Feyi Olopade Ayodele Discusses Lifestyle Factors that Increase the Risk of Cancer

Things like smoking, poor diet, and lack of exercise can increase a person’s risk of developing cancer, but there are some things that are actually more clinically acute outside of family history that every patient needs to look out for, explained Feyi Olopade Ayodele, MBA, chief executive officer at CancerIQ.

Transcript

In addition to hereditary factors, what are common lifestyle factors that would put an individual at higher risk for developing certain cancers?

Some of the lifestyle related factors that increase a patient’s cancer risk are things like smoking, poor diet, lack of exercise, but there are some things that are actually more clinically acute outside of your family history that every patient needs to be looking out for. One of those is the number of biopsies that you’ve had when undergoing screening mammography, your breast density—that’s something that is a clear marker that increases your risk. It’s all of these things that go into a CancerIQ analysis so we know exactly what next steps a patient needs to take.

If you are in that higher risk category, the biggest risk factor for you is noncompliance. There are several women that may be okay skipping their annual mammogram and doing it every 2 years but there’s a certain portion of women who absolutely can not, and on top of their mammogram, they actually need to be getting an [magnetic resonance image] to increase the likelihood that we detect cancer early or prevent it altogether.