Nearly half of US cancer deaths blamed on unhealthy behavior

Cigarette smoking, over-eating and other unhealthy behaviors can be blamed for nearly half of U.S. cancer deaths each year, according to a new American Cancer Society study released Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2017.

By: AP Medical Writer  Tuesday, November 21, 2017 @ WHIO TV

We thought it was time to redo those estimates," said Dr. Otis Brawley, the cancer society's chief medical officer and one of the study's authors.

Smoking was the leading risk by far, accounting for 29 percent of deaths. Excess body weight was next at 6.5 percent, and alcohol consumption was third at 4 percent.

The authors ran separate calculations for different types of cancer by age group and gender to try to account for how risk factors affect different groups of people, then added them together to understand the national picture.

Among the findings:

— Smoking accounted for 82 percent of lung cancers.
— Excess body weight was associated with 60 percent of uterine cancers and about one-third of liver cancers.
— Alcohol intake was associated with 25 percent of liver cancers in men and 12 percent in women; 17 percent of colorectal cancers in men and 8 percent in women; and 16 percent of breast cancers in women.
— Exposure to ultraviolet radiation from sunlight or tanning beds was associated with 96 percent of skin cancers in men and 94 percent in women.

Richard Clapp, a professor emeritus of environmental health at Boston University expects the new numbers to be will widely cited and used to make decisions about how to spend money on cancer prevention, just as the influential British study from 1981 by researchers Richard Doll and Richard Peto has been........Read More @ WHIO TV .

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