Slide 3

Avoidable Environmental Factors

The good news is that the major environmental factors that are linked to cancer deaths can be modified, because most of them involve lifestyle choices. Almost one-third of all cancer deaths could be prevented by eliminating the use of tobacco products, for example, and making better dietary choices could prevent many more premature deaths from this disease. Our knowledge and certainty about diet is much less firm than it is for tobacco. Diets are very complex and we need to know what people ate in the past that impacted their cancer diagnoses today.