By The Numbers

How Much – and What Kind – of Cancers are Preventable?

The AICR policy report sought to determine how much cancer could be prevented through diet, physical activity and weight management.

Estimated Cases of US Cancers Preventable by Diet, Activity, and Weight Management
Cancer Type	Percentage Prevented	*Number of Cases Prevented
Breast, female	38%	88,289
Prostate	11%	26,245
Gallbladder	21%	2,060
Endometrial	59%	29,240
Esophageal	69%	12,413
Colorectal	50%	71,410
Pancreatic	19%	8,592
Mouth, Pharyngeal & Laryngeal	63%	23,682
Kidney	24%	15,636
Liver	15%	4,596
Stomach	47%	10,152
Lung	36%	82,148
TOTAL		374,464

*Estimated, based on: AICR/WRCF, Policy and Action for Cancer Prevention; Food, Nutrition, Physical Activity, and the Prevention of Cancer and its Continuous Update reports; National Cancer Institute estimated number of cases

Preventability estimates were calculated using information on:

Cancer risk associated with lifestyle factor
Prevalence of low, moderate and high levels/consumption of lifestyle factor in each country
Incidence of different cancers in each country

You can read the full methodology used to calculate the estimates in Appendix A of the Policy Report.

Briefly: Estimates were made for lifestyle factors judged to be convincing or probable modifiers of cancer risk in the report and its continuous updates, with a few exceptions; thus 12 cancers were included.

Highest versus lowest risk estimates were used for cancer risk. One research study (ideally large and recent) was chosen from those collected as part of the 2007 report and its continuous updates, where the size of effect was representative of all studies. Information on prevalence of lifestyle factors was obtained from national surveys. These two pieces of information were used to estimate preventability for each lifestyle factor.