Cancer Prevention: What Works? Cancer has surpassed heart disease to become the No. 1 cause of death in the U.S. in people under age 85. No wonder more people than ever are turning their attention to cancer prevention strategies that might protect them from becoming a statistic. But the question lingers, which approaches really work? And which may be little more than hype or wishful thinking?

If you're concerned about cancer prevention, one of your challenges is to sort through the research reported in the media and make sense of findings from highly publicized studies that are often contradictory.

"One week, there might be a study that suggests that high coffee intake causes cancer, and the next week, we'll hear about another study concluding that coffee consumption has no relationship to cancer," says Scott Litin, MD, editor-in-chief of the Mayo Clinic Family Health Book and professor of medicine at Mayo Medical School. "News organizations want to report the latest information, but this doesn't always mean it's the most reliable or the best done study. There is a lot of confusion out there, and in many areas, the medical profession doesn't yet know what's going to pan out and what won't."

In some areas of cancer prevention, carefully conducted and controlled studies just haven't been performed yet. "Many claims have been made, but until the research is done, we just don't know which reduce the risk of cancer, which have no effect, and which are harmful," says Cynthia Stein, MD, MPH, of the Harvard Center for Cancer Prevention at Harvard Medical School.

What's Fact? What's Not?

Take high-fat diets. "Ten years ago, cutting down on fat in the diet to lower cancer risk was one of our major recommendations," says Melanie Polk, MMSc, RD, director of nutrition education at the American Institute for Cancer Research in Washington, D.C. "At the time, the evidence indicated that excessive fat in the diet could promote the cancer process."

But, says Polk, the relative importance of fat restriction in cancer prevention is changing as more studies are done. "The research now supports a mostly plant-based diet emphasizing fruits and vegetables as protective of cancer," she says. "The evidence in this area far outweighs the research into fat. So while we still believe that eating a lower-fat diet is one approach to lowering your cancer risk, even more important is to eat a mostly plant-based diet. At least 20% of cancer cases could be avoided by eating at least five servings of fruits and vegetables a day."