The New Year is an excellent time to make resolutions for a healthier lifestyle — but by the end of the first week of January, even the best intentions may start to pall.
But research in ecancermedicalscience may provide the motivation needed to stick with it — those hard-won healthy choices may lead to a total reduction of about one-third in cancer risk.
Researchers led by Professor Peter Elwood of Cardiff University, UK examined preliminary data from the UK Biobank, a prospective study of half a million subjects.
They sorted through the data to identify healthy behaviours — which include not smoking, maintaining a low BMI, participating in regular physical activity, eating a healthy diet and limiting alcohol intake — and compared them to the risk of cancer over several years.
Together, the collection of healthy behaviors contributed to a total reduction of about one-third in cancer risk and possibly a greater reduction in cancer mortality.
These results may not sound surprising. Most people are aware that healthy behaviours have some general benefit — otherwise they wouldn’t be “healthy.” The real problem is translating the vague idea of lifestyle choices being “good” into useful evidence, which is what this study provides.
Next comes the challenge of translating this evidence to useful (and realistic!) recommendations.
“Perhaps the advice to take up one additional healthy behaviour is the most acceptable message for most subjects,” says Professor Peter Elwood.
In order to see how healthy lifestyle behaviors affect cancer risk, Prof. Elwood and his colleagues conducted an analysis of data from UK Biobank, which is an ongoing health study of 500,000 adults in the U.K.
The analysis included lifestyle data of 343,150 individuals. Using this information, the researchers looked at how five healthy behaviors impacted the subjects’ risk of cancer over an average of 5.1 years of follow-up.
These behaviors included low alcohol consumption, not smoking, regular physical activity, a healthy body mass index (BMI), and a healthful diet.
During follow-up, a total of 14,285 subjects received a cancer diagnosis.
The researchers found that people who adhered to all five healthy behaviors were a third less likely to develop cancer during follow-up, compared with individuals who followed just one or none of the healthy behaviors.
On looking at the effects of the five healthy behaviors individually, the analysis revealed that each one was associated with an 8 percent reduction in the risk of cancer.
Additionally, the researchers found that adhering to all five healthy behaviors was linked to a 25 percent reduction in colorectal cancer risk and a 35 percent reduction in breast cancer risk.
Takeaway
If you’re tempted to quit the gym or succumb to that takeout already, you might want to refer to the results of this study. “The take-home message is that healthy behaviors can have a truly tangible benefit.”
Professor Elwood adds, “A healthy lifestyle has may benefits additional to cancer reduction — it costs nothing, has no undesirable side effects…. and is better than any pill!”