The causes of cancer you can control
More…
More…
More…
More…
Category: Science blog December 7, 2011 63 comments
Can cancer be prevented? Decades of research have shown that a person’s chances of getting cancer depends on a mishmash of their genes and their environment, but also certain aspects of their lives, many of which they can control.
Today saw the publication of a landmark Cancer Research UK-funded review by Professor Max Parkin, outlining the latest evidence behind the preventable causes of UK cancers.
As our press release says, these latest calculations, based on predicted cases for 2010, show that smoking, diet, alcohol and obesity are behind more than 100,000 cancers. This is equivalent to one third of all cancers diagnosed in the UK each year.
And this figure further increases to around 134,000 when taking into account all 14 lifestyle and environmental risk factors analysed in this study.
There’s more in-depth information about the statistics on our website, and our healthy living pages explain the take-home messages from the research.
But to help make sense of the vast quantity of information contained in the 91-page report, we’ve also put together a graphic that shows the proportion of cancers that can be prevented through lifestyle changes. It’s worth spending a minute or so looking at the key to understand how to interpret the graphic (which you can download as a larger PDF version).
Providing this type of information is categorically not about blame – every two minutes someone in the UK is diagnosed with cancer, and each of them have a unique set of circumstances that led to their cancer. There are many things that together affect a person’s chances of developing cancer – some of them can be controlled, some can’t.
Leading a healthy lifestyle is not a cast-iron guarantee against cancer. But it reduces the risk of the disease. If you think about cancer risk like a hand of cards, some people are dealt a worse hand because of their genes, some people a better one.
But in both cases, these people can do things to reduce their individual risk of cancer. So this type of information is crucial in equipping people with the information they need to stack the odds in their favour.
Such information is also crucial to guide policymakers in planning public health interventions. For instance, decades of work documenting the risks of smoking tobacco and the benefits of giving up – much of it by our scientists – has contributed to increased acceptance of tobacco as a major health hazard and led to many successful tobacco control measures.
We’re now starting to see the effects of these policies in lung cancer rates amongst UK men. But there’s more work still to do.
We’re also aware of the irony of publishing this research just before Christmas, when many of us enjoy one too many mince pies, or a few too many glasses of mulled wine. In our press release, we explain that we’re not expecting everyone to watch what they eat and limit alcohol intake during the festive season, and we don’t want people to feel guilty about indulging a bit more than usual.
Rather than focus on short-term behaviour changes, healthy living is about long-term lifestyle tweaks that can really make a difference. Regularly taking the stairs rather than using the lift, drinking a couple fewer beers or wines every week, eating a little more fruit, etc.
Incorporating a series of such healthy behaviours into your daily life can make a significant difference to your future risk of cancer.
Finally, below we’ve pulled together some of the important information you need to know about the 14 lifestyle and environmental risk factors analysed in this study:
Jess and Olly
Reference
DM Parkin (2011). The fraction of cancer attributable to lifestyle and environmental factors in the UK in 2010 British Journal of Cancer, 105 (Supplement 2)
Dr Pushkar
February 13, 2012
The more we get closer the more it goes away from us. We are still trying to find correlations with diet, lifestyle… the fact remains ther are so many cases which remain unexplained. And the effect of preventive measures is a hit & miss.
Shell
January 5, 2012
I have the biggest amount of sympathy for all cancer sufferers on here and understand and appreciate each and every one of you and your illnesses but this is just an article. Its not pointing a finger at you saying you caused your own illness! Whether you smoke, eat red meat, are exposed to mobile phones, radiation, etc, any one of us can develop cancer. What about young babies who have it? They dont smoke, etc. Treat the article as an interesting piece of self help advice and appreciate the research these guys are doing to try and help, people!!!
D Royd
January 5, 2012
I just want to comment that this is an interesting graphic. The attribution of ‘blame’ in the diagnosis of cancer is irrelevant to the successful treatment of the patient. Also, having peer reviewed, published studies on the evidence of cancer cell apotosis induced via cannabis derivatives will never happen due to the wall-to-wall silence of mainstream medicine with regards to an un-patentable and therefore unprofitable natural plant.
Hidom Guo
January 5, 2012
Dear Henry,
We’d like to publish this information graphics on our magazine?
How could get your assess?
Thank you in advance!
Rebekah
December 13, 2011
I too am a non smoking non drinking vegetarian with an active life style who is not overweight and had an extremely low risk of cancer. I was diagnosed two years ago with breast cancer. Since then I have added to my usual diet extra cruciferous vegetables like kale, cabbage, sprouts, pak choi, broccolli and button mushrooms which protect people from breast cancer and got rid of things like sunflower oil and anything cooked in it as it contains high doses of omega 6 which feed breast cancer. Recently sunflower oil has replaced fat in so many things that I wonder if this is relevant to the rise in breast cancer.
Oh and one more thing – you can say no to treatment that has huge side effects – look at the percentage rates of a cancer return if you do take the drug and then if you don’t you may discover that like me the difference is negligable, Arimidex would only improve my chances of a cancer free future by about 3%. I chose not to become a ninety year old and have lived my life as normal as a result.
The most important thing though is to stay positive having cancer is not an automatic death sentence. However my main concern is that yes we have more effective treatments for cancer but we don’t want treatment, we want cures. Also so many cancer treatments have horrendous and unacceptable side effects. One good example is the range of hormone suppressors which work by removing oestrogen from the body. It is now the norm that if you have breast cancer you will be put on arimidex, it’s side effect is to give you the skeleton of a ninety year old complete with all the aches and pains and the brittle bones. Yes the treatments may (I say may as often they don’t work) stop your cancer coming back or going somewhere else so it won’t kill you but you’ll certainly feel like death from the side effects. Cures not treatments!
Andrea
December 13, 2011
I’ve had breast cancer followd by all the different treatments. I’m still within the 5 year time frame, so am still taking the relevant medication. I’m extremely grateful for all the wonderful treatments available now. However, I would like to say that none of the 7 risk factors associated with BC apply to me, and I have never smoked either.
WandaK
December 13, 2011
We have so many information about cancer. When my mother was diagnosed with lymphoma cancer she decided to get chemo. She used so many extra natural remedies that helped her. I wish that I knew about VitaminB17 which I am taking to prevent developing cancer in my body.
David
December 10, 2011
And where is STRESS and emotional/psychological trauma in all this? I accept the findings as they are presented, but you have missed out a fundamental element of not only contemporary society but a crucial aspect of all human relationship problems and day to day issues that we all face. You really need much more comprehensive information than you have produced so far before you can make any claims as to what is ‘preventable’.
M. Langer
December 10, 2011
Some of the results of this so-called study are downright wrong, as they are taken from already flawed data. And the largest cause of cancer is not even on the list. Time. Time is the biggest risk – as we age, our organs, and our immune system slowly become less effective. It’s a natural progress. We are not, and are not supposed to be, immortal. Why are there more people dying of cancer today than a century ago? Why has it become one of the leading causes of death? Because today, we have a much better chance of living to the old age when cancer usually becomes an issue (not saying that it cannot happen earlier, but the majority of cancer patients are, in fact, well over 60). Oh, but don’t thank your doctor for that – thank your plumber. At least 2/3 of the increase in life expectancy is not due to medicine, but to having access to clean drinking water.
We cover the latest cancer research, including that funded by the charity. We also highlight other relevant material, debunk myths and media scares, and provide links to other helpful resources.
Read our terms and conditions.
Text from Cancer Research UK Science blog by Cancer Research UK, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License.
The causes of cancer you can control
Research & References of The causes of cancer you can control|A&C Accounting And Tax Services
Source
0 Comments