Modify your lifestyle, more than one third of cancers can be avoided

Nearly 1/3rd of cancers diagnosed can be prevented if people avoid known risk factors for the disease, according to research recently published. The new study identifies 13 areas where people can alter their lifestyle to prevent a third of these.

Led by clinicians at the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute in Australia, researchers applied international measurements to calculate the data. Published on Wednesday in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, the study showed smoking, ultraviolet radiation, body weight, diet, and alcohol, contributed to 90 per cent of all preventable cancers.

Modifiable risks accounting for the remaining 10 per cent of cancers were:

• Red and processed meat
• Inadequate fibre intake
• Inadequate intake of vegetables
• Inadequate intake of fruit
• Inadequate physical activity
• Infections such as hepatitis B and C, human papilloma virus, Helicobacter pylori bacterium, HIV and Epstein-Barr Virus.
• Hormone replacement therapy (HRT)
• Oral contraceptives
• Inadequate breastfeeding

Director of the Sansom Institute for Health Research, Ian Olver, said the often convoluted reports about causes of cancer distracted people. “People think, ‘oh everything causes cancer, I don’t need to be worried about it’. But this study actually refocuses on the things that can prevent about a third of them — and it’s simple lifestyle changes,” he said.

Associate Professor in Nutrition at Deakin University, Tim Crowe, said while the research was significant in its credibility, there was no magic formula it exposed to avoiding cancer.

“It’s about eating plenty of plant-based foods and fibre, being active, not drinking too much and trying to maintain as healthy a body weight as possible,” he said.
“You could apply those recommendations to reducing the risk of diabetes and heart disease. It’s a common theme across many chronic diseases.”

The study suggests nearly 2,000 cancer cases diagnosed in Australia in 2010 were attributable to inadequate intakes of fruit and vegetables. Low levels of dietary fibre were responsible for at least 1,000 — and possibly up to 2,600 — bowel cancers.

Source: www.theconversation.com