Lifestyle and Environment Responsible for Most Cancers

A leading British charity, Cancer Research UK, has estimated the fraction of cancers occurring in the UK in 2010 that can be attributed to 14 lifestyle and environmental risk factors.  It’s probably the most comprehensive review of the influence of lifestyle on cancer risk to date. It’s been published as a series of papers in a supplement to the British Journal of Cancer.   

I only have space to report on the important findings.  Over 158,000 cancers diagnosed in UK men each year, 23% are related to tobacco use, 6.1% to lack of dietary fruit and vegetables, 4.9% to occupational hazard (e.g. asbestos exposure), 4.6% to alcohol misuse, 4.1% to overweight or obesity, and 3.5% to overuse of sun beds or exposure to the sun. 

The numbers are a bit different for women.  In the 155,600 cancers diagnosed in women each year, 15.6% are due to smoking, 6.9% to obesity and overweight, 3.7% to infections (e.g. human papilloma virus, HPV), 3.6% to too much sun or sun bed use, 3.4% to lack of fruit and vegetables in the diet, and 3.3% to alcohol misuse. 

Adding up the percentages of cancers linked to one or more of the 14 lifestyles and environmental risk factors yields a total of 42.7% for men and women together (45.3% for men, 40.1% for women). In other words, 4 cancers out of 10 diagnosed in the UK are due to conditions that are within the control, more or less, of the population.  The other lifestyles that were examined in the analyses were risky occupations, eating red meat, excessive radiation exposure, a high-salt diet, and physical inactivity;  you can  read about all 14 of the risk factors on the Cancer Research UK website.

An eminent statistician, Sir Richard Peto, has also pointed out that controlling the 4 lifestyle factors that contribute most to cancers – tobacco, alcohol, diet, and obesity – would also substantially reduce the burden of other conditions, particularly cardiovascular, diabetic, kidney, and liver diseases.