Extending Borrowed Time: Reduce The Risk Of Getting Cancer In Your Later Years

It’s a death sentence: cancer.

You don’t want it — nobody does. But, for many, the causes seem elusive. You hear stories of otherwise healthy people getting cancer. It’s downright terrifying. You live a healthy lifestyle, but is it healthy enough? Here’s how to dramatically reduce your risk of getting cancer in your later years.

Stop Smoking

Extending Borrowed Time: Reduce The Risk Of Getting Cancer In Your Later Years
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There is no benefit to smoking. It accounts for 30% of all cancer deaths, with lung cancer killing more than any other type. Even if you cut back from 20 cigarettes per day to 10, you will significantly decrease your risk of lung cancer by 27%.

If you need help, you can get it at smokefree.gov.

Lift Weights

Extending Borrowed Time: Reduce The Risk Of Getting Cancer In Your Later Years
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A 2009 report found that lifting weights may help reduce your risk of cancer. The study in question followed 8,677 men between 20 and 82. The study lasted from 1980 to 2003, and found that men who lifted weights regularly and had the highest muscular strength had a 30 to 40 percent reduction in their risk of cancer.

Bottom line: get in the weight room and start lifting. Big, compound lifts produce the most muscle mass and highest strength. This means the squat, deadlift, bench press, overhead press, and weighted pull ups all work the body thoroughly and produce the highest strength spread across the entire body.

A great place to learn how to do basic strength training is www.StartingStrength.com. Starting Strength is a beginner’s program that walks you through the basics of weightlifting, focusing on lifting technique as well as power generation with basic compound lifts.

Get Routine Checkups

Extending Borrowed Time: Reduce The Risk Of Getting Cancer In Your Later Years
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Routine blood tests can help you find early stages of cancer and also markers for cancer. For example, a simple blood test can monitor levels of a special protein – c-reactive protein. This protein measure is a marker for systemic inflammation. It has long been known that chronic, low-grade, inflammation is a leading cause of cancer.
This is because chronic low-grade inflammation constantly taxes the immune system and damages DNA. And, when this happens long enough, mutations can occur. These mutations can potentially become cancerous if your immune system cannot destroy the mutated cells.

Companies, like Poseida Therapeutics are currently working on ways to do direct gene editing to treat cancer after it has developed. However, prevention is still easier than treatment at this point.

Your doctor may also look for several other things:

Complete blood count (CBC) – This is a common test that measures various types of blood cells. Your doctor takes a sample of your blood and then runs the test. Blood cancers can be detected using this method. If too many or too few of a specific type of blood cell is found, it may indicate a blood-based cancer.

Blood Protein Testing – Protein is good in general. But, various kinds of proteins can indicate a problem. This test examines various proteins to see if abnormalities in your immune system can be detected. Sometimes, tests like a bone marrow biopsy, are used to confirm a diagnosis.

Tumor Marker Tests – These are markers or chemicals that are made by tumor cells. They can be detected in your blood, which means a blood test can uncover them. But, these markers can also be made by healthy cells, which sort of limits this test’s effectiveness.

Get More Vitamin D

Extending Borrowed Time: Reduce The Risk Of Getting Cancer In Your Later Years
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Vitamin D is one of the most important ways to reduce your risk of cancer. Vitamin D is a prohormone that is made when cholesterol in your skin is converted to vitamin D in the presence of UV light, typically from the sun. Most people benefit from between 5 and 15 minutes of direct sun exposure each day, when the UV index is high.

When your shadow is shorter than you are tall, the UV index is generally (but not always) high enough for your body to make vitamin D from the sun’s UVB rays. When the sun sits low in the sky, as it does during the winter, UVB light, the light responsible for converting cholesterol into vitamin D, cannot penetrate the Earth’s atmosphere to a sufficient degree and thus it’s extremely difficult to make vitamin D during winter months.

Higher vitamin D levels aren’t always better, however. Recent research has found that you do not want too high or too low a level in your body. A level of  28ng/ml of blood seems to be ideal, both for a reduction in cancer and a reduction in other diseases, like heart disease.

Jordan Simpson works in a supportive role for cancer patients. Interested in natural preventative measures as well as new breakthroughs in medicine, Jordan writes articles on cancer topics for health blogs mostly.

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