Cancer Prevention: Looking Back, Looking Forward

It’s National Cancer Prevention Month and we’re taking the opportunity to mark AICR’s 30th Anniversary.

In our February eNews, we look back at what we’ve learned and forward to where the research is going. We’ve come a long way in the past 30 years in understanding how diet, weight and physical activity affect cancer risk and survivorship – but we still have much more to learn. Here’s a look at some things we know and what may be down the road:

1.  What we eat makes a difference.

Diet recommendations to lower cancer risk have evolved, as for many chronic diseases, from a focus on single nutrients or food components to overall eating patterns and whole foods. Continue reading


Doctors, Weight and Tough Conversations

Has your primary care doc ever talked with you about whether your weight is healthy or not?

Now authors of a new study say that conversation is less likely to happen if your doctor is overweight or obese. One key finding was that overweight and obese doctors were less likely to discuss weight with patients than were doctors with a healthy BMI.

But I found another statistic even more alarming: Even among the healthy BMI doctors, only 30% reported discussing weight with obese patients.

The health risks associated with obesity are clear – including increased risk for many cancers. So why aren’t doctors doing more to help their patients?

Continue reading


Cancer Screening Headlines and Prevention

Everyone’s talking about that report released last Thursday from the US Centers for Disease Control. The news isn’t good: Not enough Americans are getting screened for cancer, and the numbers are distressingly low among Asian-Americans and Hispanics.

The CDC report, published in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, finds that we are not meeting national targets for cancer screening; experts acknowledge that some patients are confused by conflicting advice over the timing of screening, and that access to care remains a huge issue, but they stress that screening saves lives.

Here at the American Institute for Cancer Research, we agree that early detection is key; this page provides the latest CDC information about screening of breast, colorectal and cervical cancers, as well as information about screening for lung, prostate, ovarian and skin cancer. Continue reading