Cancer & Lifestyle – Results of a New Study

Working in the healthcare field, I make a concerted effort to stay up on current health issues and topics. Our Healthcare Happenings blog will shed some light on a topic that’s making its way around the news in hopes of furthering people’s understanding on how to better their overall wellbeing.

An article on livescience.com that came out not even a week ago sports a bold title – “Healthy Living Could Prevent Half of Deaths from Cancer”. No matter who you are, the odds are that cancer has touched your life in one way or another. So, to read a title like the one above that tells us there are things we can be doing to reduce our chances of joining those terrible statistics definitely piqued my curiosity.

What’s A Healthy Lifestyle?

The first question that comes to mind is, what is a healthy lifestyle? In a world where eggs (or coffee, or wine…) seem to be bad one week and beneficial the next, what does this mean? The research study detailed in the article found that a large proportion of cancers were caused by environmental factors that could potentially be prevented by modifications in lifestyle. Let’s get specific here and talk about how the researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School defined a healthy lifestyle:

1. Never or no longer smoking
2. Never or no longer consuming alcohol, or drinking moderately (ladies, that means one drink or less per day; men, that’s 2 or less per day)
3. BMI should be between 18.5 and 27.5
4. Regular exercise that amounts to at least 150 minutes of moderate exercise or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise per week

While we all know that living a healthy lifestyle is beneficial for many reasons, the results of this study were quite surprising to read. In a nutshell, these researchers noted that a healthy lifestyle (according to the guidelines above) could prevent 40% to 70% of cancers! Of course, there are other factors at play, but on the surface, those are some odds I’d be willing to bet on.

Small Changes Add Up

Lifestyle changes don’t happen overnight. If you’re a smoker, a heavy drinker, or you don’t get regular exercise, the list above can seem daunting. If there’s anything that experience tells us, it’s that making one small change at a time, like taking a 5-minute walk over lunchtime or having one less drink per day, can add up to a big difference.

At Precision Chiropractic, we take great care to understand each of our patients’ health history, as well as their goals for the future of their health. NeuroStrutural Chiropractic is concerned with identifying Structural Shifts in the spine that can be the underlying cause to a host of health issues. Oftentimes, these Secondary Conditions such as pain, numbness, headaches, etc., are the very things preventing these positive lifestyle changes from being implemented. Almost every day, people tell us that they’d garden, jog, or play with their grandkids more if they weren’t dealing with the health condition they are.   Are you looking to shift towards a healthier lifestyle? Shoot us an e-mail and let us know what changes you are looking forward to making!