Lifting Weights to Beat Cancer: Carla’s Story

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Carla and her two children

All of us at AICR are grateful to the people who make our vital work possible. Many of our donors are living AICR’s message every day — and are actively advocating for cancer prevention lifestyles in their communities.

Our donors run, bike and even hike to raise money for cancer prevention research and awareness. Now, for the first time, one of them is throwing her support behind AICR and our mission by lifting weights.

Meet Carla, one of our current special events donors.  She’s using her personal fitness goals to raise funds for cancer research and to build awareness for health, fitness and cancer prevention.

After the birth of her second child, Carla found herself at 200 pounds. She decided to embark on a journey to lose weight and improve her health. During this time, several loved ones, including her dear friend Sue, passed away from cancer. These losses hit Carla hard, but she harnessed that sadness and recommitted herself to her journey in their honor. Continue reading →


Stimulating Our Appetites

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Food magazines and advertisers know it: looking at mouthwatering images of foods often triggers the urge to eat. Blame that craving on a hormone, suggests a new study featured in yesterday’s issue of Cancer Research Update.

The study looked at a hormone that has received a lot of attention lately in obesity science circles: ghrelin. The hormone is recognized for stimulating our appetite. Ghrelin levels increase before meals and decrease afterwards. Circulating ghrelin then travels to receptors in the hypothalamus that are involved in appetite regulation.

This study collected ghrelin blood levels from 8 men every 10- or 15-minutes from before breakfast until after lunch during two sessions. Between meals, the well-fed participants looked at images of tantalizing foods during one session. A week later at the next session, the men looked at images of everyday, non-food objects, like a pair of shoes or a bike.

In the 30-minutes after the men looked at both sets of images, their ghrelin levels were higher after seeing the food images then the non-food ones.

You can see the study abstract here. The study adds to what we know about how environmental factors influence eating behaviors, an important area of research for preventing cancer and other diseases.

To see how ghrelin stimulates appetite in the brain, here’s a video related to a 2008 study related to ghrelin stimulating our appetite.


Lunch Lessons: New School Meals Promote Better Eating

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When children learn to play piano or tennis, they need to actually put their fingers on the keys or pick up the racket and swing. Just telling them how to play won’t translate into a sonata or a good backhand.

Adopting healthy eating habits is no different. It requires practice at school as well as at home. And because many children eat breakfast and lunch at school, the USDA’s new standards for school meals will make a health difference for millions of American children.

As a Registered Dietitian I am thrilled with these new standards. I’ve seen many kids and adults alike learn to like new fruits, vegetables and whole grains when they try them over and over and prepare them in different ways. So, exposure to healthy food at home and at school is one important step toward healthier children and, as they grow into adulthood, fewer cancer cases.

Here’s how the new rules improve school lunches:

Continue reading →