Thursday, October 30, 2008

A quick checklist for cancer prevention

An article appeared in Self October 2008 issue. Here is the excerpt:

Slash your cancer risk in minutes a day
Little lifestyle changes can lower your odds of hearing the dreaded diagnosis. Slip them into your routine and sleep better tonight.
By Aviva Patz
From the October 2008 Issue

Slash your cancer risk in minutes a day
More from this package


Stay weight wise

Excess pounds boost cancer risk, a study in The Lancet shows. Build an exercise habit now to head off trouble: The American Cancer Society (ACS) recommends aiming for 30 minutes of activity five days a week. When you hit your 45th birthday, make sure you're also doing 45 minutes of strength training twice weekly to minimize metabolic slowdown. "Beginning in our mid-40s, we lose up to a third of a pound of muscle a year and gain it back as fat, and fat burns fewer calories than muscle," says Miriam Nelson, Ph.D., director of Tufts University John Hancock Center for Physical Activity and Nutrition in Boston.


Practice peace

Say ahhh! High levels of the stress hormone cortisol may inhibit a key gene from suppressing tumor growth, findings in the journal Genes, Chromosomes & Cancer suggest. Tame tension with this formula from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Healthy Lifestyle Program: 1. Take deep belly breaths. You slow and elongate brain waves, bringing on calm. 2. Watch your favorite comedy. Enjoying a good laugh activates the areas of the brain that govern humor, in turn suppressing the brain's stress regions. 3. Adopt an uplifting mantra. Try "I love my life!" and repeat it when you're happy. You will train your mind to associate the phrase with being content. Then when you're on edge, chant your mantra and you'll immediately feel at ease.

Bake, don't burn

Grilling beef, poultry and fish until it's charred to a crisp can turn amino acids and other substances in the meat into heterocyclic amines (HCAs), compounds that have been linked to cancer. "HCAs are 10 times more potent than most other environmental carcinogens," says Kenneth Turteltaub, Ph.D., a toxicologist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. Try these cookin'-good tips!
Marinate meat before grilling. Soaking chicken breasts in a mixture of cider vinegar, olive oil, lemon juice and spices reduced HCA formation by 92 to 99 percent, notes a study published in Food and Chemical Toxicology. "Marinating creates a barrier between the hot surface and meat, enough to lower the temperature and prevent HCAs from forming," Turteltaub says.
Keep the grill temp below 325 degrees, the point at which HCAs begin to form.
Grill meat or fish in punctured aluminum foil to protect against flare-ups. When fat drips on the hot coals, it forms HCAs, plus other carcinogens called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons that rise with the smoke.
Microwave beef burgers for one to three minutes before browning; doing so reduces HCA production by 95 percent, according to a study in Food and Chemical Toxicology. Prior to grilling, discard the juices, which contain the building blocks of HCAs.
Flip burgers often—about once a minute. This action keeps meat juices from getting too hot and activating HCA formation.

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