10 Easy Steps: Prevent Cancer
Many complex issues have been discussed in YouTube, blogs, journals, and even chapters in Oxford textbooks, but it has not been told what simple steps a healthy person needs to take against cancer.
The English version of this topic is here
এই টপিকের বাংলা লিংকের জন্য এখানে ক্লিক করুন
🩺 At work, I have to deal with complex gynecological problems and cancer treatment. However, I felt let down by myself when my friends asked for advice on how to prevent cancer as a healthy individual, and I realized a significant mistake.
🤔 Despite writing a number of articles in medical journal, my blog, our YouTube videos and even chapters in Oxford textbooks, this simple issue was not addressed.
🏥 So today this is for you. With the recommendations from the American Institute of Cancer Research, Harvard University in Massachusetts, Johns Hopkins University in North America, Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, England’s Macmillan Institute and with my own studies over the past two and a half decades here are ten proven ways to avoid cancer.👉🏾 Every kings and queens and common people like us can follow these every day.
👉🏾 Interestingly, such ten easy ways to live a simple life will not cost you a single penny out of pocket. Your precautions will reduce your future hospital bills.
👉🏾 These are from evidence-based medicine research, not anecdotal or any one’s personal opinion.
🙅🏽♀️ Avoid red-meat, and eating processed meats
👉🏾 Read meat consumption is prevalent all over the world. At home, during festivals, people always turn to read-meat.
👉🏾 There is much debate about which meat is called red meat. It’s a no-brainer - the meat harvested from mammals is known as red meat. This includes goat, lamb, pork or beef,
👉🏾 The city of Boston was the center of the American independence movement. This Boston is famous in the medical world for something else. The Harvard School of Public Health is located here. Scientist Maryam Farvid is a well-known figure in research on the link between diet and cancer.
👉🏾 Until now, it was known that only colon and rectal cancer were caused by red meat.
🫣 But in 2021 with the famous meta-analysis study of Mariam, we came to know that eating red meat and processed meat increases the risk of many other cancers- breast, uterus, lung and even liver cancer in women. 👉🏾 Not only the consumption of meat but also how the meat is cooked is important.
🫕 Cooking meat at very high temperature releases harmful chemicals called heterocyclic amine (HCA), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), which increase the risk of cancer.
Processed meat is placed in the same category as tobacco and cigarettes on the WHO list.
👉🏾 These include ham, sausage, smoked meat.
👉🏾 Means the way the meat is processed with more salt or smoke increases its taste and smell.
🤷🏽♀️ So, what’s the remedy? Will it be then better to eat ‘raw’ meat? Not at all!
There is a risk of infection these. So take non-red meat which is cooked responsibly.🍻 Cut down on alcohol
👉🏾 Consuming alcohol provides pleasant short-term euphoria, but the long-term consequences are dire.
After consuming alcohol, it turns into a chemical called acetaldehyde in the liver.
👉🏾 This chemical damages the DNA of the human body. Also, alcohol metabolism produces free radicals in the body, which causes oxidative stress.
Alcohol consumption directly affects the metabolism of vitamins A,C,D,E and folate, increasing the amount of unnecessary estrogen in the blood. Extra oestrogen causes cancer.👉🏾 In 2023 World Health Organization published a landmark research in The Lancet Public Health Journal. WHO warned the doctors about the association of alcohol with about seven types of cancers.
🥺 These include food pipe, liver, colorectal, and breast cancer.
🍟 Cut down on fast food,
👉🏾 Especially cut down fast foods which are high in fat, sugar and salt. During celebration with fast food, more calories, sugar, and saturated fat enter our body than necessary.
👉🏾 A single serving of fast food contains much more calories than we normally eat. Weight increases. And being overweight can cause at least 12 different cancers.
👩🏽🍼 Breastfeed the baby
👉🏾 If you are a mother and if you have the opportunity, do not forget to at least try to breastfeed the baby.
👉🏾 Many times, however, babies do not get breast milk for various reasons. But if possible, take advantage of the opportunity.
According to the recommendations of WHO and UNICEF, mother’s risk of breast cancer is greatly reduced if the baby is exclusively breastfed for the first 6 months. 👉🏾 Also, breastfed babies don’t get fat as quickly as they grow up. As a result, the child’s future stays secured too.
Other foods should be introduced after 6 months.
🤰🏽 Keep your weight under control,
Being overweight gives you knee or back pain. Along comes heart disease, blood pressure, diabetes, and a multi-fold increased risk of at least 12 cancers.👉🏾 A type of chemical called cytokine is produced in the body from extra fatty tissues. Which increases chronic inflammation of the body. It reduces body’s ability to fight cancer.
👉🏾 If there are more fat tissues in the body, excess estrogen is produced and insulin levels in the body reach an alarmingly high level.
Unwanted cell division increases. Uncontrolled cell division is called cancer.
👉🏾 So pay attention to the right food. Say ‘No’ to sugar. Eat less alcohol. Do portion control when eating. Include enough fiber in the diet.
👉🏾 It will fill the stomach but will not add extra calories.
🫵🏽 And yes!
🏋🏽♀️Three to four hours of moderate to heavy exercise
👉🏾 per week is mandatory to get better memory power, emotions and health.
👉🏾 Stay physically active all the time, walk as much as you can.
👉🏾 If you have to always sit and work on the computer, then get up and walk and move your shoulders once in a while.
👉🏾 Use your mobile’s alarm clock to remind yourself.
👉🏾 Do some free hand exercise during work hours. Maybe your office colleagues will make fun of you. But in a few days, you will see that they have realized their mistake and joined your club.
There are various scientific theories to recognise what is moderate, and what really is a heavy exercise. To choose the right exercises, you need to know this.
👉🏾 Use this tip: After doing the exercise, if you cannot sing without being breathless, you have done a moderate exercise. If you cannot complete even a sentence after a workout without being out of breath, then you have done a heavy exercise.
🎧 So, after an ‘exercise’ if you can hum and sing - that’s not a useful exercise at all.👉🏾 Exercising regularly for proper duration improves the body’s immune system. Reduces chronic inflammation.
👉🏾 Excess estrogen and insulin levels also decrease. Make it a daily habit of going out for a walk outside your house. Working inside the house may not count.
👉🏾 There is not a single tablet which can give you the benefit of regular exercise. From increased immunity to anti cancer powers. From a sharper memory to preventing diabetes and heart disease. You will get everything by walking regularly.
😌 So promise yourself today and decide to start exercising right now.
🍯 Sugar
👉🏾 Say no to sugar or other simple carbohydrates and artificial sweeteners. A 330 ml normal size can of Cold Dinks can contain 9 tablespoons of sugar. Sugar or simple carbohydrates are equally harmful no matter how you consume them—in tea, coffee, cooking, or cold drinks.
👉🏾 If you want to know the sugar secret - links to our two articles are below. Get to know Sugar, and Sugar’s nicknames. Behind these nicknames sugar hides in the store purchased food.
👉🏾 All carbohydrates are not sugar. We have plenty of complex carbohydrates in foods without sugar. Like rice, onion, atta etc. Everything goes to the stomach and becomes sugar. So it is better not to eat extra sugar.👉🏾 Sugar consumption turns body’s metabolism in to a complete mess. Over 12 cancer processes may start with abnormal body metabolism.
👉🏾 So be careful not to take sweets or cakes outside your birthday. Hospital bills of lakhs of rupees are hidden behind the regular rosagolla of Rs.15.
🥗 Include enough vegetables, fruits and fiber in your diet,
👉🏾 Food, vegetables and fruits establish direct contact with nature. They contain fibres. Along with lots of vitamins and minerals, these types of food-fibre feeds the probiotic bacteria in the stomach.
👉🏾 In return, these gut friendly bacteria fight various diseases and cancers silently.
👉🏾 Eat 30 grams of fiber throughout the day. Take at least five handful portions of vegetables and fruits. Eating these every day will reduce the risk of at least five cancers.
👉🏾 These include colon cancer, esophagus, mouth, throat, stomach and gynecological cancers.
👉🏾 Vegetables and fruits contain a variety of phytochemicals that help the body fight cancer.
💊 Avoid advertised anti-cancer tablets or supplements,
👉🏾 Due to the overwhelming fear associated with the word cancer, numerous marketing tactics capitalize on our anxieties.
👉🏾 You often hear that taking this tablet, that syrup, root, bark or plant extract will reduce the chances of getting cancer.
👉🏾 Actually, eating a balanced diet with the right vegetables and protein reduces the risk of cancer more than any supplement or tablet can.
👉🏾 Such supplements or tablets are outside the scope of the country’s medicine regulations. So there is no control over what goes into your stomach through those supplements.
👉🏾 Allopathy medicines are regulated in most countries. Because of the lack of regulations on supplements and various herbs, the safety of these ingredients is in question.
🌍 Always choose treatment under international guidelines and recommendations
👉🏾 After the diagnosis of cancer, the treatment should be carried out in accordance with the international guidelines and recommendations.
👉🏾 The chances of achieving positive outcomes skyrocket when treatment adheres to guidelines and recommendations, rather than relying on random, convenient therapies.
There will be no unnecessary expenses.
👉🏾 Stay on follow up after treatment. Remember, once you have cancer, there is a possibility of developing more cancer in the future. You should not get alarmed as most of these cancers are preventable.
You can ask those things in the follow up.
👉🏾 If you don’t have cancer, don’t forget to get regular screening tests as recommended by WHO.
Why?
👉🏾 It is possible to take early precautions by doing some tests on healthy people. Once symptoms appear, screening tests are no longer useful.
👉🏾 What is a screening test? To know the details, the link of our article on this is given below. Read it.
👉🏾 The most important of these is the Pap smear of healthy women. And breast self-examination once a month - which you can do yourself at home.
👉🏾 Soon we will publish a video research to tell you the difference between day to day diagnostic tests vs screening tests. Come back here to learn those lifesaving strategies.
This is an impartial , unsponsored health information. For public awareness and not a replacement of Medical Advice.
Reference:
[1]
B. O. Anderson et al., “Health and cancer risks associated with low levels of alcohol consumption,” The Lancet Public Health, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. e6–e7, Jan. 2023, doi: 10.1016/S2468-2667(22)00317-6.
[2]
M. S. Farvid, E. Sidahmed, N. D. Spence, K. Mante Angua, B. A. Rosner, and J. B. Barnett, “Consumption of red meat and processed meat and cancer incidence: a systematic review and meta-analysis of prospective studies,” Eur J Epidemiol, vol. 36, no. 9, pp. 937–951, Sep. 2021, doi: 10.1007/s10654-021-00741-9.
[3]
WHO IARC, “Agents Classified by the IARC Monographs, Volumes 1–135 – IARC Monographs on the Identification of Carcinogenic Hazards to Humans.” Accessed: Feb. 26, 2024. [Online]. Available: https://monographs.iarc.who.int/agents-classified-by-the-iarc/
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