Cancer deaths preventable with lifestyle changes
By Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times
Roughly half of cancer deaths in the United States could be prevented or forestalled if all Americans quit smoking, cut back on drinking, maintained a healthful weight and got at least 150 minutes of exercise each week, according to a new report.
These same measures would also reduce the number of new cancer diagnoses by 40 to 70 percent.
For men, universal embrace of this lifestyle could avert or delay 67 percent of cancer deaths and prevent 63 percent of new malignancies each year, researchers calculated. If all of the nation’s women did the same, their yearly cancer mortality rates would fall by 59 percent and new cancers would drop 41 percent.
