These harrowing cancer statistics can actually be good news - Sarah Berry August 24, 2022

Alcohol use is the second leading risk factor.

“People like to think ‘it’s not me, it’s the really heavy drinkers who are at risk’, but cancer risk is absolute,” Pettigrew said. “Every mouthful is a carcinogen in its own right. It’s not like you have to get drunk to get cancer. That’s not readily understood.”

Historically, she says, research suggested people who drank a little were healthier than people who drank nothing or people who drank a lot. “It took researchers a while to figure out that in that ‘drink nothing’ category are a lot of people with illnesses or other kinds of problems that have made them stop drinking. Now we can see every drink increases your risk.”

High body mass index (BMI) came third on the list, both in Australia and globally, according to the study, which looked at data from 204 countries in 2019. Other leading risk factors contributing to 4.45 million deaths (44 per cent of global cancer deaths) included high blood glucose, poor diet, unsafe sex, air pollution and exposure to asbestos.

One of the paper’s authors, Dr Xiaoyue (Luna) Xu, of the University of New South Wales, said there had been a 20 per cent increase in cancer deaths between 2010 and 2019 from lifestyle and environmental factors. Risk from high BMI and high fasting plasma glucose increased the most. “Much work needs to be done to change this,” Xu said.

The work includes supporting people to live a healthy lifestyle and understand its significance in preventing chronic disease, and living longer after being diagnosed with chronic conditions, said Dr David Mizrahi, a research fellow at the University of Sydney’s The Daffodil Centre.

“More support is needed from governments, starting from a young age, to educate communities and support lifelong behaviour change to allow communities to reduce the impact of cancer in their communities,” Mizrahi said.

The leading risk factors contributing to global cancer burden in 2019 were behavioural, whereas metabolic risk factors saw the largest increases between 2010 and 2019. Reducing exposure to these modifiable risk factors would decrease cancer mortality and DALY rates worldwide, and policies should be tailored appropriately to local cancer risk factor burden. (Source: Lancet August 2022)

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