North India Cancer Risk: A Detailed Review with Focus on Jammu and Kashmir Demographics.

Background: Cancer is a global medical challenge, and research is at its peak to understand the unique mechanisms of cancer cells. The expanding field of epidemiology, including molecular and environmental studies, helps us better understand the distribution of molecular changes and environmental risk factors in the population.

Aim: In the present review, we aimed to find out the different genes and environmental factors that are associated with different cancers in the Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) region of the North Indian population.

Method: A Systematic approach of literature survey was used to curate research data based on genetic and environmental epidemiology specifying the J&K region.

Result: Of 640 articles found initially and screening of 490 records, 97 studies were included for the final review. It was observed that numerous genes that are strongly linked to various cancer types have been discovered as a result of the rising genotyping trend, which has grown in the demography exponentially over the last few decades. The majority of these genes are related to cell cycle regulation, cell growth signaling, and apoptosis regulation. Additionally, high promoter hypermethylation of various genes which were found to be attributed to the presence of distinct dietary patterns. The most important environmental risk attributes were salt tea consumption and dried pickles.

Discussion & Conclusion: In conclusion, the J&K population possesses many common polymorphisms in various genes with a small effect size that makes individuals more prone to different forms of cancers interacting with different environmental factors. What we can't do is, change the gene sequence or molecular changes which are the main changes for determining the susceptibility of any altered condition but what we can do is lower/ limit the exposure to the environmental factors which is a key element playing with the susceptibility's threshold. Therefore, limiting exposure to environmental factors could be a major step in lowering the risk of disease.