Lifestyle modification and cancer risk across the cancer control continuum

Healthy lifestyle behaviors, including diet and physical activity, reduce cancer risk and mortality. Although dietary guidelines have shifted to focus on dietary patterns, evaluations of dietary patterns have primarily relied on self-reported data. Self-reported dietary intake has systematic measurement errors and could lead to incorrect dietary pattern estimation. Dietary biomarkers provide unique opportunities to improve the reliability of self-reported dietary patterns. Given the current focus on recommending healthy dietary patterns, developing a method for calibrating self-reported dietary patterns to mitigate measurement error and to strengthen the existing evidence of diet-cancer association is necessary. Additionally, meal frequency and timing are critical aspects of nutrition and health. Metabolic aberrations are a cancer risk factor. Understanding the role of meal frequency on metabolic biomarkers and appetite regulation can provide new insights to inform the design of dietary interventions to improve metabolic health and reduce cancer risk. Lifestyle programs, such as consuming a better diet and engaging in physical activity, could reduce cancer recurrence and improve overall survival. However, whether lifestyle interventions delivered through various approaches lead to different physiological responses among cancer survivors has not been established. It is possible that due to personal and environmental differences, each cancer survivor may benefit differently from various delivery approaches. The proposed application focuses on: a novel approach for dietary assessment, physiological mechanisms of energy balance and cancer, intervention modalities to deliver lifestyle modifications, and intervention strategies to effect change in all populations. These objectives align with Make America Healthy goals to improve diet and physical activity across all populations for cancer prevention. The successful completion of the activities in this award will strengthen the foundation necessary to launch my career and position me with the expertise to become an independent investigator with a focus on lifestyle modifications in cancer prevention and control to reach all populations.