Today, cancer rates are higher than ever across the board among seniors, young adults, people of middle age and even teens and children. Many people believe that the main reasons for this are poor diet and lack of exercise.
In this article, we will discuss the ways in which a healthy diet and an active lifestyle can help you guard against cancer. Read on to learn more.
To avoid cancer, it is important to eat a well-rounded, healthy diet that consists of whole foods and contains little or no processed food. Researchers have found that generous consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables is especially effective in helping patients avoid cancer.
This is especially true of fruits and vegetables containing lycopene. This substance has been proven to slow and even reverse metastasizing of cancer. It is especially helpful in treating and avoiding prostate cancer.
To get plenty of lycopene in your diet, you should gravitate toward bright, colorful fruits and vegetables such as grapes, watermelon, tomatoes and papaya. These all contain generous amounts of lycopene as well as vitamin C and plenty of roughage to help you avoid colon cancer.
It is great to eat all of these fruits raw; however, you may be surprised to know that lycopene
is more available in tomatoes when they are cooked. In fact, organic ketchup that is free of high fructose corn syrup is a good source of lycopene.
In addition to eating a healthful whole foods diet, it is important that you get out and move around. Working up a sweat a couple of times a week and keeping your heart functioning properly helps to keep your body free of toxins. While all exercise is good, it is important to understand that specific types of cancer are prevented more effectively by specific types of exercise.
Studies of patients with lung cancer indicate that frequent, vigorous aerobic exercise is just the thing to help prevent lung cancer. Keeping the lungs oxygenated and blood pumping freely through the veins helps keep the lungs healthy and pink and helps prevent the formation of tumors and other types of cancer.
If you are a smoker, the first thing you should do to prevent lung cancer is quit. The second thing you should do is take up some form of exercise that will encourage deep breathing to start your lungs on the road to recovery and cancer prevention.
To avoid breast cancer, women should always be attentive to diet. Breast cancer often begins with blocked milk ducts. It is also frequently a problem for post-menopausal women due to hormone fluctuations. Consuming a balanced and healthful diet can help women maintain proper functioning throughout the body and can help balance hormones.
Additionally, participating in regular light to moderate exercise on an ongoing basis throughout life will help women have good blood circulation and well-oxygenated blood that will keep the entire body functioning properly. Good blood circulation aids in removal of toxins from the system and helps prevent cancer. Interestingly, this type of diet and exercise regimen has also been proven to be very effective in helping men prevent prostate cancer.
To avoid stomach cancer and colon cancer, it is important for men, women and children to get plenty of roughage and fiber in the diet and to participate in vigorous activities for half an hour, two or three times a week. Playing sports, participating in aerobics, dancing and running are all good examples of forms of exercise that help tone the entire body including the intestines.
Studies have shown that people who have plenty of fiber in the diet and participate in an active lifestyle can reduce their risk of intestinal cancer by as much as forty percent. Likewise, participation in vigorous, high intensity sports and exercise seems to be one of the best ways a woman can avoid ovarian cancer.
While it may seem confusing to keep up with all these different kinds of cancers and the sorts of diet and exercise that best help prevent them, the bottom line is pretty simple. If you will avoid processed foods entirely, eat whole foods and choose pure filtered water as your drink, exercise moderately every day and vigorously three times weekly, you are very likely to avoid cancer.
