CANCER RATES
More healthful diets, exercise, and other lifestyle changes are credited with bringing down the overall rate of new cases of cancer for the first time, researchers reported in 1998. In the last six years, cancer incidence dropped by about 6 percent, the first decline in national malignancy rates since statistics began to be tracked 25 years ago.
Also in 1997, the number of cancer deaths declined in the U.S. for the first time. Dr. David S. Rosenthal, president of the American Cancer Society and a Harvard Medical School professor, noted that Americans increased their vegetable and fruit intake from the late 1980s to the mid-1990s, contributing to the decline.
Source: D. S. Rosenthal, “Changing Trends,” CA Cancer Journal Clin 48(1):3-4, 1998.
• Global Rates Rise - Food, Nutrition, and the Prevention of Cancer: A Global Perspective, the most comprehensive review and evaluation of scientific evidence on diet and cancer in the 1990s, concluded that 3 to 4 million cases of cancer per year could be prevented by appropriate diet and lifestyle changes.
Prepared by a 15-member panel with the support of the American Institute for Cancer Research and the World Cancer Research Fund, the report made 14 dietary recommendations that “are likely to prevent cancer and are consistent with the prevention of other diseases.” The report noted that worldwide 10 million people developed some form of cancer in 1996, and at least 6 million died of the disease. Source: Charles Marwick, “Global Review of Diet and Cancer Links Available,” Journal of the American Medical Association 278: 1650-51, 1997.
• 22% Australian Patients Using Alternative Methods - In Australia, a cancer clinic at the Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney reported that 22 percent of its patients were using alternative methods, especially diet and psychological approaches, with a “very high” degree of expectation and satisfaction.
Source: S. D. Begbie et al., “Patterns of Alternative Medicine Use by Cancer Patients,” Medical Journal of Australia 165(10):545-48, 1996.