Dubai, United Arab Emirates (CNN)–About half of cancer deaths globally may be caused by preventable risk factors, including the three main risks: smoking, heavy alcohol consumption and high body mass index, a new study suggests.
The research, published in The Lancet Thursday, found that 44.4% of all cancer deaths and 42% of health years lost were caused by preventable risk factors in 2019.
The paper, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, analyzed the relationship between risk factors and cancer, the second leading cause of death worldwide, according to data from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation’s Global Burden of Disease project.
The project collects and analyzes global data on mortality and disability.
Dr. Chris Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, and colleagues focused on cancer deaths and disability between 2010 and 2019 in 204 countries, examining 23 cancers and 34 risk factors.
The researchers found that the main cancers in terms of mortality attributable to risk factors globally, in 2019, were tracheal, bronchial, and lung cancers for both men and women.
The data also showed that cancer deaths attributable to risk factors are on the rise, increasing worldwide by 20.4% between 2010 and 2019.
Globally, in 2019, the top five regions with risk-attributable mortality rates were Central Europe, Eastern Asia, North America, Southern Latin America and Western Europe.
Thus, efforts to reduce cancer risk must be accompanied by comprehensive cancer control strategies, including efforts to support early diagnosis and effective treatment.
“The increase in obesity-related cancer numbers clearly requires our attention,” Dr. William Dahout, chief scientific officer of the American Cancer Society, who was not involved in the new study, told CNN.
“Behavior correction can save millions of more lives, overshadowing the impact of any drug that has ever been approved,” he wrote, adding that “the persistence of the impact of tobacco consumption despite its association with cancer for 65 years, remains a major problem.”
A separate study, published earlier this month in the International Journal of Cancer, found that the estimated 2019 cancer death rate attributable to cigarette smoking in adults aged 25 to 79 ranged from 16.5% in Utah to 37.8% in Kentucky.
The total loss in earnings from death from cigarette-related cancer was estimated to be between $32.2 million in Wyoming and $1.6 billion in California.
Dahout explained the importance of getting the necessary tests to detect any cancers, especially in those who are at increased risk.
In the editorial accompanying the new study, published in The Lancet, Drs Diana Sarfati and Jason Gurney of Cancer Control New Zealand write that the preventable risk factors associated with cancer tend to be similar to the pattern of poverty.
Sarvati and Gurni write: “Poverty affects the environments in which people live, and those environments determine the lifestyle decisions that people are able to pursue. Actions to prevent cancer require concerted efforts within and outside the health sector. This includes specific policies focused on reducing exposure to cancer risk factors such as using tobacco and alcohol, and getting vaccinations that prevent cancer-causing infections, including hepatitis B and HPV.”
“Primary prevention of cancer through the elimination or mitigation of modifiable risk factors is our best hope for reducing the burden of cancer in the future,” the duo continued.