40% of cancer cases are caused by lifestyle

Nearly half of all cancers diagnosed in the UK each year are caused by life habits that can be avoided such as smoking, drinking alcohol or eating unreasonably, the BBC said.

The report of the leading cancer research charity in the UK suggests tobacco is the biggest culprit, causing 26% of cancers in men and 15.6% in women. The next culprit is the lack of fresh fruits and vegetables in men's diets, while women are overweight .

Professor Max Parkin, who led the team, said many people believe that cancer is due to fate or due to genes and that is the chance that we must suffer. Looking at the current evidence, it is clear that 40% of the causes of cancer are due to things that we can change.

For men, the best advice is: Stop smoking, eat lots of fruits and vegetables, cut down on the amount of alcohol they drink. For women, stop smoking and review body weight.

Professor Parkin said we did not expect that eating fruits and vegetables proved that we could protect men from cancer , but in women being overweight was more dangerous than drinking alcohol.

In general, 14 environmental and life factors like where we live, the work we do together has resulted in 134,000 cases of cancer in the UK every year.

Some of the causative factors we have known for a long time like smoking are linked to lung cancer. But there are a few factors we are less aware of.

For example, esophageal cancer, half of the causative factors are caused by eating too little fruit and vegetables, while only 25% are caused by alcohol. For stomach cancer, 25% is caused by excessive salt intake in the diet. Some types of cancer, such as laryngeal or oral cancer, are mostly caused by life habits. But other types of cancer, such as gallbladder cancer, have nothing to do with lifestyle.

Dr. Rachel Thompson of the Global Cancer Research Fund said the report added strong evidence that the cause of cancer is due to the impact of our lifestyle.

Dr Harpal Kumar, executive director of head cancer research charity in the UK, said going to a healthy lifestyle does not guarantee that you will not get cancer but if we can do it to reduce it. The risk of cancer, we should do as much as possible.