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Cancer:

What is Cancer prevention?

Many cancers can be prevented by avoiding risk factors such as excessive exposure to sunlight and heavy drinking.One of the best ways to prevent cancer is to not smoke or chew tobacco. This can be accomplished by avoiding carcinogens or altering their metabolism, pursuing a lifestyle or diet that modifies cancer-causing factors and/or medical intervention .

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The epidemiological concept of “prevention” is usually defined as either primary prevention, for people who have not been diagnosed with a particular disease, or secondary prevention, aimed at reducing recurrence or complications of a previously diagnosed illness.Some people at high risk for developing certain cancers can take medication to reduce their risk.

One of every four deaths in America is from cancer. About 1.4 million new cases of cancer will be diagnosed in 2004. This estimate does not include diagnoses of in situ (preinvasive) cancer (except for urinary bladder cancer) or the approximately 1 million cases of nonmelanoma skin cancer that will be diagnosed this year.

Hundreds of epidemiologic studies have confirmed this association. Further support comes from the fact that lung cancer death rates in the United States have mirrored smoking patterns, with increases in smoking followed by dramatic increases in lung cancer death rates and, more recently, decreases in smoking followed by decreases in lung cancer death rates in men.

Cancer deaths are down because of huge gains made over more than a decade of cancer-prevention efforts. Far fewer Americans smoke, far more get regular cancer screening, and lots more of us use sunscreen when we’re outside. The result: Fewer U.S. cancer deaths.

We may have started taking these annual gains for granted, suggests Vilma Cokkinides, PhD, the American Cancer Society’s strategic director for risk factor surveillance. Cokkinides is co-author of the American Cancer Society report, Cancer Prevention & Early Detection Facts and Figures 2008.

Do this thisngs
1.Up the colorectal screening rate to 75% of people age 50 and older.

8.Reversing trends in obesity and returning obesity rates to 2005 levels.

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Food and nutrient intake have been examined in relation to many types of cancer. Fruit and vegetable consumption have generally been found in epidemiologic studies to be associated with reduced risk for a number of different cancers. Contrary to expectation, randomized trials found no benefit of beta carotene supplementation in reducing lung cancer incidence and mortality; risk of lung cancer was statistically significantly increased in smokers in the beta-carotene arms of 2 of the trials. Similarly, randomized controlled trials have found no reduction in risk of subsequent adenomatous polyps of the colon in individuals who have had polyps previously resected taking dietary fiber supplements compared with those receiving much lower amounts of supplemental wheat bran fiber.

reduce the risk of developing breast cancer in high-risk women by about 50%. Cis-retinoic acid also has been shown to reduce risk of second primary tumors among patients with primary cancers of the head and neck. Finasteride, an alpha-reductase inhibitor, has been shown to lower the risk of prostate cancer.

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