You're young, vibrant and healthy; no need to worry about cancer, right? Well, while your risk of developing cancer at a young age may be low, especially if you have no family history of the disease, now is the time to begin to think about ways to keep that risk low for years to come.

It's no surprise that exercise and a healthy diet are the first steps to creating a cancer-preventing lifestyle, but what else can you do? Featured speaker at the GE Healthcare Day, Dr. John Seffrin, CEO of the American Cancer Society, explains what all women should do to both lower their risk of developing cancer and increase their chances of catching cancer at its earliest, most treatable stage.

Q. If a woman is in relatively good health and has no history of cancer in her family, should she be concerned about her cancer risk?

A.The key thing to keep in mind is that 95 percent of Americans are born healthy, and later something goes wrong to make them sick. Preventing disease of any kind is not rocket science; eating right, exercising, not smoking can all dramatically reduce your risk of dying from pretty much anything, not just cancer.

The reason cancer is so much more at the forefront is that it takes people in the prime of their life. Cancer is the leading cause of death in people between the ages of 5 to 75. But if a woman is a non-smoker, and gets regular exercise - she doesn't have to win any medals - her risk of dying in mid-life is 8 percent. But her non-exercising, male counterpart's risk of dying from cancer is 40 percent.