A new study by the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) shows that many cancer cases are linked to smoking, unhealthy diets and lack of exercise, and that certain patients can avoid cancer with a few minor changes to their lifestyles. The AACR’s latest report reveals the sad fact that half of the approximately 585,720 cancer deaths in the United States this year were related to preventable behaviors. What many patients don’t realize is that many of these deaths could have been prevented with minor lifestyle changes. Studies show that smoking is the biggest “cancer killer,” with 33 percent of preventable cancer diagnoses linked to smoking; 20 percent of cancer diagnoses are due to obesity or overweight; 16 percent of cancer diagnoses are linked to infection with certain cancer-prone pathogens; 5 percent of cancer diagnoses are linked to a patient’s 5% of cancer diagnoses were related to lack of exercise; 5% of cancer diagnoses were related to unhealthy eating habits; and 2% of cancer diagnoses were related to exposure to ultraviolet light from the sun or tanning devices. The results showed that obesity or overweight, unhealthy diet, and lack of exercise together affected one-third of all preventable cancer cases. Being overweight or obese is associated with cancers such as colorectal, endometrial, gallbladder, kidney, pancreatic, and postmenopausal breast cancers. The good news is that some cancers, such as lung cancer, are declining; however, pancreatic, kidney, thyroid, and liver cancers are slowly increasing in number,” said Timothy Rebeck, an epidemiologist at the University of Pennsylvania and spokesman for the AACR. The cancers that are slowly increasing in prevalence are related to obesity,” said Rebeck. In the United States, smoking has declined, but obesity has been increasing. These factors are related to each other, so if you smoke, are overweight and also lack exercise, your chances of getting cancer are probably very high.” The effect of weight on cancer varies depending on the type of cancer, but a distorted body mass index (BMI) can disrupt hormones in the body, and this disruption can then damage DNA. rebeck said: “Obesity is also associated with inflammation, and cancer is fundamentally an inflammatory condition. Diet and exercise are almost as important as not smoking when it comes to cancer prevention.” Up until now, public health messages related to obesity have told us that obesity is linked to heart disease and diabetes, while avoiding its relationship to cancer, but that may start to change because “people are more afraid of cancer than they are of disease,” Rebeck said. In fact, for this part of preventable and controllable tumor prevention is also to guide us to live a healthier life and change our unhealthy habits such as smoking, so that more people can realize that many malignant tumors can be avoided through small changes in lifestyle.