Who Gets Cancer?

Every year as per statistics over one million people in the US get cancer. Half of American men and one third of American women have a chance of getting cancer in their lifetime. Age seems no bar though all cancer diagnosis shows that it is predominant in people 55 years and older. Cancer has been found in Americans of all racial and ethnic groups with the incidence rate varying group to group.

One of the single most important weapons in the fight against cancer is its early detection. It has been found and verified that the chances of cure has increased with early detection.

What are the Risk factors?

A risk factor in medical terms is anything that increases the chance of a person to get a disease. For getting cancer it has been found that the person’s age, sex, and family medical history can be important risk factors. Then there are the environmental factors. Other than these there are the person’s life style factors-of use of tobacco and alcohol, diet and exposure to sun’s UV rays. Some of these factors can be changed and others cannot.

If a person is associated with any of these risk factors in his life then he has a larger probability of being affected by cancer in his life-time. Though it has been observed that a person with a large number of risk factors does not get cancer yet a person with no apparent risk gets it. Also no linkages have been observed between cancer and the risk factors.

Different risk factors have been associated with different types of cancers. Some of these are:

• Breast cancer: Age; changes in hormone levels throughout life, such as age at first menstruation, number of pregnancies, and age at menopause; obesity; and physical activity. Studies have also shown a connection between alcohol consumption and an increased risk of breast cancer. Also, women with a mother or sister who have had breast cancer are more likely to develop the disease themselves.
• Cancers of lung, mouth, larynx, bladder, kidney, cervix esophagus, and pancreas: Tobacco use, including cigarettes, cigars, chewing tobacco, and snuff. Smoking alone causes one-third of all cancer deaths.
• Skin cancer: Exposure to strong sunlight.
• Prostate cancer: Age, race, and diet. The chance of getting prostate cancer goes up with age.

Prostate cancer is more common among African-American men than among white men. (We do not yet know why this is so.) A high-fat diet may play a part in causing prostate cancer. Also, men with a father or brother who have had prostate cancer are more likely to get prostate cancer themselves.

In the US three-fourths of the cancer cases are caused due to the following environmental factors: tobacco usage, diet, infectious diseases, chemicals, and radiation exposure. Personal cancer risk is enhanced due to tobacco usage, diet, and physical activity. Research shows that about one-third of all cancer deaths are related to dietary factors and lack of physical activity in adulthood.

Some cancers are related to viral infections and can be prevented by vaccines and behavior changes. More than 1 million skin cancers expected to be diagnosed in 2003 could have been prevented by protection from the sun’s rays.

Source : www.mdonweb.org

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