Smoking, drinking alcohol, being overweight and other risk factors are the main causes of cancer deaths.
Exposure to risk factors plays a key role in the biology and burden of many cancer types. There are risk factors that can increase a person's chance of developing cancer and doctors don't know the exact causes of the disease.
Researchers at the University of Washington are the first to figure out how risk factors contribute to cancer deaths.
Smoking, alcohol use, and a high body mass index are the main contributors. According to the findings of the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors study, risk factors are responsible for over four million cancer deaths annually.
That's 44.4% of all cancer deaths around the world. More than a third of all female cancer deaths were due to estimated risk factors, but half of all male cancer deaths were due to estimated risk factors. Dr Christopher Murray is the director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.
Smoking continues to be the leading risk factor for cancer in the world. Key risk factors that could be targeted in efforts to reduce deaths from cancer can be found in our findings.
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Smoking, alcohol use and high body mass index were the leading risk factors for cancer deaths for both genders.
tracheal, bronchus and lung cancer were the leading causes of death for both women and men. Risk factors account for a third of all cancer deaths.
Breast cancer was the most common cancer in women. Colon and rectum cancer was the most common cancer in men.
The five regions with the highest cancer death rates were central Europe, east Asia, high income North America, and southern Latin America.
Cancer Research UK, the world's largest independent cancer research organisation, says quitting smoking, cutting back on alcohol, maintaining a healthy weight, and eating a balanced diet can all improve the odds in your favor.
Two people who were not involved in the study said that preventing cancer by eliminating or reducing exposure to risk factors was the best way to reduce the future burden of cancer.
Reducing this burden will improve health and wellbeing and alleviate the fiscal pressures on cancer services and the wider health sector.
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