10 Foods to Prevent Cancer.

Here is an overview of ten important cancer fighting foods to include in your diet on a regular basis:

1. Garlic – Garlic contains a number of compounds that can protect against cancer, especially that of the skin, colon, and lungs.

2. Dark Leafy Greens – Dark greens are rich sources of antioxidants called carotenoids. These scavenge dangerous free radicals from the body before they can promote cancer growth.

3. Grapes – Grapes (and red wine) contain the chemical resveratrol, which is a very potent antioxidant that can prevent cell damage before it begins.

4. Green Tea – The flavonoids in green tea have been shown to slow or prevent the development of several types of cancer including colon, liver, breast, and prostate.

5. Tomatoes – The compound lycopene, (which is most easily absorbed from cooked tomatoes) has been shown to prevent prostate cancer, as well as cancer of the breast, lung, and stomach.

6. Blueberries – Of all the berries, blueberries are the richest in cancer fighting compounds. They are beneficial in the prevention of all types of cancer.

7. Flaxseeds – Flax contains lignans, which can have an antioxidant effect and block or suppress cancerous changes. The omega-3 fatty acids can also help protect against colon cancer.

8. Mushrooms – Many mushrooms contain compounds that can help the body fight cancer and build the immune system as well.

9. Cruciferous Vegetables – Vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, and Brussels sprouts contain strong antioxidants that may help decrease cancer risk.

10. Whole Grains – Whole grains contain a variety of anti-cancer compounds including antioxidants, fiber, and phytoestrogens. These can help decrease the risk of developing most types of cancer.

Remember, along with a healthy diet, a physically active lifestyle is important for cancer prevention as well.

S'pore remains Asia's best

SINGAPORE retained its ranking as the Asian city with the best quality of life, while Hong Kong lags rival financial hubs as it struggles with air pollution, according to a survey by Mercer Consulting, Bloombeg News reported.

Singapore ranks 28 among 221 cities, Tokyo is at 40 and Hong Kong is placed 71, the list shows. The cities are rated on 10 factors including infrastructure, political and social environments, and access to medical care. Hong Kong scored poorly on health concerns, said Cathy Loose, a Tokyo-based Mercer officer who helped compile the list.

'The government hasn't done very much to introduce green measures or reduce pollution,' said Loose, in an interview. The list serves as a compensation guide for expatriate relocation, Bloomberg said.

Hong Kong's air pollution was the worst on record during the past two quarters, sparking regular government health warnings. To address the problem, the government introduced a bill in April proposing a ban on idling engines among other steps, Bloomberg reported.

Hong Kong's effort to cut pollution and protect the environment trails even that of Havana and ranks just above Damascus, the list shows. Overall, Vienna retains the top spot as the world's best city to live in.

Current Account Balance

Rank Country Current account balance (million US$)
1 People's Republic of China (PRC) 179,100
2 Japan 174,400
3 Germany 134,800
4 Russia 105,300
5 Saudi Arabia 103,800
6 Norway 63,330
7 Switzerland 50,440
8 Netherlands 50,170
9 Kuwait 40,750
10 Singapore 35,580
11 Venezuela 31,820
12 Sweden 28,610
13 United Arab Emirates 26,890
14 Algeria 25,800
15 Hong Kong 20,900
16 Canada 20,560
17 Malaysia 17,860
18 Libya 14,500
19 Brazil 13,500
20 Iran 13,130
21 Nigeria 12,590
22 Qatar 12,510
23 Taiwan 9,700
24 Finland 8,749
25 Iraq 8,134
26 Angola 7,700
27 Oman 7,097
28 Belgium 6,925
29 Austria 5,913
30 Argentina 5,810
31 Chile 5,063
32 Denmark 4,941
33 Philippines 4,900
34 Luxembourg 4,630
35 Trinidad and Tobago 3,259
36 Azerbaijan 2,737
37 Egypt 2,697
38 Korea, South 2,000
39 Bahrain 1,999
40 Gabon 1,807
41 Botswana 1,698
42 Yemen 1,690
43 Indonesia 1,636
44 Peru 1,515
45 Israel 1,643
46 Uzbekistan 1,410
47 Burma 1,247
48 Republic of the Congo 1,215
49 Vietnam 1,029
50 Ecuador 727
51 Bolivia 688
52 Papua New Guinea 661
53 Namibia 572
54 Ivory Coast 460
55 Cameroon 419
56 Morocco 389
57 Bangladesh 339
58 Turkmenistan 321.2
59 Equatorial Guinea 175
60 British Virgin Islands 134.3 (1999)
61 Kazakhstan 113
62 Cook Islands 26.67 (2005)
63 Palau 15.09 (2004)
64 Tuvalu 2.323 (1998)
65 Samoa -2.428 (2004)
66 Tonga -4.321 (2005)
67 Comoros -17 (2005)
68 Kiribati -19.87 (2004)
69 Swaziland -23.13
70 São Tomé and Pr íncipe -24.4
71 Vanuatu -28.35 (2003)
72 Federated States of Micronesia-34.3 (2005)
73 Anguilla -42.87 (2003)
74 Cape Verde -44.43
75 The Gambia - 54.61
76 Burundi -57.84
77 Haiti -58..72
78 Tajikistan -73.95
79 Lesotho -75.44
80 Seychelles -78.59
81 Antigua and Barbuda -83.4 (2004)
82 Guyana - 84.3
83 Rwanda -104.1
84 Honduras -160
85 Zambia -165.4
86 Republic of Macedonia -167
87 Belize -173.4
88 Malawi -186
89 Ghana -219
90 Armenia -247.3
91 Togo -261.9
92 Zimbabwe - 264.6
93 Kyrgyzstan -287.3
94 Paraguay -300
95 Chad -324.1
96 Benin -342.7
97 Guinea -344
98 Cambodia -369
99 Mexico -400.1
100 Uganda -423
101 Eritrea -440.5
102 Mozambique -444.4
103 Fiji -465.8
104 Panama -467
105 Madagascar -504
106 Laos -404.2
107 Belarus -511.8
108 Syria -529
109 Moldova -561
110 Uruguay -600
111 Burkina Faso -604.6
112 Mauritius -651
113 Albania -679.9
114 Georgia -735
115 Tunisia -760
116 Slovenia -789.2
117 Nicaragua -883
118 Senegal -895.2
119 Thailand - 899.4
120 Tanzania -906
121 Malta -966.2
122 Jamaica -970
123 Cyprus -1,051
124 El Salvador -1,059
125 Sri Lanka -1,118
126 Kenya -1,119
127 Dominican Republic -1,124
128 Costa Rica -1,176
129 Cuba -1,218
130 Guatemala -1,533
131 Bosnia and Herzegovina -1,730
132 Estonia -1,919
133 Ukraine -1,933
134 Colombia -2,219
135 Serbia -2,451 (2005)
136 Latvia -2,538
137 Lithuania -2,572
138 Jordan -2,834
139 Croatia -2,892
140 Iceland -2,932
141 Ethiopia -3,384
142 Slovakia -3,781
143 Czech Republic -4,352
144 Sudan -4,510
145 Poland -4,548
146 Bulgaria -5,100
147 Lebanon -5,339
148 Pakistan -5,486
149 New Zealand -7,944
150 Hungary -8,392
151 Ireland -9,450
152 Romania -12,450
153 South Africa -12,690
154 Portugal -16,750
155 Greece -21,370 ????
156 Italy -23,730
157 Turkey -25,990
158 India -26,400
159 France -38,000
160 Australia -41,620
161 United Kingdom -57,680
162 Spain -98,600
163 United States -862,300

Saving is sin, and spending is virtue...
Interesting article written by an Indian Economist

Japanese save a lot. They do not spend much. Also Japan exports far more than it imports. Has an annual trade surplus of over 100 billions. Yet Japanese economy is considered weak, even collapsing.

Americans spend, save little. Also US imports more than it exports. Has an annual trade deficit of over $400 billion. Yet, the American economy is considered strong and trusted to get stronger.

But where from do Americans get money to spend?

They borrow from Japan, China and even India. Virtually others save for the US to spend. Global savings are mostly invested in US, in dollars.
India itself keeps its foreign currency assets of over $50 billions in US securities. China has sunk over $160 billion in US securities. Japan's stakes in US securities is in trillions.

Result:

The US has taken over $5 trillion from the world. So, as the world saves for the US, Americans spend freely. Today, to keep the US consumption going, that is for the US economy to work, other countries have to remit $180 billion every quarter, which is $2 billion a day, to the US!

A Chinese economist asked a neat question. Who has invested more, US in China, or China in US? The US has invested in China less than half of what China has invested in US.

The same is the case with India. We have invested in US over $50 billion. But the US has invested less than $20 billion in India.

Why the world is after US?
The secret lies in the American spending, that they hardly save. In fact they use their credit cards to spend their future income. That the US spends is what makes it attractive to export to the US. So US imports more than what it exports year after year.

The result:

The world is dependent on US consumption for its growth. By its deepening culture of consumption, the US has habituated the world to feed on US consumption. But as the US needs money to finance its consumption, the world provides the money.

It's like a shopkeeper providing the money to a customer so that the
customer keeps buying from the shop. If the customer will not buy, the shop won't have business, unless the shopkeeper funds him. The US is like the lucky customer. And the world is like the helpless shopkeeper financier.

Who is America's biggest shopkeeper financier? Japan of course. Yet it's Japan which is regarded as weak. Modern economists complain that Japanese do not spend, so they do not grow. To force the Japanese to spend, the Japanese government exerted itself, reduced the savings rates, even charged the savers.

Even then the Japanese did not spend (habits don't change, even with taxes, do they?).. Their traditional postal savings alone is over $1.2 trillions, about three times the Indian GDP. Thus, savings, far from being the strength of Japan, has become its pain.

Hence, what is the lesson?

That is, a nation cannot grow unless the people spend, not save. Not just spend, but borrow and spend.
Dr. Jagdish Bhagwati, the famous Indian-born economist in the US, told Mamohan Singh that Indians wastefully save.. Ask them to spend, on imported cars and, seriously, even on cosmetics! This will put India on a growth curve. This is one of the reason for MNC's coming down to India, seeing the consumer spending.

'Saving is sin, and spending is virtue.'

But before you follow this neo economics, get some fools to save so that you can borrow from them and spend!!!

S'pore 'most competitive'

SINGAPORE has jumped ahead of Hong Kong and the United States to snatch the top spot in a closely watched global ranking of economic competitiveness.

The Republic edged ahead of its rivals to assume pole position for the first time in what the compiler of the annual rankings, Swiss business school IMD, is calling a photo finish.

The gap between the three in this latest assessment of the world's economies - which places Hong Kong second and the US third - is less than 1 per cent.

This year's rankings are an upset to what has become the traditional pecking order and mark the first time since 1994 that the US has failed to trounce the competition.

For most of the 1990s and early 2000s Singapore has ranked second, but in recent years it has alternated with Hong Kong for second and third place.

IMD said Singapore and Hong Kong 'displayed great resilience through the crisis... and are now taking full advantage of strong expansion in the surrounding Asian region'. It was particularly impressed with Singapore's 13 per cent growth in the first quarter of this year.

No cancer link to cellphones?

THE largest study to date of the safety of mobile phones has found no clear link to brain cancer, although it said further study is merited given their increasingly intensive use.

'The study doesn't reveal an increased risk, but we can't conclude that there is no risk because there are enough findings that suggest a possible risk,' the study's chief author, Elisabeth Cardis, told AFP.

The results of the Interphone study, which included 2,708 cases of glioma tumours and 2,409 meningioma tumours in 13 countries over a 10-year period, is due to be published on Tuesday in the International Journal of Epidemiology. It found no increased risk of glioma or meningioma tumours after 10 years of using a mobile phone, although it found 'suggestions of higher risk' for the heaviest users.

The heaviest users who reported using their phones on the same side of their heads had a 40 per cent higher risk for gliomas and 15 per cent for meningiomas, but the researchers said 'biases and errors' prevent making a causal link.

Given that the heaviest users in the study talked an average of half an hour per day on their mobile phones, a figure which is not heavy by today's standards, the researchers recommended further research.

They also cited the need for the study of the impact of mobile phone use among young people, who have rapidly become intensive users, and who were not included in the Interphone study. The researchers noted, however, that the latest mobile phones have lower emissions, and the popularity of hands-free devices and texting reduce exposure to the head.

S'pore, China will remain different

CHINA will take at least another 10 or 15 years before it can catch up with Singapore, and even when it does, the two countries will not be quite the same, said Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew last night.

He also said that while he expects the connections between the two nations to grow, he believes that Singapore will remain quite different from China because of the city state's ties to the rest of the world.

He told about 140 Singaporeans during a reception in Beijing: 'Singapore is a very different place and it has to be different because we are connected to the world in a way they have not yet been connected to the world.

'And I don't think they ever will be because the foreign intrusion in their economy is marginal whereas the foreign intrusion into our economy is massive, across the board.'

He observed that the nature of the two societies is different. 'We are more rule-based, we do not depend on guanxi (connections). We are more meritocratic, we are more open.

'And we have the advantage of being bilingual,' he said at the event organised by the Singapore Chamber of Commerce and Industry in China.

Going nuts in your diet can cut cholesterol

Going nuts in your diet can be good for your health, according to a study published Monday, which showed that eating nuts helps to lower blood cholesterol levels.

People who ate an average of 67 grams (2.4 ounces) of nuts a day saw a 5.1 per cent fall in total cholesterol concentration and a 7.4 per cent drop in low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) - sometimes referred to as bad cholesterol - concentration compared to no-nut eaters, the study showed.

People with high triglyceride levels who ate nuts saw a 10.2 per cent fall in those blood lipid levels, said the study, which analysed data from 25 trials conducted in seven countries, involving 583 men and women aged 19-86 with high or normal cholesterol levels.

All the trial data that were analysed for the study compared nut-eaters to a control group that did not eat nuts. None of the participants were taking medication to lower their blood lipids.

Researchers led by Dr Joan Sabate of Loma Linda University in California found in the study published Monday in the American Medical Association's Archives of Internal Medicine that the benefits to health were the same no matter what nut is eaten.

A person's weight and baseline LDL cholesterol levels did, however, influence whatever benefits might be derived from eating nuts.

The higher the starting LDL-C, the greater the cholesterol-lowering effects of nuts, the study found.

And the lower a patient's body mass index -- in other words, if the patient was not overweight or obese -- the greater the effects of nuts on lowering cholesterol levels, the study found, urging more research to determine why nuts are less effective in lowering the blood cholesterol levels of obese people.

A person's diet also played a role in the effect nuts have on blood cholesterol levels.

Consumers of Western diets, which are high in saturated fat, got more benefits from nut-eating than those who already ate a healthy diet, high in monounsaturated olive oil, fish and fresh fruit and vegetables, the study found.

And there's more good news: the data analysed for the study showed that the benefits of eating nuts remain with us for a long time; that nut consumption appears to reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes; and, in spite of their high fat content, nuts don't necessarily make us fat.

"Research has shown that frequent nut consumption does not lead to weight gain," said the study.

"Increasing the consumption of nuts as part of an otherwise prudent diet can be expected to favourably affect blood lipid levels... and have the potential to lower coronary heart disease risk," it concluded.

Can Malaysia go the way of Greece becoming a bankrupt country and can Sarawak be spared if Malaysia is bankrupt?

The diagnosis as to how the great nation of Greece ended as a financial “basket-case” are:

Bureaucracy: Greece’s bureaucracy is famous in the whole of Europe ! To open a cafe or pub there are 25 processes to go through! This is a country of rules and regulations.

Bloated civil service: There are 1.05 million civil servants (excluding police and armed forces) . The population of Greece is only 10 million! More than 10% are govt servants! Salary increases every year and benefit for civil servants in Greece is one of the best in Europe! More and more money is needed to upkeep this bloated civil service . The retirement age is 62 yrs old.

Corruption: Greece is the most corrupted nation in the Eurozone. Citizens pay “under table ” money to:

# admit into a public hospital

# pass a driving licence

# to enter public service

# renovate your business premises or your home

# avoid income tax

Every govt project is awarded to political cronies and at hugely inflated prices! Transparency International compared the prices of the construction costs of stadiums built for the Athens Olympics recently with similar structures in China –500% more expensive than the Chinese , compared to Los Angeles and Sydney — 50 % more expensive!! All these with tax payers money and borrowings!

Tax evasion: Officially 80% of its citizens are supposed to pay tax but only 37% are doing so. Big businessmen and corporations have refined tax evasion to a fine art (or have the tax men taken some coffee money?)

No transparency in governance: The politicians and bureaucrats falsified economic data and painted a rosy and manageable picture while the economy was rotting away.

Unabated borrowings: Meanwhile, the politicians and bureaucrats continue to issue government bonds to keep afloat, series after series. They were trying to cover up the financial mess they have created creating one big hole to cover up the previous!

Lacking political will power to reform: To keep hold on to political power, politicians are prepared to lie, commit economic and political fraud. If reforms were taken some five years ago, the country need not go bankrupt and its citizens need not suffer so much. Political expediency and greed to political power over-rides everything and hence Greece is now a bankrupt country. Luckily, it is part of the European Union and its currency is EUROs, otherwise Greeks will have to eat grass to survive!

Laid back attitude: Tourism is THE ONLY industry in Greece and over the years the Greeks have had an easy time. Many flocked to see the historical sites and enjoy summer vacation on the islands. But they forgot that not many tourists will return after visiting the sites –there are so many other tourists attractions in the world, maybe more exotic and perhaps cheaper! So once tourism wanes and coupled with higher costs of living, the Greeks could not and refused to adapt and transform – still partying and having a nice time; maybe the Greek Gods will bless them! Greece have no natural resources, no electronics industry, no R & D –no anything! They were so laid-back –cannot see what is coming and crashing down on them. Even now, the civil servants refused to take a pay cut — the world owes them a living!

Conclusion: The producer of the documentary had hired a taxi driver to go around while doing this documentary. The taxi driver had studied economics for four years in US and this was his parting words:

“My biggest mistake was returning 15 years ago, I should have stayed back in US. My nationalist instinct made me returned. The politicians screwed me. I loved my country but my country did not love me.”

Tomato protection

A compound found in dehydrated tomatoes may help quash prostate cancer tumours, new animal research suggests.

Researchers believe that FruHis, a form of carbohydrate found in dehydrated tomatoes, may inhibit the initial development of prostate tumours.

Past studies have come to conflicting conclusions as to whether tomatoes or lycopene, an antioxidant found in tomatoes, might offer prostate cancer protection, with one recent study finding no correlation between men’s blood levels of lycopene and their risk of prostate cancer.

However, the new findings, reported in the journal Cancer Research, suggest that the processing of the tomato may be a key factor.

Researchers found that a form of carbohydrate called FruHis, found in dehydrated tomatoes, appeared to protect rats from developing prostate tumours. The greatest protection came from dehydrated tomatoes that had been rehydrated into tomato paste and supplemented with additional FruHis.

The findings could aid in developing new, less toxic cancer therapies, said lead researcher Dr Valeri V. Mossine, of the University of Missouri in Columbia.

Mossine and his colleagues divided rats into four groups: one group was fed a diet of normal chow, while the other three groups were given chow supplemented with tomato powder, tomato paste, or tomato paste with added FruHis. All of the animals were treated with chemicals designed to induce prostate tumours.

Rats on the high-FruHis diet lived longer than the other three groups. What’s more, the researchers found prostate tumours in only 18% of these animals after death, compared with 63% of rats given normal chow, and 43% and 39% of animals given tomato powder and standard tomato paste, respectively.

Looking at FruHis activity in the lab dish, the researchers found that it might work in two ways.

First, the compound seemed to act like an antioxidant, protecting cells’ DNA from oxidative damage that can lead to cancer. Then, when combined with lycopene, FruHis was able to kill off prostate cancer cells.

So in theory, Mossine explained, FruHis may inhibit the initial development of prostate tumours and, in concert with lycopene, hinder the growth and spread of such tumours.

It’s too soon, however, for men to start eating tomato paste in the hopes of thwarting prostate cancer. "The most important next step would be conducting trials on humans," Mossine said.

Further lab work, he added, could also shed light on whether there are other compounds in dried vegetables or fruits that "work along" with FruHis.

"In my opinion, this study will make the cancer research community aware of a novel type of potential antioxidant and chemopreventive agent that may arise as a result of food processing," Mossine said.

"Hopefully, it will help to attract more attention and support to the prostate cancer prevention research area." –

Lack of sleep linked to early death

People who get less than six hours sleep per night have an increased risk of dying prematurely, researchers said on Wednesday.

Those who slumbered for less than that amount of time were 12 per cent more likely to die early, though researchers also found a link between sleeping more than nine hours and premature death.

"If you sleep little, you can develop diabetes, obesity, hypertension and high cholesterol," Francesco Cappuccio, who led research on the subject at Britain's University of Warwick, told AFP.

The study, conducted with the Federico II University in Naples, Italy, aggregated decade-long studies from around the world involving more than 1.3 million people and found "unequivocal evidence of the direct link" between lack of sleep and premature death.

"We think that the relation between little sleep and illness is due to a series of hormonal and metabolical mechanisms," Cappuccio said.

The findings of the study were published in the Sleep journal.

Cappuccio believes the duration of sleep is a public health issue and should be considered as a behavioural risk factor by doctors.

"Society pushes us to sleep less and less," Cappuccio said, adding that about 20 percent of the population in the United States and Britain sleeps less than five hours.

Sleeping less than six hours is "more common amongst full-time workers, suggesting that it may be due to societal pressures for longer working hours and more shift work"

The study also found a link between sleeping more than nine hours per night and premature death, but Cappuccio said oversleeping is more likely to be an effect of illness, rather than a cause.

"Doctors never ask how much one sleeps, but that could be an indicator that something is wrong," said Cappuccio, who heads the Sleep, Health and Society Programme at the University of Warwick.

Research showed no adverse effects for those sleeping between six and eight hours per day.

- AFP/rs

Happy reading .

A young man goes into a pharmacy and says to the pharmacist. "Hello, could you give me condom ......I'm going to my girlfriend's for dinner and I think I may be in with a chance!"
The pharmacist gives him the condom and as the young man is going out, he returns and says, "Give me another condom because my girlfriend's sister is very cute too. She always crosses her legs in a provocative manner when she sees me and I think I might strike it lucky there too." The pharmacist gives him a second condom and as the boy is leaving he turns back and says. "Go on, give me one more condom because my girlfriend's mum is still pretty cute and when she sees me she always makes eyes and, since She invited me for dinner I think she is expecting me to make a move!
During dinner, the young man is sitting with his girlfriend on his left, the sister on his right and the mum facing him. When the dad gets there, the boy lowers his head and starts praying, "Dear Lord, bless this dinner and thank you for all you give us". A minute later the boy is still praying; "Thank you Lord for your kindness."
Ten minutes go by and the boy is still praying, keeping his head down. The others look at each other surprised and his girlfriend is even more surprised than the others. She gets close to the boy and says in his ear, "I didn't know you were so religious." The boy replies, "I didn't know your dad is a pharmacist!"

Singapore can look forward to good year

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has declared this year a "good year", with Singapore emerging from the financial storm in a strong position.

In his May Day message, he urged Singaporeans to take the opportunity to push forward with improving productivity and transforming the economy.

Prime Minister Lee's optimism comes on the back of a revised growth forecast of 7 to 9 per cent for Singapore economy this year.

But he cautioned Singaporeans to see the remarkable performance in perspective.

The first-quarter growth of 13 per cent year on-year reflects the volatility of a small open economy.

And Mr Lee said some sectors like electronics and biomedical sciences expanded sharply but others had not done quite as well.

Prime Minister Lee believes that with everyone's concerted effort, Singapore can maintain its lead.

While firms push on with the productivity effort, workers need to improve and achieve greater mastery at their jobs.

Workers' upgrading is a marathon without a finish line, said Prime Minister Lee.

He noted that during the downturn last year, workers had taken the opportunity to upgrade their skills.

Mr Lee said this momentum must continue even as the economy has improved.

He noted that with the strong pickup, many companies are restoring the wage cuts while others are awarding bonuses and increments, depending on their improved performances.

He said these companies have remembered the sacrifices made by workers during the crisis.

These actions are strengthening the trust between workers and employers, said Prime Minister Lee.

He urged companies to work with unions to build up variable bonuses, and structure their wage systems to be more flexible over the longer term.

Mr Lee credited tripartism as a key competitive advantage in Singapore, and promised to continue to pay special attention to low-wage workers.

"Singapore has successfully tackled past challenges because of our strong tripartite partnership. Unions work with employers and the government to enlarge the pie so that all will have more to share," he said.

"Investors and businesses value highly our collaborative spirit, facing difficulties and solving problems together. Our track record of tripartism is a key competitive advantage that wins investments and brings in jobs for Singaporeans," added Mr Lee.

"Our union leaders understand what Singapore's prosperity, and our workers' well-being, depend upon. They know that there is no substitute for hard work, ingenuity and enterprise. They have done much to help workers understand the economic trends affecting them, and encourage them to go for retraining and upgrading," said Mr Lee.

Colon exam could 'massively' cut cancer rates

A single exam of the rectum and lower colon between the age of 55 and 64 slashes colon cancer mortality by more than 40 percent, according to research published Wednesday.

The 16-year study of more than 170,000 people in Britain also found that the one-time procedure cut incidence of the disease by a third compared to a control group that did not undergo the examination.

The relatively simple test "could massively reduce colorectal cancer incidence and mortality," the British medical journal The Lancet, which published the study, said in a press release.

The most effective and cost-efficient way to screen for various cancers -- including of the breast, prostate and colon -- has been hotly debated in recent years.

Colon cancer is the third most commonly diagnosed form of the disease worldwide, accounting for more than one million cases and 600,000 deaths annually.

The large majority of colon cancers arise from adenomas, a type of pre-malignant polyp that occurs in 20 to 30 percent of the population. Most people who develop the disease will have adenomas by the age of 60.

The new study provides the strongest evidence to date that a procedure known as a sigmoidoscopy, when performed in late-middle age, provides significant protection against the deadly cancer.

Generally performed without anaesthesia, flexible signoidoscopy allows a physician to examine the rectum and lower colon, called the signoid. Two-thirds of colorectal cancers develop in this region.

Growths, whether benign or cancerous, can be removed during the procedure.

The examination is less invasive -- and less costly -- than a full colonoscopy, in which the entire large intestine is looked at while the patient is under anaesthesia.

Many health systems currently screen for colon cancer by testing stool samples for the presence of blood, a procedure which has been shown to reduce mortality by 15 percent.

In the study, 170,432 men and women recruited between 1994 and 1999 were divided into two groups.

Nearly 113,200 were assigned to the control group, and 57,237 to the intervention group.

During the screening period and an 11-year follow up, 2,524 participants were diagnosed with colon cancer, 1,816 in the control group and 706 in the intervention group.

Incidence of the disease in people who were screened was cut by 33 percent, and mortality by 43 percent.

When results were confined to the rectum and lower colon, incidence was reduced by half.

"Flexible sigmoidoscopy is a safe and practical test and, when offered only once to people between ages 55 and 64, confers a substantial and long-lasting protection from colon cancer," the authors concluded.

The exam, while far more expensive that checking for blood in the stool, may also be cost effective "largely because of the avoided costs of treatment resulting from the reduction in incidence", they added.

The researchers, led by Wendy Atkin of Imperial College London, speculate that the decrease in cancer rates and deaths in the test group will become even greater over time.

"If incidence in the screened participants remains low during further follow up, the magnitude of the reduction will continue to increase," they said.