Continuous Update Project

From its beginnings in the early 1980s the WCRF global network has pioneered global research and education on food, nutrition, physical activity and the prevention of cancer. The charity has an ongoing commitment to funding and developing the most reliable evidence-based recommendations and translating these into messages that form the basis for action by health professionals, communities, families and individuals throughout the world.

Following the launch of the WCRF global network’s Second Expert Report, Food, Nutrition, Physical Activity, and the Prevention of Cancer: a Global Perspective, the network established a unique project to collate the findings from all new cancer studies into the links between food, nutrition, body weight and physical activity and cancer carried out throughout the world. This Continuous Update Project, being done in collaboration with Imperial College London, uses the same rigorous methodology as the Second Expert Report and is analysing the findings of new cancer prevention research published since the 2007 Report was produced. The results of this pioneering project will provide an impartial analysis and ensure that WCRF’s recommendations for cancer prevention remain based on the most up-to-date evidence available and give sound direction for the future of cancer prevention research everywhere. To date, results from the Continuous Update Project have been collated for cancers of the breast, bowel and prostate, with pancreatic cancer identified as the next site to be reviewed.

The WCRF global network has a long-term commitment to the Continuous Update Project, which benefits research institutions around the globe. All 20 cancer sites reviewed in the original 2007 Report are being updated on a rolling basis. Once this process is complete, the database which underpins the project will be made available to the wider scientific community in order to promote more research in the area worldwide. Researchers in all countries will then have access to a comprehensive and state of the art resource based on a live system of scientific data.  They will be able to interrogate and utilise this resource to investigate the relationship between diet, physical activity, obesity and cancer. In the meantime, the database, as it develops, is available to researchers on request as the information is being continuously analysed.

The WCRF global network has convened a panel of experts consisting of leading scientists in the field of diet, physical activity, obesity and cancer to review the findings of the Continuous Update Project. At the October 2009 Panel meeting, cancer survivors were identified as a particularly high priority. More and more people are surviving cancer, either being cured or living with the disease as a chronic condition for years. They want to know what they can do to reduce their risk of the cancer returning or progressing, but science cannot yet answer this question. We just do not know the extent to which cancer survivors are similar to or different from people without cancer, in terms of the extent to which their cancer risk is sensitive to changes in diet, body composition and physical activity, and how genetic factors might impact risk.

To fast track the cancer survivors project without affecting the overall timeline and progress of the rest of the work, the WCRF global network is investing additional resources to fund the survivors work as a special project. This project will provide information that will be used to advise cancer survivors on how best to reduce their risk of disease recurrence and to improve and enhance quality of life.

The Continuous Update Project will ensure that the WCRF global network continues into the future to promote and disseminate the most accurate and up to date scientific evidence available on how to reduce cancer risk. This database of scientific information on nutrition, physical activity and weight, all of which is related to cancer prevention, is the largest in the world. The vital information, which comes from the continuous analysis of this database, has been, and will continue to be an important stimulus for the scientific community in the ongoing challenge of controlling the incidence of cancer everywhere.

It is a privilege for me to work on this important, pioneering project which would certainly have not been possible without the funding and expertise of the WCRF global network. The results of the project and the future impact of this database will have a positive influence on cancer prevention around the world for decades to come.

Professor Martin Wiseman
Medical and Scientific Adviser, WCRF International
Visiting Professor, Institute of Human Nutrition, University of Southampton
Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians