Healthy Habits Fight Cancer

The United States could save 60,000 lives a year by boosting efforts to change behavior that puts us at risk for cancer, says the Institute of Medicine (IOM). The IOM urges the government and health industry to focus on helping people to stop smoking, watch their diet and weight, exercise, limit alcohol intake and seek screenings for breast, cervical and colorectal cancer. The right programs can help people improve such health-related behaviors, the IOM says. Such steps could prevent three out of 10 cancer deaths by 2015, the report adds. The IOM is part of the National Academy of Sciences, created by the federal government as an independent adviser on the sciences.