American Behavior Still Drives Cancer Rates, Group Says

Americans are often getting cancer from their own behaviors?smoking, overeating, exercising too little?and could save their own lives if they took advantage of proven screening tests and vaccines, the American Cancer Society said on Thursday.

Yet efforts to reduce smoking have largely stalled as tobacco companies spend more to promote their products, Americans are getting even fatter, and not enough people are getting the right tests and vaccines. Policymakers, companies and individuals can do more to encourage the right behavior, the nonprofit organization said.

"With increased efforts toward more fostering of and support for cancer prevention and early detection activities, we can reduce incidence, death, and suffering from cancer," the group?s Vilma Cokkinides, who helped write the report, said in a statement.

"The price and availability of healthy foods, incentives, and opportunities for regular physical activity in schools and communities, advertising content, as well as the availability of insurance coverage for screening tests and treatment for tobacco addiction all influence individual choices. Improved collaboration among government agencies, private companies, nonprofit organizations, health care providers, policymakers, and the American public can lead to continued improvements, and more favorable trends that reduce the risk of death from cancer and other chronic diseases."

The American Cancer Society published a series of statistics making its point:

Smoking declined only modestly between 2005 and 2010, and more than 19 percent of U.S. adults smoke cigarettes. At the same time, the tobacco industry has made a big push of smokeless tobacco products, with spending up 120 percent between 2005 and 2008. ?The majority of these expenditures went toward price discounts that are intended to offset tobacco price increases,? the cancer society said.

The American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, the group?s lobbying arm, did a study showing that comprehensive smoke-free legislation in states that lack it could prevent 624,000 premature deaths and save $1.32 billion in treatment costs over five years.

Obesity rates are rising, with 18 percent of adolescents and close to 36 percent of adults obese. This raises the risk of breast, colon and pancreatic cancer as well as the risk of heart disease, diabetes, and stroke.

One area of hope: Close to half of girls aged 13 to 17 who are supposed to get a vaccine against human papillomavirus (HPV) have received at least one dose of the three-dose series. HPV causes nearly all cases of cervical cancer, as well as cancers of the head, neck, mouth, penis, and anus. In 2007 only a quarter of girls had started the series.

But not enough women are getting mammograms to screen for breast cancer, the group said. Just two-thirds of women 40 or older reported they got a mammogram in the past year and fewer than a third of women who lack health insurance got one. And just 59 percent of adults 50 or older said they got the recommended screening for colon cancer.

Cancers of all kinds are the No. 2 cause of death in the United States, killing more than 560,000 Americans a year. Experts say more than 30 percent of cancer cases are caused by obesity, poor diet, and lack of exercise, with another 18 percent caused by infectious diseases such as HPV and a bacterial infection that causes stomach cancer.

In a separate report, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention?estimated that 26,000 people get cancer from HPV every year: 18,000 women and 8,000 males. Of these, 11,500 cases are cervical cancer and 7,400 head, mouth, and neck cancers.

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