Simple adjustments to your lifestyle can help reduce the risk of breast cancer even more!

At Walk the Walk, we are passionate about raising money for research and helping to improve the lives of those already diagnosed with cancer. On top of this, our ethos has always been to encourage women, men and children to realise their own potential for good health and wellbeing through walking!

Prevention of serious illnesses like breast cancer is incredibly important and there is so much that each of us can do that may help reduce our own risk. Figures from the World Cancer Research Fund show that breast cancer is now even more preventable than previous studies have shown.

According to the new research from the WCRF:-

• Lifestyle factors are responsible for 27% of breast cancer cases in women
• A low level of physical activity is responsible for 7.5% of cases
• A high BMI is responsible for 7.6% of cases
• Alcohol consumption is the highest risk factor – responsible for 8.2% of breast cancer cases in females

These figures are really eye opening! Including doing more exercise, we can all make a number of simple adjustments to our lives that may help prevent breast cancer. These are WCRF’s main recommendations for cancer prevention:-

• eating no more than three portions of red meat a week and little if any processed meat
• eating a wide variety of fruit, vegetables, wholegrains, and very little junk food including sugary drinks
• being active for at least 150 minutes a week, and sitting less
• avoiding alcohol

Dr Giota Mitrou, Director of Research Funding and Science External Relations at the World Cancer Research Fund said:

“Our research has found that lifestyle factors seem to be responsible for over a quarter of breast cancer cases in women in the UK. This gives a clear indication of the lifestyle changes we should focus on to decrease our likelihood of a cancer diagnosis, including: reducing alcohol intake, being a healthy weight and being physically active. With the coronavirus pandemic continuing to have an impact on people’s outcomes and experience of cancer care, knowing how to reduce your risk has never been more vital.”

Walk the Walk Founder and Chief Executive Nina Barough said:

“It wasn’t all that long ago, when it was thought that ‘lifestyle’, could have an impact on the prevention of cancer – but we had no idea why, or how much. The new statistics show the link between exercise, diet, nutrition and prevention is even stronger than suspected.

One huge positive to have come out of Covid, is that so many people have discovered the massive health benefits of walking. I would just love to see a wonderful chain reaction of people passing this on! That’s very much a goal for Walk the Walk going forward. As a health charity, one of our main aims is to support those who are living with cancer, but even better would be, if we could help people to not get cancer in the first place, that’s our ultimate wish.”

 Help reduce your risk of breast cancer by keeping active! Sign up for a Walk the Walk Challenge here