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Lifestyle shift would cut colon cancer rates
By Anne Harding
Last Updated: 2009-05-07 9:55:54 -0400 (Reuters Health)
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - If residents of the UK would adopt lifestyle guidelines now recommended by health authorities -- and stop getting fatter -- the country would see a substantial drop in the number of people diagnosed with colorectal cancer over the next couple of decades, a new report shows.
While the targets are "realistic," getting people to make such changes is easier said than done, admits Dr. Donald Maxwell Parkin of the Cancer Research UK Centre for Epidemiology in London. Nevertheless, "they're not impossible things to achieve," he told Reuters Health.
Overall, rates of colorectal cancer in the UK are projected to fall by 9% by the year 2024 if current trends continue, Parkin and his team note in their report in the European Journal of Cancer Prevention.
They looked at how lifestyle changes now being promoted in the UK might impact rates of the disease in the future. These include eating less red meat and drinking less alcohol, eating more fruits and vegetables, exercising more, and maintaining a healthy weight.
If men reduced their intake of red meat to 80 grams a day (just under 3 ounces), for example, Parkin and his colleagues found the incidence of colorectal cancer would fall by 13.7% by 2024. This translates to 3,642 fewer cases of the disease. The drop would be less substantial for women because they don't eat as much red meat.
Eating five servings of fruits and vegetables daily would cut colorectal cancer incidence by 6.6% for men and 5.6% for women, the team estimates.
Keeping the weight profile of UK citizens at its current level would reduce projected colorectal cancer incidence by 3.4% for men and 2.6% for women, while slimming this profile down to 1986-1987 levels would cut incidence by 8.1% and 6.9%, respectively, according to the researchers.
Upping average activity levels to 30 minutes five times a week would cut risk by 2.4% for men and 2.7% for women, while limiting alcohol intake to two to three drinks a day would reduce men's risk by 5.3% and women's by 1.4%.
Overall, the researchers found, if the UK population's average for all these lifestyle habits met these targets, and its weight profile returned to 1986-1987 levels, 31.5% of colorectal cancers in men and 18.4% of cases in women could be prevented.
Parkin emphasized that the results are for the population as a whole, and don't mean that an individual man adopting these habits would reduce his own colorectal cancer risk by 31%, for example. A healthier lifestyle could cut risk by more, or less, he explained. "You have to see what your own risk profile is at the moment and what would change."
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