03/27/2026
With 30-50% of common cancers being preventable with diet and lifestyle, we have the power to change our health destiny.
For cancer prevention, the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) recommendations include: maintaining a healthy weight; exercising; eating a diet rich in whole grains, vegetables, fruits, and beans; and limiting consumption of fast food, processed junk, meats, soda, and alcohol.
Breast cancer risk was reduced by 60% in women who met at least five of those recommendations compared to those who met none.
The most important advice:
Maintain a healthy body weight
Eat mostly foods of plant origin
Limit alcohol consumption
Limit intake of animal-based foods
If you could do only one of those recommendations, limit consumption of animal foods. That seems most protective.
Greater adherence to the AICR dietary guidelines was associated with significantly less breast, endometrial, colorectal, lung, kidney, stomach, oral, liver, and esophageal cancers.
And for people with cancer, the same dietary recommendations can help save lives after diagnosis, too, including for breast cancer.
Adherence to the cancer prevention recommendations isn’t just associated with higher survival in cancer patients and lower risk of dying from cancer, but lower risk of dying overall.
What's good for cancer prevention is also good for heart disease prevention. That’s one of the beautiful things about eating a more plant-based diet.
See the videos “Diet and Lifestyle for Cancer Prevention and Survival” at see.nf/3O4GyAa and “Which Dietary Factors Affect Breast Cancer Most?” at see.nf/4qLvedB to learn more.
PMID: 32067678, 32922233, 23780838, 26804371, 22592101, 23462914, 23553166, 23509058, 32067678
