8 healthy habits that can keep you cancer-free

Over half of all serious disease in the Nigeria could be prevented if people adopted healthier lifestyles. By following these eight recommendations, you can lower your risk of cancer, heart disease, stroke, osteoporosis and diabetes. Before you know it, you’ll also have more energy and get a boost to your mood.

So take control of your health, and encourage your family to do the same. Choose one or two of the behaviors below to start with. Once you’ve got those down, move on to the others.

1. Maintain a Healthy Weight

Keeping your weight in check is often easier said than done, but a few simple tips can help. First off, if you’re overweight, focus initially on not gaining any more weight. This by itself can improve your health. Then, when you’re ready, try to take off some extra pounds for an even greater health boost.

Tips

·         Integrate physical activity and movement into your life.

·         Eat a diet rich in fruits, vegetables and whole grains.

·         Choose smaller portions and eat more slowly.

For Parents and Grandparents 

·         Limit children’s TV and computer time.

·         Encourage healthy snacking on fruits and vegetables.

·         Encourage activity during free time.

2. Exercise Regularly

Few things are as good for you as regular physical activity. While it can be hard to find the time, it’s important to fit in at least 30 minutes of activity every day. More is even better, but any amount is better than none.

Tips 

·         Choose activities you enjoy. Many things count as exercise, including walking, gardening and dancing.

·         Make exercise a habit by setting aside the same time for it each day. Try going to the gym at lunchtime or taking a walk regularly after dinner.

·         Stay motivated by exercising with someone.

For Parents and Grandparents 

·         Play active games with your kids regularly and go on family walks and bike rides when the weather allows.

·         Encourage children to play outside (when it’s safe) and to take part in organized activities, including soccer, gymnastics and dancing.

·         Walk with your kids to school in the morning. It’s great exercise for everyone.

3. Don’t Smoke

You’ve heard it before: If you smoke, quitting is absolutely the best thing you can do for your health. Yes, it’s hard, but it’s also far from impossible.

Tips 

·         Keep trying! It often takes six or seven tries before you quit for good.

·         Talk to a health-care provider for help.

·         Join a quit-smoking program or partner with someone else who has quit.

For Parents and Grandparents

·         Try to quit as soon as possible. If you smoke, your children will be more likely to smoke.

·         Don't smoke in the house or car. If kids breathe in your smoke, they may have a higher risk of breathing problems and lung cancer.

·         When appropriate, talk to your kids about the dangers of smoking and chewing tobacco. A health-care professional or school counselor can help.

4. Eat a Healthy Diet

Despite confusing news reports, the basics of healthy eating are actually quite straightforward. You should focus on fruits, vegetables and whole grains and keep red meat to a minimum. It’s also important to cut back on bad fats (saturated and trans fats) and choose healthy fats (polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats) more often. Taking a multivitamin with folate every day is a great nutrition insurance policy.

Tips

·         Make fruits and vegetables a part of every meal. Put fruit on your cereal. Eat vegetables as a snack.

·         Choose chicken, fish or beans instead of red meat.

·         Choose whole-grain cereal, brown rice and whole-wheat bread over their more refined counterparts.

·         Choose dishes made with olive or canola oil, which are high in healthy fats.

·         Cut back on fast food and store-bought snacks which are high in bad fats.

5. Drink Alcohol Only in Moderation, If at All

Moderate drinking is good for the heart, as many people already know, but it can also increase the risk of cancer. If you don’t drink, don’t feel that you need to start. If you already drink moderately (less than one drink a day for women, less than two drinks a day for men), there’s probably no reason to stop. People who drink more, though, should cut back.

Tips

·         Choose non-alcoholic beverages at meals and parties.

·         Avoid occasions centered around alcohol.

·         Talk to a health-care professional if you feel you have a problem with alcohol.

For Parents and Grandparents

·         Avoid making alcohol an essential part of family gatherings.

·         When appropriate, discuss the dangers of drug and alcohol abuse with children. A health-care professional or school counselor can help.

6. Protect Yourself from the Sun

While the warm sun is certainly inviting, too much exposure to it can lead to skin cancer, including serious melanoma. Skin damage starts early in childhood, so it’s especially important to protect children. Even though as Africans, we are less likely to have skin cancer, it still happens.

Tips

·         Steer clear of direct sunlight between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. (peak burning hours). It’s the best way to protect yourself.

·         Wear hats, long-sleeve shirts and sunscreens with SPF15 or higher.

For Parents and Grandparents 

·         Set a good example for children by also protecting yourself with clothing, shade and sunscreen.

7. Protect Yourself From Sexually Transmitted Infections

Among other problems, sexually transmitted infections – like human papillomavirus (HPV) – are linked to a number of different cancers. Protecting yourself from these infections can lower your risk.

Tips

·         Aside from not having sex, the best protection is to be in a committed, monogamous relationship with someone who does not have a sexually transmitted infection.

·         For all other situations, be sure to always use a condom and follow other safe-sex practices.

·         Never rely on your partner to have a condom. Always be prepared.

For Parents and Grandparents

·         When appropriate, discuss with children the importance of abstinence and safe sex. A health-care professional or school counselor can help.

8. Get Screening Tests

There are a number of important tests that can help protect against cancer. Some of these tests find it early, when they are most treatable, while others can actually help keep a disease from developing in the first place. Talk to a health-care professional about which tests you should have and when.

Conditions that should be tested for regularly include:

·         Colon and rectal cancer

·         Breast cancer

·         Cervical cancer

·         Prostate cancer

10 Things We Know About Cancer That We Didn’t Know 10 Years Ago

As Siddhartha Mukherjee detailed in his Pulitzer Prize-winning “biography of cancer,” The Emperor of All Maladies, humans may have lived with cancer for millennia but, until recently, we knew next to nothing about it. Now, it seems the every day brings promising new research on cancer’s causes, its weaknesses and ways to thwart it. Some developments, such as vaccines for cervical cancer, are now established; others, such as experimental therapies using viruses, are still very much experimental. We also know now that restraint in diagnosing and treating cancer is better than aggressive therapies that carry harmful side effects.

We compiled a list of cancer breakthroughs and new directions that have happened in recent years (though some of them obviously have roots in earlier decades).

1. Vaccines can protect against some cancers

Researchers have known for years that viruses cause some cervical and liver cancers. But immunizing people against those viruses, and thus immunizing against cancer, has changed the prevention landscape. In 2006, the first vaccine for some forms of the human papilloma virus (HPV) – which has been shown to cause most cervical cancers – won approval from the U.S. FDA. The CDC now recommends that 11 and 12 year-old girls receive the vaccine, Gardasil and Cervarix, which has also been shown to protect against anal, vaginal and vulvar cancers.

2. Vaccines can also fight cancer

In 2010, the FDA approved Provenge, which can be used to treat advanced prostate cancer. The “vaccine” is made by activating the patient’s white blood cells by exposing them to a protein in prostate cancer cells. The cells are reinjected into the patients after three days in an attempt to fight the disease. It is not a cure, however, and the vaccine can only be used for men with a particular type of cancer that is no longer responding to hormone therapy. Men who received the vaccine lived four months longer, which health officials consider a good start.

3. Viruses may be useful in fighting cancer

Cancer cells jettison genetic code in their rush for unchecked growth, including machinery that protects against viruses. Canadian researchers have capitalized on this weakness in cancer cells by using a genetically modified version of vaccinia – a relative of smallpox – to attack tumors but leave healthy cells unharmed. In early studies, the vaccines have shown promise in attacking metastatic tumors. Other researchers have used other viruses to attack aggressive brain tumors called gliomas. It’s too early to declare this an effective therapy, but it’s promising.

4. Some cancers may be better left untreated

In a surprising turn, Swedish researchers in 2010 found that men with early stage prostate cancer rarely die from the disease. And those men who didn’t receive treatment were only slightly more likely to die from the cancer. The idea that some patients might do better with “watchful waiting” and that the side effects of treatment – surgical removal of the prostate, radiation – might be worse than leaving the disease alone was shocking to some. Still, this discussion is by no means settled, since living with untreated prostate cancer is stressful and there is considerable gray area in determining whether a cancer is early stage or more aggressive.

5. The genome may hold the key to some cancers

As scientists apply sophisticated tools to studying the human genome, they have learned about what genetic variations are associated with cancer. Researchers at the Mayo Clinic have found that two common genetic variations on one gene can lead to a higher risk for lung cancer in people who have never smoked. Other variations have been associated with certain brain cancers. This information could, down the road, lead to better cancer prevention.

6. The “gene desert” also holds clues to cancer

Scientists have thought for years that the human genome was 98 percent junk, or noncoding, DNA. Recent research has shown that this area could actually contain important information that can have as yet unexplained influence on cells.

7. Cancer screening is a double-edged sword

Here’s a surprising statement: all screening tests do harm, but some may also do good as well. Harm from a screening test can be the stress associated with a false positive mammogram result or an unnecessary biopsy. And over the course of 10 years, the cumulative risk of a false positive is almost 50 percent, according to an widely cited study. In 2009, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force revised its guidelines to recommend that women under 50 should not get routine screening mammograms. Women should instead make their own decisions about the risks and benefits of screening, according to the Task Force.

8. It’s tough to tell sometimes what causes or prevents cancer

We’ve always known this, but in the past decade, the science on what is and isn’t carcinogenic has gotten complicated. Take the example of cell phones: does the nonionizing radiation from phones lead to brain cancer? The World Health Organization has said that radiofrequency fields are “possibly carcinogenic to humans.” Other organizations, including the CDC have concluded that the available evidence does not support a link. The British newspaper Daily Mail even has a website that catalogs all of the stories it has published on every food, object or activity that causes or prevents cancer. Sometimes it’s hard to know.

9. Targeted therapy is a potent weapon in the war on cancer

Targeted cancer therapies block cancer’s growth by attacking certain molecules in tumors. This approach is distinct from traditional therapies that attack all rapidly dividing cells. The best known targeted therapy, Gleevec, was approved by the FDA in May 2001 and is now approved for ten cancers. At the time, Time magazine called it “new ammunition in the war against cancer.” These therapies can give physicians a better way to tailor specific treatments for different kinds cancer.

10. Low-tech treatments can work wonders

A technique that involves brushing vinegar on a woman’s cervix to reveal precancerous spots then freezing the spots off with a supercooled metal probe could save tens of thousands of lives in poor and middle income countries. This low-tech treatment, called VIA/cryo was developed at Johns Hopkins medical school and is simpler and less expensive than a Pap smear. It also doesn’t require women to be reachable if a biopsy from an abnormal Pap smear discovers precancerous lesions. 

Source of this article.