Cancer is often a lifestyle disease

We’re frightened of getting that dreaded cancer diagnosis—but the disease is often avoidable.

Nearly half of all cancers among the over-30s are the direct result of a poor lifestyle—such as cigarette smoking, being overweight or obese, drinking too much alcohol, and eating a diet of processed food.  Poor lifestyle choices are responsible for 713,000 new cancer cases in the US every year.

Researchers from the American Cancer Society estimate that 40 percent of all cases are caused by lifestyle factors, which also determine the lethality of the disease.  Half of all cancer deaths—that’s around 262,000 people every year—are the result of lifestyle choices.

Smoking cigarettes is the single biggest factor, and is responsible for 20 percent of all cancer cases, and 30 percent of cancer deaths.

The researchers studied national data to assess the impact of lifestyle choices on 30 cancers among the over-30s.

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