According to a government report, a lack of exercise and excess weight can make you more vulnerable to as many as a third of the most common cancers in the United States. Tobacco use is the only prevalent risk factor that leads to more preventable diseases and deaths.

USA Today reports researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and three national institutes that focus on cancer research and prevention pitched in on the report, which was published in the journal Cancer.

Obese and inactive people tend to have trouble with hormone and insulin levels, as well as struggles with hypertension. These factors are some of the many that lead to an increased risk of cancer, the report says. Obesity is believed to up the risk of colorectal and postmenopausal breast cancers.

Education, earlier diagnoses and aggressive treatments are helping lower the rate of cancer cases and deaths, but researchers believe the prognosis could grow even more favorable if more people maintain a healthy weight and stop using tobacco.

Report links rise in cancer to inactivity, obesity [USA Today]

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