Cancer, a dread disease, is somewhat preventable. Healthy habits, careful vigilance, and good care including new therapeutics make a significant difference, as noted in a National Institute of Health and National Cancer Institute report released last week.
The overall cancer death rate has decreased from 2001 to 2018. Lung cancer and melanoma survival rates thankfully improved markedly. Obviously, the incidence of lung cancer is directly proportional to tobacco use, so avoiding tobacco addiction in the first place makes the most sense. Fortunately, smoking rates are down, but smokeless tobacco use has increased particularly among youth. Smokeless tobacco has not yet been around long enough to show the anticipated increase in cancer incidence, but other related lung damage has been well documented.
The cancer survival trends are not all good, presumably due in part to obesity increasing in America—a recognized risk for cancer. The threat of major cancers including prostate, colorectal, and female breast cancer are on the rise, having been linked to obesity in the past. Prior to 2001, these cancers were declining in incidence.
At the current rate of weight gain in America, obesity will soon outrank tobacco use as the most common risk factor for cancer. Thus, diet matters for more than only cardiovascular risk.
Fourteen of the twenty most common cancers among women have declined from 2014 to 2118. For men, eleven of nineteen common cancers have also decreased. The rate of decline for women’s breast cancer and men’s prostate cancer have leveled off, not a good sign. Also concerning is the increase in brain, pancreas, liver, oral, pharyngeal, and uterine cancers.
Treatment for metastatic melanoma and other forms of cancer including metastatic lung cancer now have new effective immunological pharmaceuticals. Clearly this class of medications are breakthroughs that will be further developed.
The influence of COVID-19 has not yet been examined but may be noteworthy because routine screening decreased during this time. However, other paradoxical influences may have been present during the pandemic, as was the case with the profound drop in the prevalence of influenza, which dropped to 1% of the expected rate.
Going forward by addressing health disparities in resource-challenged communities is an opportunity now coming into focus. Broader screening across the socio-economic spectrum, facile access, and reasonable costs and/or availability of health insurance are very effective preventive measures.
As would be expected, everything a person does is interrelated. Living a healthy lifestyle in a community with measurably excellent Social Determinants of Health (SDoH) is beneficial in many ways including a longer life expectancy. An alternative way of effectively examining and positively influencing SDoH is a newly coined term—Social Multipliers. Changing from merely admiring SDoH to actively engaging people, places, and policy adds years of healthy and happy life expectancy. Switching mindset from passive to active affects your overall happiness, cancer risk, mental health, and much more.
Engage in a healthy lifestyle and decrease your chance of a dread disease.
