Part 1: SMARTER PREVENTION
The First Rule of Cancer: TRY NOT TO GET IT
Doctors know more than ever about how to avoid cancer—and you’re more in control than you may realize.
SOMEDAY THERE MAY BE DRUGS THAT PROTECT you from all types of cancer. There’s a vaccine already—the HPV vaccine—that does just that for certain types. And labs all over the world are trying to read your body’s signals and find biomarkers in your blood that ID who’s at increased risk for what cancer so that they can target exactly what you need to do to prevent it. You can talk molecular targeting and mRNA therapy all you want, but when you ask researchers about the most successful way to prevent cancer right now, they’ll tell you the answer is in your hands. Forty-two percent of new cancers may be avoided if you make lifestyle changes that reduce your risk. These tweaks make a greater difference than you might think.
THE TWO BIGGIES
1: FIGHT OBESITY, FIGHT CANCER, TOO
YES, WE’RE GOING to mention weight here. That’s because researchers are now discovering a major link between obesity and cancer. How much obesity affects the risk of cancer kind of depends on the type, but the National Cancer Institute says that excess weight may lead to as many as 48 percent of liver and gallbladder cancers and about 33 percent of esophageal cancers in men. Excess bodyweight may also have a role in (deep breath here) multiple myeloma, breast, meningioma, kidney, upper stomach, pancreas, thyroid, and colon cancers.
Fat tissue doesn’t just sit there. It produces hormones that can encourage cells to multiply and blunts those that rein in proliferation—dangerous with cancer. People with obesity also often have higher levels of insulin—a state that increases your risk of certain types of cancer. Add to all this the fact that the chronic inflammation that comes with obesity can lead to DNA damage and you have yourself a potential firestorm. Luckily, you can take charge.
GOOD NEWS NUMBER
42% Proportion of newly diagnosed cancers that are potentially avoidable.
Source: American Cancer Society
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