If you've chosen to worry about pancreatic cancer, then you can plan on having some sleepless nights.

Buried in your pancreas deep under your stomach, these tumors typically reach an advanced stage long before they are discovered -- generally after weight loss, pain and weakness prompt a physician to check a C-T scan. Aggressive surgery, radiation chemotherapy -- the usual gruesome tools for treating cancer -- are practically worthless.

What can you do to prevent yourself from getting pancreatic cancer? Absolutely nothing! So you might as well worry about something else -- like the stomach ulcer you got from lying awake last night thinking about pancreatic cancer.

If you already have the diagnosis and are dreading a slow and painful death, a few words to cheer you up. It is a slow-growing malignancy, so you could easily outlive the guy writing these words right now. You can also take heart that in recent years, former death-sentence cancers like Melanoma and Non-Hodkin's lymphoma are now treatable thanks to miraculous and unexpected new treatments that appeared suddenly. The same thing could happen tomorrow with pancreatic cancer, so there is always a merciful strand of hope to cling to.

And of course, most doctors don't know what they're talking about anyway. Think how embarrassed they'll all be if you live to be 100!