LEARN Your Cancer Risk at www.yourdiseaserisk.wustl.edu

Give yourself the gift of health this holiday season.  More than half of all cancer cases in the United States could be prevented through healthy lifestyle behaviors. At the Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine we have a  powerful Web-based tool called Your Disease Risk that can help you find out what you can do to reduce your cancer risk.

Your Disease Risk contains detailed risk assessments for 12 types of cancer. By answering a few simple questions about height, weight, diet, smoking history, physical activity and family history, users learn what they are already doing to lower their cancer risk and receive personalized tips for reducing it further.  When you know your cancer risk, you can change your future.

Because the risk factors for developing cancer are similar to those for other common diseases, Your Disease Risk also includes assessments for diabetes, heart disease, osteoporosis and stroke.  It is estimated that healthy lifestyles could prevent over half of cancers, 70 percent of strokes and 80 percent of heart disease and diabetes. In addition to detailing the impact of well-known risk factors like smoking, lack of exercise and being overweight, "Your Disease Risk" offers many other important health tips, such as the benefits of calcium and vitamin D for both colon and bone health, the increased risk of diabetes from eating too many refined grains and the increased risk of stroke in apple-shaped people who carry extra fat around the waist.

Visitors to the site can choose to investigate just one of the diseases, but answers given in one area carry over to all other areas to avoid the need to repeat answers when learning about more than one disease.

Your Disease Risk was designed at the Harvard School of Public Health by a team of researchers, clinicians, programmers and health communications experts led by Graham Colditz, MD, DrPH. A national leader in cancer prevention, Dr. Colditz came to Siteman in November 2006 to serve as associate director for prevention and control.  In early 2007, Your Disease Risk moved to the Siteman Cancer Center so it could continue under the direction of Dr. Graham Colditz.  

Your Disease Risk reflects recent evidence from the medical community to assure that the recommendations are up to date.

Visit Your Disease Risk at www.yourdiseaserisk.wustl.edu. To request a free brochure on healthy living and cancer prevention, call (314) 542-WEST (9378) or 1-800-392-0936.