A new study reported that “globally, nearly half of deaths due to cancer can be attributable to preventable risk factors.”

The three leading risks of cancer deaths include:

• smoking,
• drinking too much alcohol, or
• having a high body mass index.

This study found “that 44.4% of all cancer deaths and 42% of healthy years lost could be attributable to preventable risk factors in 2019.”

Also, these data “showed that risk-attributable cancer deaths are on the rise, increasing worldwide by 20.4% from 2010 to 2019.”

The new study “clearly delineates” the importance of primary cancer prevention and “the increasing cancer numbers related to obesity clearly demands our attention,” Dr. William Dahut, chief scientific officer for the American Cancer Society, who was not involved in the new study, wrote in an email to CNN.

“Modifying behavior could lead to millions more lives saved greatly overshadowing the impact of any drug ever approved,” he wrote, adding, “The continued impact of tobacco despite approximately 65 years of a linkage to cancer remains very problematic.”

A separate study, published earlier in the International Journal of Cancer, reported the estimated proportion of cancer deaths in 2019 attributable to cigarette smoking in adults ages 25 to 79 ranged from 16.5% in Utah to 37.8% in Kentucky. The estimated total lost earnings due to cigarette smoking-attributable cancer deaths ranged from $32.2 million in Wyoming to $1.6 billion in California.

The study was published in The Lancet. Read more details in a CNN health report.

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