Reduce Your Cancer Risk
Thinking about cancer is something most of us would like to never do, but today we know that paying attention to our cancer risk can yield real dividends. Scientists estimate that if everyone ate a healthy diet, was physically active every day and maintained a more healthy weight, the number of cancer cases would be reduced by about one-third.
Learning Simple Changes
Making healthy lifestyle choices, ones that can help protect against cancer along with heart disease, stroke and a variety of other health problems, is quite a bit easier to do than you may think. The best starting point is the AICR Recommendations for Cancer Prevention.
Condensed to their simplest form, the recommendations fall into three guidelines:
- Choose mostly plant foods, limit red meat and avoid processed meat
- Be physically active every day in any way for 30 minutes or more
- Aim to be a healthy weight throughout life.
And always remember…
Do not smoke or chew tobacco.
Eat right, stay active and watch your weight
The foods you choose to eat every day are one of the most important factors in protecting you against cancer. Most Americans eat a diet that is far too high in meat and calories. Even more important is what the average diet lacks: a variety of vegetables, fruits, beans and other plant based foods. These plant based foods give your body not only the nutrients it needs for good health, but an arsenal of compounds (phytochemicals) that help protect against naturally occurring cancer risks you face every day.
Regular physically activity in any form, from dancing to walking, is also shown to help significantly lower cancer risk. If you both eat a predominantly plant based diet and are physically active, that will help with weight maintenance, which is increasingly found to play a role in cancer risk. As well as helping avoid weight gain, research shows that activity itself can keep our hormone levels healthy, which is important because having high levels of some hormones can increase our cancer risk.
Changing your pattern of diet and activity is not as hard as you may think. AICR offers free educational publications that can help.
Smoking and Cancer
There is absolutely no question that smoking, or using tobacco in any form, is one of the worst choices you can make when it comes to your health. Not only does the use of tobacco greatly increase risk for lung cancer, but it also appears to influence some other forms of cancer, and significantly increases your risk for cardiovascular disease and stroke.
Today there is more help than ever for those who wish to stop smoking. Your doctor or local hospital can help you find assistance. There are even community programs now in place that aim to help you kick the habit. These programs are free, and can even cover chemical help such as the patch, nicotene gum, or other quit smoking prescriptions.