A report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention CDC concludes that "cancer does not have to be an inevitable consequence of growing older. Stay active. Exercise and watch your diet. Reduce your alcohol intake. Studies show that adopting healthy habits may decrease cancer risk by as much as 40 percent. Kochar says. That's the most important part. Make a difference in the fight against cancer by donating to cancer research.
Call us anytime. As years pass, we accumulate our exposure to harmful things that can contribute to cancer risk: the UV radiation, harmful chemicals, including those in tobacco smoke and viruses. Some bad habits can also add to the risk, such as overeating, drinking hot tea or coffee, and excessive alcohol consumption. However, avoiding harmful exposures can only reduce but not eliminate acquisition of mutations. Mutations can occur because of mistakes made by our cells during reproduction of their genetic information.
These sporadic events also accumulate with time. A second reason aging increases our cancer risk is that as we age, we experience a decline of our immune functions, which, when working well, offer us constant surveillance and eradication of cells that are suspects to become cancerous. A third reason also belongs to immune-system malfunctioning: in the elderly, their immune systems are constantly on a false self-alert called chronic systemic sterile inflammation and this creates conditions that stimulate multiplication of cells from high-risk populations, thereby provoking their conversion into cancer cells.
Current science is massively shifting toward development of anti-aging therapies. Half of all cancers are in people over the age of Over time, the cells in our body can become damaged.
This can happen by chance when cells are dividing as usual. Often this damage can be fixed by our body. But sometimes the damage builds up and can cause cells to grow and multiply more than usual, causing cancer. The good news is survival is on the up.
And thanks to research, treatments are now kinder and more effective than ever. Things like stopping smoking, keeping a healthy weight, eating a healthy balanced diet, staying safe in the sun, drinking less alcohol, and keeping active can all help reduce the risk of cancer. Remember, spotting cancer at an early stage means treatment is more likely to be successful.
This is consistent with global guidelines for screening, which call for these groups to be screened more than those aged under Furthermore, the treatment of older patients with cancer presents a number of unique challenges as older adults are more likely to suffer from other chronic conditions and non-communicable diseases, such as high blood pressure or diabetes.
This makes cancer treatment more challenging. Older patients are also often more vulnerable to treatment toxicities that can significantly affect their quality of life Source: ASCO. These and other age-specific aspects need to be taken into consideration when defining the cancer care approach. Unfortunately, the increase in the number of older people living with cancer has not been mirrored by a proportional increase in public awareness of the burden, or by investments in the health services required to respond to the unique needs of this group.
Some of the key challenges are:. The topic of ageing and cancer will grow in importance in the next decades and UICC is committed to raising awareness of how best to prepare healthcare systems, so that cancer care challenges for older patients are appropriately addressed.
Write to fellows uicc. Through UICC's Technical Fellowships programme , learning and training opportunities are available for cancer professionals working in geriatric oncology through one-month international visits. As people around the world live longer, the incidence of cancer continues rising, presenting numerous challenges for societies and health systems. This figure is expected to double over the next two decades. UICC is partnering with Sanofi to help address the challenges of ageing with cancer.
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