Healthy Dietary Choices, Lifestyle Can Prevent Cancer --Experts

As Nigeria joined the rest of the world to commemorate the World
Cancer Day on Wednes-day, February 4, LARA ADE-JORO of Daily Times
writes on lifestyle choices that may help reduce cancer risks.

Cancer is a complex, life-threatening condition which can develop in
almost any organ or tissue in the body. But be prevented by simple,
easily-achievable lifestyle changes.

Avoiding tobacco products and getting regular exercise are impor-tant,
and so of course is diet. Good nutrition supports your entire body,
and can even positively in-fluence your genes. Research indi-cates
that a well-balanced diet, em-phasizing fruits, vegetables, whole
grains may prevent as many as one third of cancer deaths.

A report published by World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) on food,
nutrition, physical activ-ity, body fatness and prevention of cancer
or reduction of cancer risk, attributed roughly one third of the
world's cancer burden to smoking and exposure to tobacco, and roughly
another one third to a combination of inappropriate food and
nutrition, physical inac-tivity, and overweight and obesity.

By their nature, these estimates are approximations, but the WCRF
Panel judges that, avoid-ance of tobacco in any form, to-gether with
appropriate food and nutrition, physical activity, and body
composition, have the poten-tial over time to reduce much and perhaps
most of the global bur-den of cancer.

This is in the context of the general current trends towards decreased
physical activity and increased body fatness, and pro-jections of an
increasing and age-ing global population.

A Professor of Radiology, Col-lege of Medicine, University of Nigeria,
Nsukka, Prof. Ifeoma Okoye, said "the evidence that overweight and
obesity increase the risk of a number of cancers is now even more
impressive than in the mid-1990s. Since that time, rates of overweight
and obesity, in adults as well as in children, have greatly increased
in most coun-tries. The evidence that greater body fatness is a cause
of cancers of the colorectum, oesophagus (adenocarcinoma),
endometrium, pancreas, kidney, and breast (post-menopause) is
convincing.

"It is a probable cause of can-cer of the gall bladder. Body fat-ness
probably protects against premenopausal breast cancer, but increases
the risk of breast cancer overall. This is because postmenopausal
breast cancer is more common. The evidence that abdominal (central)
fatness is a cause of cancer of the colorectum is convincing; and it
is a probable cause of cancers of the pancreas and endometrium, and of
post-menopausal breast cancer. Adult weight gain is a probable cause
of postmenopausal breast cancer. Greater birth weight is a probable
cause of premenopausal breast cancer."

Other factors, in particular in-fectious agents (like the Human
Papilloma Virus in cervical can-cer, helicobacter pylori in stom-ach
cancer and hepatitis virus in liver cancer), and also radiation,
industrial chemicals, environ-mental pollution, and medica-tions,
affect the risk of some can-cers.

According to her, the consistent intake of white Maggi, wrong oil
sources - Nkwobi, Ngwo-ngwo', pepper soup, salad cream, mayon-naise,
vegetable oil, butter, cow milk and thick palm oil. Beef based food,
carbohydrate foods, soft drinks can increase the risk of cancer.

Okoye, who is also the Chair-person of Breast Without Spot Initiative
advised Nigerians to "take more of vegetables, cab-bage, orange,
tomatoes, soya, garlic, onions, and sour soup, berries which help to
reduce the risk of prostrate, lung, stomach, cervical, breast and
pancreas cancers."

She said soft drinks should be replaced with water and people.
--DailyTimes