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Over 40% of cancers due to lifestyle, says review

bbc.co.uk

91–100 of 126 posts

Re: Over 40% of cancers due to lifestyle, says review

#91
post #78
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget that there are significant benefits to smoking as well. Yes, even for people who it will kill. (In fact, that's probably one of the benefits for some.)

Could you expand on that? I'd be interested in hearing what the benefits are, as it doesn't seem to be something that is talked about (taboo against discussing the positive aspects of things seen as societally undesirable?).

There is a reduction in the incidence of Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease in smokers.

Re: Over 40% of cancers due to lifestyle, says review

#92

Reproduction is a key cause of cancer? WTF is that?

The incidence of breast and uterine cancer is lower the more children you have.

I think the link is tentative, but pregnancy and breast feeding reduces your lifetime exposure to estrogen which can be a promoter of certain types of cancers.

Re: Over 40% of cancers due to lifestyle, says review

#94
post #26

The top comment is from a healthy smoker of 65. People always love to discuss how they or someone they know has smoked their entire life and never had a problem. I know lots of smokers who still aren't convinced of the health issues. Seems like there's still a long way to go.

If only it were easier to find the blog comments of the 65-year-old smokers who died of lung cancer at age 57.

Re: Over 40% of cancers due to lifestyle, says review

#95
post #6

Right, I'm off to find some fruits and vegetables! Or do I get enough antioxidants as a tea-drinker? I'm conflicted because I know I don't get enough fruit in my diet, but the recommended daily amount of fruit seems difficult to get in the winter.

I eat fruits with every meal. Not a ton of them, just making sure I get some nice tasty "vegetable candy" every time I eat food.

Also focus on getting enough fiber. Auto-magically this will ensure you get a lot of veggies, minerals, vitamins, and so on - as long as you don't rely on artificial means such as fiber supplements. Lettuce, cucumbers, cabbage, tomatoes, stuff like that - all those are good.

I do eat meat, eggs, dairy and so on, I'm not a vegetarian by any means. I just try to avoid eating too much red meat, or stuff heavy on cholesterol and saturated fat. I emphasize fish, turkey, chicken, lean meat, etc. Once in a while I will enjoy a good steak - it's not like you'll drop dead from eating it, and cholesterol is actually used by your body to make hormones and so on.

As a remnant from my weight lifting days, I try to eat some protein with every meal, and I try to avoid carbs-only meals. I think the low fat diets are ridiculous; controlling the calories overall, and the carbs in particular, and exercising, are far more important.

I reduced very drastically starchy foods. Bread, rice, potatoes - gone or greatly diminished. Eat a salad instead (for dressing, use oil and vinegar, not the sugary junk that most people use). Popcorn and potato chips are blacklisted in my household. Ice cream - I'll eat some once in a while when the kids are craving it. No candy. No soda.

I do eat a small amount of chocolate, Nutella, or drink some hot chocolate, almost every day in fact, in the evening; cocoa has antioxidants too, and the sweet taste gives you a serotonin boost when you're tired. This is the "vice" that I indulge in. :)

My preferred drink is green tea. Black is fine too. I drink lots.

I take one fish oil capsule in the evening, unless I had fish for lunch or dinner, in which case I skip it. I take one resveratrol capsule in the morning, one in the evening; there is some controversy re: this substance, but overall it still looks good; if the science changes, I'll change my habits accordingly.

I don't always drink alcohol, but when I do (sorry for the rage comics pun) I drink red wine. Mostly on social occasions.

I do strength exercises ("weight lifting") twice a week, maybe half an hour; often this is just going out to a park and doing pull-ups on a tree branch or something, then a few sets of clapping push-ups on soft ground, then one-leg squats holding on to a tree, stuff like that; the gym is nice, but it's optional. I ride the bicycle a few hours every week-end; I've a nice road bike that takes me far over the hills, towards the ocean, or wherever I wanna go. I walk every day about an hour - often I'll eat my lunch walking instead of sitting in a restaurant. When I take a break from work, I go out and walk; it's very relaxing and mind-expanding; a lot of innovative, out of the box ideas come to you when you're outdoors daydreaming.

At 182cm (6') tall, I weighed 61kg (135lb) a decade ago and I was a couch potato geek with awful eating habits. Then I started working out, changed lots of things. After a while I weighed 85kg (187lb), no fat, and I was bench pressing 100kg (220lb). Nowadays I scaled back lifting a lot, I eat less calories, I weigh somewhat less, maybe 78kg (172lb) - I don't know for sure and I don't care. The bathroom scale is full of bullsXXt, the mirror will tell you the truth. I feel I'm in great shape, and I was told I do look very much "in shape".

Sounds like a lot, but all this stuff was just a gentle, slow, very gradual change in habits over a long period of time, years really. I never forced the issues. If you take a vow and fail, so what? Tomorrow is another day. You turn around and try again. This is not a sprint, it's a decades-long marathon. Once the habits are changed, it takes no effort to keep the regimen. Nowadays my diet is the way it is because I actually like it. E.g. I developed an intense dislike for popcorn (tastes like flavored cardboard) and fast food (it's way too salty and greasy). The body gets used to exercising and it gets restless if you don't work out.

Slow gradual gentle changes, never forcing the issues, drive the habits deep into the psyche. If you feel you can't keep this up for decades to come, you're trying too hard - so scale back a notch. That's it. Good luck.

Re: Over 40% of cancers due to lifestyle, says review

#97
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you expand on that? I'd be interested in hearing what the benefits are, as it doesn't seem to be something that is talked about (taboo against discussing the positive aspects of things seen as societally undesirable?).

My sister smoked in college. We're both of us somewhat anxiety-prone, and she said smoking helped her a lot around finals time, when papers were due, stuff like that.

Consider that she was addicted to nicotine, and she felt less anxious when she had nicotine. It's difficult to separate the "got what she was addicted to" from the "reduced anxiety."

Re: Over 40% of cancers due to lifestyle, says review

#98
The thing that I dislike about cancer reporting (and don't get me wrong I'm all for improving ones lifestyle through better nutrition, exercise and social engagement) is that cancer is fundamentally different from a disease like the flu. If 40% of all flu cases were caused my lifestyle then it would be reasonable to say that you could change your lifestyle and dramatically cut down on the number of flu cases. But cancer is a disease of old age. Basically all of us are going to die and the long you live the more likely it is that you'll die of cancer, if not of the esophagus, then of the stomach, if not of the stomach then brain cancer, or pancreas cancer. So a healthy life style on average will delay the onset of cancer, but will by no means reduce the like-hood that you'll get cancer in your lifetime by 40%. Actually it probably has the perverse effect of making you much more resistant to cardiovascular decease, and therefor MORE likely to die of cancer, albeit at a more advanced age than you would have otherwise.

Re: Over 40% of cancers due to lifestyle, says review

#99

From the headline I expected this article to be about over working and exhaustion, a topic I'm sure many here can relate to in some way. In the authorised biography of Steve Jobs, he comments on how he believes the exhaustive hours worked in 1997 when driving back and forth between Apple and Pixar were the cause for his cancer. In a similar vein, there seems to be a higher ratio of cancer sufferers in high pressured…

"Steve Jobs […] comments on how he believes the"

Steve was lots of things, but I think few would say he was an expert in medicine. For another data point with more or less the same weight: If I had to guess, I would blame his stay in India, in particular the hepatitis he reportedly got there. I know that is an unverifiable statement, and am willing to change position once a fact presents itself, though.

"there seems to be a higher ratio of cancer sufferers in high pressured environments like financial trading"

Believes aren' worth anything here. Show me the numbers. For what it is worth (zero), I would guess on lower incidence, due to higher risks of heart attacks and of accidents with fast cars, all others being equal.

Summary: nothing to worry about, there, except for your own worries.

Re: Over 40% of cancers due to lifestyle, says review

#100

"Dr Rachel Thompson, of the World Cancer Research Fund, said the report added to the 'now overwhelmingly strong evidence that our cancer risk is affected by our lifestyles.' "Dr Harpal Kumar, chief executive of Cancer Research UK, said leading a healthy lifestyle did not guarantee a person would not get cancer but the study showed 'we can significantly stack the odds in our favour.'" Many of these lines of evidence w…

>After edit: the second reply here asked how a diet higher rather than lower in fruits and vegetables can protect from cancers other than colon cancer. According to what I've read about the research, it's thought that some tendencies of healthy body cells to go into uncontrolled growth (cancer) are made worse by lack of micronutrients, which may be lacking in the diets of people who don't eat varied diets. It's also thought that the evolutionary arms race between plants

antioxidant is keyword here:

http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/prevention/anti...

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