After heart disease, cancer is the second leading cause of death in North America. Time to put on the brakes of some things many of us do every day that may be slowly contributing to the demise of our health.
Dr. Oz revealed five habits that could lead to cancer and gave suggestions on what you can do to stay on the right track to good health.
The first wrong turn is overdosing on Vitamin E supplements. Vitamin E is an antioxidant that is correlated to prevent lung cancer. Too much Vitamin E in the body can damage DNA, become an anti-anit-oxidant and increase your risk of cancer.
Instead, try to get your daily recommended intake of vitamin E in your diet. Dr. Oz suggested pistachios as an excellent source of vitamin E.
Wrong turn number two is not eating at the same time every day. Our body goes into stress mode if we eat erratically by increasing our stress hormone, cortisol. This leads to spikes in insulin, which causes inflammation and can up our risk of many cancers.
Following a regular meal schedule helps ward off insulin highs and keeping a healthy snack with you in case your meal-time gets delayed such as an apple, keeps hunger away.
Number three wrong turn is not brushing and flossing our teeth regularly. Once bacteria collects in our mouth, plaque forms leading to inflammation of the gums which increases the chance of cancer anywhere in the body.
Brush for a few minutes and floss every day. In the past, my kids have used an egg timer, flipping it over so that they know when their three minutes of brushing is done.
Not getting an adequate amount of sleep is the number four wrong turn which can lead to cancer. This was studied recently and I have heard this statistic cited in a few sources that people who get less than six hours of sleep a night have a 50% higher chance of developing polyps in the colon that can become cancerous. Without enough sleep, our body does not produce enough melatonin which acts as an anti-oxidant and keeps cancer away.
Dr. Oz came up with a great idea: set an alarm clock that goes off when it is time to go to bed. Get into a regular bedtime routine.
Last but not least, number five has to do with eating too many low-fat foods. Those packaged diet fat free foods are usually overpacked with simple sugars and refined carbs (fillers) in order to replace the flavour from fat. These fillers wind up spiking insulin levels in the body and can lead to weight gain and the insulin increases can bring on cancer-causing inflammation.
Indulge in healthy fats in moderation since these products contain Omega-3s which have been connected to protecting your body against cancer. Better to eat a full-fat portion of a cookie or other product as a treat once in a while. You know how much fat a regular cookie contains and you will not get hood-winked thinking that the low-fact snack product is better for you.
After watching this segment, my belief is that a holistic approach to good health is the way to go.
Encompassing healthy food choices, eating in moderation, not having too much or too little of a good thing, dental hygiene, counting the hours of sleep we get, avoiding diet foods that appear good for us but have poor ingredient substitutes and having a meal routine that our body can count on.
Health is about making a full circle from our individual starting points to where we want to end up.
Hoping for many look-out vistas and rest-stops along the way. We can get where we want to go by making better choices rather than winding up at a dead end.
Even when we make a wrong turn, the beauty about the human condition is that we can reverse, head out in a new direction and discover unventured trails.
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