Physical exercises essential; Scarborough medic emphasizes

Doctor seeks to eradicate problem of colon cancer
by GEORGE KAGAME

A gastroenterologist with The Scarborough Hospital is so concerned about the health of his patients that he wants his lifestyle to be an example to many in his community in avoiding colon cancer.

Coloractal cancer continues to be the second leading cause of cancer deaths in Canada, an estimated 21,500 Canadians are diagnosed with the disease each year and 8,900 will die from it.

“Colon cancer is a diagnostic neglect. No one should get colon cancer nowadays, given that we have enough effective strategies and tools to make it completely preventable”, says Dr. Hurowitz. He adds that for colon cancer to be eliminated, “it begs us to try and figure out the best strategies to achieve that. Certainly, regular exercises and screening help reduce the incidence of colon cancer.”
Hurowitz leads from the front and he also does all the right things to defend himself from a disease which he claims to have two victims in his family, his mother as well as sister.

“My wife Beth (a family physician) and i go to the gym three or four times a week, we’ve learned that setting an example and making it fun is more important than setting a stressful regime.” The two have also taught their two teenage children the benefits of exercise, who have in turn encouraged their own friends to embark on regular physical exercises too.

The Scarborough resident and stomach expert says that his concern about colon cancer is well founded, he points to a new study in the US that offers compelling evidence to back the long-standing belief that exercise can reduce the risk of the disease.
He quotes a research from the Washington University School of Medicine and Harvard University which combined and analyzed several decades’ worth of data emphasizing that exercising can indeed reduce colon cancer. The researchers discovered that exercising reduces the incidence of colon cancer by 24 percent.