War on cancer: Cut sugar, salt, animal fat

NEW DELHI: Cancer kills 7,00,000 people every year and 30% of these deaths can be prevented by simple lifestyle changes and early detection, said Indian-american cancer specialist Dr Ash K Tewari at the 15th Hindustan Times Leadership Summit on Thursday.

Tewari, professor and chair of urology at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, set the tone for the session, titled How To Beat Cancer, with the suggestion that India should open itself to a more honest conversation on the disease.

“If you begin the fight early on when it’s possible to zap the cells, cancer is treatable ... but if you wait for the symptoms, the fight gets difficult,” Dr Tewari said at the session, which included Dr Madhav Dhodapkar, professor of medicine and immunology at Yale Cancer Center in the US.

The session was moderated by Dr Soumya Swaminathan, deputy director general of the World Health Organization (WHO).

“Prevention is possible by reducing exposure to known risk factors such as tobacco use, obesity, environmental toxins and getting vaccinated against hepatitis B and HPV virus,” she said.

More than 1.4 million Indians are diagnosed with cancer every year. Breast and cervical cancers in women and lung and oral cancers in men are the leading forms of the disease.

Cancer doesn’t develop overnight, it takes eight to 10 years, according to Dhodapkar. “Cancer cells don’t exist in isolation... harnessing the immune system against cancer cells allows for a more controlled response,” he said.

Dr Tewari’s advice: Don’t wait for symptoms to appear. “Cut down on animal fat, red meat, sugar to prevent cancer. Sugar and salt are bad for us and we have to cut it out of our diet,” Dr Dhodapkar said.