Lifestyle Disease - Causes - Diet and The Risk of Cancer

Diet and The Risk of Cancer

A research paper published in the Lancet in 2002 discussed the effect of diet on the risk of cancer:

"In many Western countries, people's diet changed substantially in the second half of the twentieth century, generally with increases in consumption of meat, dairy products, vegetable oils, fruit juice, and alcoholic beverages, and decreases in consumption of starchy staple foods such as bread, potatoes, rice, and maize flour. Other aspects of lifestyle also changed, notably, large reductions in physical activity and large increases in the prevalence of obesity."

"It was noted in the 1970s that people in many Western countries had diets high in animal products, fat, and sugar, and high rates of cancers of the colorectum, breast, prostate, endometrium, and lung; by contrast, individuals in developing countries usually had diets that were based on one or two starchy staple foods, with low intakes of animal products, fat, and sugar, and low rates of these cancers."

"These observations suggest that the diets of different populations might partly determine their rates of cancer, and the basis for this hypothesis was strengthened by results of studies showing that people who migrate from one country to another generally acquire the cancer rates of the new host country, suggesting that environmental rather than genetic factors are the key determinants of the international variation in cancer rates."