Can a Poor Diet Be as Dangerous as Smoking?

When it comes to Cancer, Both Can Be Blamed

It is the 3^rd weekend in June and time once again for the Annual Red Bottom Celebration. Relatives from Muddy Cluster on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation are in town and have gathered for this eventful weekend. You have cousins running around, uncles telling stories, and even more relatives straggling into the family campsite from the dancing arena. Aunt Susie just made your favorite menudo and frybread at the camp. You finish your first piece and lick the grease off your fingers before you're done with your steaming bowl of spicy tripe and hominy. You think to yourself, “one more piece of frybread won’t hurt” and are just about to reach for that second piece when your cousin Carl, smoking his third cigarette, passes by and comments on your double chin. You reconsider your decision and quickly compare the situation; how could that extra piece of frybread be as bad as that cigarette hanging from his lower lip?!

Which of the following diseases are influenced by diet?

A. Obesity

B. Cardiovascular Disease

C. Diabetes

D. Cancer

Figure 1: This chart illustrates how diet is in equal proportion to other causes of cancer. Source: World Cancer Research Fund and the American Institute for Cancer Research

At first, most people will recognize a bad diet as a risk factor for metabolic diseases such as obesity, heart disease, or diabetes, but rarely with the disease called cancer. Smoking cigarettes would be the culprit most likely attributed to the disease because of the emphasized attribution to lung cancer. However, lifestyle habits that are as risky as cigarette smoking are often overlooked, including a poor diet, lack of exercise and exposure to dangerous chemicals at work or in the environment. In fact, cancer cases in the United States are related in equal proportion to tobacco use, unhealthful dietary habits and genetics and other environmental factors (indicated by Figure 1). Strikingly, diet has even been noted by the American Cancer Society to cause as high as 60% of all cancer cases.

According to the American Institute for Cancer Research, abstaining from tobacco and obtaining a healthy diet are the most preventable ways against the disease. Furthermore, the Food and Nutrition Science Alliance promotes higher consumption of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and legumes (such as peas and beans) as well as a reduction in fat from all food sources to reduce the cancer risk Americans face. In fat, to lower your cancer risk, fat should be no more than 20 percent of your total daily calories. Nationwide studies have shown people who eat fewer fruits and vegetables are twice as likely to get cancer as those who consume the most. Diet and lifestyle are specifically effective in preventing America’s four leading malignancies:

Up to 75 percent of colon/rectal cancer may be preventable through diet.

Thirty-three to 50 percent of breast cancer may be preventable through diet.

A ten to 20 percent prostate reduction is achievable through diet and lifestyle.

Diet, lifestyle and not smoking reduce lung cancer by 90 to 95 percent.

Furthermore, researchers estimate a diet filled with fruits, vegetables and little fat, in addition to exercise and weight control, could reduce cancer incidence by 30 to 40 percent. So while your cousin Carl is smoking on that cigarette, the next best thing you could do to prevent cancer, besides avoiding his second-hand smoke, is to put down that frybread and join your family and friends out on the dancing arena.