Barbara Boughton

This book is an excellent choice for anyone seeking to make the changes in their life needed to reduce their risk of cancer. It also will be highly informative to anyone who simply wants to understand the relationship between cancer and lifestyle choices. The primary author, Barbara Boughton, is a medical reporter who lost both of her parents to cancer, and who sought information from the literature and experts in the field to better understand the diseases that had so affected her family, and to devise a health strategy to reduce her own exposure.

The book covers such topics as risk assessment, lifestyle changes, preventive health strategies genetic counseling, anti-cancer medications, and ongoing research. The 12 chapters in the book cover the following: (1) What is Cancer Risk; (2) Assessing Your Cancer Risk: From the Web to Your Doctor’s Office; (3) Playing Detective: Discovering Your Family History of Cancer; (4) Protect Yourself Against Skin Cancer; (5) A Powerful Anti-Cancer Strategy: Physical Activity, Nutrition, and Avoiding Obesity; (6) Saving Your Life: Leaving Tobacco Behind; (7) Guarding Against Cancer: Staying Safe from Infection; (8) Get Screened for Cancer: Which Tests are Best? (9) the Environment Around Us: Get the Scoop on Chemicals, Pollution, and Everyday Products; (10) Making Decisions: Preventive Anti-Cancer Medications and Surgeries; (11) When You’ve Already Had Cancer: Steps you Can Take for Good Health; (12) Stress Busters: Staying Positive One Day at a Time.

In an introductory chapter entitled “Cancer Science or Cancer Myths: How Do You Tell the Difference”, co-author Michael Stefanik strongly cautions the reader against unproven preventatives, folk remedies, and in particular, the variety of unscientific methods being promoted under the guise of ‘alternative medicine.’ He writes: ’Alternative methods that claim to cure or prevent cancer are in most cases either unproven or even disproven by scientific evidence but still promoted by some practitioners. Many are expensive, painful, or toxic, and when promoted for treatment, can lead patients to forego beneficial conventional treatments while their disease worsens.’

This book has been endorsed by the American Cancer Society and is highly recommended for readers seeking to educate themselves about this disease, how to prevent it, and how to survive it.… (meer)

"Reduce Your Cancer Risk" has to be one of the best books I've read on the topic in many years. It exceeded my expectations in so many areas, I don't know where to begin.

I had expected the authors to either bore me with endless statistics that would eventually make my eyes glaze over, or, I expected to be condescended with sentences and vocabulary aimed to the lowest common denominator of reading skill. But instead, I was pleasantly surprised by the intelligent yet common sense tone of the text mixed with a good balance of supporting documentation and facts.

Even though I have considered myself well versed on the topics of health and nutrition, especially for someone not in the medical profession, I learned something new with nearly every page in the book. (I must confess that I skimmed two chapters that did not apply to me: tobacco and 'when you've already had cancer.').

If you read with a highlighter or ink pen, bring more than one, because you'll definite use them up as you read this. I've recommended and shown this to friends, although I won't loan it out for fear of not getting it back. This is worth owning, reading, and referring to time and time again. The information packed within will have you re-examining and evaluating your lifestyle choices and the impacts those choices have on your long-term health.

The only beef I have with this wonderful book is: first, the stance of support for censoring Hollywood to remove smoking from its films, which I believe is naïve; and second, no mention that I noticed about the connection between general oral health and the link to increased risks of other types of cancer. The only other concern I have is in the Obesity and Cancer chapter in which the author passively supports fad diets as a way of initiating weight loss, i.e., Atkins, South Beach, etc. Those short term solutions never have the lasting effect that straight forward exercise and diet-control have, and in some cases have the opposite effect.

All in all, this book belongs on every bookshelf in every home in the country.… (meer)

Blurb:

I was as hesitant about this book as I was hopeful; I wasn’t in the mood for a cliche-filled self-help handbook featuring dubious statistics. I was happily surprised to immediately discover that the book’s authors were scrupulously dedicated to providing facts based on the scientific method, with considerable fealty to the way in which studies are presented to the public. The book was a fast, informative, relevant primer on cancer, with tons of useful and trenchant website links for those who want additional info. As with anything, results are what matter, and this handbook produced those: I talked my 65-year-old mother into getting her first colonoscopy (she’s gloriously clean!), and have scheduled myself for an MRI. Thanks to all involved for this unflinching but laid-back and positive primer on the bane of cancer; you made it just a little less terrible.

Full Review:

My interest was piqued upon encountering Reduce Your Cancer Risk: Twelve Steps to a Healthier Life, co-published by the American Cancer Society. Having become fairly obsessive about my parents’ logevity now that they’re in their mid-60s, the potential of enhanced health and cancer awareness in only 12 discrete steps was tantalizing. However, I was looking for a solid reference book, not one inundated with all the sound bytes and cliches I see advertised around the Web many times a day; I demand the sound and rigorous application of the scientific method behind any medical facts presented me. I ended up having worried needlessly that Reduce Your Cancer Risk would be of the same ilk as many of its self-help brethren.

No one wishes to spend days upon end reading a book about avoiding or ameliorating cancer; one wishes to easily digest the information, and feel relaxed about accepting the advice and facts. My first impression was that the style of writing was plain and personable, and the advice and statistics easy to grasp and backed up by verifiable fact. Barbara Boughton quickly establishes herself as witty, approachable, calm, and smart; someone you’d like to have espresso (er -- i mean a whole wheat bagel) with while discussing the daunting topic of cancer. Because she’s frank about her own pains, fears, and embarrassments in dealing with hereditary cancers and cancer testing, the material becomes instantly more credible.

At the outset, I’d assumed Dr. Michael Stefanek’s contribution to the book would be mainly to lend the prestige of a medical doctor who works for the American Cancer Society; the feel of the book is typically self-help’ish when one first picks it up and looks at it. However, early in the book, we’re treated to a succinct, accurate primer on how to interpret the math behind the medical lingo and statistics dished out to the public via media sound bytes. At the end of the book, Dr. Stefanek again treats us, this time with a compact system with which to devise a plan for incorporating and establishing new behaviors to help us remain cancer-free, or to help us beat current cancers. The system seemed a bit obvious and intuitive, but it’s worth a look if you’ve been unsuccessful in adopting healthier habits on your own.

If you’re Web-savvy, you know how quickly things change; a perfectly good url may work one day, and present you with a 404 error the next. I checked every single one of the dozens of links (at the end of June, 2010), and all worked beautifully, first try, with very little automatic redirecting. To achieve this, there must have been expediency in getting the book to press; this is probably why a bit of attention to editing was lost, as I did find a handful of grammatical errors. Still, this didn’t in any way cloud my opinion of the information presented, nor of the authors.

Cancer is a nasty, palpably evil thing. This book helps mitigate some of the terror via positively-presented, highly useful facts. Because of this book, I talked my mother into getting her first colonoscopy at age 65 (her colon is gorgeously clean!), and I found out that I am at high risk for breast cancer, thus catalyzing my decision to schedule an MRI. Cancer sucks; this book makes it suck just a little bit less. And maybe, it’s gonna save your life. Check it out, and pass it on.

Keywords: cancer, “cancer research”, “medical reference”, “reference”, “cancer reference”, “american cancer society”, “cancer risk,” “reduce cancer risk,” “avoid cancer”, “medical reference,” “cancer reference,” “cancer news,” “cancer studies”… (meer)