Micronutrients and Cancer Prevention

Abstract

In the United States today, cancer is the second most frequent cause of death and is responsible for over 20 percent of the approximately 2 million total annual deaths.¹ Cigarette smoking, which accounts for about 30 percent of all deaths from cancer in the United States, is the leading known avoidable cause of mortality from all causes as well as from cancer.² Heavy alcohol consumption, which ranks second, is responsible for about 3 percent of cancer deaths. Promising, but unproved, hypotheses concern the prevention of cancer through diet, which has been postulated to account for as many as 35 percent . . .