Kill two birds with one stone :

Kill two birds with one stone :

The two intimidating ‘birds’ are cancer and coronary heart disease.

The ‘stone’ in our hand is a healthy life style and healthy levels of blood pressure, cholesterol and sugar.

We all know that a healthy life style and optimum blood pressure, cholesterol and sugar levels are associated with a low likelihood of coronary heart disease.

Now, studies show that even the probability of cancer is affected by these measures.

The 4 life style measures  are diet, physical exercise, avoidance of smoking and obesity.

The optimum levels of total cholesterol to have with a healthy lifestyle are  <200 80="" a="" additionally="" and="" are="" blood="" control="" course="" diastolic="" different="" dl.="" dl="" drugs="" f="" fasting="" glucose="" have="" hg="" if="" life="" measures="" mg="" mm="" mmhg="" nbsp="" not="" o:p="" of="" pressure="" resorted="" serum="" set="" slightly="" systolic="" targets="" these="" to="" under="" with="">

Greater the adherence to all these metrics, greater the benefit, so that if all the parameters are taken care of, cancer chances reduce by 50%, recent studies show.

Interestingly also, the two drugs known to prevent heart disease- aspirin and statins- are also now found to have some benefits in cancer prevention.

In Asian population, studies have found additional benefit with  a normal waist to hip ratio ( ≤ 0.9) and increased fruits and vegetables in diet.

Thus, having a healthy lifestyle and ideal readings with judicious use of medications can not only prevent heart disease. They can do a profitable  “side business” too !

Why not kill two birds with one stone ?