American Cancer Society Updates Guideline for Diet and Physical Activity

The American Cancer Society has updated its guideline on diet and physical activity for cancer prevention. Dr. Laura Makaroff—Senior Vice President of Prevention and Early Detection at the American Cancer Society—joined the podcast to explain how staying at a healthy weight, staying active throughout life, following a healthy eating pattern, and avoiding or limiting alcohol may greatly reduce a person's lifetime risk of developing or dying from cancer. At least 18% of all cancer cases in the US are related to a combination of these factors. These lifestyle habits are the most important behaviors after not smoking that people can control and change to help lower their cancer risk. The updated guideline reflects the latest evidence published since the last update in 2012. It appears in the American Cancer Society’s peer-reviewed journal, CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians: https://acsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.3322/caac.21591. A summary can be found on our home page: https://www.cancer.org/latest-news/american-cancer-society-updates-guideline-for-diet-and-physical-activity.html. 2:05 – Background on the Guidelines for Diet and Physical Activity and why they were updated 3:23 – How the guidelines are intended for a broad audience of health care professionals, policymakers, and the general public 6:32 – On the impact of body weight on cancer risk 11:04 - Why preventing weight gain as we age is important 14:01 – “Move more, sit less” and the link between physical activity and post-menopausal breast cancer 18:06 – On healthy lifestyle patterns and accommodating slip-ups while maintain a healthy pattern 24:09 – Recommendations for alcohol consumption 25:48 – “If you could eliminate just one obstacle to our engaging in healthy behaviors, what would it be?” 28:05 – ACS resources that can help people make better decisions about their health behaviors 30:15 – A message she’d like to share with cancer patients, survivors, and caregivers