Cancer is one of the most serious and deadliest diseases there is. Cancer can affect any organ in the body and some cancers have better outcomes than others. Some can be treated successfully with chemotherapy, some require surgical removal of the affected organ(s), while some may not be treatable and some even recur following successful treatment.
That being said, we’re all at risk of getting cancer. In 2020, the total number of new cancer cases worldwide was over 1,806,590, and the cancer death rate is 158.3 per 100,000 men and women per year.
There is no universal guaranteed method to avoid cancer. Many factors and elements of our daily lives can increase cancer risk. Some of these elements are genetic and therefore unavoidable. However, research has highlighted a few practices that have been directly linked to certain cancers. If you want to reduce your cancer risk, you need to take the necessary precautions.
Here are a few things you need to avoid to reduce your risk of cancer.
Smoking
You’ve probably heard that smoking is extremely harmful to your health for your entire life, but you might not know that passive smoking can be just as harmful, if not more dangerous, than normal smoking.
Passive smoking, also known as secondhand smoking, occurs when you breathe in the smoke from a cigar or cigarette. The smoke of a cigarette produces thousands of chemicals, some of them are cancer-causing, meaning they damage the DNA, which leads to cell destruction and produces cancerous cells.
The good news is that, as long as you aren’t constantly breathing the smoke, you’ll be safe. At least, safer than regular smokers and secondhand smokers.
Smoking has been linked to cancer in different parts of the body, including the mouth, throat, digestive tract, liver, pancreas, respiratory tract, kidneys, urinary bladder, and even cervix.
Processed Foods
Processed foods tend to contain a high amount of chemicals. These chemicals, such as nitrates, are necessary for preserving these foods but when consumed in large amounts they can also be harmful to cells, increasing oxidative processes and free radicals in the body and these could cause cancerous changes to the cells.
This doesn’t mean you can not have processed foods at all. There’s no harm in eating some hot dogs at the movies or the occasional stop at a fast food restaurant.
What you do not want is to be actively consuming processed and preserved foods as a major part of your diet.
Also, eating a lot of red meat is also bad for you. Red meat has some dangerous chemicals and components, such as heterocyclic amines (HCAs), and polycyclic amines (PCAs). These components can be harmful to your body and have been directly linked to bowel cancer.
Sedentary Lifestyle
The word sedentary basically means inactive. Believe it or not, with the advent of technology, many of us currently live rather sedentary lifestyles.
When you sit in a vehicle from home to work/school and then sit at the desk for the next 8 hours only to go home and sit in front of the TV while scrolling on your phone, that is not a very active life.
Not only will living a sedentary lifestyle affect your health and your body in many different ways, but it can also help cause cancer. The National Cancer Institute says that a sedentary lifestyle can cause not only obesity and diabetes, but is also related to cancer.
Their research found that exercise causes an increase in oxygen intake and blood circulation, which helps the body get rid of harmful chemicals.
It’s recommended that you work out on a daily basis. Not only will you prevent cancer, but you’ll also become healthier overall.
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Too much Alcohol
You don’t have to worry about this if you’re a social drinker or have a few drinks every now and then, but if you’re consuming alcohol daily, you have a higher chance of getting cancer.
When you consume alcohol, your body breaks it down into different metabolites as part of the process of eliminating it. One of these metabolites is acetaldehyde and even though it is only present in the body for a short period of time, it is highly toxic and a known carcinogen.
It damages the cells and impairs the DNA damage repair mechanism, causing uncontrolled cell division.
This is the reason why alcohol can cause cancer in your mouth, throat, esophagus, liver, large intestine, and breasts.
Too much sugar
Although sugar is a necessary part of many types of food and drinks, it can also be extremely dangerous for you.
Consuming foods with too much sugar increases the risk of getting cancer. And that’s without mentioning other health problems like obesity and diabetes.
Eating too much sugar in your food will put your body and organs under extra stress. This causes your organs not to work as they should and increases your chances of cancer.
Practicing Unsafe Sex
Unsafe sex can lead to many different types of sexually transmitted diseases or STDs, including gonorrhea, HIV, and herpes. But on top of all that, having sexual relationships without protection can lead to cancer as well.
To be more specific, oral sex can cause cancer of the pharynx and neck. This cancer-causing agent is known as human papillomavirus, or HPV. Granted, the chances of getting cancer this way are lower than contracting other STDs. However, that doesn’t mean you don’t have to take the necessary precautions.
Excessive Exposure to UV Light
If you love spending all day at the beach, you need to take a lot of precautions. Being exposed to ultraviolet (UV) lights for a long time can be risky and increases the risk of skin cancer.
Keep in mind that we’re talking about overexposure to UV lights. The sun is the best vitamin D source, and it can help your skin, bones, and muscles. You can get sun and get tanned, but you need to put on sunscreen to protect yourself. Likewise, while we’re mostly talking about the sun since it’s the most common scenario, any object that produces a great amount of UV light is dangerous. For instance, tanning beds will also cause the same risk.
