your health
Manage Your Genetic Inheritance
So what are you going to do with your genes? Here are specific strategies to protect your health.
Your family has heart disease:
• Get checked. Check your blood pressure annually and cholesterol every five years, unless your doctor recommends more frequent screening.
• Know your numbers. Get your LDL (bad cholesterol) under 100, your HDL (good cholesterol) over 45 and your triglycerides less than 150. Also, keep your blood pressure under 120/80.
• Quit smoking. Cigarettes double your chances of having a heart attack.
• Stay active. Aim for three hours of brisk walking a week. Vigorous exercise can boost HDL, while moderate activity reins in triglycerides. It can also reduce blood pressure by as much as 10 points.
• Choose good fats. Avoid foods with saturated and trans fats, which raise LDL. Choose good fats, like olive oil, nuts and fish, and go easy on red meat and baked goods.
• Keep it real. Keep whole foods like popcorn, apples and nuts on hand for snacks.
• Manage your stress levels. Exercise is great for this. And try meditation. A study of people with heart disease who meditated daily showed a 50 percent drop in deaths.
Your family has diabetes:
• Get checked. Get a glucose tolerance test every three years. If you have prediabetes, get screened annually.
• Watch your waist. People who carry excess fat around their middle are at greater risk for heart disease and diabetes. Losing just 5–7 percent of your body weight decreases your risk by more than 50 percent.
• Stay active. Research shows that 30 minutes of daily exercise can prevent type 2 diabetes in all populations.
• Cut out soda. A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association reports women who drink more than one sugar-sweetened soda a day up their risk of diabetes by 40 percent. (Drinking diet soda had no significant effect on risk.)
Your family has colon cancer:
• Get checked. If you have a family history of colon cancer, get your first screening at the age of 40 or 10 years before your youngest relative developed the disease. Your doctor will decide whether a colonoscopy, fecal occult blood test, or flexible sigmoidoscopy is best for you.
• Eat well. Eating a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, legumes and whole grains may reduce your risk of colon cancer by up to 40 percent. Limit your consumption of red and processed meats. Both are linked to high cancer rates.
• Stay active. Walking for one hour six days a week cut colon cancer-related deaths in half. Another study showed that people who exercised the most were 25 percent less likely to develop colon cancer in the first place.
Your family has breast cancer:
• Get checked. Beginning 10 years earlier than the age your youngest family member was diagnosed, get clinical breast exams every six months and mammograms and/or MRIs annually—at least. Your doctor may decide, based on your history, to perform them more frequently.
• Consider testing. Talk to your doctor about genetic testing, which could predict your chances of developing breast cancer—and inform your treatment options.
• Avoid alcohol. Just one to two drinks a day can raise your risk by 10 percent.
• If you can, plan children early. “Having children
before 30 and breastfeeding them for at least 12 months offers long-term protective benefits to women predisposed to breast cancer,” says Colby.
• Maintain a healthy weight. The higher your BMI, the higher your chances of getting breast cancer.
• Eat well. Skip processed and red meat and pile on vegetables, whole grains, fish and legumes instead.
• Stay active. Cut your breast cancer risk by 20 percent by exercising moderately most days of the week.
SUMMER 2010 | HEALTHY ADVICE 25
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