The American Cancer Society has supported a study to assess how 30 cancer types among US adults aged over 30 years in 2019, were attributable to potentially modifiable risk factors. Numbers of cancer cases and deaths were obtained from national data sources, risk factor estimates came from national surveys, and associated relative risks of cancer from published large-scale pooled or meta-analyses. Overall, an estimated 40% of all cancers and 44% of cancer deaths were attributable to these risk factors.
Although there was slight variability between men and women, the proportions of cancer attributable to the top six risk factors in the population were:
cigarette smoking 19.3%, excess body weight 7.6%, alcohol consumption 5.4%, UV radiation 4.6%, physical inactivity 3.1%, HPV infection 1.8%.
After these six, came factors such as low fruit & vegetable consumption, consumption of processed meat, low dietary fibre, H.pylori infection, and consumption of red meat.
By cancer type, lung cancer had the largest number of cases attributable to evaluated risk factors, followed by skin melanoma.
(Proportion and number of cancer cases and deaths attributable to potentially modifiable risk factors in the United States, 2019. CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, 11 July 2024.)
