一份发表在新一期医学杂志《柳叶刀》上的研究报告显示，如果人们能够远离与癌症有关的几大危险因素，那么全球每年因癌症死亡的人数可减少三分之一还多。

　　据路透社11月18日报道，研究过程中，来自世界各地的大约100多名科学家针对12种癌症所引发的死亡病例进行了分析，发现它们和9种危险因素息息相关。科学家们发现，目前全球每年因癌症死亡的人数约为700万。而在2001年间，吸烟、酗酒、肥胖、不良饮食、不安全性行为、缺乏锻炼和其它一些因素共导致全球范围内243万人因癌症死亡，这占因癌症死亡总人数的三分之一还多。对此，美国哈佛公共卫生学院的马吉德·埃泽塔表示：“如果这些危险因素能减少的话，那么将有约三分之一的癌症死亡病例可以被避免。”“目前，积极预防仍可能是我们减少癌症死亡人数的最好办法，这比使用医疗技术带来的效果好很多。”

　　报道说，吸烟这种不良嗜好与肺癌、口腔癌、胃癌、胰腺癌以及膀胱癌等多种癌症有关，是一项最为主要的可以避免的危险因素，其次是酗酒和不良饮食（没有摄入足够的蔬菜和水果）。埃泽塔表示：“在243万癌症死亡病例中，有37％的人都是因患肺癌死亡的。”

　　与此同时，肥胖也成为不容忽视的危险因素之一。在高收入国家，肥胖在直肠癌和乳腺癌病例中，扮演着重要的作用。另外，在撒哈拉以南非洲地区和亚洲部分地区，由于不安全性行为感染上人类乳突病毒（HPV）从而引发的子宫颈癌也成为女性面临的主要杀手之一。

　　If people avoided major risk factors for cancer, more than a third of the 7 million annual deaths from the disease could be prevented, scientists said on Friday.

　　In a report in The Lancet medical journal, the researchers estimated how many deaths from 12 types of cancer were caused by exposure to nine risk factors.

　　They calculated that smoking, alcohol, obesity, poor diet, unsafe sex, lack of exercise and other factors contributed to 2.43 million cancer deaths worldwide in 2001.

　　"A third of cancer deaths could have been avoided had those risks been reduced," said Dr Majid Ezzati of the Harvard School of Public Health in the United States.

　　"Prevention is probably still our best bet for reducing cancer deaths. It is by far larger than what we may be able to achieve using medical technology."

　　Smoking, which is linked to lung, mouth, stomach, pancreatic and bladder cancers, is the biggest avoidable risk factor, followed by alcohol and not eating enough fruits and vegetables.

　　"Of the 2.43 million deaths, 37 percent of them are from lung cancer," said Ezzati. "The total lung cancer deaths in the world are 1.23 million and of those 900,000 of them are caused by these risk factors."

　　Smoking has increased in developing countries in the past few decades so the number of avoidable deaths could grow, he added.

　　Obesity also plays a role in colorectal and breast cancer in high income countries, according to the research.

　　Infection with the human papillomavirus (HPV) through unsafe sex is a contributing cause of cervical cancer in women in sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia, mainly because of a lack of screening and clinical services.

　　Urban air pollution is a risk factor for cancer in eastern and southern Asia, while indoor smoke from burning coal is a particular problem in China.

　　Ezzati said hepatitis infection, which is linked to liver cancer, is sometimes spread by the use of contaminated syringes in health centers in poor countries.

　　More than 100 scientists around the world contributed data for the study and reviewed medical evidence.