Cases of the deadly mesothelioma cancer, caused by exposure to asbestos, have quadrupled in the past 20-years, according to new figures.

Mesothelioma comes from significant exposure to fibre from asbestos and asbestos related products, including materials lining the walls of many Australian homes up until the 1980s.

The Asbestos Diseases Society today said that cases of mesothelioma had quadrupled since the mid-1980s, with men accounting for about 85% of all new cases.

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Could there be a connection between eating habits and mesothelioma? Not everyone who is exposed to asbestos develops the disease, so there must be differences in lifestyles that account for this disparity. Almost twenty years ago, researchers from the National Cancer Institute and Louisiana State University conducted studies on whether diet could prevent cancer.

Their findings were incredible. After locating fifty-eight people with mesothelioma and fifty-eight people with similar asbestos exposure and use of tobacco (but had escaped the disease), the researchers attempted to find a connection between the prevalence of mesothelioma and eating habits. Using popular snacks, sweets, different seafoods, meats and vegetables, the researchers found interesting results. People who had developed mesothelioma ate more cake, candy, and pie than those who were cancer-free. In contrast, the participants who were free of mesothelioma ate about twice as many servings of vegetables or fruit. The one element of a diet that increased the risk of cancer more than anything else was sugar. Those who participated and developed mesothelioma were eight times more likely to have eaten dessert every day compared to those who did not. It seems that sugar somehow accelerates the progress of cancer.

A mesothelioma victim and his son tell their story about how it has affected their lives. The Health and Safety Commission Chair Judith Hackett gives details of the campaign to highlight awareness of the risks of asbestos to tradesmen.

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CNN recently featured a short video on their morning news segment about asbestos in everyday life. In the video, a 35-year-old woman talks about her struggle with mesothelioma.

The video also addresses the asbestos found in children's toys, namely the CSI fingerprinting kit. (See ADAO Tests Consumer Products for Asbesots) Since the toy company has not recalled the product, some entities have taken matters into their own hands; Connecticut has issued a recall of the toy, and CBS (who licensed the toy) believes that Planet Toy should recall the kit.

See the full video here.

The complete study regarding the four mesothelioma patients discussed in Web-based Software... was published yesterday and featured in the Wall Street Journal. Led by Dr. David Sugarbaker of Brigham and Women's Hospital, the study found that mutations in tumors may help doctors prescribe refined treatment to patients.

In each mesothelioma patient, between two and six genes were mutated in their cancerous tumors. Researchers think these mutations are responsible for the cancer, but no two patients had the same mutations. These differences may account for the varied reactions to chemotherapy: why the treatment works in some but fails in others. Some drug companies produce treatments that target certain mutations. In order to find the right treatment, however, patients would have to submit to costly gene-sequencing techniques and perhaps obtain specially designed drugs.

"It doesn't seem like at this point that it is cost-effective to go down any route that uses this type of data to design drugs," says Jason Bielas, a researcher at the University of Washington. Regardless, Sugarbaker believes this study is a milestone in cancer research. In the future, he says, cancers will no longer be classified under broad terms such as "lung," or "breast," but will instead be recognized by the particular gene mutations.

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