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(HealthNewsDigest.com) – From breast and skin cancer to colorectal and testicular cancer, many cancers have their own awareness months or weeks, not to mention ribbons, colors and other fundraising events, but World Cancer Day, held each year on February 4, is bigger than any one cancer or event.
“World Cancer Day’s goal is to unite all people and cancer communities around the world in order to actually raise awareness around the disease as a single entity,” says Caroline Perréard, a spokesperson for the group that founded World Cancer Day, the Union for International Cancer Control in Geneva, Switzerland.
“The global cancer epidemic is huge and is set to rise. 1.5 million lives which would be lost to cancer, could be saved per year if decisive measures are taken to achieve the World Health Organizations ‘25 by 25′ target to reduce premature deaths due to non-communicable diseases by 25% by 2025,” she says.
Debunking Myths about Cancer
This year’s campaign strives to debunk some pervasive myths about cancer that can contribute to feelings of hopelessness. “Cancer myths represent major obstacles to the understanding of cancer and a better understanding can lead to a change in people’s behaviors,” Perréard tells Health News Digest.
For starters, many people think we don’t need to talk about cancer, but we need to talk about it more and turn up the volume, she says.
Another myth is that there are no signs or symptoms of cancer. For many cancers, there actually are early warning signs and symptoms and the benefits of early detection are indisputable.
And one of the most self defeating cancer myths out there is that there is nothing anyone can do about cancer. “People often get wrong ideas about cancer that lead to a lack of prevention, no early detection, lack of treatment,” Perréard says. “For example by knowing first that most of common cancers are preventable simply by adopting the right measures such as a healthy lifestyle, healthy diet, exercise, no tobacco use, no alcohol abuse.”
Learn more about World Cancer Day and how to do your part here http://www.worldcancerday.org, and help spread the word on social media with these hash tags. Together maybe we can save some lives!
#25by25 #BreastCancer #breastcancerawareness #Cancer #Cancers #CancerDivide #CancerInformation #CancerPatients #CancerPrevention #CancerTreatment #CervicalCancer #DebunkCancerMyths #Health #HPV #MDG #NCDs #NCDmomentum #Post2015 #Smoking #Stigma #SocialJustice #Tobacco #TIL #Truth #WomensCancers #WorldCancerDay
-Additional reporting by Denise Mann
Wendy Lewis is President of Wendy Lewis & Co Ltd Global Aesthetics Consultancy, author of 11 books and Founder/Editor in Chief of http://www.beautyinthebag.com
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