- Modifiable lifestyle factors, such as diet and exercise, play an important role in reducing cancer risk.
- New research shows that the more aggressively you change your lifestyle, the lower your risk.
- It is important to change your diet by limiting your intake of sugar, red meat, and processed foods.
There is growing evidence that modifiable lifestyle factors, such as diet and exercise, have a significant impact on reducing cancer risk.
The new study results were published on November 29th.
“Our study shows that following the WCRF/AICR lifestyle-based cancer prevention recommendations is associated with a lower risk of cancer, specifically two of the world's top four cancers. Dr Fiona Malcolmson, Lecturer in Human Nutrition at Newcastle University, said: one of the study authors told Healthline.
However, she said that due to the observational nature of the study, it was not possible to conclude a direct causal relationship between adherence and cancer risk.
Experts have created simple metrics for each recommendation, including exercise, limiting sugary drinks, and maintaining a healthy weight.
For example, if you stop drinking sugary drinks, you will receive 1 point, but if carbonated drinks are still part of your regular diet, you will receive 0 points.
There is also a more gradual approach to scoring. For example, if you partially meet a recommendation, you may be awarded half a point.
After researchers have an individual's score, they can look at health outcomes to see if the score is associated with things like cancer rates.
To conduct this new study, researchers used the UK Biobank, a prospective health study involving more than 500,000 people. The cohort includes men and women aged 37 to 73 from across the UK and includes data on participants' health, diet and socio-economic status.
The researchers were able to tap into this wealth of data, which included just under 95,000 participants with an average age of 56 years.
During an average follow-up of 8 years, 7,296 participants (about 8%) developed some form of cancer.
Using the WCRF/AICR recommended point system, participants were assigned a score from 0 to 7 based on their adherence.
What the researchers found shows how lifestyle changes can have a huge impact on cancer risk. At each time point, the risk of all cancers was reduced by 7%.
For site-specific cancers, the benefit was even more pronounced.
At every point, the risk of breast and colorectal cancer was reduced by 10%. The risk of kidney cancer was 18% lower. Similar significant improvements were seen in ovarian cancer (24%), esophageal cancer (22%), and gallbladder cancer (30%).
“It's interesting to know that promoting and adhering to recommended lifestyle changes can actually be protective,” said Dr. Lydia Shapira, professor of oncology at Stanford University. Ta. She had no connection to her research.
There are also clear trends across the score range. Participants in the highest score range (4.5-7) showed the highest level of adherence and had a 16% reduction in risk for all cancer risks compared to participants in the lowest score range.
Site-specific cancers have also followed suit. Participants in the highest score range were more likely to have breast cancer (18%), colorectal cancer (21%), kidney cancer (36%), esophageal cancer (36%), Ovarian cancer (43%) showed a low risk overall.
WCRF/AICR established
Previous studies have examined the association between the 2007 recommendations and health-related outcomes, but this is the first time researchers have been able to take advantage of the latest recommendations.
Recommendations include:
- maintain a healthy weight
- be physically active
- A healthy diet with lots of fruits and vegetables
- Limit intake of processed foods, red meat, and sugar
- don't drink sweet drinks
- limit alcohol intake
- Do not use supplements to prevent cancer
They also recommend that those giving birth breastfeed if possible.
Changes between the 2007 and 2018 recommendations include the removal of the “reduce salt” recommendation due to lack of conclusive evidence. And it includes recommendations to specifically limit sugar from beverages such as soda and juice.
Malcolmson encourages everyone to follow the WCRF/AICR recommendations as closely as possible, but small steps are important too.
“Improving just one or two of these components is enough to make a difference,” she said.
Shapira also recommends the following for anyone looking to implement these lifestyle changes and make them manageable and positive: . There are too many so I won't do anything. ”
“We should be thinking about helping people focus on maybe one or two recommendations, and we should do it in a step-by-step or sequential manner,” she said.
Lifestyle changes such as diet and exercise are important ways to improve your health and cancer risk.
New research shows that people who adhere to the World Cancer Research Fund and American Institute of Cancer Research's (WCRF/AICR) 2018 recommendations lower their risk of all cancers and site-specific cancers. has been shown to be low.
Small steps like eliminating sugary drinks from your diet, eating less red meat, and exercising more often can have a big impact on reducing your cancer risk.
