A new study seems to give us one of those “I knew that” kind of feelings. As bad as cancer is to those affected, often they are preventable. A new study out today shows that things like smoking, bad diet, lack of exercise, dangerous environment can all lead to cancers that are preventable

About 80 percent of all cancers are diagnosed in the elderly, and more than 80 percent of known risk factors are potentially preventable, U.S. researchers say.

Igor Akushevich of Duke University in Durham, N.C., said the primary purpose of the study was to develop an approach to estimate the contributions of measurable risk factors to cancer risk among the elderly.

“So far, we have not come to the stage where we are able to make specific recommendations regarding risk factors,” Akushevich said in a statement. “However, we can confirm several of them which are known. As expected, we see associations of cigarette smoking with lung cancer.”

The researchers said they were surprised at some of the findings. Cancer risk was not associated with alcohol consumption, as reported in other studies. A possible explanation may be that those age 65 or older tend to drink moderately. Read the rest of this entry »

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Exercise is good for more than just your waistline. A recent study presented at the American Association for Cancer Research’s Seventh Annual International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research suggests that regular physical activity can lower a woman’s overall risk of cancer – but only if she gets a good night’s sleep. Otherwise, lack of sleep can undermine exercise’s cancer prevention benefits.

“Greater participation in physical activity has consistently been associated with reduced risk of cancer incidence at several sites, including breast and colon cancers,” said James McClain, Ph.D., cancer prevention fellow at the National Cancer Institute and lead author of the study. “Short duration sleep appears to have opposing effects of physical activity on several key hormonal and metabolic parameters, which is why we looked at how it affected the exercise/cancer risk relationship.”

Even though the exact mechanism of how exercise reduces cancer risk isn’t known, researchers believe that physical activity’s effects on factors including hormone levels, immune function, and body weight may play an important role. The study examined the link between exercise and cancer risk, paying special attention to whether or not getting adequate sleep further affected a women’s cancer risk. Read the rest of this entry »