By Katrina RoeThursday 5 Dec 2013Hope MorningsHealth and WellbeingReading Time: 2 minutes
When it comes to what gives you cancer, we’ve all heard the myths. Leaving a bottle of water in a hot car, eating burnt toast, using hair dye and pesticides in the food supply are all factors that get blamed for causing cancer.
Audio – Hear Professor Bernard Stewart explain why these lifestyle factors are most likely to reduce your risk of cancer.
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And while some of these things are associated with known carcinogens, they may not have been proven to cause cancer. Likewise, many people eat organic food in the hope of improving their health, but eating organic food hasn’t been associated with a lower risk of cancer.
Professor Bernard Stewart is a cancer research expert from the University of New South Wales. He’s concerned that too many Australians are putting their health and wellbeing efforts into areas that don’t actually reduce their cancer risk. He says the real problem is that knowing lots of possible causes of cancer has been proven to reduce the likelihood of people acting on the known causes of cancer. He says there are four key lifestyle factors that can help most Australians avoid the most common types of cancer.
Tips to Reducing Your Risk of Cancer
1) Quit smoking
2) Lose weight or avoid becoming obese
3) Don’t deliberately expose yourself to the sun
4) Don’t drink alcohol every day.