Healthy Lifestyle Choices That Can Help Reduce Cancer Risk
Cancer can be a serious outcome of many risk factors, including many environmental, genetic, and lifestyle issues. Most cancers cannot be prevented entirely; however, many can be avoided by making better choices in your daily life and changing your lifestyle. Making healthy lifestyle choices can help protect and decrease the amount of cancer you may develop.
In India, changing lifestyles (including increased tobacco use), poor dietary habits (including lack of physical activity), and increasing pollution have led to increased cancer incidences. Many of the cancers most commonly found in India, such as oral, lung, breast, and colorectal cancers, are associated with certain risk factors that can be modified. When individuals know how many choices they make in their daily lives can affect their risk of getting cancer, they can take steps to prevent them from developing it.
Table of Content:
- Do Not Use Tobacco in Any Form
- Limiting Alcohol Consumption
- Eating a Balanced and Nutritious Diet
- Staying Physically Active
- Maintaining a Healthy Body Weight
- Protecting against infections
- Minimizing Environmental Risks by Reducing Exposure to Environmental Toxins
- The Importance of Regular Health Exams
- Making Prevention Your Day-to-Day Practice
- A Healthy Lifestyle and How It Affects the Risk of Cancer in the Future.
Do Not Use Tobacco in Any Form
The largest preventable cause of cancer is tobacco use. Tobacco can be considered tobacco, cigarette, bidi, or smokeless tobacco (such as gutka, khaini and pan masala), depending upon the method of usage, and can lead to an increased risk for all cancers of the mouth, throat, lung, esophagus and bladder. The earlier a person quits smoking, the greater the reduction of cancer risk; in addition, the human body will begin to repair itself after quitting, even after years of tobacco usage. Reducing risk also means eliminating secondhand smoke from everyone around an individual.
Limiting Alcohol Consumption
One way to reduce one’s risk of developing cancer is by reducing alcohol consumption. Studies have shown that varying degrees of alcohol use may be linked with an increased risk of developing different types of cancers, including liver, breast, mouth, throat, and digestive tract cancers. Long-term or extensive use of alcohol has been shown to increase the risk of developing cancer, especially when combined with the use of tobacco. Decreasing overall alcohol use or eliminating it altogether are two options available to help reduce the risk of developing cancer. When choosing to reduce the amount of alcohol consumed or completely stop drinking, the selection of healthier options (including selecting more nutritional foods) and practicing moderation are key components for living a long and healthy life.
Eating a Balanced and Nutritious Diet
Following a balanced nutritious diet and eating many more fruit and vegetables, helps you avoid foods that are predominantly processed or red meat (high in salt and unhealthy fats). A diet full of fruits, vegetables, legumes, whole grains and nuts has all of the important vitamins and minerals along with antioxidants to prevent or decrease your chances of developing cancer.
Eating a wide variety of colourful fruits and vegetables every day protects your cells from damage. Processed and packaged foods expose you to unhealthy additives that will increase your chances of developing cancer.
Staying Physically Active
Remaining active through regular exercise may help to maintain a healthy weight and decrease the chances of being diagnosed with breast, endometrial, and colon cancers. The prevalence of lack of physical activity and the increasing number of people living sedentary lifestyles has led to a growing number of overweight and obese individuals. Since obesity is a known risk factor for various forms of cancer, it is important to incorporate physical activity into daily life in order to maintain a healthy weight and to lower the risk of developing cancers associated with it.
Simple exercise such as walking, cycling or yoga as well, and doing chores at home can improve your health from a physical standpoint, and adding movement over time will offer you greater health benefits.
Maintaining a Healthy Body Weight
Obesity increases the risk of several types of cancer (such as breast, colon, kidney, pancreatic); when there is an excess of body fat, the body creates hormonal imbalances and becomes inflamed, which in turn can increase the likelihood that cancer may develop.
Healthy eating and regular exercising can help maintain a healthy body weight, which helps to lessen the chance of developing cancer.
Protecting against infections
Examples of infections that are associated with cancer: Human Papillomavirus (HPV) is linked to the development of cervical cancer, hepatitis B and C viruses are associated with the development of liver cancer, etc. There are many ways you can avoid the risk of getting these viruses including vaccination, safe sex practices, and seeking medical care at the appropriate time. Practicing good hygiene and addressing infections when diagnosed will also provide health benefits to you for the long term.
Minimizing Environmental Risks by Reducing Exposure to Environmental Toxins
There are several types of environmental toxins that can increase your chances of developing cancer. Among the many examples of environmental toxins are those found in; air pollution, occupational hazards, and long-term exposure to hazardous materials are just a few of the environmental toxins listed above. You can take certain steps to protect yourself such as; using safety equipment while at work, improving the quality of indoor air, eliminating the use of hazardous materials, etc.
The Importance of Regular Health Exams
In support of preventing health issues, regular check ups coupled with healthy behaviours provide the best results. Standard health screenings and diagnostic testing can reveal any possible health problems at an earlier stage in your life, even before you’ve experienced any symptoms. Diagnostic clinics, like those found at Sikund Diagnostics, assist with providing the necessary health testing to uncover potential health risks during the last month of your life.
Making Prevention Your Day-to-Day Practice
Having the ability to prevent cancer is not reliant on making large leaps in lifestyle changes within a very short period of time. Rather, an ongoing habit of small incremental decisions in living an active, healthy lifestyle will yield many years of health. Daily choices made through healthy eating, regular exercise, elimination of harmful activities and regular check-ups will greatly improve one’s overall health for an extended number of years.
Sikund Diagnostic continues to be a leader and to advance the knowledge of preventive healthcare, and the importance of early detection/testing for the reduction of the overall risk of developing cancer.
A Healthy Lifestyle and How It Affects the Risk of Cancer in the Future.
Decisions that you make about your nutrition today can have a very positive effect on your risk of developing cancer in the future. Therefore, you should strive to make the best decisions to support a healthier lifestyle today.