Wake-Up Call Quiz Gauges Risk Of Developing Serious Diseases

Korin Miller

Want to calculate your risk of developing an life-threatening disease? There’s a quiz for that. (Photo: Getty Images)

A new Health Risk Barometer published on Dietandcancer.co.uk says it can help assess your risk of developing certain cancers and heart disease in just 15 questions.

In addition to questions about gender, age, BMI, and disease history, quiz-takers are asked to answer the following diet and lifestyle questions:

  • How many units of alcohol do you drink a day?

  • Do you smoke?

  • Do you take regular exercise (at least 30 minutes of moderate activity five days a week)?

  • Do you eat more than 2.5 ounces of processed fish, poultry, or red meat a day?

  • Do you take omega-3 oils or eat at least two portions of unsmoked oily fish each week?

  • Do you eat more than one pound of cooked red meat per week?

  • Do you normally consume five or more fruits and vegetables a day?

  • Do you consume at least 5 portions of any of these foods or drinks each day? (Tomato and tomato products, pink grapefruit, pomegranate, berries, turmeric, seeds, nuts, brewed coffee, green tea and black tea, apples, cherries, garlic, grapes and grape juice, legumes, soy, green leafy vegetables, citrus fruits, whole grains, broccoli and cruciferous vegetables)

  • WOMEN ONLY - If you have children, did you breastfeed them?

After taking the quiz, people are told whether they have a low, average, or high risk of developing serious diseases, as well as which areas of their bodies might be at risk. They’re also given recommendations on next steps to take in order to lower their risk.

The quiz is a good idea because it can help give people a wake-up call, Nagi B. Kumar, PhD, RD, senior member in the Population Sciences Division and director of Cancer Chemoprevention at the Moffitt Cancer Center, tells Yahoo Health. “It’s a practical way of finding out whether you’re doing the right thing,” she says.

Next to genetics, diet and lifestyle are “incredibly important” risk factors for cancer, Homayoon Sanati, MD, a medical oncologist and medical director of the MemorialCare Breast Center at California’s Orange Coast Memorial Medical Center, tells Yahoo Health.

A poor diet can increase the risk of developing several forms of cancer like breast and liver cancer, he says, and regular exercise can help decrease that risk.

Related: How Many Calories Are You Drinking? This Quiz Will Tell You

Kumar also stresses the importance of omega-3 fatty acids in your diet. “Every one of the major diseases that we are facing today — cancer, cardiovascular disease, etc. — are related to inflammation,” she says. “Omega-3 fatty acids are potent anti-inflammatory agents that can really protect against inflammation.”

And, of course, eat your fruits and vegetables. “Fifty percent of the American population consumes one fruit or vegetable a day,” Kumar says. While the quiz asked whether people eat at least five daily servings of fruits or vegetables, Kumar recommends striving for 10 a day. “That can be drinking an orange juice,” she says. “It’s not an unrealistic expectation and it can really protect us.”

The breastfeeding question is a little controversial because of the lack of research to confirm a strong link between nursing and a lowered risk of breast cancer, says Sanati. (Research has found that women who breastfeed for a lifetime total of a year are only slightly less likely to develop breast cancer than those who don’t breastfeed, the Susan G. Komen foundation reports.)

However, Sanati says, women who are nursing may not have their menstrual cycle at the same time which may lower the levels of estrogen in their bodies (and consequently lower their breast cancer risk).

Took the quiz and got a low risk result? It doesn’t necessarily mean you’re off the hook, since Sanati points out that it doesn’t address sun exposure. “You may be a very healthy person who exercises and eats well, but is at a high risk for melanoma because you run without sunscreen,” he says.

However, if you take the quiz and find out you’re at a high risk of developing cancer, it may be time to make some changes.

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