This week is the 10^th anniversary of Cancer Prevention Week and its organisers the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) are celebrating with fruit-fuelled mayhem designed to get everyone eating healthier and exercising more.

It’s supported by diet and fitness guru, Rosemary Conley CBE, who says the risk factor of cancer associated with being overweight is second only to smoking.

As mentioned in our previous Cancer Prevention Week article, a healthy weight maintained through a plant-based diet and regular exercise is one of the best ways to prevent cancer. In fact WCRF say that a third of the most common cancers could be prevented this way.

So how can you get involved?

Fruity Dress

This Friday it’s time to get fruity by dressing up in yellow (or the colour of your favourite fruit) and donating £2 to the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF). Get your office, school or community centre involved as well.

If you have a strict dress code or uniform you can raise money by holding a fruit-filled breakfast, hosting a fruit-themed quiz. Let your imagination run wild and help WCRF protect more people from developing cancer.

Banana Beating

If you can spare an hour or two tonight and you can get to Hyde Park, why not take part in the WCRF’s Beat the Banana? (It’s not as rude as it sounds!) It’s a 5K fun-run or walk or jog where you chase their giant banana through Hyde Park.

The start time is 6.30pm, so you can even go after work and you can still sign up on www.beatthebanana.org. Entry fee is £12 and every runner gets a Beat the Banana t-shirt, medal and a goody bag.

Can’t make this one? Don’t worry, there’s another one in September and you can register online now or you can arrange your own fun run which can be held at any time. They’ll even provide you with the banana costume.

For more information or to donate visit www.wcrf-uk.org. All money raised will go towards further research into cancer treatment and prevention.

Let us know in the comments if you’re taking part.

The Tomb Raider star has undergone a double mastectomy to reduce her chances of developing breast cancer.

At only 37-years-old, the mother-of-six was told she had a faulty BRCA1 gene, giving her an 87% chance of getting the disease.

Angelina saw her mother, Marcheline, fight cancer for almost 10 years before her death at 56 and was determined not to let her children go through the same thing. The surgery reduced her risk to just 5%.

Other celebrities who have opted for the surgery include Sharon Osbourne, comedian Wanda Sykes, actresses Christina Applegate and Kathy Bates and Liberty X singer, Michelle Heaton.

Currently the gene test is only available on the NHS if you have a significant family history of breast cancer, so it’s out of reach for a lot of women.

Dr Richard Francis, Head of Research at Breakthrough Breast Cancer, said, “It’s important to remember that BRCA gene faults are rare and in most cases are linked to family history. Thanks to great advances in research we’re able to pinpoint when people like Angelina are BRCA carriers and therefore at risk. However we do need to continue vital research in to breast cancer so women at high risk have even more, potentially less-invasive, prevention options.”

What can you do to lower your chances of getting breast cancer?

1. Breastfeed

Studies show that for every 12 months of breastfeeding (not necessarily with the same child) the risk of breast cancer decreases by 4.3%. If that’s not a reason to ditch the formula, then what is?

2. Eat and drink well

Diets high in alcohol, fat and sugar can all increase your chances of developing breast cancer because being overweight or obese can often raise your oestrogen levels. So cutting back on the high calorie foods and increasing your exercise regime can help cut your risk.

3. Test regularly

Women between 50 and 70 are eligible for a mammogram every three years to check for cancer. However, it’s also important to self-test because abnormalities can develop before the age of 50 and in-between mammogram appointments.

The charity Breakthrough Breast Cancer recommends the Touch, Look and Check (TLC) approach. A guide is included below to help you (click to expand).

What would you do if you were in Angelina’s position? Would you choose to have a mastectomy or you try other preventative measures first? Let us know in the comments below.

After all, depending on your relationship with the deceased you may have to arrange the funeral, serve as executor for the estate and attend the funeral. And that doesn’t account for the time you need to adjust emotionally to the death of a parent, child or partner.

The government suggests that for emergencies relating to a dependant, employees may reasonably be allowed to take one or two days off but these days don’t have to be paid. However, if your spouse, civil partner or partner dies, you may be entitled to bereavement pay from the government based on their National Insurance contributions.

So what are the options if you need more time off than your employer allows? You could take it out of your holiday entitlement, take unpaid leave or get signed off sick. Worryingly, this could lead to people having to go back before they’re ready which can have a significant impact upon their work.

On the flip side, many small firms are unable to cope with extended periods of employee absenteeism, whether it comes from sickness, holiday or compassionate leave.

A petition to extend bereavement leave is open on direct.gov. It was set up by Lucy Herd who lost her son in August 2010. Her partner was given 5 days off work before having to go back. She has been campaigning for a change to the law ever since.

It needs 100,000 signatures before it can be debated in the House of Commons so if you feel strongly in favour of a change, sign and share it.

If you’ve taken bereavement leave in the past, how much time did you get? Did you feel it was too little, just enough or too much? Did you have to take it as holiday or unpaid? Did you feel this was right? Let us know in the comments below.

Until now it was generally considered that after 20 minutes without a heartbeat, the brain would have suffered too much damage. New research shows that recovery is still possible up to 5 hours after the heart stops.

Dr Sam Parnia, director of resuscitation research at Stony Brook University in New York, said that cooling the body down to 32°C can slow down the brain damage by effectively causing a hibernation effect.

He said: “Contrary to popular belief, death is not a moment in time, such as when the heart stops beating, respiration ceases, or the brain stops functioning. Death, rather, is a process—a process that can be interrupted well after it has begun.”

The basics of CPR

Unsure how to preform CPR? Allow Vinnie Jones to explain in this British Heart Foundation video:

Watch this video on YouTube.

Retired-Bolton Wanderers footballer, Fabrice Muamba, who collapsed mid-game in 2012, was saved by extended CPR. His heart restarted after 78 minutes.

He now backs the British Heart Foundation’s campaign to teach life–saving skills as part of the National Curriculum so that every child knows how to save a life. 100,000 people have signed the petition, delivered to Downing Street but you can still petition your MP on the issue here.

In the meantime, allow Mini-Vinnie to teach them:

Watch this video on YouTube.

For more information, head to The British Heart Foundation.

As soon as you hear the last word, you zone out. ‘Cancer? How can I have cancer?’ you think to yourself.

You thank the doctor without really thinking about it and grasp the leaflets that he passes to you. When you get home, you can’t bear to look at the leaflets because that would make it real.

In those thirty minutes, your life has changed forever.

The physical and emotional effects of cancer are obvious but the financial ones can also take their toll. It seems ridiculous that you could be worrying about money at a time when you’re life-threateningly ill, but research by Macmillan Cancer Support shows it’s not as far-fetched as you think.

Four in five cancer patients are worse off by an average of £570 per month since their cancer diagnosis with 30% losing approximately £860. People most affected were those in work who had children or a mortgage.

This is primarily caused by patients taking reduced hours, taking sick leave or retiring early (reported by nearly two-thirds of those surveyed) which results in an initial income drop. Despite this drop, most of the regular bills stay the same and some, like home help or heating bills, can increase while the patient recuperates. 40% of patients are also paying around £40 per month, for medical care such as prescriptions.

Macmillan Cancer Support chief executive Ciaran Devane told the BBC: “Combined with the current recession and with welfare cuts, the cost of the disease is hitting the most vulnerable, hardest.”

More than one in three UK people will get cancer at some point in their life, meaning over a third could face these costs. One way to offset this is taking out critical illness cover, which pays out a lump sum if you’re diagnosed with cancer or another life-limiting condition (payments vary by insurer). Despite the benefits of critical illness cover, a study by Aviva (2010) found that over 60% of British adults don’t have it.

For more information or to discuss how critical illness cover might help you when you need it, call protected.co.uk on 0800 524 4153.

For more information on the hidden costs of cancer, read Macmillan’s report here. For help and support or to donate visit, www.macmillan.org.uk

First it was just odd days, then it was a full week and then on Christmas Eve 2008, she was rushed into hospital. Doctors told her she had a low blood cell count but they couldn’t find out why, it was a mystery to them.

Sometime in early 2009 the hospital let her out, but her immune system was still too weak for her to go back to college. Daisy never returned full-time, only attending odd lessons or dropping assignments off. She also had to delay starting uni for a year because of the risk to her health.

In March 2009, roughly six months after symptoms had begun, Daisy was diagnosed with Severe Aplastic Anaemia.  If you don’t know someone with the illness, your response will most likely be; ‘what?’ Don’t feel bad, that’s what I said too.

Aplastic Anaemia is a serious and potentially life-threatening form of bone marrow failure, similar to leukaemia. Bone marrow stops producing white-blood cells, red-blood cells and platelets meaning the immune system is critically weakened and there’s a high risk of severe bruising or bleeding. There are three classifications: very severe, severe and non-severe. It can strike at any point in your life but is worse in childhood.

That definition was, and still is, pretty scary but I was hopeful. If the doctors knew what was wrong, they could cure her, right? She’d have an operation or take some medicine and everything would go back to normal.

Well, the only known cure is a bone marrow transplant but there’s a massive shortage of donors. I signed up straight away but I wasn’t a match for her or for anyone yet. I hoped that some kind of karma would ensure that if I donated to someone else, she’d find a donor. I still hope that.

There are two types of donation that can be requested by the donor’s doctor but you have the final choice.  The most common involves donating through a vein in your arm, sort of like blood donation. The second involves extracting the stem cells straight from your hip bone under general anaesthetic.

As for Daisy, she hasn’t been cured yet and she still has to have regular blood tests to ensure the condition hasn’t worsened but she’s been able to continue with her life, nearly as normal, even going to uni and starting to drive again.

For more information or to donate visit The Aplastic Anaemia Trust, the only UK charity dedicated to the disease. It affects one in 1million people per year so it’s rare but serious.

To register as a bone marrow donor visit www.anthonynolan.org

This is the route of Virgin’s London Marathon, on April 21^st. Set to be taking part are Olympian Mo Farrah, Paralympian Shelly Woods, McFly’s Harry Judd and our very own Dan Angell-Collins.

Dan, our Business Development Manager, will be running for CHILDREN with CANCER, a leading children’s charity dedicated to the fight against all childhood cancers.

He chose the charity after a girl who goes to school with his children was diagnosed with leukaemia. He said: “She went, practically overnight, from being bubbly and full-of-life to tired most of the time; it’s just not something that should be happening to a child. I think it’s something about being a father myself, that I can imagine how her parents, or other children’s parents might feel. That’s why I had to do something to help.”

Dan hopes to raise £2000 for the charity which will help fund the development of a vaccine against childhood leukaemia.

This is CHILDREN with CANCER’s 25^th birthday year and over 1000 runners, including Dan, have signed up to run 25,000 miles combined which is equal to the circumference of the world. Since being set up in 1988, it has raised over £150 million to fund lifesaving research and projects that help to care for young cancer patients and their families.

As you can imagine the whole company’s rooting for Dan. Our CEO, Luke Ashworth, said: “We’re really proud of Dan. He did well at the Silverstone half-marathon in March and I have no doubt that he’ll have a time to be pleased with at the London Marathon.”

Ben Twyman, Head of Running Events at CHILDREN with CANCER UK said “It’s a very special year for us and we are thrilled that Dan has joined our team.  Whilst we have made great advances over the past 25 years, we are more committed and determined than ever to fund life-saving research and will not stop until all childhood cancer is eradicated”.

To sponsor Dan, visit his Virgin Giving page or text DACM80 and the amount (e.g. DACM80 £10) to 70070.

To find out more about the charity, visit www.childrenwithcancer.org.uk.

Now, researchers in France say that this sort of rapid treatment may be enough to ‘functionally cure’ HIV in roughly 10% of those diagnosed early. They’ve been analysing a group of 14 patients, who stopped therapy but have shown no sign of the virus surging back[2].

So what does this mean for HIV sufferers?

All the people tested so far had HIV diagnosed in a very early stage- less than 10 weeks between infection and treatment, much earlier than most. As the virus can lay dormant within the body for months, even years without being detected, it’s hard to tell at this stage exactly what the prospects are for the majority of patients.

HIV causes the immune system to shut down and can make the sufferer more prone to disease. Without treatment, the sufferer will develop AIDS in just ten years. There are over 90,000 people with HIV in the UK and around a quarter of those don’t know they carry the virus.

The sooner a diagnosis is made, the sooner treatment can be administered and the stronger your chances of survival are. Thanks to antiretroviral treatments, life expectancy for those living with HIV is very near to the national average for their country.

While scientists are hesitant to describe this as a cure for HIV, they will continue research. Dr John Frater, from Oxford University, told the BBC that “We had always assumed that [finding a cure] was impossible, but we’ve started to discover things we didn’t know before and it’s opening up a chink in the armour.”[3]

For more information about HIV/AIDS, visit the NHS Choices website. They have advice on protecting yourself against the virus, getting tested and treatments available.

If you, or someone you love, is affected by the issues raised visit the Terrance Higgins Trust, which offers free, confidential advice and support. You can also call them free on 0808 802 1221, a number that won’t appear on your bill.

“It’ll never happen to me”

Death is a scary thing and it’s understandable that you don’t want to think about your family having to survive without you. You love them and don’t want to leave them but in the end isn’t it worse to leave them with no shield against losing their house?

The fact is that 1 in 29 children will lose a parent before they’ve finished full-time education. By comparison, the chances of winning the lottery are 1 in 14 million and how many people play that every week?

“It won’t pay out”

Some types of insurance, like contents cover for your home, may have a certain threshold that you need to reach before they will pay out and after that they will raise your premiums. With life insurance however, you’re either dead or alive and there’s not much room for the insurers to argue.

At Protected our companies pay out on 97% of claims because we believe in selling you cover that will work for you. The remaining 3% of those claims are from people who lied on their application form, saying they weren’t a smoker when they were, or people who faked their own death.

So basically, tell us the truth. If you can keep to that then your policy will definitely pay out if you die within the term.

“I can’t afford it”

Some companies will try to sell you cover that you don’t want. They’ll work out what you should be covered for including your salary, mortgage and other loans and then tell you what you should be paying per month and this can be a lot more than you were expecting.

At Protected, we believe that it’s better for you to have a smaller amount of cover than none at all. There may be a big difference between your family receiving a £300,000 pay-out and a £200,000 one but there’s a much larger difference between £200,000 and nothing.

So we let you tell us how much you are prepared to pay per month as premiums and we will get you the most amount of cover we can for that price.

“It’s complicated”

A lot of companies do make buying insurance complicated. They do this because then a lot of people will end up paying more, for cover that they don’t want or can’t afford, because no-one has taken the time to explain the pros and cons of policies to them.

We believe that it’s important for you to know exactly what you’re buying so we are jargon-free wherever possible and we make sure everything is straightforward.

“I haven’t got time”

You can become insured online or over the phone in less than an hour. At Protected, we can get you insured in as little as twenty minutes, so give us a call today on Freephone 0800 524 4153.

You could even get your workplace involved unless you want to be the only person attending an important meeting in a cowboy hat. All of this is in aid of brain tumour research and helping those diagnosed and their families adjust.

Celebrities donning weird and wonderful headgear on March 28^th include: Sheila Hancock, actress, author and former Chancellor of the University of Portsmouth, The X-Files star Gillian Anderson, former England cricket fast bowler Daren Gough, record producer Pete Waterman and several of the Coronation Street cast.

So what if hats don’t suit you? Well you can always purchase a limited edition brooch, designed by the Queen’s hat maker, Rachel Trevor-Morgan.

To purchase a brooch or for more information about the fantastic work done by the charity visit www.braintumourresearch.org