Walk Away from Breast Cancer
Want to reduce your risk of getting breast cancer? Just walk away from it.
I'm Dr. Caroline Cederquist, with Get The Skinny on Your Health.
A study of 74,000 women aged 50 to 79 showed that women who walk one-and-a-quarter hours to two-and-a-half hours per week had an 18 percent lower risk of breast cancer than inactive women.
This was the same extensive study that showed that women who took hormones had greater risk of cancer and heart disease. Thousands dropped their hormone replacement therapy flat, even though there are good medical arguments against abruptly quitting hormones. Women were willing to confront those risks in order to reduce their cancer risk.
There are so many cancer risks we have little or no control over, but here's something we can easily understand and take charge of.
An 18 percent reduced cancer risk and virtually no downside. That's as easy as, well, a walk in the park.
Fat Causes Cancer
If it seems today that everything either makes you fat or causes cancer, here's the double whammy: having to much fat can cause cancer!
I'm Dr. Caroline Cederquist, bringing you The Skinny on Your Health.
A study by the American Cancer Society showed that excess body weight could actually account for up to 14 percent of all cancer deaths in men, and up to 20 percent in women.
What many people don't understand is that body fat isn't just an inert storage tank for unused energy. Fat does things to change your body's chemistry and the way it works. Fat cells create substance, which may stimulate other cells to grow abnormally.
Hormones created by fat are a chief suspect in the cancer link, but while scientists don't yet understand the exact mechanisms, they are clear on this: less fat = less cancer.
I say, that's just one more good reason to pay serious attention to our diet and lifestyle.
Breast Cancer Survivors and Weight Regimens
Overweight breast cancer survivors treated to an individualized, comprehensive weight-loss program - including one-on-one medical appointments and nutritional counseling - got healthier and lost more weight than survivors on other, less personal, kinds of programs.
I'm Dr. Caroline Cederquist, giving you the Skinny on Your Health.
On its face, that doesn't seem like such a stunning revelation. Personalized weight management - or anypersonalized health care, always serves a patient best.
But this is especially important for overweight cancer patients to be aware of, as the risky links between obesity and cancer become more clear, and researchers learn why excess body weight will increase chances of getting cancer, or having it return.
Breast cancer survivors want to reduce their weight to reduce their risk of dying of cancer. With that on the line, the latest trendy diet or bandwagon approach just isn't good enough for them.
And for everyone else, it shows again that it just makes sense to treat your weight problem as though your life depends on it - because it very well may.
Meat Consumption and Colorectal Cancer
With all the folks trying Atkins-type low-carb diets and indulging in big, meaty meals, it's worth keeping in mind that there are downsides to eating all that animal protein. And the American Cancer Society has a new study to remind us.
I'm Dr. Caroline Cederquist, giving you The Skinny on Your Health.
Regular, long-term consumption of red meat and processed meats like baloney, bacon and hot dogs, is associated with higher risk for colorectal cancer.
Earlier research had suggested this, but a new study, looked at dietary data for more people, over a longer period of time, using ten years of data for nearly 150,000 older adults aged 50 through 74. It's ultimately provided a much clearer picture.
During the study period, 1,667 persons developed colorectal cancer, which is the third most common cancer in the meat crazy United States.
Current estimates are that up to 70 percent of colorectal cancers could be avoided just through dietary changes. So if you're all about the Atkins, just remember that there are plenty of ways to get your protein if you pass on the red meat and try to stay in that safer, 70 percent set.
Cancer and Diet Generally
Science continues to try to understand the detailed idiosyncrasies relationship between our diet and our general health, and disease in particular. What we know continues to grow and what we understand sometimes changes.
I'm Dr. Caroline Cederquist, giving you The Skinny on Your Health.
It was almost 25 years ago that a huge landmark study came out asserting that up to 35 percent of U.S. cancer deaths were related to controllable dietary factors.
At the time, the researchers acknowledged that their work would have to be supported by other kinds of studies, and thus started decades of investigation into the role our food choices play in our risk for cancer.
Not only do we understand much more today, we're putting the knowledge to good use. Cancer deaths in the U.S. are no longer on the rise and we know that specific eating patterns lead to specific cancer risks.
Even so, it's just really hard to do tight, controlled studies on people's eating habits, so we don't have all the answers we want yet. But the ones we do have all seem to say:
Healthier eating can help keep cancer at bay.
