Berlin, Aug. 22 (BUS) Researchers have revealed that nearly half of cancer deaths globally can be traced to avoidable factors such as an unhealthy lifestyle.
Smoking, alcohol consumption and obesity topped the list of 34 risk factors, an international research team wrote in the British medical journal The Lancet.
The researchers analyzed data about 10 million people who died from 23 different types of cancer in 2019. External risk factors were involved in 4.45 million deaths, or 44.4%.
“This study demonstrates that the burden of cancer remains an important public health challenge that is increasing in magnitude worldwide,” said Dr. Christopher Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington College. Medicine and one of the study’s senior authors, according to the German news agency (dpa).
“Smoking remains the leading risk factor for cancer globally, with varying other major contributors to the cancer burden,” Murray added. “Our findings can help policy makers and researchers identify key risk factors that can be targeted in efforts to reduce mortality and ill health from cancer at the regional, national and global level.”
The study also found that men are significantly more likely to die from cancer due to external risk factors: these account for more than half of all cancer-related deaths among them (50.6%). On the other hand, more than a third of these deaths were due to these causes (36.3%) in women.
The team distinguished between two main categories of risk factors: behavioral risks on the one hand, and environmental and occupational risks on the other.
In addition to alcohol, smoking and an unhealthy diet. Environmental and occupational hazards include, for example, exposure to carcinogens in some occupations.
HF