Cancer, Behavior, Diet, and Exercise, Epidemiology Of

Around the world, more than 6 million people die from cancer each year. According to the most recent available data on cancer incidence and mortality, the American Cancer Society estimated 1,529,560 new cancer cases and 569,490 deaths in the United States for 2010. Cancer is a genetic disease that results from malignant transformation of cells that have escaped normal regulation of growth, proliferation, differentiation, and intercellular relationships. These pathophysiological abnormalities arise from successively disordered gene expression, resulting in the activation of oncogenes and inactivation of tumor suppressor genes or from epigenetic factors that may silence or activate genes. Although a genetic basis for cancer development is firmly established, only a minority of malignancies are related to inherited, single, high-penetrance gene mutations. An important determinant of ...