Air pollution is proving to be an increasingly relevant risk factor for the onset of cancer, particularly lung cancer.
This was underlined by the president of the Aiom Foundation (Italian Association of Medical Oncology), Saverio Cinieri.
Paolo Vineis, professor of Environmental Epidemiology at Imperial College London, also shares the same opinion, noting that there are "thousands of cancer cases in Italy every year that can be linked to environmental and air pollution".
"Until now - explains Cinieri on the occasion of the national conference 'Close the Care Gap' - sites of interest such as Ilva and the Land of Fires have been considered, with a feeling linked to the increased risk of cancer. Now, however, we have a published global data, which tells us that where there is greater pollution due to cars, heating and chimney smoke there is a greater propensity for an early manifestation of a gene, called Gfr, which causes lung cancer above all in non-smoking women. This is an important data, which we are working on."
PM2.
5, states Vineis, "are declared by the WHO among the certain carcinogens for humans (Group 1) and approximately 4.5 million deaths per year in the world are estimated from various causes linked to air pollution".
An area whose study is now also being explored through a new branch of research, the Exposome: "It involves the study and recognition of environmental pollutants and their effect on the cells of the human organism".
To date, he underlines, "we know that there are numerous pollutants that are detected in human blood and the point is that we do not yet know the effects of their interaction".
But other bad lifestyles also have an impact.
Incorrect diet, sedentary lifestyle, cigarette smoking, alcohol: "Unfortunately, on these fronts - states Cinieri - Italians are still in a bad situation. Alcohol consumption, for example, persists but is more common in the north than in the south, while sedentary lifestyle is more common in the south in young people than in the northern regions. On the food front, it should be noted that the consumption of fruit and vegetables is very low in the south and on the islands, yet fruit and vegetables are widely produced in these areas. That is, we produce healthy products that do not we consume and this is a serious mistake."
Hence the advice for a healthy lifestyle, with a preventive function also against tumors.
Principles that should be known by now but which, unfortunately, are not yet adequately applied: "No problem, greatly reduce alcohol, follow a diet as close as possible to the Mediterranean one, reducing the consumption of red meat and fried meat and vegetables to be consumed 3 to 7 times a day, and finally - concludes Cinieri - increase physical activity".
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