Study finds almost half of all cancers linked to preventable factors | Hacker News Reader

Study finds almost half of all cancers linked to preventable factors

cbc.ca

77 pointscpncrunch54 comments

I wonder how long it will take before we'll see more studies on dairy and IGF-1 and how they affect cancer. I seriously doubt that it's a coincidence that the Nordic countries have some of the highest cancer rates in the world, since they also drink the most milk. Or that the people with the Laron syndrome are resistant to cancer, since (if I remember correctly) they have some sort of defect in their IGF-1 receptors.

T. Colin Campbell talks a bit about this in his books (China Study etc.). I think he's correct that there is some sort of taboo against questioning dairy and protein.

Edit: I should probably mention that IGF-1 is a growth hormone. Cow's milk contains a lot of IGF-1. You know, those calves are pretty small when they are born, but are supposed to grow into full-size cows. Both humans and cows have receptors for the very same IGF-1.

Also I wonder if type of dairy (fermented/processed/etc) serve as additional confounders.

PS do not forget sunlight/vitamin D levels if speaking about Nordic countries specifically not just dairy. Also a known cancer risk factor.

I am very curious how they can come to the conclusion that unhealthy eating (whatever that means) contributes to cancer. There is so much tied up in that statement. Let's put aside the fact that dietary guidelines for a healthy diet are dubious at best. How would they determine that a person that contraced cancer had an unhealthy diet? Did they simply look at the weight or perhaps the perennially maligned BMI? Did they rely on self reporting? Did they account for changes in diet across the entire lifetime? It is just crazy to think about all the ways that the foundation for such a claim could be faulty.

Probably having more than 50g sugar per day etc? While the decade-long saturated-acid-bashing is controversial, there are things that are proven to help longevity, like eating fatty fish regularly or not eating more than you spend.

I was going to post this... it's about time until the WHO classifies added sugars in the same carcinogenic category as cigarettes... what is happening in the food industry is simply bizarre. Artificial sweeteners aren't the solution either...

50g sugar is like 2.5 apples.

Just saw that the WHO reduced the recommended amount to 25g: http://www.who.int/nutrition/publications/guidelines/sugars_...

This is for "free sugars" though, so whole apples should not count if I got it right. Fruit juice "frees" the sugar though, so sugar in apple juice should count.

Fruits have been cultivated and bred towards greater sweetness. They are much sweeter than their natural ancestor.

indeed, not something I like. now apple doesn't feel healthy at all, more like a giant candy (i know it's still probably healthier to eat it rather than not, but I really wish there would be types which would be less sweet)

I think "healthy food" is a bit misnomer: only people can be healthy or unhealthy, while food can be nutritious or not. While health of an apple is quite a different thing (apple tree disease?)

Some of the conclusions come from the Nurses' Health Study. The researchers have enough long term data to establish correlations between diet and certain diseases. http://www.channing.harvard.edu/nhs/

I always find it ironic when I see people fundraising for cancer research by selling doughnuts.

The worst has surely got to be the 'Buckets for the Cure' campaign by KFC.

http://media.onsugar.com/files/2010/04/16/5/301/3019466/0d0b...

Worse:

Bake sales to raise funds for diabetes research.

I wonder how many places will report this with the headline: "Study finds majority of all cancers are not preventable"

I can't tell exactly what this does mean... does it really mean most cancers are just not preventable? If 45% are preventable, then are the rest NOT? The risks [0] are pretty obvious. The "Other Risks" [1] are rather interesting though.

[0] http://albertapreventscancer.ca/reduce-your-risk/

[1]http://albertapreventscancer.ca/reduce-your-risk/other-risks...

Many cancers really aren't avoidable, as there's a spectrum of causes. The mutations that cause cancer can come from many sources - carcinogen exposure, UV light/radiation, inherited defects, or unavoidable errors that occur when cells divide (on average, around 3 errors per cell division).

Getting cancer is a lot like playing the lottery (or perhaps more accurately, Russian Roulette). It requires an accumulation of mutations in two or more key genes, and these mutations occur more or less randomly throughout the genome, regardless of cause. So maybe your first hit happens from a chest X-ray, and the second hit comes from smoking. Or maybe you just get old and the replication errors pile up in blood stem cells, giving you leukemia.

The point is that it's all probablistic, and that's why some smokers live to be 100 cancer-free, and some health-nut marathoners get cancer. In general, though, these external factors can bend the odds one way or the other.

While still (probably) probabilistic to a large extent, specially concerning environmental exposure, there's more acceptance recently into cancer having a metabolic component, many cancer and metabolic related pathways cross (eg fasting/insulin/igf-1). So it's not necessarily just lottery, or rather, we still don't know how large of an factor the lottery part actually is.

very well said, this can be copied to all those articles about food causing/not causing cancers that seem to pop up recently. not much more is needed to know on this topic

Just one example: About 12 percent of women in the general population will develop breast cancer sometime during their lives. By contrast, according to the most recent estimates, 55 to 65 percent of women who inherit a harmful BRCA1 mutation and around 45 percent of women who inherit a harmful BRCA2 mutation will develop breast cancer by age 70 years. These estimations are a bit in flux, I've heard much higher ones in the past.

(http://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/genetic...)

> If 45% are preventable, then are the rest NOT?

We will find out more causes of cancer as time goes on. And then more will be preventable. I am sure that environmental pollution causes are a big one that isn't included in this report -- and also various chemicals we encounter in our daily lives (soaps, etc) are likely contributing to cancer as well.

Ordinary soap? That seems like a stretch.

There are a ton of additives that have been in soaps and shampoo that can cause cancer...

https://www.healthline.com/health-news/cancer-dangerous-chem...

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/285641.php

http://www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/health/breast-cancer-fears...

http://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/su...

And I am sure that over time there will be more things in our environments that we are regularly exposed to that will be identified as cancer causing, although it is hard to predict which ones.

How about the notion that we've figured out all the causal links/factors for the different kinds of cancer?

>does it really mean most cancers are just not preventable?

It really makes me want to go eat some bacon and cheetos.

I made sure to read all the previous comments here and the article kindly submitted to open the thread before posting this comment. I see the article links to a related website[1] with interactive advice on how to reduce risk of cancer, based on the study findings. That website has a page that sums up research has been showing for years, in multiple different studies:

"Research suggests that only 5 to 10% of cancers run in families. Some factors, like age, are outside our control, and some we just don’t know about yet.

"The really good news is that up to 45% of cancer in Alberta is caused by factors we can control.

"So while it’s not possible to completely prevent getting cancer, there are many proven things we can do to greatly reduce our risk. This is what cancer prevention is all about."

As I look at the site's advice, I see

Eat Healthy (I should still do a bit more to reduce calories while increasing dietary fiber from vegetables and whole grains, but I'm mostly on that already)

Prevent HPV Infections (I've got this covered)

Get Screened (some screening programs are useless, actually, but I participate in the screening programs with proven benefit)

Limit UV Rays (easy to do in Minnesota in the winter)

Live Tobacco-Free (I have always done that)

Be Active (I exercise moderately every day)

Maintain a Healthy Weight (I can improve on this a little)

Drink Less Alcohol (I go weeks at a time without drinking at all, and have never been drunk)

and control other risk factors, which I do.

You could do all of this too.

[1] http://albertapreventscancer.ca/

Absolutely all cancers are linked to being alive, which is an easily preventable factor.

Really? Half of all cancers? Really!?

I would love to see a research organization attempt to come up with a single, comprehensive, complete list of all cancers first.

What I read from this is, somebody was given 3/4 of a million to prove something that's already known. Moderate exercise, not having unprotected hookups with randos, and not eating shit all the time will make your body more healthy.

The only thing novel sbout this study is they added, '...for cancer sufferers'.

It's really hard to figure out whether to trust this study, I can't find a link to anything that's been published/peer reviewed on the OP link. These kinds of epidemiological studies are incredibly difficult, and easy to get wrong.

There is a good paper on this topic though:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v529/n7584/full/nature1...

Problem is figuring out which behaviors, and which foods not to eat.

Here: - Stop smoking, - keep active and at a healthy weight range - reduce red meat consumption (and barbecued/charred food) - reduce your alcohol intake - wear sunscreen.

Boom - you've just covered most of the risks that you can control.

And don't eat antioxidants... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10983214

People are downvoting you... why? You even provided a citation.

This is one of the more fascinating recent discoveries about diet, that anti-oxidants can actually CAUSE cancer instead of prevent as previously assumed.

Obviously the jury is still out, but we had thought the jury was not out until recently.

It's well known that cancer cells die under oxidative metabolic pressures, and also that antioxidants can help prevent free radical caused DNA damage (which might lead to cancer). So antioxidants can both help and cause damage, depending on the context, the problem is finding the balance.

Also, don't live near a major highway or in smoggy city.

There are way more. For example avoid most hair care and beauty products. They often are full of barely tested chemicals with unknown effects.

There's a reason chemophobia is a thing - most of the chemicals in household products are not tested, and many of them are suspected carcinogens.

Obviously it's not necessary to go all the way to chemophobia, but a little caution would not hurt.

plus eat a lot of vegetables

My guess is that we all have predispositions to developing certain types of cancer....consider the medical histories of your grandparents, parents, and siblings for (approximate) guidance...

Your grandparents and parents provide a good real-world "preview" of the possibility(s) that genetic make-up might predispose one to certain infirmities, illnesses, cancers...

Maybe you should be on guard against those evidenced, to the extent possible...after all, you're very much like them...?

Did they live a life that eventually led to any medical conditions they experienced...?

Should you avoid the life choices that they made...?

Pretty much everyone agrees on the basics: avoid white flour, sugar and processed foods. Get enough sleep, get sunlight and exercise.

Most importantly - don't overeat and try to stick with eating within 6-8 hours a day, i.e. one or two meals only, no snacking, no liquid foods (soda, juices).

While I'm a big fan of intermittent fasting myself, I don't think the research is anywhere near conclusive enough to say it's more important than basic advice like sleeping, exercising, and avoiding processed foods.

Historical evidence isn't enough?

Correct, historical evidence isn't enough. "Recorded history" has seen many revisions and is abundant with confounding factors.

It's still better than unreliable science. We're not adapted to eat breakfast; we're better adapted to skip it.

No snacking? Not long ago the advice was to munch on healthy things throughout the day.

The advice of yesterday is wrong today -- the way it seems to go with most food/health/lifestyle advice. For me, I live the way I want to live, and eat what I like to eat. If it shortens my life by a few years, so be it.

Same wrong advices were about cholesterol and saturated fat.

Yeah, and tomorrow your advice will be back to being wrong.

No, it won't be as my advice has thousands of years of backing. Historical and biological evidence, in this case, worth more than corrupt nutritional science. People eat breakfast thanks to the commercial interest of Kellogg's - you can do your own research about "the most important meal of the day"!

Current research indicates that people who don't eat breakfast are more likely to have health problems

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakfast#Effect_on_health

I'm also reasonably sure that the hearty English breakfast is older than Kellog's cornflakes. As is the Japanese breakfast with grilled fish and rice and the traditional breakfasts of countless other cultures.

"Current research" there is not necessarily strong nor convincing either way, from the linked wikipedia article:

Reinagel also suggests that link between skipping breakfast and increased weight may be mostly behavioral – compensating with snacks and eating more later—and therefore not inevitable

I was referring to the expressions "Breakfast is the most important meal of the day". Also, different activities are adapted to different things. Even without one ethnicity, there might be differences (for example, slaves vs warriors). I subscribed to the Warrior Diet [0]. According to the author Ori Hofmekler, slaves were eating all day long while warriors were only feasting at night.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrior_diet

my ancestors were eating breakfast long before that company was founded. you might be right, but the way you present your side and your opinions (no hard facts so far)... you could work a bit on that part ;)

Different ethnicities are adapted to different things. For example, we eat differently than the Inuits. It takes several generations to do an adaptation to a new diet.

The burden of proof is on you, who is claiming an additional statement. I'm not going to do any research on anything to prove your point.

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