An Overview of the epidemiological evidence linking diet and cancer

It is quite possible, therefore, that dietary modification could help to reduce the incidence of cancers that are now known to be due to tobacco, occupational hazards, viral infection, ultra-violet light, and ionizing radiation, even if these hazards continued.

Abstract

There is now uniform agreement among oncologists that the incidence of cancer is determined, in large part, by factors in the environment and aspects of behaviour that are capable of modification or avoidance. It is agreed, too, that by such means the age-specific incidence of the disease in middle and old age could be reduced by some 8 0 4 % . That the percentage should be so high should not be surprising, when it is borne in mind that we now know about fifty causes of human cancer that are responsible, between them, for about 40% of all the cancers that occur annually throughout the world, while in this country tobacco alone is responsible for about one-third of all cancer deaths. It may be surprising, however, that diet is also commonly suggested to be responsible for about 30-70% of the total, when so few aspects of diet have been established as causes of the disease.