17. Cancer Survivorship and Prevention

In this episode of Walk, Don’t Run to the Doctor, Miles Hassell MD focuses on cancer survivorship and prevention, emphasizing the importance of lifestyle choices. Key takeaways include:

• Lifestyle and Cancer: Diet, exercise, and weight management are as crucial as conventional cancer treatments like surgery or chemotherapy.
• Dietary Recommendations: The Mediterranean diet is highlighted for its benefits in reducing cancer recurrence, improving survival rates, and enhancing quality of life.  Though the available research points to the Mediterranean diet being the most widely studied, any omnivorous, whole foods diet is practical here.
• Exercise & Physical Activity: Regular movement, even brief daily exercises, helps reduce cancer recurrence, boosts mood, and may improve treatment outcomes.
• Alcohol & Cancer: Moderate alcohol consumption may have health benefits, but overconsumption increases cancer risk.
• Weight Management: Maintaining a healthy weight is vital for cancer prevention and survivorship, as excess fat correlates with worse outcomes.
• Future Resources: A comprehensive cancer survivorship program will be available soon, with a detailed guide on managing cancer through lifestyle choices.

Tune in for expert insights and practical steps to enhance cancer outcomes through lifestyle adjustments!

The purpose of GreatMed.org is to enhance the doctor/patient relationship.  We encourage clinicians to talk with their patients about these points, and patients to talk with their care teams.  This information should not replace medical care, but enhance it.

The American Cancer Society Medical and Editorial Content Team. (2023, December 15). Body Weight and Cancer Risk. The American Cancer Society. https://www.cancer.org/cancer/risk-prevention/diet-physical-activity/body-weight-and-cancer-risk.html

Wang, F., et al. (2020). Adherence to dietary recommendations among long-term breast Cancer Survivors and Cancer Outcome Associations. Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, 29(2), 386–395. https://doi.org/10.1158/1055-9965.EPI-19-0872

Ergas, I. J., et al. (2021). Diet quality and breast cancer recurrence and survival: The pathways study. JNCI cancer spectrum, 5(2), pkab019. https://doi.org/10.1093/jncics/pkab019

Castro-Espin, C., et al. (2023).Association of Mediterranean diet with survival after breast cancer diagnosis in women from nine European countries: results from the EPIC cohort study. BMC Med 21, 225 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-023-02934-3

Zhang, W., et al. (2023). Adherence to healthy dietary patterns and glioma: a matched case-control study. Nutrients, 15(23), 4886. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38068744/

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