Letter From the Editors

The field of cancer prevention focuses on trying to find risk factors for cancer that can be avoided or modified. The one omnipresent and inevitable risk factor to which all of us are subject is age. As we grow older, the accumulated exposures of our lives – what we eat, what we breathe, what our skin absorbs from the sun, etc. – cause more and more damage to the DNA and other components of our cells, leading to increasing numbers of malignancies, particularly in the epithelial tissues of our body, from which 85% of cancers arise.

As a result of recent declines in cardiovascular disease, we can see the impact of this in national statistics. Cancer will very soon become the number one cause of death in the US, and will continue to rise for the foreseeable future. But this is not an entirely pessimistic picture. Much of this increase will occur in older and older populations as life expectancy in the US increases. And so, we need to learn more about cancer in older populations – how to prevent it, how to treat it, how to deal with it when it occurs.

In this issue of our newsletter, Drs. Demark-Wahnefried and Clipp discuss how some lifestyle changes, such as increased physical activity and dietary changes, can improve the lives of older individuals with cancer. Undoubtedly, these common sense approaches are also likely to be helpful in younger individuals as well, both those with and without cancer, but it is reassuring to learn that there are things we can do to help those who are in their older years.

One of us just passed his fiftieth birthday and is getting ready to go for his screening colonoscopy, and all of us hopefully will someday be in the elderly population. So, all of us have an interest in learning how to help ourselves.

The Editors
Andrew J. Dannenberg, MD
Henry R. Erle, MD-Roberts Family Professor of Medicine
Weill Medical College of Cornell University
Co-Director
Cancer Prevention Program
Columbia Weill Cornell Cancer Centers
NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital

Alfred I. Neugut, MD, PhD
Myron M. Studner Professor of Cancer Research
Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology
Head of Cancer Prevention
Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center
Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and Mailman School of Public Health
Co-Director
Cancer Prevention Program
Columbia Weill Cornell Cancer Centers
NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital