AICR Cancer Prevention Guidelines

With the exception of avoiding smoking, the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) cancer prevention guidelines all are related to eating a healthy diet, exercising regularly, and maintaining a healthy body weight. This means that by making simple changes to your diet today, you can get big benefits in your health for the long-term.

Getting Started

If it seems overwhelming to try to meet all of the guidelines at once, start by focusing on one at a time. For example, maybe you need to lose weight, but you don't feel ready to tackle that goal yet. Start first by focusing on the other guidelines.

Perhaps you don't eat the 7 to 9 servings of fruit and vegetables every day that you should. Start by adding in one or two servings of these foods each day. Take an apple to work to snack on instead of going to the vending machine. Add some frozen vegetables to the side of your dinner plate. It's as simple as steaming them for a few minutes, squeezing a little lemon over them, and sprinkling with pepper.

Maybe you don't eat enough complex carbohydrates. Start by swapping out your "white" bread products for whole grain versions. Switch to whole grain pastas, or add more beans and less meat to your chili recipe.

Take a 10 minute break in the middle of the day to walk around your building at work or to go up and down your block at home. Add these 10 minute "mini-exercise" sessions in at least one to two times per day to get started. Try to work up to at least 30 minutes of exercise per day.

There are lots of simple steps you can take to slowly improve your diet and lifestyle habits. After you have added in one guideline and made it a habit, pick another one to tackle. By slowly making these changes, you can make them a pleasant and important part of your day and get healthier while you're at it. The only way to form better health habits isto practice them until they replace your current habits. It takes a little work in the beginning, but you can succeed.

Getting Down To The Details

Use the following tips to get started on the AICR Cancer Prevention Guidelines today.

1. Maintain a healthy body weight

Having a BMI of 25 kg/m2 or less is the key to meeting this recommendation. Use our BMI calculator to determine your BMI.

Weight gain since age 18:  To reduce cancer risk, AICR recommends that people keep their adult body weight within 11 pounds of what they weighed at age 18.

2. Physical activity (exercise)

AICR recommends that people exercise moderately for some time every day and exercise vigorously for at least 1 hour each week. Be sure to talk to your doctor before you begin an exercise plan.

Moderate exercise can include walking, yard work, and other activities that get your blood pumping. You should be slightly winded, but not so out-of-breath that you can't carry on a conversation. 

Vigorous activity means working up a sweat and going at a pace that makes regular conversation a little challenging. However, you should never be gasping for breath.

Get Moving

Talk to your health care provider about a good exercise plan for you.

• Be sure you receive clearance from your doctor before beginning an exercise plan.
• Exercise plans do not have to be fancy or hard. A long, brisk walk each day can make you healthier. Any regular exercise is better than none at all.
• Find an exercise buddy, such as a family member or co-worker. It is harder to skip exercise when you plan to meet someone for it.
• Schedule exercise, even 10 minutes, into your day. Write it on your calendar. If you don't make time for it, you won't do it.

3. Vegetables and fruit

You need to consume a minimum of 5 servings of vegetables and fruit each day. But remember, this is the MINIMUM. This means that on most days, you should be consuming MORE than 5 servings of vegetables and fruit. Plant foods, including vegetables and fruit, should make up the majority of your diet.

What is a serving of vegetables?

• 1 cup, loosely packed raw green leafy vegetables or ½ cup cooked greens
• ½ cup chopped of any other vegetable, cooked
• 6 ounces of 100% vegetable juice (low sodium is a good option)

What is a serving of fruit?

• 1 medium apple, banana, or orange
• 1 melon wedge (about 1/6 to 1/8 of whole melon, depending upon size of the fruit) 
• ¼ to ½ cup berries or chopped fruit
• 1 to 2 ounces dried fruit (e.g. raisins, dried cranberries, prunes, etc.)
• ¾ cup fruit juice - this is 6 ounces of 100% fruit juice, not fruit drink

4. Complex carbohydrates

The American Institute for Cancer Research recommends that people eat about 20 to 30 ounces of complex carbohydrates every day. This includes foods such as whole grain cereals, legumes (starchy beans), and roots vegetables (sweet potatoes, carrots, beets, parsnips, potatoes, radishes, etc.). That's about 1¼ to nearly 2 pounds of healthy, complex carbohydrates. This works out to be a minimum of seven portions of these foods. One portion is approximately ½ to 1 cup for these complex carbohydrates.

Limit or avoid simple sugars and refined (white) bread products. When you purchase a grain product, look at the ingredient list. If you see the word "enriched," then the product is not a whole grain.

5. Limit alcohol

If you use alcohol at all, limit yourself to one drink per day or less. One drink is defined as:

• 12 ounces of beer
• 6 ounces of wine
• 1 ounces of hard liquor

6. Limit red meat (beef, lamb, pork, and products made from these meats)

Eat no more than 3 ounces of red meat (beef, lamb, pork, and products made from these meats) each day.

A 3-ounce serving of meat is about the size of a deck of cards.

7. Dietary fat

Keep your fat intake to 30% or less of your total calories. Use the following chart to determine how many fat grams are included in diets of a variety of calorie levels.

Daily Calories in the Diet	30% Calories from Fat	25% Calories from Fat	20% Calories from Fat
1,200	40 grams of fat	33 grams of fat	27 grams of fat
1,600	53 grams of fat	44 grams of fat	36 grams of fat
2,000	67 grams of fat	56 grams of fat	44 grams of fat
2,200	73 grams of fat	61 grams of fat	49 grams of fat
2,500	83 grams of fat	69 grams of fat	56 grams of fat

As an example, if you normally eat about 2,000 calories each day, be sure to eat no more than 67 grams of fat each day.

8. Salt (sodium)

Keep your intake of sodium, which is more commonly known as salt, below 2,400 milligrams each day. To accomplish this goal, keep the following points in mind:

• Limit your use of processed foods. Did you know that as much as 75% of the sodium in the typical "American" diet comes from processed foods? This includes frozen meals; "TV dinners"; fast food; canned foods; soups; microwave meals; crackers, pretzels, and chips; cured, smoked, and salted meats; cereals; cheeses; breads; and many other foods that people commonly eat.
• Limit the amount of salt you use in cooking.
• Do not add salt to your food at the table. Remove the salt shaker from the table so you won't be tempted to use it.
• Look for and avoid hidden sources of sodium. Flavorings, such as lemon pepper, Asian seasoning, herb chicken seasoning, and meat tenderizer, can be loaded with sodium.
• Watch for terms that mean salt and sodium, even if they don't look familiar to you. Some "salty" ingredients in many foods include monosodium glutamate (MSG), sodium citrate, sodium sulfite, sodium caseinate, sodium benzoate, sodium hydroxide, and disodium phosphate.

9. Avoid smoking

If you smoke, talk to your doctor about making a plan for quitting. Quitting smoking is challenging, but you can succeed. Obtaining help from your medical care provider who can prescribe nicotine replacement therapy, such as the patch, gum, nasal spray, or inhaler, will substantially increase the chances that you quit for good. In addition to nicotine replacement, you can obtain advice from your doctor on support groups, "quit smoking" programs, and other ways to help yourself give up the smoking habit for good.