Fall is a big season for cancer awareness, with each month having a national focus on various cancer types. While screening, prognoses and treatments are very different for every cancer type and every individual person, preventive lifestyle strategies for all cancer types are similar across the board. Moreover, research from the National Institute of Health suggests that only 5-10% of all cancer cases can be attributed to genetics alone, with the remaining 90-95% of cancers rooted in environmental and lifestyle factors that are completely within our control. How encouraging is that!?
Here are 5 ways to make a significant difference in your cancer risk right now:
- Eat More Fiber. Fibrous foods have a double whammy impact on your body since they help remove toxins from the body and also create a healthy microbiome so that your immune system is super powered.
- Your Goal: 5 cups per day of fruit/veggies with a minimum of 3 different colors.
- Eat Less Sugar & Ultra-Processed Foods. Americans eat on average twice as much sugar as the maximum national guidelines. This leads to insulin resistance and an internal environment where cancer thrives. Add this to the oxidized oils and artificial ingredients in fast foods on a regular basis and we create a cancer-friendly body.
- Your Goal: Limit daily added sugar intake to no more than 6 teaspoons per day and read ingredient labels on processed foods so you recognize everything on the list as real food.
- Intermittent Fasting. Research shows that overnight fasts allow autophagy to occur, which is the cellular clean up crew process that gets rid of old, tired, mutated cells that can increase risk of cancer occurrence.
- Your Goal: Fast for 12-14 hours overnight every night.
- Move Move Move. Endorphin production, insulin sensitivity and lymph movement – these are the anti-inflammatory effects of exercise, ANY exercise. From walking to swimming to weight lifting to yoga – as much daily movement as you can do is a huge cancer preventive strategy.
- Your Goal. Move at least 30 minutes every single day in any capacity. Ideally, aim for 10-20 minutes of high intensity movement each week and 2-3 days of resistance training.
- Become Stress Resilient. Chronic stress and the resulting affect on hormones and inflammation is thought to significantly increase the risk of all cancers. Stress can come in many, many forms and may not feel like what we think of as psychological stress. Stress can also be in the form of inadequate sleep, shallow breathing, multi-tasking or environmental toxin exposure.
- Your Goal: Examine your areas of stress and choose at least one of the following techniques to improve your body’s reaction to it: sleep environment at night, breath work, meditation, aromatherapy, gratitude journaling, yoga, tai chi, massage therapy, acupuncture.
To learn about our Cancer Wellness Program for new survivors, click here.
- Back to Basics: Eating to Nourish
- Back to Basics: Fitness, Exercise & Functional Movement
- Back to Basics: Building Stress Resilience
- Webinar – The Ins & Outs of Fasting
