Dr Christian Jessen: No easy way to prevent cancer

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In light of the recent World Cancer Research Fund report, which blamed alcohol, lack of exercise and obesity for four out of 10 cancers, we clearly need to improve things but a truth we must accept is that there are no short cuts. Healthy living is not just about drinking green tea in January and learning 50 ways to cook mung beans — it's about making healthy choices for life. In a society focused on easy living this is clearly too arduous a course of treatment.

Nine potentially modifiable risk factors have been isolated as being responsible for 33 per cent of all cancers, the top ones being obesity, low fruit and veg intake, lack of exercise, alcohol, unsafe sex and air pollution. This shows that many cancers are preventable, and not, as some seem to think, an inevitability decided by fate alone. Half of all cancers in the UK could be prevented by changes to our lifestyles, and that, in a nutshell, means it is up to us — and not the latest gizmo.