Yervand Kondrahjian | Staff Writer

Cancer has emerged as one of the most serious non-communicable illnesses confronting communities and healthcare systems worldwide in recent decades. Cancer has become the leading cause of early mortality among non-communicable illnesses in high-income nations. We hear so much about cancer, but what actually is cancer?

Cancer is a broad term for a group of diseases that share some characteristics, such as uncontrolled cellular growth, increased angiogenesis, and/or decreased programmed cell death. The majority of cancers progress from the initial tumor cell (e.g., mutated DNA) to mild, moderate, and severe dysplasia, invasive carcinoma (cell invasion through the basement membrane), to metastatic disease.

Cancer incidence is growing year after year over the world (WHO). In fact, cancer deaths have increased by 75 % in the last 30 years. Men had a somewhat higher number of incident cases and fatalities than women. The lung, prostate, colon, stomach, and liver were the five most prevalent cancer locations in men. The same areas were the leading causes of cancer mortality in males. The breast, colorectal (9.2%), lung, cervix, and stomach were women’s five most prevalent incidence sites of cancer. These locations also represented the leading causes of cancer mortality in women.

But what does this have to do with diet? In fact, your lifestyle can have a great effect on the risk of developing cancer. A good diet, physical activity, and healthy body weight can potentially prevent one-third of the world’s most frequent malignancies. Note that in this case, we do not discuss treatment, but we discuss the prevention of the disease. Prevention is an essential tool for improving public health, and it is by far the most cost-effective and long-term strategy for lowering the worldwide cancer burden.

Cancer etiology is complicated and multifactorial. Cancer is caused by a series of genetic changes that eventually impair the coding of oncogenes for growth factors, growth factor receptors, or tumor suppressor genes, which, when inactivated, fail to govern the normal processes of cell death and turnover. Extensive research into the variables that contribute to the formation of cancer has revealed that inherited germ-line mutations account for just 5% of cancers, while environmental influences account for 95%. In addition to external stressors (radiation, pollution, diseases, etc.), these environmental elements include lifestyle factors (tobacco, alcohol, physical activity), and food.

Immigrant studies in the United States and Australia provided early evidence for the influence of environmental variables. These studies found that after one or two generations, the incidence of common malignancies rises to the level of the new host nation. This shows how the environment plays an immensely significant role in the prevention and development of this disease.

Cancers of the esophagus, mouth, throat, larynx, colon, rectum, and breast are among the most preventable by proper diet, nutrition, physical activity, and body fatness. As a result, food and lifestyle variables are second only to not smoking to minimize the risk of cancer.

Diet has a role in cancer etiology by influencing fundamental biological processes and the balance between cell proliferation, death, and differentiation. Food, nutrition, body fatness, and physical activity may influence one or more fundamental cellular processes, such as cell signaling, gene expression, epigenetic regulation, cellular differentiation, and DNA repair, as well as the regulation of the normal cell cycle, which ensures proper DNA replication.

The relationship between food and cancer is complicated. Traditionally, epidemiologists dealt with risk factors that could be easily assessed, such as smoking. Diet, on the other hand, represents hundreds of nutritional components that are consumed each day, with each food item including a unique mix and concentration of these dietary components. The diet-cancer link is compounded further by the fact that a single bioactive food item may impact many phases in the cancer process, and that many of these processes can be affected by numerous food components.

Of course, we cannot fully avoid carcinogens, and it is impossible to maintain a lifestyle that completely removes cancer from the equation. Sometimes, some environmental and dietary actions are unavoidable. However, there is a lot we can do to minimize this risk: Keeping a relatively organic diet, avoiding smoking, and exercising regularly trains your body to keep a healthier body and to avoid mutagens and bodily malfunctions. This is why diet is not only important to lose weight, but it is also important at the biological and genetic level, something we do not usually consider in our daily lives.x`x`