Causes of cancer

Most cancers are related to environmental, lifestyle, or behavioral exposures. The term "environmental", as used by cancer researchers, refers to everything outside the body that interacts with humans. In this sense, the environment is not limited to the biophysical environment (e.g. exposure to factors such as air pollution or sunlight, encountered outdoors or indoors, at home or in the workplace), but also includes lifestyle, economic and behavioral factors. Common environmental factors that contribute to cancer death include tobacco (according to one estimate, accounting for 25–30% of deaths), obesity (30–35%), infections (15–20%), radiation (both ionizing and non-ionizing, up to 10%), lack of physical activity, and environmental pollutants.

It is nearly impossible to prove what caused a cancer in any individual, because most cancers have multiple possible causes. For example, if a person who uses tobacco heavily develops lung cancer, then it was probably caused by the tobacco use, but since everyone has a small chance of developing lung cancer as a result of air pollution or radiation, then there is a small chance that the cancer developed because of air pollution or radiation. Cancer is generally not contagious in humans, though it can be caused by oncoviruses and cancer bacteria.

It should be noted that aging has been repeatedly and consistently regarded as an important aspect to consider when evaluating the risk factors for the development of particular cancers; aging is considered a risk factor and this is explained by the observation that many molecular and cellular changes are involved in the development of cancer, so it is very likely that these changes accumulate during the aging process (that is, molecular and cellular changes collectively leading to cancer accumulate throughout the years), eventually manifesting themselves as cancer. Over 30% of cancers are potentially avoidable by reducing key risk factors, of which much the significant is tobacco use, which is the cause of about 22% of cancer deaths. Another 10% is due to obesity, a poor diet, lack of physical activity, and drinking alcohol. Other factors include certain infections, exposure to ionizing radiation, and environmental pollutants. In the developing world nearly 20% of cancers are due to infections such as hepatitis B, hepatitis C, and human papillomavirus. These factors act, at least partly, by changing the genes of a cell. Typically many such genetic changes are required before cancer develops. Approximately 5–10% of cancers are due to genetic defects inherited from a person's parents.

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