Veggies, laughter can lower Realage
More and more evidence of the important difference between chronological age and biological age has emerged. The latest comes from researchers at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Their study, published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, shows that a woman’s biological age — determined by analyzing the degree of her DNA methylation, a chemical modification to DNA that’s part of the normal aging process — can predict her risk for breast cancer. They found that for every five years a woman’s biologic age was older than her chronologic age, her risk of developing breast cancer went up 15 percent!
You can roll back your Realage by five to 15 years! Start today: Enjoy nine servings daily of fruits, veggies and 100 percent whole grains; ditch red and processed meats; get 30 to 60 minutes of physical activity five or more days a week; sleep seven to eight hours nightly; love your friends and family; and laugh a lot.
Unless colonoscopies make you laugh, this is good news
Funnymen Steve Martin, Martin Short and Tom Hanks get together every other year to prepare for their colonoscopies. Anyone who has had this test knows that the day before is less than enjoyable, but the trio makes it fun. They eat Jell-o, play poker and take their turns in the bathroom.
Research shows routine screening (using fecal occult blood testing, sigmoidoscopy or colonoscopy — the gold standard) beginning at 50 can prevent or catch early colorectal cancer. Screening should begin sooner if you’ve got a family history of the disease.
We would never suggest less quality time with friends, but there may be a way to get fewer colonoscopies. It’s now possible to screen a person with average colorectal cancer risk using a noninvasive fecal immunochemical test, or FIT, that can detect malignant cells in the stool. You collect a stool sample at home and send it into a lab.
A comprehensive analysis in Annals of Internal Medicine looked at 31 studies and found FIT to be a good way to ID if a person at average risk for colon cancer needs to have a colonoscopy. If FIT detects any abnormalities, then absolutely yes. (About a third of folks with a positive FIT turn out to have advanced precancerous polyps or colon cancer.) But if no abnormalities are spotted, FIT will buy you some time before your next essential colonoscopy.
Email questions for Mehmet Oz and Mike Roizen to youdocsdaily@ sharecare.com.