cancer prevention

Can­cer pre­ven­tion is defined as active mea­sures to decrease the risk of can­cer. The vast major­i­ty of can­cer cas­es are due to envi­ron­men­tal risk fac­tors, and many, but not all, of these envi­ron­men­tal fac­tors are con­trol­lable lifestyle choic­es. Thus, can­cer is con­sid­ered a large­ly pre­ventable dis­ease. Greater than 30% of can­cer deaths could be pre­vent­ed by avoid­ing risk fac­tors includ­ing: tobac­co, over­weight / obe­si­ty, an insuf­fi­cient diet, phys­i­cal inac­tiv­i­ty, alco­hol, sex­u­al­ly trans­mit­ted infec­tions, and air pol­lu­tion. Not all envi­ron­men­tal caus­es are con­trol­lable, such as nat­u­ral­ly occur­ring back­ground radi­a­tion, and oth­er cas­es of can­cer are caused through hered­i­tary genet­ic dis­or­ders, and thus it is not pos­si­ble to pre­vent all cas­es of cancer.