Nine in 10 cancers caused by lifestyle, not genes

Although cancer has always been believed to be an illness brought about mainly by bad luck, new research suggests that up to nine out of ten cancers are a result of negative lifestyle habits and environmental factors.

The probability of developing cancer has more to with external factors such as lifestyle and exposure to environment risk than with an unavoidable intrinsic risk, a new study has found.

In an earlier study from January, researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore looked at 31 cancer types and found that 22 were generally “bad luck”. The argument has been about the relative importance of intrinsic and extrinsic factors.

However, the Stony Brook study established that “the correlation between stem-cell division and cancer risk does not distinguish between the effects of intrinsic and extrinsic factors”, meaning that the link between cancer and the of rate stem-cell division could not, in fact, be associated exclusively with intrinsic factors.

In other news TELEGRAPH, although some rare cancers can be driven by genetic mutations, the most prevalent diseases are down to environmental factors, they conclude.

Kevin McConway, a professor of applied statistics at the Open University said: “They do provide pretty convincing evidence that external factors play a major role in many cancers, including some of the most common”.

“They can’t smoke and say it’s bad luck if they have cancer – not every smoker gets cancer, obviously there is still an element of luck, but they have stacked the odds against them”.

It is in stark contrast to what a study found a year ago – researchers claimed that most cases of the disease are caused by errors in DNA that are generated at random as the body ages and its cells divide.

The models suggested that mutations during cell division rarely build up to the point of producing cancer, even in tissues with relatively high rates of cell division.

This new study, published in the journal Nature, adds credibility to public health advice which says that maintaining a healthy weight, avoiding pollution and sunburn, and not smoking or drinking heavily are the best ways to prevent cancer.

This can be a warning sign of many forms of the disease.

This could mean you’re suffering skin cancer.