Here’s the important truth about this useful news.  You must accumulate 30 or more minutes of moderate-intensity exercise most days of the week to make a real difference in your risk.  Your exercise level should contribute to maintenance of a healthy weight.  Overweight or obese people are at higher cancer risk than those at normal weight.

Increasing your daily activity by parking farther away from the grocery store or taking a flight of stairs at work is not enough exercise to lower your cancer risk.  If the primary goal is to hold a healthy weight, you’ve got to be active enough to make that happen.

One-third of  the 500,000+ cancer deaths that occur in the U.S.annually can be traced to diet and habits of physical activity.  To put that statistic in perspective, it’s about  of tobacco-related cancer deaths.*  Researcher Colleen Doyle, MS, RD, Director of Nutrition and Physical Activity for the American Cancer Society, states “For years, we’ve told people what habits to adopt to lower their cancer risk, but it has become increasingly clear we need to create environments that make it easier to make healthy choices.”* Therefore, accumulating 30 or more minutes of moderate-intensity exercise most days of the week along with a healthy diet can help reduce your cancer risk.

In other words, being health comes back to exercising and eating right once again.

* Sources Cited
Kushi, L. (2006, September). CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians. News Release, American Cancer Society. , pp. 254-281.
Warner, J. (2006, September/October). Cancer Health Center. Retrieved April 2010, from WebMD : http://www.webmd.com/cancer/news/20060928/do-real-exercise-to-prevent-cancer