The 10 lifestyle tweaks you can make today to slash your risk of killer bowel and breast cancers revealed

SCIENTISTS have identified the 10 lifestyle tweaks that can drastically reduce your risk of bowel and breast cancer.

A major new report from the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) marks an “immense step forward” in understanding how daily habits are key to preventing the killer disease, experts said.

Maintaining a healthy weight, exercising, prioritising fibre-rich foods, and drinking more coffee are among the simple lifestyle changes you can make to reduce your risk of two of the UK’s biggest cancers – bowel and breast cancer.

In the UK, 11,500 women and 85 men die from breast cancer every year, and around 16,800 lives are lost to bowel cancer annually.

Many studies have previously focused on how single nutrients or food groups can impact cancer risk.

But the new report by WCRF International emphasises how analysing Dietary and Lifestyle Patterns (DLPs) together can help researchers and the public to better understand the factors that affect cancer risk.

Dietary patterns refer to quantities, proportions, combinations and varieties of different foods, drinks and nutrients, and the frequency with which they are consumed. 

DLPs refer to a combination of a certain dietary pattern with other measures such as body weight and behaviour-related risk factors including physical activity, alcohol consumption and smoking. 

Experts from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the Health Research Institute of the Balearic Islands evaluated global research on how diet, nutrition, physical activity, and body weight affect breast and bowel cancer incidence and mortality.

WCRF International then worked with an expert panel who judged the evidence and made the cancer-preventing dietary and lifestyle recommendations.

Recommended lifestyle changes to reduce bowel cancer risk

Based on this evidence, they recommended a DLP for reducing the risk of bowel cancer that includes: 

1. Maintaining a healthy weight and regularly taking part in physical activity   
2. Prioritising fruit and vegetables, as well as fibre-containing foods
3. Consuming coffee and food and beverages that contain calcium such as dairy products
4. Reducing the consumption of sugar sweetened beverages and alcohol 
5. Avoiding smoking
6. Avoiding eating processed meats 

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Global Cancer Update Programme collaborator and Professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health, Prof Edward Giovannucci, said: “The work by the Global Cancer Update Programme in reviewing and synthesising the literature on the role of dietary and lifestyle patterns in relation to bowel cancer risk and mortality represents an immense step forward in how healthy lifestyle habits are key to prevention of cancer.

“These new findings strongly support that adopting a healthy pattern of diet, maintaining a healthy weight, staying physically active, and embracing health-conscious habits, such as avoiding tobacco and moderating alcohol, are collectively associated with a lower risk of bowel cancer.”

Recommended lifestyle changes to reduce breast cancer risk

For breast cancer incidence and mortality, they recommended a DLP that includes: 

1. Maintaining a healthy weight and regularly taking part in physical activity    
2. Prioritising fruit and vegetables and fibre-containing foods   
3. Lowering consumption of red and processed meat and sugar sweetened beverages 
4. Avoiding alcohol and smoking

Global Cancer Update Programme collaborator and Lead Researcher at the Health Research Institute of the Balearic Islands and the Physiopathology of Obesity and Nutrition Networking Biomedical Research Centre, Dr Dora Romaguera, said: “This report provides clear evidence that by looking at our whole diet and the way we live, there are clear steps to recommend to women to lower their breast cancer risk. Importantly, this work highlights the greatest benefit is found when adhering to most aspects of a cancer preventative pattern simultaneously.

“By looking out our whole diet and the way we live, there are clear steps we can take to minimise our risk of breast cancer.”

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