Colorectal Cancer: 5 Tips For Preventing It
For the prevention of colorectal cancer also know as colon cancer or bowel cancer you can take some easy precautions.
Here are 5 tips that help in preventing this dangerous cancer:
Attention To Warning Signs
After the age of 50 it is recommended to pay attention to intestinal cancer symptoms. These symptoms or warning signs can be such as the presence of blood in the stool. To have this done correctly you should perform thorough checks from time to time. Fecal occult blood test is the most established screening method and it’s recommended to all those over 50 years, men and women, even without any specific risk factor. Another examination method is the colonoscopy. This is particularly suited for patients at high risk, when the screening test has resulted positive.
Periodic Checks In Cases Of A Family History With Colon Cancer
In cases of a family history of colon cancer, it is recommended to contact specialists for periodic checks, from an early age, from 40 years onwards.
Healthy Diet
For a correct prevention of the intestinal cancer it is very important to follow a healthy diet. The diet must be low in animal fats and proteins and high in fiber. It is recommended the consumption of fruits and vegetables.
Regular Physical Activity
In a study based on analysis of data collected previously by a group of U.S. researchers, published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, the risk of colon cancer mortality was lower in people who practiced regular physical activity, compared to those who had a sedentary lifestyle which included lack of exercise. This research based on data from the American Cancer Society Prevention Study II, has evaluated more than 150.000 subjects of both sexes and lasted from 1981 to 2006.
The analysis showed that regular exercise doesn’t influence on the incidence of colon cancer, but influences the risk of mortality from this disease.
The researchers concluded that taking regular physical exercise increases the chances of survival in intestinal cancer patients.
Don’t Smoke
Three American Cancer Society epidemiologists followed for 13 years over 184.000 people who initially had no sign of disease. The study, all dedicated to the damages of smoking was published in Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention in December 2009.
At the end of the observation it was clear that those who smoked had a higher probability of 27% of developing colon cancer than those who had never smoked. Among those who had managed to stop the risk went down a bit, but remained 23 percent higher than that of non-smokers.