Lifestyle: Don't give colon cancer a chance
Luise Heine has been an editor at since 2012. The qualified biologist studied in Regensburg and Brisbane (Australia) and gained experience as a journalist in television, in the Ratgeber-Verlag and in a print magazine. In addition to her work at , she also writes for children, for example for the Stuttgarter Kinderzeitung, and has her own breakfast blog, “Kuchen zum Frühstück”.
More posts by Luise Heine All content is checked by medical journalists.MunichEvery year 73,000 people in Germany are diagnosed with colon cancer. The risk of illness can be significantly reduced - with five lifestyle adjustments. The rule is: the more of it, the better - this is what a large population study now suggests.
Colon cancer is particularly common in Western countries. This suggests that the local living conditions favor its emergence. In fact, possible risk factors have been discovered again and again in recent years, including obesity, excessive alcohol consumption or smoking. Krasimira Aleksandrova and other researchers from the German Institute for Nutritional Research now investigated the question of how much it helps to consciously avoid these risk factors.
Five healthy living criteria
To do this, they used the data from the large European long-term study (EPIC) with over 347,000 adult study participants who had repeatedly provided information about their health and lifestyle over a 12-year period. The scientists classified the following characteristics as reducing risk:
- Be a non-smoker
- Drink moderate amounts of alcohol
- Normal body weight (waist circumference of women less than 80 cm, of men less than 94 cm)
- Be physically active
- Healthy nutrition (lots of vegetables, fruit and whole grain products, plenty of nuts and seeds, enough fish and yoghurt, little red meat and sausage products)
Risk of illness reduced by a third
The comparison of the different people who followed one or more of these measures showed that it was precisely the combination of characteristics that had a visible effect on the risk of colon cancer. If someone fulfilled two criteria, they had a 13 percent lower chance of developing a tumor than someone who fulfilled none or only one. If the participants had three of the characteristics examined, their risk of disease fell by 21 percent, in four it was 34 percent. If all five characteristics came together, the risk was even reduced by 37 percent.
Healthy weight is important in men
Aleksandrova and colleagues also looked at how important the individual measures are. It was shown that especially the men of creation benefit from it if their hip circumference does not exceed a certain amount. "We found that low alcohol consumption is also a strong protective factor for rectal cancer, especially in men," added the researcher to ."In women we did not identify any factor that was more important than the others."
If in doubt, off to the precaution
"As our results show, the more you do something for your health, the lower the risk of colon cancer," is how the author Aleksandrova summarizes her result. “It would be nice if that inspires people to think about how important the decisions they make every day are.” Because even small steps can make a big difference.
Unfortunately, a healthy lifestyle is no guarantee that you will be spared from colon cancer. Because there are various other components, including a genetic one, that promote tumors in the digestive system. If you want to be on the safe side, you should have regular colon cancer checkups.
Source: Aleksandrova K. et al: Combined impact of healthy lifestyle factors on colorectal cancer: a large European cohort study; BMC Medicine 2014, 12: 168; doi: 10.1186 / s12916-014-0168-4
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