How Can The European Code Against Cancer Keep People Well?
Anyone with a good knowledge of cancer medicine knows that there are many different types of radiotherapy treatment. This enables providers like us to select the most appropriate approach for each patient and condition to ensure the best care.
While that can bring benefits ranging from palliative pain relief to full remission, there is no doubt that prevention is better than cure.
Indeed, while there are many forms of radiotherapy to treat different conditions, this very fact is a reminder that there are numerous types of cancer. While some are easier to treat than others, if they can be prevented, this is by far the best outcome.
A strong understanding of the causes and risks involved can, when transformed into the appropriate actions, reduce the incidence of many cancers. This requires strong knowledge not just among medical professionals, but also the wider public.
What Is The European Code Against Cancer?
The European Code against Cancer represents an initiative that aims to do exactly that. An initiative of the European Commission, it was first published in 1987 and the current (2026) edition is the fifth, replacing the 4th edition produced in 2014.
Each edition has incorporated the latest knowledge about each form of cancer covered by the code. Work began on the latest version in 2022.
The code contains “14 recommendations based on current scientific evidence on personal behavioural factors, environmental factors and medical interventions” aimed at preventing cancer.
Knowledge of these can empower people so that they are more likely to stay cancer-free, with some of them being fairly simple steps and others more concerted.
What Lifestyle Changes Can Help To Lower Your Cancer Risk?
Among the more basic recommendations for lifestyle changes are:
- Not smoking and keeping your home smoke-free to avoid ‘passive smoking’ by non-smokers
- Avoid being overweight by cutting down on food and drink that is processed, high in fat, or high in sugar
- Be more active, by sitting less and exercising more
- Have a healthier diet, with less red meat and lots of whole grains, legumes, fruit and vegetables
- Avoid alcohol
- Breastfeed babies for as long as possible
- Limit sun exposure
- Take steps to avoid air pollution, which ranges from less car use to not burning solid fuels in the fire
- Vaccination against cancer-causing infections like the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) and Hepatitis B
- Be aware of cancer-causing factors at work and ensure your employer takes steps to protect against them
- Avoid radon gas exposure
- Limiting the use of hormone replacement therapy after menopause
- Participation in cancer screening programmes
How Do Cancer Risk Factors Vary Between People?
This is an extensive list and the relevance of it will vary. For example, radon exposure will be much less of a concern for most people than exposure to air pollution, while sun exposure poses a greater skin cancer risk to those with lighter skin.
At the same time, factors such as diet, cutting down alcohol, getting plenty of exercise and not smoking are steps everyone can take.
The list also highlights the varied ways in which cancer can occur. During the COVID-19 pandemic, some sceptics made a habit of posing the question of why, if vaccines developed in a matter of months were so effective, nobody had come up with an anti-cancer vaccine.
In reality, cancer has many causes and in cases where viruses are responsible, such as HPV leading to cervical cancer, vaccines are available. But vaccines help the immune system fight viruses, not bad food, UV radiation or inhaled carcinogens.
The updating of advice can also help people make choices they might not have made a few years ago.
For example, it has long been known that smoking can cause cancer and smoking rates have been dropping. But many non-smokers have still been filling their homes with airborne carcinogens by using wood-burning stoves.
Once hailed as a ‘green’ alternative to fossil fuels, research has shown that wood burners are now one of the biggest sources of air particle pollution, with this diminishing air quality both inside and outside homes, the latter being a more concentrated problem in cities.
Why Is Cancer Screening More Valuable Than Ever?
Apart from these considerations, it makes more sense than ever to take part in screening programmes. Advances in screening technology and techniques, aided by innovations such as AI, make it easier to detect and diagnose cancer at an early stage.
While prevention is the best way to stop cancer, early detection is the second best. It enables swift intervention to take place, reducing the chances of metastasis (secondary cancer) developing and increasing the likelihood of beating the disease.
If screening does show cancer, you may still need one of the many types of radiotherapy. But early detection could mean the course of treatment is a lot shorter and more effective than it would otherwise have been.
Learn more about our advanced radiotherapy and neurosurgical treatments for different cancers on the Amethyst Group website.
