Submitted by Dr.Kattlove’s Cancer Blog

The most recent update of cancer statistics has just been published, and the news is mildly encouraging. First, the bad news. If you are a man, the chance of developing cancer in your lifetime is nearly one in two. For women the chance is lower, at one in three. Cancer has replaced heart disease as the leading cause of death for people younger than 85. Over 85, heart disease wins, but cancer is slowly taking over. The reason cancer is overtaking heart disease is not because cancer rates are increasing. They are not (more on that later). Instead, deaths from heart disease are dropping quickly. Blame better treatment to lower cholesterol and blood pressure.

But there is a lot of good news. Both the rate of new cancers and death rate in men have dropped. Most of this is due to a drop in the rates for lung cancer (more men are avoiding smoking) and prostate cancer (don’t know why there are fewer of these). There has also been a downward trend in colorectal cancer, probably because of screening – although more needs to be done.

For women, the picture is not as bright. Lung cancer deaths have not dropped, meaning women haven’t yet given up their cigarettes as readily as the boys have. But colorectal and breast cancer death rates have gone down.

The best news comes from the data on children. Survival rates from all sorts of cancers continue to rise, making the chance that a child will die of cancer less likely than ever.

But, there is one more preventable cancer risk factor, overweight and obesity. These increase cancer risk by around 30%, meaning we are our own worst enemy. So after putting away the cigarettes, we need to push back from the table earlier and start with less on our plates. A little exercise wouldn’t hurt either.

These are all small but important steps, especially for adults. Still we can’t eliminate the next most important risk factor, aging. Cancer is a disease of aging and as our population gets older, our cancer numbers are sure to climb.

Nothing we can do about aging (or want to).

Visit 1800blogger to see all of our industry leading blogs.

Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]