Changing lifestyles

To people living just a century ago, the developed world of today would appear to be an unattainable utopia.

For only recently have people enjoyed a world with an abundance of food, an endless array of technologies that allow us to move mountains while barely lifting a finger, and a health-care system that helps us avoid many dangerous infections, while treating pretty much everything else.

Yet as any number of science fiction novels teach us, utopia always comes at a significant cost. And the cost of our utopia seems evident in cancer statistics: Countries in the developed world, such as Canada, the United States and the countries of Europe, account for 38 per cent of cancer cases worldwide, yet contain only 15 per cent of the world’s population.

This seems odder still given that many infections have been controlled in the developed world. Indeed, according to a study in the current issue of The Lancet Oncology, 32.7 per cent of cancer cases in sub-Saharan Africa are attributable to infections, compared to just 7.4 per cent of cancer cases in the developed world.

These surprising statistics can be explained, in part, by the fact that cancer tends to be a disease of old age and, hence, is more likely to affect the developed world, where people live longer. Yet old age need not and should not consign one to an inevitable cancer diagnosis.

Rather, the cancers most prevalent in the developed world — breast, lung, colorectal and prostate cancer — are also strongly associated with lifestyle factors, and in particular, with smoking, obesity and lack of exercise. This obviously should act as a wake-up call to wealthier nations, and it has to an extent, as many campaigns now encourage people to adopt healthier lifestyles.

But it should also encourage developing nations, and those who aid in that development, to avoid making the same mistakes we have made. For while improvements in health care should lead to a reduction in cancers attributed to infections, the adoption of unhealthy lifestyles could result in a dramatic increase in cancer in countries whose health care systems are ill-equipped to handle it.