Cancer is not just 'bad luck' but down to environment, study suggests
bbc.com
bbc.com
There is no single thing you can do as an individual that gets you off the hook for cancer. You can try reducing your probabilities based on the results of studies, but in most respects that's a way more complicated endeavor than what the media portrays it as. Even regular prophylactic screening is not as good a tool as it instinctively seems. Many studies don't give you the complete picture at all, so it rarely makes sense to change your life based on the latest breathlessly exaggerated finding blared at you by the press.
"Since when is 'Bad Luck' anything other than a euphemism for the physiological stress which is symptomatic of poverty?"
Clever science journalists note that nearly everything outside of the organism can be generically labeled as the environment.
__As a reply to DanBC:__
>normal random mutation
This phrase does not mean anything in terms of molecular biology or genetics. It is equivalent to "Bad Luck", or "mutation triggered by something". The phrase is inappropriate because it equates point mutations, insertion mutations and deletion mutations.
As a rule, when thou wants to say the modifier "normal random"; thou should instead say "normally distributed", and then make sure that is worth mentioning in that field of science.
It's unfortunate that the original researchers used that phrase; and the the reporters did a terrible job of explaining it; and that the reporting of this newer study uses similar language.
It's not going to get you off the hook, but I think it's safe to say that regular, vigorous exercise drops cancer risk, all else being equal.
There aren't many magic bullets, but regular, vigorous exercise appears to be pretty close - for just about everything from lower back pain to dementia.
But certainly exercise is a close second; add to it all of the other benefits you mention.
The naked mole rat has apparently solved the cancer problem[0] - and while it is not perfectly understood, it is definitely NOT by mitigating hundreds of different cancer factors - the prevailing theory is that it detects and destroys "overcrowding", regardless of cause. We might be able to do something like that for humans, although right now it is still in the realm of science fiction.
The most promising venue to the best of my knowledge is the Warburg Effect[1]; unfortunately, it has been promising and not really delivering for 80 years now, although DCA[2], which showed promise and is undergoing clinical tests as a cancer treatment, is at least conceptually related - malfunctioning mitochondria and fermentation-in-lieu-of-glycolysis seem to be two sides of a similar coin to my (untrained, ignorant) eyes.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_mole-rat#Resistance_to_c...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warburg_effect
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dichloroacetic_acid#Cancer
This older report suggested that two thirds of cancer was because of random mutation, rather than genetic predisposition or lifestyle.
Here's an example of the confusing way that older study was reported: http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/jan/02/two-thirds-ad...
> Two-thirds of adult cancers, say the researchers from the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center in the United States, are caused by random mutation in the tissue cells during the ordinary process of stem cell division. In the other third, our genetic inheritance and lifestyles are the main factors.
> The scientists have created a mathematical model which, they say, shows it is wrong to assume that there are such things as “good genes” that may prevent us getting cancer even though we smoke, drink heavily and carry excessive weight.
This new study disputes that, and says that normal random mutation only accounts for 10% to 30% of cancer, and the rest is because of lifestyle or genetic predisposition.
From a public health point of view that's pretty important. Stop smoking, and control how much alcohol you drink, continue to be important public health messages to reduce the incidence of cancer.
The risk factors are there because we do not do enough to care for each other as individuals in society. The statistics are the tool used for trading liabilities in the applied oncological epidemiology colloquially referred to as health insurance risk modeling.
It's not "Confucian-era Chinese", but google translate gives : 倒霉 which per wiktionary (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/倒 and https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/霉) I don't see anything relating to poverty or impoverishment.
That obviously depends on the type of cancer. Smokers are way more likely to get lung cancer but for other types of cancer with high mortality rates (prostate, breast, myeloma, lymphoma etc) there is no single attributable 'exposure' that is known to be the cause.
* Eating red meat
* Eating processed meat
* Drinking 3+ glasses of milk daily
* Inadequate levels of vitamin D
These are all well-known to the nutrition community to increase cancer risk.
I think it's overstating it a bit so say those things are "well-known". There are some indications that those things may result in slight increases of risk for certain types of cancer.
I would seriously question the credentials of any PhD nutrition researcher at a decent university that disputed any of those factors.
Huh? There's some correlation with prostate cancer[1] but that's it.
[1] http://www.pcrm.org/health/health-topics/milk-consumption-an...
"The risks of a high-protein diet are even comparable to smoking, the researchers said."[1]
1: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/diet-high-in-meat-...
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/will-eating-red-meat-kill-you...
The link to lung cancer is the most high profile (and rightly so -- 80% to 90% of all incidences of long cancer are primarily attributed to smoking), but its carcinogenic effect can be seen all over the body.
Note: Obviously I'm not advising anyone to smoke.
Also, "They did not look at tissues from two of the commonest forms of cancer – breast and prostate" this is not an accurate description of 'cancer' just the types of cancer they are studying.
Further, this is focused on types of tissue. Environmental factors that increase risks for all forms of cancer are ignored.
PS: Mathematically, if a very small percentage of the population had much lower risks of cancer it would be almost impossible to detect.
- we know with certainty that it follows a <xy> distribution and there is no way we could know more
- we don't know enough so it appears random to us.
If I were forced to bet on one of these, I'd say it's always the latter except in the case of Heisenberg uncertainty.
What I mean is that much of your "environment" is what you, your body, puts in itself and does to itself. (In other words, eat well and exercise to give your body a good "environment".)
Yes, you are what you eat. If you eat cancerous substances once per week, you put yourself in risk zone. It's what you eat, drink and breath with build your body cells, you give them weak building material and treat them poorly, they are weak and can be attacked easier. Already decades ago some scientists said that cancer is environmental and you decided whether you got it or not. Eat healthy, not processed meat, fresh vegetables (not frozen), drink clean water.
The same rule applies to other illnesses like alzheimer, it's something "new". First alzheimer was described in modern history, while thousands of others illnesses were described and diagnosed even 3000 years ago by Egiptians.
If cancer was an absolute case of being born to the bad gene pool we'd have to tackle the problem in how do we advance our genes to be more error resistive.
Being that it's more of an environmental, the problem suddenly change to how do we as a whole bring up our environment several levels up to a more healthier region.
You can et the healthiest stuff there is, it still won't help you when the can lining is full of BPA. You can excursive every day and it won't help you if the weights contain materials you breathe which disrupt cellular functions. You can eat the most nutritious fish and vegetables and you're still going to be hit by the cancerous materials they've been brought up in.
Adopting the attitude you do, does nothing to better everybody. Only creates yet another us vs them partition in an already well divided society.
For me it means there are separate implications:
1. What you can do to help your body day to day (and longer term about where you live, for example) 2. What society and policy makers can do to improve the environment as a whole
Also, about Genes: you may have genes that are more sensitive to certain chronic diseases, but it is your environment that activates those genes. Example, if you are at risk of diabetes, but eat very well, you may never get diabetes.
Edit: Actually, you may be right about the former, at least w.r.t. frozen cruciferous vegetables, such as broccoli, and some inert enzymes. This is pretty interesting:
> Frozen broccoli can provide a cheaper product, with a longer shelf life and less preparation time than fresh broccoli. We previously showed that several commercially available frozen broccoli products do not retain the ability to generate the cancer-preventative agent sulforaphane. We hypothesized that this was because the necessary hydrolyzing enzyme myrosinase was destroyed during blanching, as part of the processing that frozen broccoli undergoes.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23915112
Good news, though, at least if you like radishes:
> Daikon radish root supported some sulforaphane formation even when heated at 125 °C for 10 min, a time and temperature comparable to or greater than microwave cooking. Daikon radish (0.25%) added to frozen broccoli that was then allowed to thaw supported sulforaphane formation without any visual alteration to that of untreated broccoli.
What's more:
> Sulforaphane has been shown to provide cancer prevention through a number of mechanisms including the upregulation of detoxification enzymes and epigenetic changes. Optimal temperature and pH for sulforaphane formation from broccoli was determined. Sulforaphane formation was measured in three commercially frozen broccoli samples pre- and post-cooking. The results show that in these products, there was very little potential to form sulforaphane prior to cooking and essentially none after the recommended cooking method was performed.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1756464613...
Looks like sprinkling some radishes, horseradish, and even wasabi revitalizes the sulforaphane production, though.
Not such good news for kale though - looks like we're better off eating it fresh than frozen, indeed (in vitro, cancer cells were suppressed ~10x more with fresh Brassica)
> Brassica vegetables contain a diverse range of phytochemicals with biological properties such as antioxidant and anticancer activity. However, knowledge about how biological activities are affected by processing is lacking. A green cultivar and a red cultivar of curly kale were evaluated for water/methanol-soluble phytochemicals before and after processing involving blanching, freeze storage, and boil-in-bag heat treatment. In both kale cultivars, processing resulted in a significant decrease of total phenolics, antioxidant capacity, and content and distribution of flavonols, anthocyanins, hydroxycinnamic acids, glucosinolates, and vitamin C. Interestingly, the red curly kale cultivar had a higher capacity to withstand thermal loss of phytochemicals. The extracts of both green and red curly kale inhibited the cell proliferation of three human colon cancer cell lines (Caco-2, HT-29, and HCT 116). However, extracts from fresh plant material had a significantly stronger antiproliferative effect than extracts from processed plant material.
As you found proofed yourself I will add more about it Freezing meat causes histamine level to go down in red meat. There are people (like my gf) how are allergic to histamine. She was taking steroids for nearly 20 years, and no one in Poland, Germany and UK was able to classify what kind of allergy she has, every doctor said "it's something genetic". Until recently she stopped eating red meat, allergy just stopped. She started investigating it on her own. We started to freeze meat before cooking it, and now she's fine. There are some researches about it, but they're on initial stage, and no scientific proof was made so far. Yesterday she found a few more people online who share the same symptoms!
> The evidence that red meat (beef, pork and lamb) is a cause of colorectal cancer is convincing. Studies show, however, that we can consume modest amounts -- up to 18 ounces (cooked) per week -- without a measurable increase in colorectal cancer risk.
> But when it comes to processed meat (ham, bacon, salami, hot dogs, sausages) the evidence is just as convincing, and cancer risk begins to increase with even very low consumption.
> This is why the expert panel advises limiting red meat and avoiding processed meat.
http://www.aicr.org/can-prevent/what-you-can-do/10-recommend...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha-gal_allergy
Is she OK with poultry and fish?
Now I know tons of people who have died from cancer or are battling it. Perhaps it was under diagnosed but I some blame it on "westernization" .
Scientifically, this does not hold water, because cancer is such a fundamental disease group that is inherent in the machinery of cells. There are two main factors at play in the apparent rise of cases. One is, as you said, cancers were generally not diagnosed before modern medicine arrived on the scene. The second is: people have to die of something, so when life expectancy goes up cancer rates skyrocket. People who would have died of infection ten years ago will now die of cancer in ten years from now.
Your anecdote is likely true because of those reasons, similar to the "rise" in autism.
http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/preventing-cancer/Pages/diet-and-...
My family does not drink much or smoke. Most of us are in a good weight category, except for me. My challenge is to reduce the weight.