Myth 1: Cancer equals death “Cancer is a global epidemic that affects people of all ages, but having cancer is not the same as being sentenced to death.” Experts from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) pointed out that cancer has become one of the common and frequent chronic diseases, and 1/3 of cancers are now treatable. “Describing cancer as a chronic disease is not a psychological comfort for patients by doctors.” Wang Ping, president of Tianjin Cancer Hospital, said that even though the World Health Organization listed cancer as a chronic disease as early as 2006, the common people still can’t treat it correctly. According to President Wang Ping, when facing cancer, two attitudes are most undesirable, one is belittling and the other is fear. Some people are very confident in their own bodies and feel that cancer will not “mess with” them, thus ignoring the abnormal signals of their bodies and refusing the necessary medical checkups; some others are overly panicked after they are diagnosed with cancer, and the degree of their mental collapse is even greater than the trauma they have suffered from their bodies, and they are unable to cooperate with the doctors’ treatments. Treating cancer as a chronic disease means that patients are expected to face their situation positively and cooperate with doctors. Relying on scientific and standardized treatment, cancer patients can also live and work normally like patients with hypertension, diabetes and other common chronic diseases. Myth 2: Cancer has nothing to do with lifestyle “Cancer is the result of the long-term combined effect of many factors, and is closely related to environmental factors and lifestyle.” Experts from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) emphasize that the main risk factors for cancer include smoking, overweight, obesity, lack of exercise, excessive alcohol consumption, hepatitis B virus, hepatitis C virus infection (liver cancer), and sexually transmitted infections (STIs), of which tobacco is the most certain and most important cancer-causing factor found so far. “Most cancers are related to smoking.” Smoking is the main cause of lung, laryngeal, oral cavity, pharyngeal and esophageal cancers, and a contributing factor to bladder, pancreatic, liver, cervical, stomach and certain leukemias, experts said. According to data provided by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), smokers’ risk of lung cancer is 16 to 25 times higher than that of non-smokers; in developed countries, 80 to 90 percent of lung cancers are caused by smoking; and at least 60 percent of bladder cancers in men in Western countries are caused by smoking. “In addition, the occurrence of gastrointestinal tumors such as stomach cancer, liver cancer and esophageal cancer is relatively high in rural areas, with esophageal cancer being the most obvious manifestation, with a mortality rate twice that of the city.” Chen Wanqing, deputy director of the National Tumor Registration Center, believes that this may be related to the fact that cities are better than rural areas in terms of economy, health and living conditions. Myth 3: Cancer cannot be prevented In fact, the World Health Organization has long announced that cancer can be prevented, and three levels of preventive measures have been proposed for different groups of people, i.e., etiological prevention, preclinical prevention and clinical prevention/rehabilitation prevention. At least 40% of tumors can be prevented through proactive prevention and intervention. The most effective way to reduce the incidence of cancer is etiologic prevention, or primary prevention. The incidence of cancer is mainly affected by the age structure of the population, nutrition, heredity, environment, lifestyle and economic level, education level, etc. Among them, maintaining a scientific and healthy lifestyle is the most effective means of cancer prevention in people’s own hands. It is crucial to control calories and fat and increase fruits, vegetables and grains, as well as to exercise regularly, stay away from tobacco and alcohol, avoid infections and maintain a good psychological state. In addition, frequent self-examination of the body and regular physical examination of the body can effectively improve the early diagnosis rate of tumors. Especially after the age of 40, extra attention must be paid, because the age distribution of cancer is characterized by relatively low morbidity and mortality rate before the age of 40, and a rapid increase in morbidity and mortality rate after the age of 40, which peaks at the age of about 80.