Online Informative and Educational Resources on the Benefits That a Lifestyle Aimed at the Primary Prevention of Cancer May Also Provide for General Health

Abstract

To find stimuli for getting young students interested in the primary prevention of cancer and a healthy lifestyle, internet resources have been searched that may motivate and facilitate this study. Teachers interested in teaching this subject can download for free and use them with the method felt as most appropriate; they consist of text, graphs, tables, images, quizzes and an interactive atlas. According to a personal experience, the use of these educational resources helps teachers in teaching and students in learning about cancer prevention. According to the World Health Organisation, cancer is a leading and growing cause of mortality with 10 and 14 million new cases worldwide respectively in 2000 and 2012. Several risk factors have been identified; if they are avoided, more than 30% of the cancers can be prevented. The five most important modifiable risk factors, among many others, are: smoking, alcohol, overweight, physical inactivity, low consumption of vegetables and fruit. Cancer may also have genetic causes or be related to certain infections that are more common in some areas than in others. According to several documents also quoted in this article, numerous behaviours that reduce cancer risk may, at the same time, help to prevent other important diseases. Some of the documents quoted here show the very great difference in cancer incidence and mortality rates often existing between different geographic areas. For example, prostate cancer incidence per 100,000 persons per year is 104.4 in New Zealand, and 3.9 in Chennai, India. Many studies found an increase over time in the incidence of certain cancer types in people that move from countries where their risk is low to countries where their risk is high, thus suggesting the important role of environmental changes and lifestyle. As an example of this, the risk of breast cancer among Hispanic women migrating to US increases with the duration of residence in the immigration country, and becomes up to 4 -6 times higher after 3 or more generations. This provides an example of what can happen in transitioning countries as a consequence of some lifestyle changes, unless measures are taken. A. T. Marrocco 24