Half Of Americans May develop
Some Type Of Cancer. Do You Have A Cancer Prevention Plan?
The jury is almost out.
Half of Americans will develop some type of cancer in their life time.
The good news is that in good number of cases it will be in a very benign
form where the person can live a long life without facing any problem and
without any treatment. But the bad news is that in an equal number of cases
the cancer will take a malignant form calling for intensive treatment like
chemotherapy, surgery and radiation. Despite medical intervention millions
of Americans will continue to fall prey to cancer every year. This is taking
and will take an increasing toll on the society. The environment we live
in today, life style and diet are a perfect recipe for cancer. Around 2
million new cases of malignant cancer are detected every year in America.
This number is all set to increase. At this rate as much as 50% of the
population would have been afflicted by this disease.
Around 800,000 Americans
are expected to die of cancer in 2010 that is more than 2000 per day. This
is the second most leading cause of death next only to heart disease. But
soon cancer may leave other diseases far behind.
Leaving aside America cancer
is an enormous global health burden. Around 18 Million people are diagnosed
with cancer in rest of the world every year and the death toll is 8 million.
Many of the cases in poor and middle income countries are not even diagnosed
or inadequate treatment given thereby increasing the death toll. By the
year 2020 around 25 million will die every year worldwide because of this
ailment.
Such an increasing cancer
burden is mainly due to few factors like adoption of unhealthy diet, lifestyle
and aging population. The easily avoidable risk factors are tobacco use,
lack of exercise and poor diet. Tobacco in any form including secondary
smoke is a big killer. In 20 century tobacco was estimated to have killed
100 million people in 20 century and in 21 century it will kill around
1 billion people.
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