Subscribe
It seems that every day, there’s a new study with some information about cutting the risk of developing cancer. This one came from Good Morning America.
Guess what?
After five years of reviewing 7,000 medical studies, a team of top scientists from around the world has concluded that diet and weight directly affect whether you’ll get cancer.”
Yeah, that seems pretty obvious… Anyway, more interestingly, the researchers found that excess body fat is associated with the development of 6 different cancers including those affecting the breast, bowel and pancreas.
What else is linked to cancer?
- Alcohol consumption
- Red meat
- Processed meat
Again, even scientists are saying this isn’t so shocking:
“It should come as no real surprise that excess body fat is associated with cancer, as one additional chronic disease associated with obesity, since many dietary factors that protect against cancer are probably absent in the diet of an overweight or obese person,” said Daniel Hoffman, assistant professor of nutritional sciences at Rutgers University in Newark, N.J.
Still, there are all kinds of debates going on (including how the use of tobacco products fits into this equation). You can also find more information at www.dietandcancerreport.org.
In the meantime, here are some guidelines:
- Limit body fat. Your body mass index should be between 18.5 to 24.9. Weight around the waist is most dangerous.
- Limit red meat to 2.5 ounces a day. An additional 1.7 ounces a day increases cancer risk by 15 percent. That means an 8 ounce steak or a quarter-pound hamburger would be the limit for a week.
- Limit alcohol to two drinks a day for men, one drink a day for women.
- Limit salt intake to 2 grams a day. That’s about a teaspoon a day, instead of the teaspoon and a half that most people eat. To give you an idea of how much salt is in food — just one cup of cottage cheese has half the salt you should eat in a day: half a teaspoon. Processed foods are almost always higher in salt.
- Get nutrients from whole foods, not vitamin supplements.
- Mothers should breast-feed children.
To read the whole article, click here.
Tags: cancer risk, good morning america, red meat, alcohol, bacon