Cancer Prevention - Top 10 Ways to Prevent Cancer

Just 2 years ago, an estimated 1.5 million people in the US were diagnosed with cancer. There were over 650,000+ cancer deaths last year, which ranks cancer as the #2 leading cause of death (after heart disease). The number of people diagnosed with cancer continue to rise.

Cancer is caused by changes in genes that control the growth and death of cells, and mutations in certain genes can make cancer more likely to develop. The disease develops when cells continue to grow and divide instead of dying off, as they would normally do. As cancer cells multiply, they can damage nearby tissues and spread to other parts of the body and develop into new tumors.

What you put into your body through drinking, eating, your activity level, and other lifestyle behaviors can all affect your risk for cancer. Find out more about these risks and how you can prevent cancer.

Here are the Top 10 Ways To Prevent Cancer:

1. Avoid tobacco products and second-hand smoke - Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths in the US for both men and women. Smoking is the most preventable cause of death in our society. Smoking causes damage to nearly every organ in the human body, is linked to 15+ different cancers, and causes 30% of all cancer deaths. Yet 1 in 5 Americans continue to smoke. If you do smoke, take the necessary steps to quit for your health and your loved ones.

2. Your diet can affect your risk for cancer. Eat right, be active, and maintaining a healthy weight are important ways to reduce your risk of cancer (not to mention heart disease and diabetes as well). Eat and exercise your way to better health. What you eat (and exclude from your diet), along with how active you are, can decrease your risk of developing cancer. The best ways to reduce your risk is through simple lifestyle changes like smart cooking, controlling your weight, and adding fruits and veggies to your diet.

3. Achieve and maintain a healthy weight - Obesity increases your chance of developing certain types of cancer: breast, kidney, esophagus, colon/rectum, and pancreas. Make smart food choices, control portion sizes, and fill up on fruits and vegetables to help manage your healthy weight.

4. Exercise - Regular exercise burns calories and can help you reach and maintain a healthy weight. Pick something that keeps you moving like walking, hiking, biking, swimming, dancing, and team sports. Gradually work up to 30-45 minutes of exercise/day for five+ days per week.

5. Eat more vegetables, fruits, and whole grains - they are naturally rich in dietary antioxidants like vitamin C & E, and carotenoids that help to protect your healthy genes from oxidative damage. Fruits and vegetables are also rich in fiber, which can speed the transit of food through the digestive system and may reduce the absorption of cancer-causing chemicals. So eating a wide variety of fruits and vegetables may be the best way to ensure broad-spectrum protection. It is generally best to eat fresh rather than salted, cured, or pickled. The less processed the food, the healthier it will be for you.

6. Limit alcohol intake - Excess alcohol consumption is associated with an increased risk of cancers of the mouth, throat, voice box, esophagus, liver, breast, and colon/rectum. It is recommended that men should limit their intake to no more than 2 drinks per day, while women should limit their intake to no more than 1 drink daily.

7. Practice sun safety and check for changes in your skin - The sun's UV rays cause the vast majority of skin cancers including melanoma, which can be life threatening. The sun's peak time is between 10 am and 3 pm, so limit sunlight exposure during that time. If you are outside for long periods of time, use sunscreen with an SPF of at least 15+. Know your skin and be aware of the location, size, and shape of moles and skin spots and report any changes. A sunburn is short lived, but damage to the deep layers of skin remain and can eventually cause cancer. It is important that sun-safe habits should begin in childhood and last a lifetime.

8. Reduce your exposure to potential carcinogens - Many substances in the environment have the potential to put you at higher risk for developing cancer. A carcinogen is a substance known to cause cancer in humans. There are a number of specific known and possible carcinogens such as infectious agents (bacteria, viruses, and parasites) and air pollution to name a few. When you are on the job, try and minimize your exposure to fumes, dust, solvents, and chemicals.

Try to reduce your everyday exposure to potentially toxic environmental chemicals in the home so...
- Dust and vacuum regularly to rid your home of toxins attracted to dust
- Open windows and use fresh air to freshen and minimize indoor pollution; don't use air-fresheners that have many chemicals and perfume in them
- Filter your drinking water to remove pollutants using reverse osmosis or distilled water
- Switch to green cleaning non-toxic products that are safe but still powerful.

9. Know your family history - There are different kinds of genes that can be involved in cancer, and some can be passed from parents to children. 5-10% of cancers are due to a genetic predisposition to cancer. Family history is a risk factor for common types of cancer including breast, ovarian, colon, and prostate cancer.

For individuals with an average risk of cancer, the following cancer screening guidelines are recommended (but I personally recommend starting many of these earlier than suggested by many books and physicians, it's better to have early detection if possible):
- Breast cancer: Women should begin yearly mammograms at age 40 and conduct regular breast self-exams starting in the 20's.
- Colon and rectal cancer: Men and women should have one or more screening tests including a colonoscopy starting at age 50.
- Cervical cancer: All women should begin cervical cancer screening no later than 21 years of age.
- Prostate cancer: Men should have the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) blood test and digital rectal examination annually beginning at age 50.

10. Choose your dietary supplements wisely - Dietary supplements play a key role in making up the nutrient shortfalls in your diet, and they provide a means of achieving optimal nutrient levels needed to achieve and maintain the best of health.By T. Rewerts

Amazing Benefits of Green Tea You Didn't Think Of

Green tea is a pretty incredible drink to have everyday and below, I'm going to go in detail about what benefits you can expect and heck, you might not even know everything that this product can help you with! So gals, you ready to start drinking green tea? You will be after reading this!
Anti-Aging Agent
Not a lot of people know this, but it can actually help the aging process slow right down. It can really help get rid of wrinkles, can turn back time on skin aging and can even help prevent any skin damage that you have from aging! This particular tea has an antioxidant inside of it which help fight against free radicals. This means that it promotes longevity and really helps kick aging out of your system.
Cancer Prevention
Another thing that this tea can really help prevent is cancer! Nobody wants to get cancer, but I bet you have it in your family history right? Drinking this product can actually help reduce the risk of you getting cancer and it is most effective! How does it work ladies? It actually helps your body protect any cells from damage that could be linked to cancer!
Helps With Weight Loss
If you've been trying to get those extra pounds off, but need a little boost and a little help, drink some green tea! It has been known to really boost your metabolism naturally and to really help you in burning fat! Truth be told? It can help you burn up to about 70 calories in just 1 day! That's about 7 pounds a year, just from drinking this amazing tea! How cool is that gals?
Boosts Memory
Finally ladies, if you have a hard time remembering anything, did you know that green tea can actually assist with boosting your memory? If you have Alzheimers in your family, this is incredibly important, as this tea can help slow that entire process down and can really help you start to remember things. It all boils down to having just one or two cups of this a day!
Strong Bones
If you've been having problems with brittle bones and are looking for a natural way to enhance your bones and really make them stronger, this is the answer! There is a very high fluoride content found in green tea and this is what can really help keep your bones strong! Drink green tea every single day and you'll be able to preserve your bone density!
So, if that isn't enough reasons to start drinking green tea, I don't know what is! Green tea is an amazing tea that tastes incredible and has so many benefits to it! Have you gals every indulged in a cup of this incredible liquid? Do you think you'll start now? Let me know how you like it in the comments and what benefit you are excited about most!

By Sharon Capehart

Lemongrass and Cancer - Can Lemongrass Treat Or Prevent Cancer?

Lemongrass, sometimes written as lemon grass, is an herb commonly used both as a seasoning and as an ingredient in herbal teas. In recent years, Lemongrass has received a great deal of press surrounding its potential to treat or prevent cancer. This article explores the degree to which these claims have been verified by science, and the mechanisms through which it is thought lemongrass may be able to treat or prevent cancer.
Citral:
Citral is the primary component of the essential oil of lemongrass, constituting well over half the total oil content. Citral is one of the many chemicals giving lemongrass its strong lemony aroma, and it is also found in lemons and a number of other lemon-scented herbs.
Citral has been studied for its potential to treat cancer, due to its ability to induce cell death (apoptosis) in cancer cells. Cancer cells are able proliferate in part by deactivating the cell death program, which normally causes damaged or mutated cells to self-destruct. The work on citral inducing cell death in cancer cells comes from in vitro experiments (controlled laboratory experiments, as in test tubes or petri dishes), and these results have not been verified in human or animal studies. It is not known the degree to which these properties would actually carry through into humans drinking lemongrass tea or taking extracts of lemongrass as herbal supplements.
Citral also has been studied for other mechanisms of anti-cancer action. A study in rats found Citral to inhibit the formation of retinoic acid from retinol, a chemical reaction involved in the formation of skin tumors.
Other anti-cancer activity of Lemongrass:
Lemongrass also has a number of other active constituents with medicinal properties, including geraniol and citronellol. Some studies have looked at lemongrass as a whole, rather than its individual component chemicals. One study in rats found lemongrass to protect against the formation of cancer cells in the liver. There is also some evidence that lemongrass inhibits the formation of cancer in the digestive tract.
Lemongrass also has been found to have powerful antioxidant effects--stronger than the food preservatives BHA and BHT. Antioxidants are often touted as having the potential to prevent cancer, although these claims are controversial and not universally true. However, there are other benefits to antioxidants, including the prevention of spoilage of food. This benefit has been firmly established for lemongrass--the herb acts as a powerful natural preservative.
In summary:
The research on lemongrass and its role in cancer prevention or treatment is young and inconclusive. However, there is some evidence that lemongrass may be useful for preventing or treating cancer. A number of different chemical components of the essential oil of lemongrass have been studied for anti-cancer properties, and a number of different anti-cancer mechanisms have been discussed.
Lemongrass has been studied in lab animals for its potential to prevent the formation of several different types of tumors and cancers, including colon cancer and cancer of the digestive tract, lung cancer, liver cancer, skin cancer and other a number of other types of tumors. In vitro experiments and some animals studies show promising results for prevention, and to some degree for treatment, but it has yet to be shown whether or not these benefits carry through into humans. In addition, dosages necessary to achieve any benefits in humans (if they exist) are also unknown.
Lemongrass is, however, safe for general consumption both as a seasoning and as an herbal tea, and no adverse effects have been documented from moderate use of lemongrass tea. In addition, it has a pleasing lemon scent. For people interested in cancer prevention, lemongrass certainly cannot hurt and might be worth a try.

By Alex Zorach

A New Bra That Can Detect Breast Cancer?

It claims to measure abnormal cell cycles right in your bra.  Would you try this device?

Mammograms could eventually be part of the past with a new technology about to hit the market. In fact, detecting breast cancer could be as easy as snapping on a bra -- and wouldn't that be nice?

The device named First Warning System™, is described on its website as "a novel breast health screening device and method based on disruptive technology and tissue health science."

The device collects 12 hours of cell data in your breasts just by being placed under your bra.

"Circadian rhythm-based temperature variances of cell cycles are measured to identify abnormalities at the earliest stages of cell augmentation. Powerful predictive analytic software analyses the tissue data producing an object result to the physician to enable a sound and robust clinical decision from the physician and patient," the website, FirstWarningsSystem.com, states.

The cancer-deteacting bra method has reportedly been tested on 650 women having an accuracy rate of 92.1 percent. One case involving a woman named Nedra Lindsay who agreed to be part of an early testing trial. Twenty years and a mastectomy later, Nedra is cancer free.

“I never thought it would be any use to me because I was so young,” she told NY CBS news about participating in the trial when she was just 25 years old.

Breast cancer remains the number one cancer killing women. In 2009, 211,731 women in the U.S. were diagnosed, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

While the device has been in development for the past two decades, CBS reports it expects to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration in a year-- with a price tag around $200.

What do you think about this detection device? Do you think this could be a breakthrough in the battle against breast cancer? Share your opinion in the comments section below.

source: realself.com