Auntie Jean and Auntie Norma – Challenges in Cancer Prevention

Everyone knows of an ‘Auntie Jean’. She is the older woman, who liked a good drink, hearty meals, and big puddings and specialises in spectator sport (with feet up in front of the telly). She scores 0 for lifestyle actions for reducing cancer risk. Not a second thought to worrying about health (“the doctor never said I was doing anything wrong“), lived well over the three score years and ten, and dropped dead one day without bothering a soul.

Cutting Cancer Cases – Ready Steady Go!

More than two thousand years ago Hippocrates, the Father of Modern Medicine, noted that if we all had “the right amount of nourishment and exercise, not too little and not too much, we would have found the safest way to health”. In general, all too few of us are following Hippocrates’ advice today.

In cancer terms, we know that 4 in 10 cancer cases in the UK could be prevented largely by changes to lifestyle. In this blog post I’ll be looking at one of these changes: being physically active.

Bowel Cancer Awareness Month: Reducing Risk is Everyone’s Business

As part of Bowel Cancer Awareness month, we’re running a series of mini-blogs from cancer experts. Here’s the next instalment from Professor Annie S. Anderson.

I would like the public to know that getting bowel cancer is not about bad luck and fate.

Bowel Cancer Awareness Month – What can we do to reduce our personal risk of bowel cancer?

As part of Bowel Cancer Awareness month, we’re running a series of mini-blogs from cancer experts . Here’s the next instalment from Dr Aileen Keel CBE.

I’d like to see greater public awareness of what individuals can do to reduce their personal risk of bowel cancer. Of course, an important part of that is taking part in the bowel screening programme.

Confessions of a Converted Pedestrian: The Art of the Silent Clench

Another installment of Kate Cunningham’s Confessions of a Converted Pedestrian….

Will these rains never cease? Really though. I can walk in rain but gales are a whole new ball game. A childhood lived in a hurricane zone has left me a bit fearful of wind if I’m honest, and being blown about leaves me a quite panicked. Add to that a month of end to end meetings and deadlines…and I was facing some enforced inactivity.

Laughing in the Rain

We love when someone offers to write a guest blog and we were particularly pleased when Ms Susan J. Moug, Consultant Surgeon and Honorary Clinical Senior Lecturer at Royal Alexandra Hospital, Paisley shared their experiences of running a walking group for survivors of colorectal cancer. Sounds like they had great fun along the way!

 

Last year the colorectal team at Royal Alexandra Hospital (RAH) Paisley started a 6-week walking programme for colorectal cancer survivors. Armed with the knowledge that increasing physical activity is beneficial for cancer survivors and with the success of programmes like www.walkwithadoc.org we decided to put our best feet forward.

Confessions of a Converted Pedestrian: Beware of Muscly People Bearing Gadgets

Another installment of Kate Cunningham’s Confessions of a Converted Pedestrian….

The best and easiest reason for not being active is scheduling. I am too busy, I have too many commitments, everything is more important and on and on. There are many well written, well thought out articles and advice about how to get moving, how to fit things in and how to change your mind-set. I have found some of it helpful and some of it interesting but by and large I have found most of it to be self-serving, lacking in understanding and compassion and worst of all completely off putting.

Confessions of a Converted Pedestrian: A Miraculous Invention

Another installment of Kate Cunningham’s Confessions of a Converted Pedestrian….

The weather isn’t improving. My ad hoc walking wardrobe is a bit on the light side and I’ve ended up cutting a few walks short recently because I was too cold or soaked through. A pair of inexpensive but decent walking shoes keep my feet warm and dry. My waxed coat (with apologies to my late father who made me promise never to wear it in public) is great in rain and passable in the cold, I recommend it to anyone stuck for a work and weekend option that wasn’t invented by NASA. That and my quilted jacket are both more than 20 years old thereby proving that new and special kit is most definitely not required for this activity lark.

#AlwaysTakeTheStairs

Many years ago I recall John Durnin, Professor of Physiology at University of Glasgow, scoffing at the concept of encouraging stair climbing as a useful form of exercise, remarking that one would need to spend a lot of time stepping up to make any difference to fitness or caloric expenditure. For decades I too felt that climbing stairs was an “additional” extra and not a prime message for physical activity until I started to read the emerging evidence on the dangers of sedentary behaviour and identifying opportunities for breaking up sitting time.