Cancer Rates Hit Record Decline
America is rejoicing after the new American Cancer Society report said cancer rates are declining.
The report states that the overall cancer death rate has been dropping about 1.5% per year since 1991.
From 2016 to 2017 we saw the largest drop in cancer statistics which date back to 1930, falling 2.2% according to the reports lead author Rebecca Siegel.
“It’s absolutely driven by lung cancer,” which accounts for about a quarter of all cancer deaths, she said. Take lung cancer out of the mix, and the 2017 rate drop is 1.4%, she added. Experts mainly credit advances in treatment for decline, according to Denver Post.
My grandfather passed some years after beating lung cancer, although the last leg of his life was not a comfortable one following years of aggressive radiation and chemo.
Siegel said that “Ensuring equal access to known cancer prevention and early detection methods would go far to accelerate the progress against overall cancer,” according to The New York Times.
The New York Times reported that progress has slowed for colorectal and breast cancer while a decline in prostate cancer has completely halted. This is largely due to the rising rate of American obesity claims experts.
The leading cause of death in America is heart disease, often associated with heavy meat consumption, according to forums like Medical News Today.
Cancer is the second leading cause of death and the American Cancer Society says lung cancer kills more people than any other type of cancer combined.
“We are still dealing with the effects of cigarette smoking from the 1960s and 70s in today’s population,” said Dr. Otis Brawley, an oncologist at Johns Hopkins University and former chief scientific officer at the American Cancer Society.
He went on to say that those who stopped smoking making develop ling cancer years later but these rats should continue to decline, according to The New York Times.