Submitted by Dr.Kattlove’s Cancer Blog

It’s time to follow the get-better guidelines. The American Cancer Society recommends that all cancer survivors take better care of themselves. This means eat well, exercise and stop smoking. Specifically they want survivors to eat at least five servings of fruits or vegetables each day, exercise moderately strenuously two and one-half hours a week or vigorously one hour a week. And, of course, stop smoking.

You would think that cancer survivors would follow this simple prescription. After all, not following this simple recipe may be what got them into trouble in the first place. So many studies have shown that a healthy life-style is associated with a lower cancer risk that no one bothers to do these studies anymore. And, as I have pointed out so many times, few of our modern treatments other than surgery are curative. There is no substitute for prevention.

So when the ACS surveyed over 9000 cancer survivors, what did they find? Fewer than 5% were meeting all their recommendations. The good news is that most, nearly 90%, weren’t smoking. But over 80% weren’t eating their 5 a day and somewhere around 50-70% weren’t getting off the couch.

So what’s the down side for these Macburger eating couch potatoes? It turns out the more you stray from the recommendations, the worse you feel. The researchers measured the quality of life of these people. QOL is a measure of how you feel. It includes your energy level, contentment, getting along with others, feeling of wellbeing – you get the picture. When people ate well, exercised and of course stopped smoking, they felt better - more energy, less pain and depression, and perhaps got along better with others.

The survey didn’t look at cancer recurrence, but we know that all three of the bad habits are associated with cancer. Fewer veggies and fruits, less exercise and smoking are all linked to cancer. So if you had cancer and don’t want another, it makes sense to do the most you can to stay cancer-free.

So why don’t these people wake up and live right. Probably it is because that is the way they were before they got their cancer. Old habits are hard to break.

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