Cancer is a preventable lifestyle disease

Posted on Tue, 16 Mar 10

Cancer is a preventable lifestyle disease yet every year cancer claims tens of billions of human lives with drug treatment costing hundreds of billions. Despite enormous investment in cancer treatment most cancer therapies are highly toxic, ineffective and unaffordable to greater than 80% of the world population (1). More attention needs to be paid to lifestyle.

Lifestyle explains up to 95% of cancers

A remarkable 90-95% of cancer cases a caused by your environment and lifestyle. Lifestyle factors linked to cancer include alcohol, sun exposure, environmental pollutants, infections, stress, obesity, and physical inactivity. The biggest determinants of your cancer risk however are whether or not you are exposed to tobacco smoke and the quality of your diet. Of all cancer-related deaths around 25-30% are due to tobacco and as many as 30-35% are linked to diet (2).

The war on cancer needs rethinking

Our approach to cancer requires rethinking. Professor of Cancer Research Bharat B. Aggarwal, Ph.D, at The University of Texas points out that “…while it is believed that as much as 90% of cancer-related deaths (linked to tobacco, infections, alcohol, obesity, diet and environmental pollutants) are preventable, more than 90% of the funds spent are on treatment and not on the prevention of cancer (3).” Billions are spent each year in the search for a cure for cancer yet death rates have not changed in the last 50 years.  Prevention, it seems, is better than cure.

References

1. Aggarwal BB, Danda D, Gupta S, Gehlot P. Models for prevention and treatment of cancer: problems vs promises. Biochem Pharmacol. 2009 Nov 1;78(9):1083-94.

2. Anand P, Kunnumakkara AB, Sundaram C, Harikumar KB, Tharakan ST, Lai OS, Sung  B, Aggarwal BB. Cancer is a preventable disease that requires major lifestyle changes. Pharm Res. 2008 Sep;25(9):2097-116.

3. Aggarwal B. The past, present and future of multi-targeted cancer treatment ‘‘Naturally”: Food for thought. Cancer Letters 269 (2008) 187–188