A new study showed that by doing a few lifestyle changes, we can greatly reduce the risk of cancer.
Did you know that there are over 200 types of cancer? Endless research and studies have gone into discovering cures and remedies for this high number of variants, and some therapy and treatment has been incredibly effective in the last few years.
But while treatments are moving forwards one of the best ways to really treat cancer is to work to prevent it.
A study in the JAMA Oncology journal outlines how just a few lifestyle changes can greatly decrease the risk of contracting several types of cancer, by up to half in the US.
They came to the conclusion that by making four changes to your life can greatly reduce the risk of cancer during your lifetime. The study looked at all cancers except for skin, brain, lymphatic, hematologic and nonfatal prostate variants.
The conclusion was by making these four changes you can reduce the risk of cancer by 40-70 percent.
This kind of research has shown that so many types of cancer are in fact preventable. So I bet you are dying to know what those four things are. They are really simple and you have probably heard of them already:
- Drink less alcohol (moderate to none – no more than one drink for women per day and two for men)
- Stop smoking
- Do a little exercise each week (150 minutes of moderate to intense exercise)
- Maintain a healthy weight (a BMI of between 18.5 and 27.5)
An astounding figure of around 600,000 Americans will die due to untreatable cancer in 2016. But so many of these cancers are preventable.
The study included 136,000 Caucasian men and women. If the four categories above were met by the candidates then they were categorized as low risk, if they didn’t meet all four then they were in the high-risk group.
The differences were mostly extreme between the two groups. For example, the risk of contracting lung cancer was up to 82 percent more likely in the high-risk group. In some instances, however, such as with breast cancer, the difference was not so distinct.
Overall the four categories proved to cut the risk and the number of preventable deaths from cancer.
If applied to the US population, the number of cancer deaths could be cut by up to 67 percent for men and 59 percent for women. That’s over half! It’s time to make some serious changes.