every year and is the fifth leading cause of cancer-related deaths in women in the nation. The new collaboration takes aim at the silent killer with a combination of chemistry, nanotechnology - and dogs.

When Devin Smeltzer finds himself in a tough spot on the pitching mound, the Bishop Eustace Prep School junior reaches back for some more velocity for his fastball. Or he'll put some extra edge on his curveball. Or he'll summon the knuckleball that he throws only in special situations. But Smeltzer, 17, who is one of the state's best high school baseball players for one of the state's best teams, has a unique perspective on his most challenging moments in the competitive arena.