An easy, but powerful way for you to reduce your risk for developing colorectal and other cancers-and to maintain your health from the inside out-is to take a few sensible steps to eating right and living well. These steps include making simple adjustments to your lifestyle, such as eating a nutritious diet, staying physically fit, and avoiding harmful substances such as tobacco and excess alcohol. Tips to a colon-friendly lifestyle are provided here, but it is always necessary to consult your doctor about what diet, exercise, and other lifestyle factors are right for you and your needs.

Tips for Colon-Friendly Nutrition
Tips for a Colon-Friendly Exercise Program


Tips for Colon-Friendly Nutrition

To help keep your colon as healthy as possible, a colon-friendly diet is essential. This includes: an eating plan that is low in fat (less than 30% of total daily calories), high in fiber (particularly cereal fiber), and rich in fruits and vegetables, whole grains, beans, legumes, and lean proteins. In addition, substances such as calcium, folate, and vitamin D are important colon-protective agents.

To find out how colon-friendly your diet is, you can take the following quiz.

Is Your Diet Colon-Friendly?
Take This Quiz to Find Out

The following ten-question quiz is designed to give you a snapshot of problem areas in your diet. Answer each question with a simple yes or no.

1. Do you eat red meat (beef, pork, lamb, processed meats such as bacon, luncheon meats, sausage, hot dogs, or salami) once a week or less?
Yes ___ No ___

2. Do you eat two or more servings of non-fat or low-fat foods that are rich in calcium foods (such as milk, yogurt, or cheese) each day, or take 1000 milligrams to 1200 milligrams of supplemental calcium?
Yes ___ No ___

3. Do you take a multivitamin/mineral tablet most days of the week?
Yes ___ No ___

4. Do you drink, on average, less than one alcoholic beverage a day or none at all?
Yes ___ No ___

5. Do you eat two to three servings of fruit and three to five of vegetables each day?
Yes ___ No ___

6. Do you generally limit high-sugar, high-calorie foods (such as pie, cake, candy, chocolate, cookies, ice cream) in your diet?
Yes ___ No ___

7. Throughout the week, do you regularly choose whole-grain carbohydrates (such as bran flakes, whole wheat bread or pasta, brown rice, or barley)?
Yes ___ No ___

8. Throughout the week, do you regularly choose high-fiber vegetables such as beans, peas, and legumes?
Yes ___ No ___

9. When you use fat or oil for food preparation, do you usually use olive oil, canola oil, or trans-free margarines?
Yes ___ No ___

10. Do you drink eight to ten cups of non-caffeinated fluid each day?
Yes ___ No ___

Calculating Your Results
Tally up the number of your yes's, and interpret your score according to the following key:

9-10: Congratulations. Your dietary habits are excellent, and will go a long way toward helping to keep your colon healthy.

6-8: Good job. You are doing a number of beneficial things. Review your responses, and try to think of some changes you might make to turn your "no's" into "yes's."

3-5: A fair effort, but you can do better. You may wish to consult a registered dietitian to help you make some healthy changes.

0-2: You may want to schedule an appointment with a registered dietitian to help you plan a better nutritional program. It will be important for you to pay special attention to your diet, starting today.

Seven Easy Steps
In striving to adapt a more colon-friendly diet, you should consult your doctor and consider the following seven principles:

1--Take advantage of the healing power of fruits and vegetables.
Fruits and vegetables are loaded with nutrients that may protect you from a number of chronic diseases, including colorectal cancer. Some of these natural anti-cancer agents include vitamins, minerals, and natural chemicals, such as isothiocynates or saponins. These plant chemicals, or phytochemicals, appear to have many important cancer preventive functions.

2--Increase fiber for the overall health of your digestive system.
Eating a diet rich in fiber, particularly cereal fiber, may help reduce the risk of developing colorectal cancer. One of the many benefits of fiber is its help in eliminating bile acids, a potential cancer promoter, from your system.

3--Reduce your intake of red meat.
You need a certain amount of protein from food to furnish the building material for your body and its many tissues, but one type of protein you do not need too much of is red meat, including beef, pork, veal, and lamb. An excess of red meat-5 or more servings per week-has been associated with an increased risk for colorectal cancer.

4--Go easy on fat.
A high intake of saturated fat (found in meat, butter, animal products), as well as trans- fats (found in margarine, vegetable shortening, many commercially baked foods) may be linked to an increased risk of developing colorectal cancer. But can you eat the so-called "good fats" - monounsaturated fats and the omega-3s? Absolutely. Two of the best sources of monounsaturated fats are olive oil and certain types of fish.

5-Dairy: Milk it for all it's worth.
Low-fat dairy products, such as skim or 1% milk, low-fat or non-fat yogurt, and low-fat cheeses, are rich sources of a number of anti-cancer substances, such as calcium, vitamin D, conjugated linoleic acid, and probiotics (friendly bacteria that are found in yogurt and other fermented dairy products).

6-- De-sugar your diet.
Too much sugar and sugar-containing foods in your diet may be linked to an increased risk of colorectal cancer. In one study, investigators found that the risk of colorectal cancer increased twofold in women whose diets were high in sugar.

7-- Water your digestive system.
Our bodies are 60% water-a substance that is required for growth, development, transport of nutrients and waste products, and overall health. You should be drinking well beyond the call of thirst-for a total of eight to ten glasses of plain water each day.


Tips for a Colon-Friendly Exercise Program

Eating smart goes a long way toward maintaining good health. But so do other lifestyle habits, such as staying physically active. Exercise has proven to be an unexpected friend in the fight against cancer, including colorectal cancer. In the Nurses' Health Study, for example, exercise was shown to cut a woman's risk of developing colorectal polyps and cancer in half. Other scientific investigations have found similar benefits for men.

The good news is, even if you do not have time for a structured exercise program, you can sneak some helpful activities into your everyday life:

• Try taking the stairs more often, rather than the elevator or escalator. Stair climbing is a great way to enhance your cardiovascular fitness, plus improve your leg strength.
  
  
• Assess your environment: Can you stop using the closest vending machine, coffee station, restroom, or parking space? Set your life up so that you take the long route to wherever you're headed.
  
  
• Do your own housework. Play some music while you work, making it fun, and move your body to the rhythm of the music. You'll burn up about 250 calories an hour; more (450) if you scrub floors.
  
  
• Do gardening and yard work. Though not as aerobic as running, both activities provide the same fitness benefits as a steady walk. Planting, weeding, digging, and other forms of gardening expend roughly 220 calories in an hour.
  
  
• Become a do-it-yourselfer. Painting, hanging wallpaper, and doing light carpentry provide the same metabolic results as a brisk walk.
  
  
• If you take a subway, train, taxi, or bus to your place of employment, get off a stop or two earlier and walk the rest of the way.
  
  
• Pursue a new sport. Playing sports is fun, and you'd be surprised at how many calories you'll burn up in just an hour. Sports such as basketball, tennis, bowling, golf (pulling your cart), and badminton use up between 300 and 450 calories an hour - even more than a brisk walk!
  
  

Be sure to consult your doctor about what type of exercise program and level is right for you. No matter what activity you and your doctor choose, try to get in at least a half hour of lifestyle activity each day.