Recent research suggests that more than 30 types of cancer could potentially be avoided through specific lifestyle changes. Cancer continues to be a major health concern, with studies showing an increasing trend in the overall number of cases.
Adopting a healthy lifestyle is generally recommended to lower the risk of diseases, and now, certain behaviours and habits are understood to have a more significant influence on cancer development than previously recognised. The American Cancer Society has identified common practices that contribute to forty percent of cancer cases in the United States. These practices are also linked to approximately half of all cancer-related deaths in the nation, as reported in research published last week in the CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians.
The identified common factors include cigarette smoking, excess body weight, alcohol consumption, physical inactivity, poor diet, and infections. To reach these conclusions, researchers analysed American health data, examining hundreds of thousands of reports of cancer cases and deaths among those aged over 30 in the US in 2019.
Cigarette smoking emerged as the most significant risk factor, accounting for nearly 20 per cent of all cancer cases and 30 per cent of all cancer deaths in the United States. Smoking has long been known to be one of the main causes of lung cancer, but this finding still surprised researchers, reports the Daily Record.
“Despite considerable declines in smoking prevalence during the past few decades, the number of lung cancer deaths attributable to cigarette smoking in the United States is alarming. This finding underscores the importance of implementing comprehensive tobacco control policies in each state to promote smoking cessation, as well as heightened efforts to increase screening for early detection of lung cancer, when treatment could be more effective,” stated Dr Farhad Islami, of the American Cancer Society and the study’s lead author.
The research team analysed data representative of the American population regarding cancer incidence, mortality, and the prevalence of risk factors to estimate the proportion and number of cases and deaths due to potentially modifiable risk factors. The study investigated 30 cancer types, excluding non-melanoma skin cancers.
Risk factors included current and past cigarette smoking, secondhand smoke exposure, excessive body weight, alcohol consumption, intake of red and processed meats, and low consumption of fruits, vegetables, dietary fibre and calcium.
The study also emphasised physical inactivity, ultraviolet (UV) radiation exposure, and infections with various viruses, such as hepatitis B (HBV), hepatitis C (HCV), herpes, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), and human papillomavirus (HPV).
Findings indicated that cigarette smoking was the leading cause of cancer cases linked to risk factors, with 344,070 cases or 19.3 percent of all cases. It accounted for 56 percent of all preventable cancers in men (206,550 out of 368,600) and 39.9 percent in women (137,520 out of 344,740).
Excessive body weight was the second-highest contributor at 7.6 percent, followed by alcohol intake at 5.4 percent. UV radiation exposure was responsible for 4.6 percent, and physical inactivity for 3.1 percent of the cases.
When broken down by cancer type, the proportion of cases caused by potentially modifiable risk factors ranged from 100 per cent for cervical cancer and Kaposi sarcoma to 4.9 per cent for ovarian cancer, with more than half of the cases for 19 of the 30 evaluated cancer types being attributable to these factors.
Furthermore, over 80 per cent of all skin melanomas and cancers of the anus, throat, lungs, and mouth were attributable to evaluated risk factors. Lung cancer had the highest number of cases attributable to evaluated risk factors in both men (104,410 cases) and women (97,250), followed by skin melanoma (50,570), and colorectal cancer (44,310). In men, urinary bladder cancer had the most cases (32,000), while in women, breast (83,840), endometrial (35,790), and colorectal (34,130) cancers were the most common.
“These findings show there is a continued need to increase equitable access to preventive health care and awareness about preventive measures. Effective vaccines are available for hepatitis B virus, that causes liver cancer and HPV, which can cause several cancer types, including cervical, other anogenital, and oropharyngeal cancers,” senior study author Dr Ahmedin Jemal has stated.
“Vaccination at the recommended time can substantially reduce the risk of chronic infection, and consequently, cancers associated with these viruses. HPV vaccination uptake in the United States is suboptimal.”