GETTING people to eat a healthy diet, not smoke, cut down on alcohol and exercise more could prevent almost a quarter of the some 1.2 million cases of colon cancer diagnosed each year, scientists said today.

Researchers from Denmark found that following recommendations on physical activity, waist circumference, smoking, alcohol intake and diet could reduce the risk of developing bowel cancer by as much as 23 percent.

"Our study reveals the useful public health message that even modest differences in lifestyle might have a substantialimpact on colorectal cancer risk," said Anne Tjonneland of the Institute of Cancer Epidemiology at the Danish Cancer Society, who led the study.

Colorectal cancer, often referred to as bowel or colon cancer, kills around half a million people each year worldwide.

Roche's Xeloda and Sanofi-Aventis' Eloxatine are among leading drugs licensed for the treatment of the disease, which was diagnosed in 1.23 million people in 2008, according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer.

Tjonneland and colleagues studied data on 55,487 men and women aged between 50 and 64 who had not previously been diagnosed with cancer and followed them for almost 10 years.

Participants filled in lifestyle and diet questionnaires and the researchers created a healthy lifestyle index using health recommendations from the World Health Organization, World Cancer Research Fund and the Nordic Nutrition Recommendations.

These included not smoking, doing at least 30 minutes a day of physical activity, having no more than seven drinks a week for women and 14 drinks a week for men, having a waist circumference below 88 cm for women and 102 cm for men, and eating a healthy diet.

The results, published in the British Medical Journal, showed that during the follow-up period, 678 people were diagnosed with bowel cancer.

After analyzing how well the participants had kept to the five lifestyle tips, the researchers calculated that if all of them had followed even one extra guideline, around 13 percent of colon cancer cases could have been prevented. If all of them had followed all five, 23 percent of cases could have been avoided.

• healthy [´helθi] a.健康的 (初中英语单词)
• alcohol [´ælkəhɔl] n.酒精；醇 (初中英语单词)
• cancer [´kænsə] n.癌；毒瘤 (初中英语单词)
• physical [´fizikəl] a.物质的；有形的 (初中英语单词)
• modest [´mɔdist] a.谦虚的；朴素的 (初中英语单词)
• institute [´institju:t] n.学院 vt.建立；设置 (初中英语单词)
• treatment [´tri:tmənt] n.待遇；对待；治疗 (初中英语单词)
• international [,intə´næʃənəl] a.国际的，世界的 (初中英语单词)
• agency [´eidʒənsi] n.代理商；机构；代理 (初中英语单词)
• research [ri´sə:tʃ] n.&vi.调查；探究；研究 (初中英语单词)
• medical [´medikəl] a.医学的；医疗的 (初中英语单词)
• journal [´dʒə:nəl] n.日记；日报；杂志 (初中英语单词)
• denmark [´denmɑ:k] n.丹麦 (高中英语单词)
• substantial [səb´stænʃəl] a.实质的，真的 (高中英语单词)
• studied [´stʌdid] a.故意的；有计划的 (高中英语单词)
• previously [´pri:viəsli] ad.预先；以前 (高中英语单词)
• circumference [sə´kʌmfərəns] n.圆周；周围；(圆)周线 (英语四级单词)
• danish [´deiniʃ] a.&n.丹麦人(语)(的) (英语四级单词)
• impact [´impækt] n.影响，作用；冲击 (英语六级单词)
• nutrition [nju:´triʃən] n.营养(物)；食物 (英语六级单词)