Inherited cancers make up only 5 to 10 percent of all cancers. This conclusion was made by scientists from the University of Alberta (Canada). The results of the study were published in the journal Metabolites.

Experts divide the factors of oncological diseases into 3 groups: cancer as a genetic disease, exposome (exposure to the environment and lifestyle throughout life), and cancer in terms of metabolic disease (where the focus is on the metabolome - all the chemical by-products of the metabolic process) . The latter reason has become the subject of research in the new work of scientists.

It turned out that inherited cancers account for only 5-10% of all cancers. The remaining 90-95% are initiated by factors in the exposome that cause genetic mutations.

However, despite this, the metabolome is crucial for the development of cancer, since genetically mutated cancer cells are maintained by a cancer-specific metabolite.

Thus, cancer is a genetic disease, but the fact that there is only one mutation in the genes is not enough.