Changing Lifestyle May Help to Combat Cancer

A new report says changing lifestyles can be a major factor in preventing deaths from cancer.

The Institute of Medicine says that quitting smoking, eating healthily and exercising regularly, coupled with rigorous screening, could cut cancer deaths by nearly one-third. The Institute's report says deaths from lung cancer, the top cancer killer in the United States, could be cut in half by the year 2015, and colon cancer by one-third.

The report says 100,000 new cancer cases and 60,000 cancer deaths in the United States could be prevented each year.

The Institute urges health care providers, insurers, employers and policy makers to concentrate on getting people to drink and smoke less, adopt healthy diets and exercise programs, and be checked regularly for breast, cervical and colorectal cancer.

The American Cancer Society says nearly 1.3 million people were diagnosed with cancer in 2002, and 500,000 died of cancer. Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the United States, exceeded only by heart disease.