On average, men smoke more, eat less healthily, drink alcohol more frequently and in larger quantities, and are generally more daring than the average woman. But is this extravagant lifestyle also the reason that men have a significantly higher risk of developing cancer? Researchers at the US National Cancer Institute in Rockville, Maryland, have investigated this question. Their results, which they published in the journal Cancer, suggest that the cause is more likely to be found in biological differences between the sexes than in deviating behavior.
For their study, the scientists used data from 171,274 male and 122,826 female adults between the ages of 50 and 71 who took part in the National Health Institute’s “Diet and Health Study” between 1995 and 2011. During this period, 17,951 men and 8,742 women were newly diagnosed with one of the 21 types of cancer considered. On average, however, men developed malignant carcinoma about 1.3 to 10.8 times more often than women. Men had the greatest increased risk of esophageal cancer (10.8-fold increased risk), larynx cancer (3.5-fold increased risk), gastric cancer (3.5-fold increased risk), and bladder cancer (3.3-fold increased risk Risk). Only in the case of thyroid and gallbladder cancer was the incidence lower in men than in women.
The researchers then compared this data with the test subjects’ statements about their lifestyle and the consumption of carcinogenic substances such as nicotine or alcohol. They were able to see a statistically significant connection in their data between risk factors on the one hand and cancer diseases, especially of the intestine, liver, lungs or esophagus on the other. However, this did not explain the difference between the sexes sufficiently well. For example, the scientists were only able to trace back about 11 percent of excess esophageal cancer cases and 50 percent of lung cancer cases to external factors. Even taking into account a more extravagant lifestyle, the risk for men of developing cancer remained significantly higher.