The Mayo Clinic published 10 tips to reduce cancer risk in their most recent issue of Mayo Clinic Women’s HealthSource.

Here are the tips and below there’s more explanation:

1. Stop smoking
2. Limit alcohol intake – some alcohol is okay, too much is not
3. Follow recommended intake of fruits and vegetable (daily!)
4. Decrease the amount of fat in your daily diet
5. Lose weight if you’re too heavy, try to gain weight if you’re too thin
6. Move! Get active
7. Watch your skin (from the sun and don’t use tanning beds)
8. Don’t take chances when having sex. Protect yourself.
9. See your doctor regularly and take part in recommenced screening tests
10. If you have had cancer or are at particularly high risk, speak with your doctor about chemoprevention, which is taking medications to reduce the risk of new cancers

How and why do these steps help?

First of all, none of these are a surprise. All these recommendations, save for the last one, are recommended to help reduce the risk of developing many health problems, such as type 2 diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, and more. So by following these tips, you’re helping your body more than you may realize.

Smoking: Did you know that smoking not only increases your risk of developing lung cancer, but also mouth (tongue, cheek, palate, throat, gum) cancer? Your risk of bladder cancer also climbs quite a bit. Smoking affects your whole body, not just your lungs. Also, the social act of smoking is often accompanied by other not-so-healthy lifestyle factors, like drinking alcohol, limiting exercise, and so on. By quitting the cigarettes, your risk drops every day you’re no longer a smoker.

Alcohol: Many of us like to enjoy a good glass of wine, a cold bottle of beer, a good scotch – and many of us limit ourselves to a moderate number of glasses. However, if you drink too much, more than the recommended amount for your sex, you increase your risk of mouth, pharynx, larynx, esophagus, liver, colon and rectum cancers.

Fruits and vegetables: It’s not that difficult to add the recommended amounts of fruits and vegetables into your daily diet, but it does take planning. Unfortunately, with the hectic lifestyles many people lead these days, food planning often goes out the door. Five servings of fruits and vegetables daily are the minimal amount that you should be taking in. The thing is, servings are not huge, so this is not impossible. Two and a half cups of fruits or vegetables over the course of the day is maybe one apple, one tomato and a couple of stalks of celery. That’s not too much, is it?

Limiting fat: This one may be of the easiest things to do. Fat is an essential part of the human diet; we need it for our body to function properly. However, the type of fat and the amount you get is important.

This table, from the USDA, shows you how much fat you should have according to the number of calories you should have per day:

And this table, from the same source, gives you an idea of what foods have what fat:

Source: ARS Nutrient Database for Standard Reference, Release 17.

Weight control: Being a healthy weight for your body build helps your body in many ways. It can even help reduce the pain of osteoarthritis for some people. Being too thin also has health issues, so keep that in mind if you are trying to lose weight.

Get active: Enough said!

Watch your skin: Tanning is not beautiful – any change in your skin color means there is damage going on. Don’t use tanning beds – they’re even worse than the sun. Plus, too much sun exposure doesn’t just contribute to skin cancer, it makes your skin old, dry and wrinkly well before its time.

Protect yourself from sexually transmitted infections: Sex with people without protection exposes you to hepatitis and HIV, both of which are very high risk for cancer, let alone the disease itself. Human papillomavirus (HPV) causes genital warts, some of which can cause cervical cancer, cancer of the cervix.

Screening tests: Screening tests for prostate cancer, cervical cancer, breast cancer, are all over the news, but don’t forget the other screenings that you can have done. You can have a colonoscopy to check for the beginnings of colon cancer and you can have your skin checked regularly to look for signs of skin cancer. If you are at high risk of a particular type of cancer, speak with your doctor about screening for that, as well. And, don’t forget your dentist. He or she is the one who can detect signs of oral cancer.

Chemoprevention: This is a relatively new area, most commonly known for women who take Tamoxifen to help reduce the risk of breast cancer coming back. You may want to speak with your doctor about this if you are at a high risk of cancer or you have already had it.

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Images: MorgueFile.com

Post from: Blisstree

10 Tips for Reducing Cancer Risk

Besides, before we all get rattled by the recent cancer scare on cellphone use and other stuff, really the prevention (or at least reducing our risk of developing any cancer later in life) all boils down to the dietary and lifetsyle changes each of us are willing to take, IMHO.

Anyways, here goes in bullets only:

1. Serve sauerkraut at your next picnic.
2. Eat your fill of broccoli, but steam it rather than microwaving it.
3. Toast some Brazil nuts and sprinkle over your salad.
4. Pop a calcium supplement with vitamin D.
5. Add garlic to everything you eat.
6. Sauté two cloves of crushed garlic in 2 tablespoons of olive oil,
7. Every week, buy a cantaloupe at the grocery store and cut it up after you put away your groceries.
8. Mix half a cup of blueberries into your morning cereal.
9. Learn to eat artichokes tonight.
10. Coat barbecue food with a thick sauce.
11. Every time you go to the bathroom, stop by the kitchen or water cooler for a glass of water.
12. Take up a tea habit.
13. Have a beer tonight.
14. Throw some salmon on the grill tonight.
15. Take a multivitamin every morning.
16. Get about 15 minutes of sunlight on your skin each day.
17. Carry a shot glass in your beach bag.
18. Cut a kiwifruit in half, then scoop out the flesh with a spoon.
19. Use a condom and stick to one partner.
20. Cut out high-fat animal protein.
21. Have your partner feed you grapes.
22. Sprinkle scallions over your salad.
23. Make a batch of fresh lemonade or limeade.
24. Take a 30-minute walk every evening after dinner.
25. Buy organic foods.
26. Learn to love dandelions.
27. Buy clothes that don’t need to be dry-cleaned.
28. Choose cucumbers over pickles, fresh salmon over lox.
29. Switch from french fries and potato chips to mashed potatoes and pretzels.
30. Go for a spray-on tan.
31. Call up your bowling pal and hit the lanes.

My kind of list exactly. Yours too. Read the full details from RD.

Added by me 3 hours later after publishing, last in this list but certainly not the least:

32.  Stop smoking!

What was I thinking not adding this earlier?! Thanks a lot to commenter Kat for the reminder.

Post from: Blisstree

From Reader’s Digest: 31 Simple Ways to Prevent Cancer

Although that is true, we cannot just decide one day to pick up a healthier diet (like increasing the intake of fruits and veggies!!) and be assured we won’t increase or risk of developing any cancer type.

One cannot just erase one’s history of unhealthy eating and lifestyle, right? How can one erase something like not giving fruits, veggies and fish a second look during the first 30 years of your life?!

Ever heard of the words: from cradle to grave? That’s also the period of time we all should be living healthy, not only against cancer but also against any other serious medical condition.

As of late, here are the most recent reports that involves nutrition and cancer:

Food Compounds That Kill Test-Tube Cancer Cells Analyzed

UMaine Researchers Highlight Anti-Cancer Benefits of Vitamin D

Colorectal Cancer Called “Most Preventable”

Stay healthier with diet high in fruit, veggies

Green leafy vegetables may halve lung cancer risk

Each one says a lot about food. Thus, whether we like to accept the fact or not, food and diet plays an important role in cancer.

Post from: Blisstree

Cancer, Nutrition, Channel Theme Day and Nutrition Month

Though the effects are not immediate, in the long run, such diet has a role on cancer prevention.

Now, there is new evidence for the protective effects of fruits and vegetables.

Researchers presented at the American Association for Cancer Research’s Sixth Annual International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention, new data that demonstrate how diets full of raw vegetables –particularly broccoli sprouts — and black raspberries could prevent or slow the growth of some common forms of cancer.

You will have to read the full article from Science Daily, but the highlights are the following:

• Black raspberries modulate markers of oxidative stress in patients with Barrett’s esophagus
• Inhibition of urinary bladder carcinogenesis by broccoli sprouts
• Consumption of raw, but not cooked, cruciferous vegetables and reduction of bladder cancer risk

I think these days nobody remains unconvinced with the anti-cancer properties of most fruits and vegetables.

Post from: Blisstree

Fruit-and-Vegetable-Rich Diet and Cancer Prevention

Heparanase Inhibitor, Potential Anti-Cancer Drug Candidate

Cancer Prevention, Diet and Functional Foods

Women Opting for Double Mastectomies

Breast Cancer Victims Subject to Hurtful Reactions

Post from: Blisstree

Cancer Commentary Links 24-Oct-2007

Most importantly to students who are going back to school, healthy lifestyle changes are necessary in order to prevent cancer:

• avoiding tobacco
• limiting time in the sun
• eating five servings daily of fruit and vegetables
• limiting alcohol consumption
• exercising regularly
• knowing your family’s history of disease

All of the above are a reminder to (especially) college students who most of the time does the exact opposite.

A little bit old but definitely applicable at any time, read all about it at MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Post from: Blisstree

Back-to-School Tips on Cancer Prevention