The habits you keep today can influence your health tomorrow. With that in mind, here are five easy ways men can take cancer prevention into their own hands.
• Move It: Exercise is one of the best ways to lessen your cancer risk — and you don’t have to slog on a treadmill. Take advantage of the sunshine and walk when you can. You don’t have to run marathons. Any activity — including walking at a brisk pace — can help prevent cancer, even if you don’t lose weight.
• Protect Yourself from the Sun: Men are twice as likely as women to die from melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer. While the disease may not show up until later in life, sunburns in your younger years may be important to its development. Older men are also at greatest risk for this serious cancer because they may not know how to recognize a cancerous mole. Start protecting yourself now by staying safe in the sun and avoiding it in the middle of the day, when rays are the harshest.
• Load Up on Produce: In-season fruits and vegetables can give your next meal a cancer-fighting kick. Tomatoes and watermelon, for example, are great sources of lycopene, and studies suggest that eating more fruits and vegetables high in lycopene may reduce your prostate cancer risk.
• Go Easy at the Grill: There’s no easier way to cook than grilling a piece of meat, but too much barbecuing may not be good for your gut. Evidence suggests that the compounds formed when meat is cooked at a high temperature may be associated with an increased risk of cancer, particularly colorectal cancer,.
• Don’t Go Up in Smoke: According to the World Health Organization, far more men than women smoke. And it’s not only cigarettes that are worrisome: cigars, hookah, marijuana, electronic cigarettes — all of them contain harmful carcinogens that have been linked to cancer.
• Go Easy at the Grill: There’s no easier way to cook than grilling a piece of meat, but too much barbecuing may not be good for your gut. Evidence suggests that the compounds formed when meat is cooked at a high temperature may be associated with an increased risk of cancer, particularly colorectal cancer,.
• Don’t Go Up in Smoke: According to the World Health Organization, far more men than women smoke. And it’s not only cigarettes that are worrisome: cigars, hookah, marijuana, electronic cigarettes — all of them contain harmful carcinogens that have been linked to cancer.
