Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!
It has been over 10 months since we said good-bye to Sue and I'm sure many of you still think of her often. I promised many of you that I would add to the blog site every so often in order to keep you updated on the family. Mike Sr. and Dierdre continue to live in Pinehurst North Carolina while their daughter Tara is attempting to enter nursing school. Carolyn (mom) continues to be busy with family and friends (Annie & Sheila) and makes trips south and east to visit Mike Jr., Stacy and us.

Brother Mike Jr. is traveling back & forth to China as his expertise is getting Apple products on the market quickly. His older daughter Kelli is in her 2nd year of a 5 yr PHD program in child psychology and her brother Michael III is in his 2nd year at SCU studying mechanical engineering. Younger sister Stacy still lives in Connecticut while her husband Michael now works for IBM and Ryan (oldest) is in middle school while younger sister Meghan attends 4th grade. We moved to Agoura Hills in August. I am at Warner Brothers and loving the entertainment world, Kathy is busy getting things settled and Madison is playing Varsity soccer for her high school while Mallory is now in 5th grade and enjoys her new friends on the street.

I would like to share with you something I learned from Hakim Djaballah who is the lead researcher at Sloan Kettering in New York City. It is a simple message, but yet so difficult to keep out of our lives in today's busy world. In our conversation about the causes of cancer, he shared with me that the leading cause of cancer today is "stress" Not smoking, but stress.

Discussed with Hakim Djaballah
Any form of stress (work, family, self, life)
Stress releases toxins that weaken the immune system and increases chances for cancer cells to form. We all have cancel cells in our bodies, yet our DNA and make-up are uniquely different causing the cells to form under different circumstances at “any time” or “no time” in our lifetimes here on earth
Moral of the current story:
Exercise 1st and have a good diet to support your workouts
Exercise 1st to keep your body healthy and allows toxins to be released
Exercise 1st to strengthen your immune system

He continued to share with me that conventional therapies are inaccurate and due to the fact that only 2 of 26 drugs approved by the FDA in 2009 were targeted for cancer, shows that as a nation we are not doing enough to find a cure. Cancer continues to adapt to the environment making research to find a cure tougher if we can’t keep up with the rate of change.

Please add the following to your 2011 New Year's Resolution:
1. Exercise on a regular basis
2. Do whatever you can to reduce stress in your life
3. Quit smoking immediately

May 2011 be a great year for all of you.

All the best,

Matt