The Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment has issued a 264-page report Our Food Our Health, that is sure to create some heated discussion over which lifestyle habit -- smoking or diet -- actually contributes to the most disease and death. At the heart of the findings the Dutch indicate that a poor diet lacking in an abundance of disease prevention foods, like fish, fruit, and vegetables, cause more disease and death than smoking tobacco. According to these researchers, many scientists agree that at least 75 percent of diseases can be prevented by eating a healthy diet.

The study findings go on to state that each year, inadequate diet causes about 13,000 deaths in The Netherlands due to diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer. Unhealthy diet habits are just as bad, if not worse, as smoking in terms of their effect on risk of disease and death. You hear that cancer diagnosis and death could be reduced by 50 percent with certain lifestyle changes. The emphasis is usually on smoking cessation. However, if these researchers are correct, and researchers worldwide are in agreement with them, then the conversation about cancer prevention will need to shift away from smoking and replace diet and obesity as the number one causes of diseases like cancer. Someone said, not too long ago, that obesity and diet would replace the spot smoking has dominated as the number one lifestyle risk for cancer. With research news like this, you can see the beginning of the new trend.