6 Ways to Reduce Your Risk of Cancer With Lifestyle Choices

While cancer can strike indeterminately, making lifestyle changes can reduce your chances of developing the disease. What’s more, the sooner you begin instituting new habits, the more you could decrease your probability of getting cancer.

Here are six lifestyle changes medical experts recommend for reducing your risk of cancer.

Avoid Tobacco

The correlation between tobacco use and cancer is clear, and if you smoke or use tobacco products, it’s time to quit. Numerous types of cancer, including lung, throat, mouth, pancreas, bladder, and kidney cancer, have been linked to tobacco use, and chewing tobacco has been connected with pancreatic and oral cancer. If you don’t use tobacco yourself, it’s also advised that you avoid others who are smoking, as secondhand smoke also can increase your risk of developing lung cancer.

Quitting smoking can be difficult, but it’s possible. More than 1,000 Americans quit smoking every day, but it’s important to approach it with a strategy. Your doctor can talk to you about products that can help you stop smoking, and you may also be able to join a program to stop smoking through your job or healthcare plan.

Choose Healthy Foods

There are so many books, websites, and experts offering advice on how to eat a healthy diet that the subject can sometimes seem overwhelming. But basic healthy eating isn’t complicated. Focusing on whole foods, such as produce and whole grains, could help with cancer prevention. Health professionals also advise eliminating or significantly reducing your consumption of red meat, processed meats, and saturated and trans fats.

Other good diet advice includes regularly including fruit and vegetables with meals and as snacks, choosing chicken or fish as meat options, and substituting brown rice and whole-wheat bread for refined products. You also should limit fast food and processed snacks.

Stay Active

One of the more important aspects of cancer prevention is maintaining a healthy weight, which you can do through a good diet and regular exercise. It’s important to make exercise a habit and to make choices that keep you moving and active throughout the day.

Health experts recommend getting at 30 minutes of physical activity a day, which you can maximize by alternating moderate aerobic activity such as walking with more strenuous exercise like running or jumping jacks.

If traditional exercise isn’t for you, there are other ways to stay active. The definition of “exercise” can be broad and includes activities such as gardening and dancing. You can also integrate exercise into your life by allocating a set time every day for keeping fit, such as walking during your lunch hour. Alternatively, find an exercise buddy who will keep you company during workouts and hold you accountable for exercise goals.

The benefits of staying fit are significant. Maintaining a healthy weight could decrease your chances of getting breast, kidney, lung, colon, and prostate cancer.

Drink Moderately

To lower your risk of cancer, you’ll need to limit your drinking. Alcohol in moderation has been shown to be good for heart health, but it also can increase your cancer risk. If you drink more than moderately (one drink or more daily for women, two drink or more daily for men), consider cutting back. You can stay away from parties and other events where drinking is prevalent, choose nonalcoholic drinks when possible, and consult a healthcare professional if you need a more structured program to help you stop drinking.

Cover Up

Too much sun exposure can be problematic and lead to skin cancer. Your best line of defense is to avoid the sun when possible, wearing hats and long-sleeve shirts when out in the sun. Skin cancer is preventable, and you can keep yourself safe by staying out of the sun from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. (the time of day when the sun is the strongest), choosing a shady spot when you can, and wearing sunglasses and a hat with a wide brim. Cover up exposed areas with loose-fitting clothing, and apply sunscreen (with an SPF of at least 30) regularly. Reapply sunscreen every two hours unless you are swimming or sweating; in those cases, you will need to reapply more often.

As for sunlamps and tanning beds, avoid them altogether. They can cause as much damage to your skin as the sun.

Get Your Screenings

When cancer is detected early, in many cases it is much easier to treat. For example, experts estimate that regular screening for colorectal cancer could save as many as 30,000 people each year. Regular testing also can catch breast cancer, cervical cancer, and lung cancer early on.

The best way to detect cancer before it spreads is through self-exams and screenings that identify possible cancer or changes to your skin that could be cancerous. Your health care provider can help you decide which tests and screenings you need depending on your age and health.