THE GOOD NEWS ABOUT CANCER

RISK-REDUCING BREAKTHROUGHS. CUTTING-EDGE SCREENINGS. POWERFUL NEW TREATMENTS: The death rate from cancers in America has declined by 33 percent in the past three decades—that’s an estimated 3.8 million lives saved!—and if you start taking your cancer risk seriously now, you'll vastly increase your odds of surviving. HERE’S HOW

The First Rule of Cancer: TRY NOT TO GET IT

Doctors know more than ever about how to avoid cancerand you're more in control than you may realize.

SOMEDAY THERE MAY BE DRUGS THAT PROTECT you from all types of cancer. There's a vaccine already-the HPV vaccine-that does just that for certain types. And labs all over the world are trying to read your body's signals and find biomarkers in your blood that ID who's at increased risk for what cancer so that they can target exactly what you need to do to prevent it. You can talk molecular targeting and mRNA therapy all you want, but when you ask researchers about the most successful way to prevent cancer right now, they'll tell you the answer is in your hands. Forty-two percent of new cancers may be avoided if you make lifestyle changes that reduce your risk. These tweaks make a greater difference than you might think.

THE TWO BIGGIES

1: FIGHT OBESITY, FIGHT CANCER, TOO

YES, WE'RE GOING to mention weight here. That's because researchers are now discovering a major link between obesity and cancer. How much obesity affects the risk of cancer kind of depends on the type, but the National Cancer Institute says that excess weight may lead to as many as 48 percent of liver and gallbladder cancers and about 33 percent of esophageal cancers in men. Excess bodyweight may also have a role in (deep breath here) multiple myeloma, breast, meningioma, kidney, upper stomach, pancreas, thyroid, and colon cancers.