Here are the 10 ways.

1. Moderate your alcohol consumption: drinking alcohol increases the risks of cancers of the pharynx, mouth, larynx, rectum, esophagus, colon, and liver. Women should limit themselves to one alcoholic beverage per day. Men should limit themselves to two.

2. Eat plenty of raw fruits and vegetables: The American Cancer Society recommendation is to eat five servings of fruits and vegetables daily since they are loaded with vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and other substances that decrease the risk of cancer. Recent studies have shown that the connection between eating vegetables and fruits and lower risk of cancer risk isn’t as strong as once thought. However the majority of researchers still subscribe to the idea that a plant-based diet is one of the best ways to secure overall health.

3. Think about chemoprevention: Chemoprevention is using natural or synthetic compounds to reduce the cancer risk or recurrence. Tamoxifen, prescribed to prevent breast cancer in women, is the most famous chemoprevention agent. The downside: chemoprevention drugs may have serious side effects.

4. Decrease the amount of fat in your diet: Studies suggest that high-fat diets are linked to several types of cancer, including postmenopausal breast, colon, and lung cancer. High-fat diets are usually high in calories and increase the risk of obesity. More study is required to understand which types of fat should be avoided and what amount effects cancer risk.

5. Stay within your ideal weight zone: Being overweight will tend to increase the risk of postmenopausal breast cancer as well as cancers of the endometrium, colon, esophagus and kidney. There have been studies showing that obesity increases the risk of cancers of the prostate, liver, stomach, gallbladder, pancreas, ovary and cervix. Some studies estimate that excess weight is a factor in 15 to 20 percent of cancer-related deaths.

6. Get screening exams: Pap tests, mammograms, colonoscopies and other routine screenings obviously don’t prevent cancer. But screenings will detect cancers early, when treatment is more likely to be successful.

7. Exercise: Evidence increasingly suggests that people who exercise have lower risk of certain cancers than those who are sedentary. From 45 to 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity a day, on most days of the week, is considered optimal to decrease the risk of breast and colorectal cancers.

8. Limit radiation exposure: Ultraviolet (UV) radiation, from the sun, sunlamps or commercial tanning beds, is the primary cause of skin cancer.

9. Stop smoking or don’t start smoking: The risk of cancers caused by smoking is proportional with the length of time a person has smoked and the quantity of cigarettes smoked. Lung cancer, the leading cause of cancer death among Americans is caused by smoking. Quitting smoking decreases the risk of lung cancer and it is never too late to take action on this.

10. Guard yourself from infection: Infections caused by viruses are well known to be risk factors for a wide variety of cancers. Human papillomavirus (HPV), which is a sexually transmitted disease, is the most frequent cause of cervical cancer. Chronic hepatitis B and hepatitis C aggravate the risk of liver cancer. They are usually spread by contact with contaminated blood, contaminated needles or sex. Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the virus that leads to AIDS, additionally increase the risk of many cancers.

Lloyd Webber, 61, said in a health diary published on his website that he noticed the first symptoms of his cancer last summer and underwent an operation to remove his prostate gland after a biopsy came back positive.

He was told the cancer had been caught early and the treatment was successful, but he then battled an underlying e-coli infection that had been there all along.

“If that infection had been found and cured, I could have been blissfully unaware that I had a cancerous tumor that was on the verge of breaking loose around the rest of my body. I could have thought that my frequent peeing was due to a weak bladder. I have been bloody lucky,” wrote Lloyd Webber.

“I say to every red-blooded male, if you do begin to have a problem down under, however embarrassing, go to your GP at once. Even if you don’t have any symptoms, if you are over 50 get regular PSA (prostate specific antigen) tests.”

Lloyd Webber, the composer behind hit musicals including “Jesus Christ Superstar,” “Cats” and “Starlight Express,” is staging a sequel to “The Phantom of the Opera” called “Love Never Dies” that is due to open in London in March this year.

He has also just kicked off a search for Dorothy to star in his West End production of “The Wizard of Oz” with his search to be the topic of a BBC television talent show.

Interview with Andrew Lloyd Webber

Several large clinical trials have shown that tamoxifen can decrease the risk of breast cancer in high-risk women. There are, however, two issues that have prevented widespread use of tamoxifen for breast cancer prevention:

* Who is at risk? The definition of who is high risk is problematic and differs from trial to trial. Generally, high risk includes women with a family history of breast cancer, early menarche, later or no childbirth, or previous breast biopsy, even if negative.

* What are the side effects? In one study, it was found that less than one in five women at high risk would take tamoxifen due to their fears of side effects and the fact that they assumed they were at relatively low risk for developing breast cancer.

Two reports in the February 21, 2007 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute document that tamoxifen can prevent hormone-positive breast cancer in women at high risk.

Researchers affiliated with the Royal Marsden Randomized, Double-Blinded Tamoxifen Breast Cancer Prevention Trial reported 20-year follow-up data. This trial randomly allocated 2,494 women at high risk of developing breast cancer to receive tamoxifen or placebo for eight years. A total of 82 women in the tamoxifen group and 104 in the placebo group developed invasive breast cancer. Researchers affiliated with the first International Breast Cancer Intervention Study (IBIS-I) reported that the breast cancer preventative effects of tamoxifen persist for at least 10 years after a five-year treatment period. This trial randomly allocated 7,145 women at increased risk for developing breast cancer to receive five years of tamoxifen or placebo. With a 96-month follow-up, there were 142 breast cancers in the tamoxifen group and 195 in the placebo group. They observed a preventive effect during the entire period of observation. The main side effects were an increased risk of deep-vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism during but not after tamoxifen treatment. The estimated risk for developing estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer was 34% lower in the tamoxifen group.

The authors of the present trial sought to determine why few women with increased risk of breast cancer use tamoxifen for chemoprevention. They evaluated 632 women with an average 2.56% risk of developing breast cancer within five years. These women were presented with a tailored decision aid concerning the effectiveness of chemoprevention with tamoxifen and the known side effects. After reviewing the decision aid, 29% of women said they would seek more information from their own physician, and 6% said they would agree to take tamoxifen. These researchers thought that these women had adequate knowledge to make a decision. The stated: “Participants were concerned about the risks of tamoxifen, and many believed that the benefits of tamoxifen did not outweigh the risks.”

Discovering Key to Tamoxifen’s Effectiveness in Treating Breast Cancer may Mean New Treatments

Ana Ripoll, Rector of Universitat Aut-noma de Barcelona (UAB), and Pedro Barato, President of “Organizaci-n Interprofesional del Aceite de Oliva Espa-ol”, signed a research agreement to carry out an in depth study on how the intake of olive oil can work towards preventing and fighting against breast cancer. The Multidisciplinary Group on Breast Cancer Research (GMECM), directed by Dr Eduard Escrich, lecturer of the Department of Cell Biology, Physiology and Immunology, will be working on this research project during the next five years. GMECM has demonstrated in previous researches that a moderate intake of virgin olive oil slows down the spreading of this cancer.

Researchers at GMECM aim to determine the possible activity of common components of the human diet with the objective of formulating scientific opinions on the health of the population or levels of risk, all within the field of breast cancer prevention. Among the results obtained until now researchers highlight the fact that a moderate intake of virgin olive oil can slow down the spreading of this cancer due to the action of mechanisms which counterattack the possible harmful effects of fats, while an excessive intake of seed oils has damaging effects.

In the study, which will begin this coming year, researchers will continue to study the effects olive oil can have on this type of cancer, with experimental studies and with human cell lines and samples. Among the research studies to be carried out, some of the most prominent focus on the effects fats and oils can have on mammary tumours, and especially those of extra virgin olive oil, and an analysis of the molecular changes found in these tumours in all of the genome and in the specific genes implicated in this pathology.

Olive oil lowers risk of breast cancer

Harvard researchers are finding an intriguing link between coffee and the prevention of an aggressive type of prostate cancer.

Prostate cancer kills 27,000 men annually. So this research comparing the history of thousands and thousands of men raises the possibility of a simple and effective prevention in this deadly disease.

The researchers discovered that men who drank six or more cups of coffee a day had a 60 percent lower risk developing the advanced form of the disease when compared to men who drank no coffee at all.

Even men who drank just one to three cups are showed a lower risk, about 20 percent, of developing the aggressive cancer.

Prostate cancer specialist Dr. Ihor Sawczuk, of Hackensack University Medical Center, says the researchers were not exactly sure what it is about the coffee that might affect the cancers. But he says it’s too early to recommend boosting coffee drinking to men, although one cup of coffee might be helpful.

“I think those that don’t drink coffee should consider perhaps a cup a day may help build up their immune system,” he said. “I think what we need to remember is there may be more to this story.”

And finding out more details will be the next job for researchers. Because one study is not enough for scientists, the findings will need to be confirmed.

But if coffee helps prevention, it’s a bonus for those who already drink it and a simple benefit for those who don’t.

Prostate cancer survivor Richard Williamson has made some already-proven lifestyle changes for his recovery. He’s lost 25 pounds, walks two miles daily and, because he doesn’t eat enough fruits and vegetables, now frequents a health food store near his home to get his vegetables in a drink he likes.

“I do my walk and then I stop there,” he said. “I do that three or four times a week.”

Other proven prevention habits include:

“Decrease the total amount of fat, taking good fat, for example, the omega-3,” Dr. Sawczuk said. “Tomatoes have lycopene, especially the skin of tomatoes. These are good substancse to ingest. Soy products, apples, perhaps even a glass of red wine.”

And now, maybe a cup of coffee or two. One way coffee might be working is that it’s known to help the body use insulin. And high insulin has already been proven to increase risk of prostate cancer.

The University of Albany has connected the pregnancy protein alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) to breast cancer slowing down in rats exposed to pregnancy hormones such as estrogen, progesterone, or human chorionic gonadotropin.

These pregnancy hormones were shown by the authors to induce AFP during the term of pregnancy.

The hormones also appear to inhibit breast cancer growth in previous rat studies, although estrogen and progesterone fuel the growth of breast cancer in humans.

Herbert Jacobson, PhD, who has been studying AFP in rats for over twenty years, believes the protein is the cause of the pregnancy-related reduction in breast cancer risk.

“Twenty-five years ago I deduced that this must be the agent responsible for lowering breast cancer risk in women who have been pregnant,” he tells WebMD. “And the research we have done since then supports this hypothesis.”

Pregnancy, particularly before the 30 years old, lowers a woman’s lifetime risk of developing breast cancer. Also having more than one child is preventative.

Alpha-fetoprotein is produced by the fetus, and size of the protein during pregnancy can help to screen out possible birth defects.

Extremely high AFP levels portend the appearance of neural tube defects or an abdominal wall defect known as omphalocele, and extremely low levels suggest Down syndrome.

The protein is usually not detected in the blood of healthy men and women who are not yet pregnant. In these groups, elevated AFP levels suggest the presence of some cancers.

In their new study, in the December issue of Cancer Prevention Research, Jacobson and associates treated cancer-exposed rats that were not pregnant with estrogen, estrogen plus progesterone, or human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG).

As in previous studies, all of these treatments are associated with reduced levels of breast cancers in the high-risk rats.

Each of the hormone treatments were also connected with elevated AFP levels and AFP was found to slow down the growth of breast cancer cells in lab cultures.

“Hormones in pregnancy, such as estrogen, all induce AFP, which directly inhibits the growth of breast cancer,” Jacobson says in a news release.
Second Opinion

However, devil’s advocate and cancer specialist Powel Brown, MD, PhD, says the research does not show that this is true beyond a shadow of a doubt.

As is the case with these kinds of studies, says Sandy Hutchens Cancer Prevention, there will be those that promote the idea and there will be detractors. We await the results of further studies and even possibly some proof on this unique view into breast cancer prevention.

Pregnant and Facing Breast Cancer

Breast cancer often can be treated with early detection. That’s why health insurance that pays for mammograms is especially important. But mammography rates declined between 2003 and 2005, with a notable decrease for Hispanic women (from 65 percent to 59 percent) and African-American women (from 70 percent to 65 percent). Never mind the controversy over mammograms for women under 50; an estimated one in five women over 50 has not received a mammogram in the past two years.

Everyone needs health insurance to keep healthy, yet women are disproportionately underinsured. An estimated 21 million women and girls went without health insurance in 2007, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. And a recent congressional report found that 18 percent of all women not eligible for Medicare are uninsured.

Why are so many women left uncovered? Perhaps it’s because many medical situations faced by women are treated as pre-existing conditions, including breast cancer. The National Cancer Institute estimated that in 2004 approximately 2.4 million women had a history of breast cancer. Without continuing coverage, cancer survivors face steep risks.

Health Insurance Facts: Fighting Cancer With No Insurance

Why are women falling behind in insurance coverage faster than men? According to the Department of Health and Human Services, various factors restrict women’s access to health care, which include a vast array of “pre-existing conditions” such as breast cancer, pregnancy, caesarian section and domestic violence. In addition, women are less likely to be employed full time, which makes them less likely to be eligible for employer-based health benefits. In fact, fewer than half of women have the option of obtaining employer-based coverage.

Any health care reform proposal should take that into consideration and include access to comprehensive care, including preventative care such as mammograms. Americans, men and women alike, understand this need. A recent poll commissioned by Moving Forward, a values-based research initiative developed by the Women Donors Network and the Communications Consortium, found that a strong majority of voters — 87 percent — think insurance companies should be required to cover women’s preventive care and screenings, such as contraception, Pap tests for cervical cancer and breast cancer screenings.

Public health experts recommend health insurance coverage be universal and available to all regardless of work status, place of residence, health status or other factors unrelated to need. Reform should be aimed at achieving quality outcomes and eliminating disparities as well as at being affordable. Coverage also needs to be continuous from birth until end of life without interruptions or delays, as gaps in existing coverage allow women to fall through the cracks.

Reform will bring health care to more American women and their families than ever before in our nation’s history. Women would do well to learn more about their stake in health care reform. One good resource is www.WomenandHealthCareReform.org. The best thing we can do to end breast cancer is to make sure all health insurance coverage is universal — not limited by exclusions due to pre-existing conditions — and includes preventative care and basic services such as breast and cervical cancer screenings. Let’s create a system that provides health care, not just sick care.

Wendy C. Wolf is a board member of Living Beyond Breast Cancer and Women Donors Network and leads WDN’s effort on reproductive and other health issues.

A study, including almost 5,600 men aged 55 years and over randomized to the placebo section of the Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial (PCPT), showed that men whose cholesterol levels were below 200 mg/dL had a 60% decreased risk of Gleason 8 to 10 prostate cancer compared with men who had higher cholesterol levels, researchers reported in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention. Clinicians diagnosed prostate cancer in 1,251 men (22%).

The investigators, led by Elizabeth A. Platz, ScD, MPH, of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, found no association between cholesterol levels and prostate cancer overall.

“Our findings add to the literature supporting a role for cholesterol in the etiology of prostate cancer with a worse prognosis,” the authors wrote.

The PCPT, which started in 1993, investigated whether finasteride could prevent prostate cancer. Researchers randomized subjects to receive 5 mg/day of finasteride or placebo for seven years. The study showed that finasteride treatment was associated with a 25% decreased incidence of prostate cancer.

In contrast to their findings in the placebo arm of the trial, Dr. Platz and her collaborators observed no association between serum cholesterol and high-grade prostate cancer in the finasteride arm. The researchers said the pattern they observed in the placebo arm, in theory, could be explained by a lower sensitivity for detecting high-grade prostate cancer in the men with low rather than high cholesterol, “but this is not the expectation.” Men with low cholesterol, the group explained, on average have a lower prostate volume. Thus a greater proportion of the total prostate could be sampled by needle biopsy, increasing the sensitivity of detecting high-grade tumors. Another explanation, they noted, is that finasteride prevented the same subset of high-grade cancers that low cholesterol would have prevented. It also is possible that the accuracy in detecting high-grade cancers differed in men with low cholesterol in the placebo arm compared with the finasteride arm.

A prostate cancer researcher not involved with the new study, Stephen J. Freedland, MD, of the Duke Prostate Center at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C., said the study by Dr. Platz’s team is consistent with previous research and “provides some of the strongest data to date” linking high cholesterol with an increased risk of high-grade prostate cancer.

Dr. Freedland said he has started to mention this association to men with high cholesterol when counseling them about whether to go for PSA testing. “I say to patients, ‘There are increasing data to suggest that high cholesterol may increase your risk of aggressive prostate cancer.’”

As for whether a man should be placed on a statin to reduce his risk of aggressive prostate cancer, Dr. Freedland observed, “If he has high cholesterol, he should probably be on a statin anyway.” It is unknown whether statin treatment would further reduce the risk in men with low cholesterol, he said.

Previous studies suggest that statin use may protect against advanced prostate cancer. For example, a study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (2006;98:1819-1825) showed that statin use was associated with a 43% decreased risk of advanced prostate cancer and a 65% decreased risk of fatal or metastatic prostate cancer.

Recently, researchers reported on a study involving 1,351 prostate cancer patients who underwent radical prostatectomy (504 who used statins and 847 who did not). Preoperative PSA levels, tumor volume, and percentage of cancer in the surgical specimen were significantly lower in the statin users, who overall had a proportionately lower rate of adverse tumor pathology features, including a significantly reduced risk of positive surgical margins, researchers reported in BJU International (2009; published online ahead of print).

Dr. Freedland—whose research has focused on risk factors for prostate cancer and its recurrence following treatment, as well as on prostate cancer chemoprevention—said it is biologically plausible for cholesterol to be involved in the pathogenesis of high-grade prostate cancer. Cholesterol is the precursor for testosterone, which promotes prostate tumor growth, Dr. Freedland said. Hypothetically, high cholesterol concentrations could mean greater testosterone production, he said. Evidence is mounting that high-grade, castration-resistant tumors can make their own testosterone from cholesterol, he noted.

Cholesterol also may directly stimulate tumor growth, he explained. In addition, all new cells need cholesterol as part of their membranes. “Thus, lower cholesterol means it is harder for the cells to replicate,” he said. “Given that high-grade tumors grow faster, this could explain why low cholesterol only reduced the risk of high-grade disease. All of these mechanisms suggest that it is indeed plausible that high cholesterol could promote more aggressive cancers.”

From the November 2009 Issue of Renal And Urology News

Cholesterol: What Your Doctor Didn’t Tell You

Vitamin D is essential for promoting calcium absorption for bone and overall health in people. Low levels of vitamin D can lead to rickets in infants and children and the loss of bone density in adults.

More than 25 million adults in the United States have or are at risk of developing osteoporosis, a disease characterized by the loss of bone density that makes bones fragile and significantly increases the risk of fractures. When it comes to Osteoporosis, it’s a chicken and egg scenario: osteoporosis is most often associated with inadequate calcium intakes (generally less than 1,000-1,200 mg/day), but insufficient vitamin D contributes to osteoporosis by reducing the body’s calcium absorption.

While the evidence is far from conclusive, vitamin D may also prove to be an important protective nutrient in the prevention and treatment of cancer.

Video: Possible 75% cancer mortality reduction with Vitamin D

In a new study, researchers at the Moores Cancer Center and Department of Family and Preventive Medicine, UC San Diego used a complex computer prediction model to determine that intake of vitamin D3 and calcium would prevent 58,000 new cases of breast cancer and 49,000 new cases of colorectal cancer annually in the US and Canada. The researchers model also predicted that 75% of deaths from these cancers could be prevented with adequate intake of vitamin D3 and calcium. Dr. Cedric Garland, UCSD School of Medicine, lead researcher on the study discusses the implications of this finding and the proposed actions.

Although scientists are reluctant to endorse green tea as a cancer prevention method, evidence continues to grow regarding the chemically complex drink’s potential benefits – including results of a new randomized, controlled trial by researchers at University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, which suggest it had some inhibiting effect in patients with a pre-malignant condition known as oral leukoplakia.

As reported in a report published online Nov 5 by Cancer Prevention Research(1), a team headed by Vassiliki Papadimitrakopoulo, MD, professor of medicine in M.D. Anderson’s Department of Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology, tested green tea extract taken orally for three months by 41 patients diagnosed with oral leukoplakia and therefore at high risk of developing oral cancer.

The patients were divided into cohorts taking either placebo or one of three different doses of green tea extract 500 mg/m2, 750 mg/m2 or 1,000 mg/m2 [mg/m2 refers to milligrams per meter squared of body mass – calculated by a formula using height and weight to reflect a person’s relative size].

The researchers assessed clinical response in oral pre-malignant lesions and found:

• 58.8% of patients at the highest doses displayed clinical response,

• Compared with 18.2% among those taking placebo.

They also observed:

• A trend toward improved histology [cell & tissue integrity],

• And a trend towards improvement in a handful of biomarkers that may be important in predicting cancer development.

Patients were followed for 27.5 months and at the end of the study period, 15 developed oral cancer.

• Although there was no difference in oral cancer development overall between those who took green tea and those who did not,

• Patients who presented with mild to moderate dysplasia [abnormal cell growth] had a longer time to develop oral cancer if they took green tea extract.

Although encouraged by the results, Dr. Papadimitrakopoulo cautioned against any recommendations that green tea could definitely prevent cancer.

“This is a phase II study with a very limited number of patients who took what would be the equivalent of drinking eight to 10 cups of green tea every single day,” she said. “We cannot with certainty claim prevention benefits from a trial this size.”

Dong Shin, MD, (professor of hematology and medical oncology at Emory School of Medicine, and a Cancer Prevention Research editorial board member) agreed, but said this trial is certainly a step in the right direction. “A clinical trial with a natural compound is no easy task, and these researchers have accomplished that,” Dr. Shin stated in a companion article commenting on the trial(2). “The lack of toxicity is also important because often when you give supplements at higher doses than what would occur naturally, you induce nausea and vomiting. That did not happen in this trial.”

Neither researcher had a reason why patients concerned about cancer should not drink green tea, but they cautioned against relying on the beverage to definitively reduce their risk of cancer.

“The goal of this kind of research is to determine whether or not these supplements have long-term prevention effects,” said Dr. Papadimitrakopoulou. “More research – including studies in which individuals at high risk are exposed to these supplements for longer time period – is still needed to answer that sort of question.”