Gert van der Hoek
In Memoriam - Editor, Senior Moderator
May 19, 2016
Maggie Fox
As many as 40 percent of cancer cases, and half of cancer deaths, come down to things people could easily change, researchers said Thursday.
While Americans often worry about whether chemicals, pollution or other factors out of their control cause cancer, the new analysis shows otherwise: People are firmly in charge of much of their own risk of cancer.
The team at Harvard Medical School calculated that 20 to 40 percent of cancer cases, and half of cancer deaths, could be prevented if people quit smoking, avoided heavy drinking, kept a healthy weight, and got just a half hour a day of moderate exercise.
They used data from long-term studies of about 140,000 health professionals who update researchers on their health every two years for the analysis, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association's JAMA Oncology.
READ MORE
Maggie Fox
As many as 40 percent of cancer cases, and half of cancer deaths, come down to things people could easily change, researchers said Thursday.
While Americans often worry about whether chemicals, pollution or other factors out of their control cause cancer, the new analysis shows otherwise: People are firmly in charge of much of their own risk of cancer.
The team at Harvard Medical School calculated that 20 to 40 percent of cancer cases, and half of cancer deaths, could be prevented if people quit smoking, avoided heavy drinking, kept a healthy weight, and got just a half hour a day of moderate exercise.
They used data from long-term studies of about 140,000 health professionals who update researchers on their health every two years for the analysis, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association's JAMA Oncology.
READ MORE