The Lancet: Smoking, drinking and obesity cause half of global cancer deaths

Cancer is a major global public health problem.
In recent years, due to factors such as diet, environment, and population aging, the global cancer incidence has been increasing, and cancer has become increasingly prominent as the main cause of death
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According to the latest global cancer burden data released by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in 2020, China has become a veritable cancer power
.
As the world's most populous country, China's cancer data is not optimistic.
Whether it is the number of new cases or the number of deaths, China ranks first in the world
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On August 19, 2022, the international authoritative medical journal "The Lancet" published a study entitled "The global burden of cancer attributable to risk factors, 2010-19: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019".
research paper
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The study shows that almost half of cancer deaths worldwide are caused by known risk factors such as smoking, alcohol consumption and obesity, and smoking remains the leading risk factor for cancer worldwide
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This shows that the cancer burden remains an important public health challenge and is growing on a global scale
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In the study, researchers used the results of the 2019 Global Disease, Injury and Risk Factors (GBD) Study to assess for the first time how a list of 34 behavioural, metabolic, environmental and occupational risk factors is affected globally, regionally and nationally, across age groups , gender, and time-course cancer deaths and poor health outcomes
.
Estimates of the cancer burden are based on death and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs), which measure the number of years of life lost due to death and the number of years lived with disability
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Overall, in 2019, nearly 4.
45 million cancer deaths worldwide were attributable to risk factors such as smoking, alcohol consumption and obesity, accounting for 44.
4% of all cancer deaths worldwide
.
Among them, 50.
6% of cancer deaths in men were due to risk factors such as smoking, alcohol consumption and being overweight, and 36.
3% in women
.
There were 105 million cancer DALYs attributable to all risk factors, accounting for 42% of all cancer DALYs
.

For attributable cancer DALYs, smoking was the leading risk factor in men, accounting for 33.
9% of all cancer DALYs in men in 2019
.
Alcohol use, dietary risk, and air pollution were the second-largest risk factors, accounting for 7.
4%, 5.
9%, and 4.
4% of all male cancer DALYs in 2019, respectively
.

For women, smoking was also a major risk factor, accounting for 10.
7% of all female cancer DALYs in 2019
.
Unsafe sex was the second-leading risk factor for women, accounting for 8.
2% of all women's cancer DALYs in 2019, followed by dietary risk (5.
1%), obesity (4.
7%), and high fasting glucose (3.
6%)
.

Cancer DALYs from 11 Grade 2 Risk Factors

The analysis of cancer deaths found that the leading causes of cancer deaths due to risk were tracheal, bronchial and lung cancers, accounting for 36.
9% of all cancer deaths due to risk factors
.
This was followed by colorectal cancer (13.
3%), esophagus (9.
7%) and gastric cancer (6.
6%) in men, and cervical cancer (17.
9%), colorectal cancer (15.
8%) and breast cancer (11%) in women
.

Cancer death statistics by gender

In addition, the researchers found that men and women differed in two major risk factors: behavioral risk and environmental and occupational risk
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In terms of behavioral risk, men (33.
2%) had nearly four times the cancer DALY due to smoking than women (8.
9%)
.
In terms of alcohol consumption, men (7.
4%) had more than three times the cancer DALY than women (2.
3%)
.

The higher cancer DALY in men may be because men are more likely to smoke and drink alcohol than women, the researchers said
.

When looking at environmental and occupational risks, the study found that DALYs from cancer were three times higher in men (3.
9%) compared to women (1.
3%), suggesting that men may be more likely than women to be exposed to high-risk carcinogens local work
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Taken together, studies show that cancer burden remains an important public health challenge, that smoking remains a major risk factor for cancer globally, and that other important contributors to cancer burden vary
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The results can help policymakers and researchers identify key risk factors that can be targeted for reducing regional, national and global cancer deaths
.

Paper link:

https://doi.
org/10.
1016/S0140-6736(22)01438-6