Healthy Food Choices for Colon Cancer

Avoid colon cancer by eating a high fiber diet. Learn how to adjust your diet to fit your specific health and nutrition needs in this video on grocery shopping.

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Eat vegetables and vary colors
Fiber reduces risk of colon cancer
Limit saturated fat and cholesterol
Get plenty of exercise

About this Author

Mary Hondros graduated from University of Georgia with a Bachelor of Science in Dietetics. She currently works as a nutritionist for New Hanover County Schools in North Carolina. Her main focus is to teach children to improve nutritional habits.

MARY HONDROS: Okay, I'm going to talk a little bit about colon cancer. Colon cancer is the third leading cause of cancer death in the United States. 1 in 17 people will develop colon cancer sometime in their life. The scary part is that it's usually diagnosed before the age of 40. What happens with colon cancer is that it spreads very quickly because the polyps begin to grow in your intestines and they grow very rapidly, because they have access to all the nutrients that pass through your entire body. So it's a very deadly type of cancer. As with any type of cancer prevention, you can eat a healthy diet and prevent your risk by about 30% for developing cancer. One of the key nutrients that you want to include in your diet, or the key food groups are vegetables of any type. And when you think about eating your vegetables everyday, you want to vary your colors. So that means deep purples, eggplant. That also means reds, like red peppers, deep greens like greed peppers and spinach. And obviously yellow, like yellow peppers and orange for carrots. So you always want to vary your colors. Also, you want to reduce your intake of things like red meat, processed food, highly refined foods, sweets and things like that, because those are high in saturated fat and they may actually promote cancer in your body. So, 4 tips if you're trying to reduce your risk for cancers, especially colon cancer, is remember to eat your vegetables and vary your colors, first of all. Secondly, remember to eat your vegetables because they're very high in fiber, which tends to reduce your risk of colon cancer as it kind of keeps things moving through your intestines. Thirdly, remember to reduce or limit the amount of saturated fat and cholesterol you're getting from red meats and highly refined products, you know, things that are high in sugar and things like that. And lastly, remember to get plenty of exercise and drink plenty of water. Water helps keep your digestive tract also moving, which helps reduce your risk for developing any type of colon cancer. So those are 4 tips on living cancer-free.

Healthy Food Choices for Colon Cancer Video

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