London: About 134,000 cases of cancer each year in the UK are caused by lifestyle and environmental risk factors including smoking, unhealthy, diets, alcohol and excess weight, a new review has found.
Cancer Research UK scientists found smoking to be the most important lifestyle factor, accounting for 23 per cent of cancers in men and 15.6 per cent in women.
Smoking, unhealthy diets, alcohol and excess weight collectively cause more than 100,000 cancers – about one-third of all diagnoses – each year.
And the figure rises to around 134,000 when all 14 lifestyle and environmental factors that were assessed in the review are taken into account.
The research, which is published in the British Journal of Cancer, also suggests that 45 percent of cancers in men and 40 per cent in women could be prevented.
Study author Professor Max Parkin, a Cancer Research UK epidemiologist at Queen Mary, University of London, said: ‘Many people believe cancer is down to fate or ‘in the genes’ and that it is the luck of the draw whether they get it.
‘Looking at all the evidence, it’s clear that around 40 per cent of all cancers are caused by things we mostly have the power to change.’
This new review of cancer and lifestyle in the UK is the most comprehensive undertaken to date and is published today in a supplement to the British Journal of Cancer.
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