zone-alpha

We all know the general drill when it comes to cancer protection: stop smoking (smoking causes more than one in four cancer deaths); cut down on booze (alcohol increases your chance of mouth, breast and several other cancers); lose weight (more than 4% of cancers could be avoided in Britain if no one exceeded a body mass index of 25). However, research is advancing all the time. Here are five less well-known anti-cancer strategies:

1 Regularly eat broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage: researchers recently discovered that naturally occurring chemicals found in these vegetables can enhance DNA repair in cells. This could help stop them becoming cancerous.

2 Get a good night's sleep: a US study in 2002 involving 1.1 million participants found that people who get around seven hours' sleep a night are less likely to die of cancer (and other causes) than those who sleep less or more than this each night. More research is needed to establish exactly why this is, but aiming for seven hours a night certainly won't hurt.

3 Get some exercise: the evidence that exercise has cancer-fighting effects is growing rapidly. Recent studies show that the more active you are, the lower your risk of colon and probably breast cancer (the biggest killers after lung cancer), regardless of your body weight.

Large recent studies, for instance, show that regular physical activity can reduce your risk of colon cancer by 25% to 40%. This is partly because exercise helps your bowels work more efficiently.

A few hours of vigorous activity a week - rather than none - could also reduce your risk of breast cancer (by 30 to 40%), possibly in part because exercise affects your hormones. The more vigorous the exercise, the greater the protection.

4 Cut down on saturated fat: a major study - the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition - looked at the dietary habits of more than 500,000 people across Europe over 10 years. Researchers looking at 13,000 women in this study found that cutting saturated fat (such as in full-fat dairy products and processed food) could as much as halve your risk of breast cancer.

In the study, women with the most saturated fat (more than 90g a day) in their diet had twice the risk of developing breast cancer as those who ate the least (less than 40g a day).

5 Cut down on red meat: the same study also found fresh evidence to link eating red and processed meat with bowel cancer. Bowel cancer risk was a third higher for those who regularly ate at least 160g of red or processed meat a day, compared to less than 20g a day.