Spend 30 minutes a day, the risk of cancer in modern people and how to prevent it

Modern Lifestyle and Cancer

According to 2015 statistics, the mortality rate from chronic diseases worldwide is about 71%. In particular, the cancer death rate has increased exponentially compared to the past. The number of deaths rose from 5.7 million in 1990 to 8.8 million in 2015.

Experts predict that the burden of cancer will increase by 70% over the next 20 years. Why are cancer mortality rates getting worse? It is precisely because of the lifestyle of modern people.

Modern man has been living an unprecedentedly obese life. In Korea, the proportion of adult men who walked for at least 30 minutes a day five days a week decreased from 50.0% in 2008 to 40.6% in 2016. That's a loss of more than 10 percent. These lifestyle habits lead to high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, hyperlipidemia, and expose us to cancer.

Research on Lifestyle and Cancer

The relationship between lifestyle-related diseases and cancer has been studied in large quantities of more than 400,000 patients at the MD Anderson Cancer Center and the Taiwan Health and Welfare Clinical Trials Center.

The researchers categorized lifestyle-related diseases into cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic kidney disease, lung disease, and gouty arthritis, and set eight markers in detail: blood pressure, total cholesterol, heart rate, fasting blood glucose, proteinuria, glomerular filtration rate, lung function, and uric acid. Risk scoring showed that blood pressure and the other markers, with the exception of lung disease, were directly associated with cancer risk. There was even a statistically significant correlation between all eight markers for cancer mortality. Lifestyle habits contributed to 38.9 percent, or more than one-third, of the mortality rate.

Furthermore, for every five-point increase in chronic disease risk score, the overall risk of cancer increased by 35 percent and the risk of cancer death increased by 50 percent. In particular, it was associated with risk for liver, bladder, kidney, gastrointestinal, oral cavity and colorectal cancer.

30 minutes of exercise a day to prevent cancer

However, while the researchers point to the relationship between lifestyle-related diseases and cancer, they also suggest ways to prevent cancer. It's physical activity. Participants who were physically active had a 48% reduction in cancer incidence and a 27% reduction in cancer mortality compared to those who did not do physical activity.

Recommendations from the American Heart Association (AHA), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) suggest that at least 30 minutes of physical activity per day can provide important health benefits. No matter what kind of exercise you do, you only need to dedicate 30 minutes to it every day.

If you find 30 minutes a day difficult, it's okay to split your workout into two sessions of 10-15 minutes. As long as you can move your body, it doesn't matter what type of exercise you do. The simplest exercise is to start walking. Walk lightly with the same intensity as walking your dog. It's going to make a big difference in your life.