Fewer people in the U.S. are getting colorectal cancer (CRC), but that progress is seen much more often in well-off and highly educated Americans. In fact, the gap is widening in rate of colorectal deaths in people with less education and/or who live in deeply disadvantaged communities.

Researchers now have shown that differences in weight, diet and physical activity play a huge role in the higher rates and deaths from CRC among people of lower socioeconomic status.

In a paper published in the Sept. 4 2012 Journal of the National Cancer Institute, a careful statistical analysis of  a 10-year observational study of a half-million people indicated that helping people of lower education or income to change their diet, body weight, smoking and physical activity could be nearly as important as improved screening for reducing CRC deaths. Read the rest of this entry »