Answering patient questions about the role lifestyle factors play in cancer onset and recurrence: what do health care professionals say?

This qualitative study examined how cancer specialists answer patient questions about what might have caused their cancer. Findings showed that while they were often candid about the role of smoking and drinking in cancer onset and that of diet in cancer recurrence, body weight and exercise were rarely mentioned. Any reluctance to discuss the role of lifestyle factors in cancer onset and recurrence arose from a desire to minimize patient distress, limitations in specialists' knowledge of the causes of cancer and perceived inadequacy of the available causal explanations when risk factors are multiple and probabilistic.