Cancer is a Preventable Disease that Requires Major Lifestyle Changes
By P. Anand, A. Kunnumakara, C. Sundaram, K. Harikumar, S. Tharakan, O. S. Lai, Bokyung Sung, Bharat B. Aggarwal. Pharmaceutical Research, 2008
2,362 citations recorded by the source corpus.
This year, more than 1 million Americans and more than 10 million people worldwide are expected to be diagnosed with cancer, a disease commonly believed to be preventable. Only 5–10% of all cancer cases can be attributed to genetic defects, whereas the remaining 90–95% have their roots in the environment and lifestyle. The lifestyle factors include cigarette smoking, diet (fried foods, red meat), alcohol, sun exposure, environmental pollutants, infections, stress, obesity, and physical inactivity. The evidence indicates that of all cancer-related deaths, almost 25–30% are due to tobacco, as many as 30–35% are linked to diet, about 15–20% are due to infections, and the remaining percentage are due to other factors like radiation, stress, physical activity, environmental pollutants etc. Therefore, cancer prevention requires smoking cessation, increased ingestion of fruits and vegetables, moderate use of alcohol, caloric restriction, exercise, avoidance of direct exposure to sunlight, minimal meat consumption, use of whole grains, use of vaccinations, and regular check-ups. In this review, we present evidence that inflammation is the link between the agents/factors that cause cancer and the agents that prevent it. In addition, we provide evidence that cancer is a preventable disease that requires major lifestyle changes.
Subfields: Genetics, Physiology, Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c5b1f3a5dfa8ad47e29b49354a43348b9faaab49
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Citations in the corpus
- Nanoparticles for Cancer Therapy: Current Progress and Challenges (2021, background): “Only 5–10% of cancer cases are linked with inherited genetics [3].”
- Epidemiology of Pancreatic Cancer: Global Trends, Etiology and Risk Factors (2019, background): “The best preventive strategy against pancreatic cancer is risk reduction, acting on the modifiable risk factors (tobacco smoking, overweight and alcohol use, reducing red meat consumption and increasing fruit and vegetable intake, having regular exercise) and through regular control of health issues”
- Position of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics: Vegetarian Diets. (2016, background): “foraphane, ferulic acid, genistein, indole-3-carbinol, curcumin, epigallocatechin-3-gallate, diallyldisulfide, resveratrol, lycopene, and quercetin found in vegetables, legumes, fruits, spices, and whole grains may provide protection against cancer.(77,78) These phytochemicals are known to interfere”
- Upsides and Downsides of Reactive Oxygen Species for Cancer: The Roles of Reactive Oxygen Species in Tumorigenesis, Prevention, and Therapy (2012, neutral): “According to one report, 90%–95% of cancers are caused by life style factors and only 5%–10% are caused by genetic defects (16).”