Causes and prevention of Pancreatic Cancer.
Pancreatic Cancer is the 3rd deadly cancer in the US.
Late diagnosis, is recognized like a main cause for poor survival. Too often the diagnosis appears through a metastasis, when the cancer has spread over all the body. In 40 years, the survival after 5 years is still under 10 % of patients.
It is a deep organ in the central position in the abdomen. It is difficult to examine, and early signals may be confused or not taken with seriousness.
Causes are multiple from some genes, to age, obesity in childhood and alcohol-tabagism.
The main causes increasing the risk to have a pancreatic cancer are identified as:
- Vitamins deficiency which is very often linked to lifestyle.
- Smoking
- Alcohol consumption.Therefore, it may be challenging to implicate alcohol as an independent risk factor for pancreatic cancer du to the too frequently association with smoking.
- Obesity in general, but abdominal fatness is associated with physical inactivity which may be a factor by itself or a factor of abdominal obesity.
- Red meats when cooked at high temperature, processed meats, cholesterol, fried foods and other foods containing nitrosamines.
- Exposure to metal dust. Metalworking people have an additional risk estimated at 12 %
- Exposure to pesticides increases the risk also of an estimated 12% for workers.
There are factors known to decrease the risk of pancreatic cancer
For a vegan healthy life. India has one of the lower risk to have a pancreas cancer
Vegetarians and vegans have about 50% lower mortality from pancreatic cancers compared with regular meat eaters.
Nut consumption significantly lowers the risk of pancreatic cancer in women.
Selenium also seems to play a role as the antagonist of arsenic, cadmium and lead, decreasing the oxidative stress caused by exposure to these elements
Grilled Tuna with avocado relish (from “the Avocado Affair”)
The risk of pancreatic cancer is extremely low in Japan, certainly linked to a nutrition high in antioxidants, fibers and good fats.
The population has of low rate of people with of obesity or abdominal fat.
Japanese people consume fish versus processed meat.
Pancreatic cancer is a global problem that requires a global solution. Statistical evidences raised interest to make more studies: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6396775/
Although its etiology remains still mostly unknown, many risk factors have been identified, smoking has been widely recognized as the main contributor to the high mortality rates of pancreatic cancer.
Healthcare professionals and policy makers could decrease the risk to have a pancreatic cancer policy by controlling the associated risk factors that range from gene risk evaluation to advocating for lifestyle changes, awareness campaigns and to imposing more strict smoking-related laws.
Analysis of pancreatic cancer epidemiology may be the key to elucidating the etiology and thus, the cornerstone of developing future cancer control strategies for prevention, early detection, treatments.
The survival at 5 years is less than 10 % as it was 40 years ago, we can assume the invasion of junk food balanced new positive treatment effects.
Selected References:
Red and processed meat consumption and risk of pancreatic cancer: meta-analysis of prospective studies S C Larsson1,* and A Wolk1 Br J Cancer. 2012 Jan 31; 106(3): 603–607
Folate intake and pancreatic cancer risk: an overall and dose-response meta-analysis. Lin HL1, An QZ, Wang QZ, Liu CX. Public Health. 2013 Jul;127(7):607-13
Epidemiology of Pancreatic Cancer: Global Trends, Etiology and Risk Factors Prashanth Rawla,a,d Tagore Sunkara,b and Vinaya GaduputicWorld J Oncol. 2019 Feb; 10(1): 10–27.