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source: http://articles.latimes.com/1995-05-..._cancer-deaths
A Country in the Grip of Cancer : In Hungary, the disease's high death rate is fueled by an unhealthy lifestyle, exacerbated by years of poor care and Communist neglect. Patients--and even doctors--often treat subject as a taboo.
A Hungarian man is four times more likely than an American man to die from mouth cancer. A Hungarian woman is five times more likely than a Mexican woman to die from colon or rectal cancer.
From fatty meats in the nation's favorite goulash dishes to a stiff shot of brandy before a day's work on the assembly line, the Hungarians' way of life is killing them. Add heavy cigarette smoking, industrial pollution, poor medical screening, years of social and medical denial and the question could easily be turned around: How have so many Hungarians managed to stay healthy?
"There is no single explanation for the dramatic statistics," said Alan Pinter, deputy director of the Bela Johan National Institute of Hygiene, in Budapest. "It all comes down to a frightening combination of smoking, drinking, diet, lifestyle and environment."
The average Hungarian brushes his teeth so infrequently that he uses fewer than two tubes of toothpaste a year. His appetite for vegetables rarely exceeds pickled peppers, cabbage and cucumber. Hungarians smoke almost a half pack of high-tar cigarettes a day per capita--more than any other European--and they down almost two gallons of hard alcohol a year.
To top it off, the stress of everyday life and the renowned national melancholia are so overwhelming that 4,000 Hungarians take their own lives every year--a rate exceeded by only Russia and the Baltic states, according to the World Health Organization.
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