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In a groundbreaking new study, it’s been found that environment and lifestyle play much bigger roles in cancer than we thought.
In fact, up to 90 percent of cancer cases could be vaoided, says the study, if lifestyle changes were made.
Dr. Emma Smith, of Cancer Research UK, said, “Healthy Habits like not smoking, keeping a healthy weight, eating a healthy diet and cutting back on alcohol are not a guarantee against cancer, they do dramatically reduce the risk of developing the disease.”
It sounds like it isn’t news at all, but scientists have been arguing about how much of cancer is caused by lifestyle and how much is just unavoidable.
Last year, a study was done that claimed that most cancer cases are DNA errors, and are therefore unavoidable by whomever gets cancer.
That’s generally received as true. For two out of three cancer victims, it’s said that it’s caused by random gene mistakes, not poor choices.
This new study used some of the same data as the previous one, but it came to the opposite conclusion.
Dr. Yusuf Hannun of Stony Brook University, one of the leads on the case, said that while luck is a part of it, the environmental factors have much more impact.
Previous figures reported that 30-40 percent of all cancer cases could have been prevented. Now it looks like that’s actually much more.
If lifestyle changes were made, like diet, cigarettes, sunburn, pollution, and other factors, “There would still be cancers, because of the way that cells divide in the body. But there would be fewer of them.”
These results will hopefully change public health strategies and cancer prevention methods. In the meantime, maybe it’s time to make some New Year’s resolutions about our lifestyles!
