'Life's Simple 7' Steps: Lowering Your Heart Disease, Cancer Risks

The decline in the death rates for both heart disease and cancer is due in large part to reductions in smoking and advances in early detection and treatment. But these rates are still too high since many risk factors for both heart disease and cancer are modifiable.

[Transcript]

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[Theodore Feldman, M.D., Medical Director of Prevention and Community Health, Miami Cardiac & Vascular Institute]: Modifying your lifestyle can have a profound impact upon reducing the incidence of developing heart disease as well as cancer.

[video of doctor Theodore Feldman giving a speech at a wellness fair]

[Theodore Feldman, M.D.]: And well, we've come to realize that if you have ideal lifestyle as it relates to nutrition, physical activity, cigarette smoking and weight, and your manage your blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar, you can reduce your incidence of developing heart disease by almost 90% over a subsequent 10-year period, if all of those metrics are ideal.

[video of doctor Theodore Feldman giving a speech at a wellness fair]

[Theodore Feldman, M.D.]: Well, interestingly those same seven metrics, which has been coined Life's Simple 7 by the American Heart Association, has been associated in a variety of studies with not only the likelihood of reducing the chance of getting heart disease over the next 10 years, but reducing the incidence of all forms of cancer, diabetes, obesity and chronic lung disease by between 50 and 80%.

[video of doctor Theodore Feldman giving a speech at a wellness fair]

[Jane Mendez, M.D., Chief of Breast Surgery, Miami Cancer Institute]: Obesity is linked to breast cancer just because the more fat cells we have and the more overweight we are, the higher the estrogen levels perhaps, because the estrogen deposits itself in the adipose cells, or the fatty cells.

[video of doctor Jane Mendez giving a speech at a wellness fair]

[Jane Mendez, M.D.]: So obese women tend to have a higher estrogen level in their body. And the most common type of breast cancer is one that grows or is stimulated because of the influence of the estrogen. So that's why it's important to maintain a healthy weight. That's why it's important to exercise as a means of prevention when you are dealing with breast cancer, because there's absolutely a link between the two.

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