Almost Half of US Cancer Deaths 'Preventable'
"With cancer, it oftentimes feels like you have no control," says Arif Kamal from the American Cancer Society.
But he says that people should feel that they do have some control when it comes to staying healthy.
The society has published a new study that found that in the US about 40% of cancer cases among over 30s and half of cancer deaths are caused by preventable factors.
Researchers looked at 30 types of cancer and 18 factors that could be linked to a person's behavior — like the food we eat, the alcohol we drink and the exercise we do.
They used data from 2019 when they found that more than 700,000 new cancer cases and 262,000 deaths were linked to these lifestyle factors.
The research team also included sun exposure and obesity among those factors.
Of these, smoking was the number one cause of cancer cases and deaths in the US. It was linked to one in five cases and a third of deaths.
Obesity and alcohol were also linked to a large number of cancer cases.
Of course, many cancers are not linked to lifestyle factors and may be caused by genetics, 다이렉트암보험비교 for example.
However, the researchers said that some cancers are more preventable than others, and cases could be reduced with prevention initiatives.
They suggest increasing taxes on cigarettes to help reduce smoking and screening for infections that could be caused by alcohol use.
The researchers also said that groups that are most affected by some of these factors should be targeted for support.
Reducing preventable cancers would have an impact on the health of the country but it could also save billions of dollars.
In 2019, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the US estimated that the economic cost of cancer care was more than $21 billion.