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Comment by codeflow2202 | Hacker News Reader

This. I live in Belgium coming from Italy and it's scary how many people I know gets cancer here. Like someone i know every few months gets it (and I'm not talking about just old people. A couple guys i know got it in their 20s). And it's all people relatively healthy.

Compare that to Italy where nobody I know does any effort to be healthy, eats lots of red meat (we do like our pork meat but it's all local stuff), smoke, veggies just a small side dish, no sport at all and they still live longer, healthier lives.

The few people i know who got cancer there, were well over their 60s (and all of them eventually survived). I'm talking about the region Umbria which is pretty pristine and barely industrialized.

This made me realize that the best thing you can do for your health is just picking the right place to live.

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What do you think it is about Belgium (a small country but by no means homogenous) that makes it more carcinogous than Italy? In the 40 years that I've lived here I've only know one or two cases of young people getting cancer.

Some stats do seem to confirm your anecdote: Belgium gets 345.8 cases / 100K (6th highest in the world) and Italy 290.6 / 100K (24th highest).

Maybe it's the zone? I'm in WV and it feels extremely bad here. One note: my experience is in Umbria, I know that there are some other parts in Italy which are pretty polluted.

By the way I've been wondering the same thing for years now. I don't know why. My hypothesis is pollution since the biggest difference between the 2 zones is the levels of industrialization.

It might have to do with better screening. I've read in the past that Belgium is a frontrunner in the screening for certain cancers (like breast and colon afaik). If you screen more, you will find more. Italy is quite poor and probably doesn't have the resources to invest, so ends up with lower stats.

WV = West Vlaanderen? What feels bad?

The air. Extreme traffic, old people burning wood (or worse) to heat their houses and a lot of polluting industry. Depending on the type of weather most days the air is unbreathable. I'm not saying that WV is worse than the rest of Belgium. This is just the place I'm experiencing.

> This made me realize that the best thing you can do for your health is just picking the right place to live.

Imagine you’re completely wrong about this — because it’s a very dangerous assumption to be completely confident in. What’s another answer for why Belgians seem to get cancer more often than Italians?

> a very dangerous assumption to be completely confident in

Why would it be "dangerous"? It should be almost completely common sense. Sure, the conclusion is not a comfortable realization for rich industrial countries that have completely poisoned themselves and really don't want to pay the bill for any sort of large scale investigation (factory by factory, soil patch by soil patch, each commonly used construction material etc.) and massive decontamination measures that would have to come after...

Anyway, people will make tradeoffs, and they'll likely choose to live in places with better paid jobs... but they're damn well entitled to ask for an extra 25% on that already large enticing salary if it comes with +X% probability of terrible illness and lower life expectancy!

It is a dangerous assumption if wrong because it prescribes that you can do most unhealthy activities and they are not major factors for your health outcomes.

Well this doesn't mean that you can smoke all day if you move to Umbria and be safe. But what I noticed is that in some places smoking is much riskier than others.

And apparently it's not just a feeling of mine. Belgium is the 6th worst place in the world (just after the USA) for age adjusted cancer rates: https://www.wcrf.org/dietandcancer/global-cancer-data-by-cou...

Vitamin D deficiency is probably playing a not insignificant part in what you're seeing.

I still think it's pollution. There are many other countries with low levels of D which are ranking much better than Belgium https://www.wcrf.org/dietandcancer/global-cancer-data-by-cou...

The first country on that list is Australia.

Does anyone here think Australia is more polluted than say India?

And also all the top countries in that list are all part of the more developed world, where pollution levels in general are much less than say other parts of the world.

While pollution might still be an issue it could also be that people living in developed countries have more access to healthcare and so their detection rates are higher.

I think that Australia and NZ might be very high because of skin cancers and the infamous ozone hole. India can probably be extremely polluted in the cities but I wonder if it's the same in the country side.

And fair enough, african countries might have undetected cancers and have people die of other disease before getting old enough for cancers. But I was comparing Umbria to Belgian Flanders which are both 1st world countries.

Why is Belgium so polluted, though? This is the first time I'm learning about it.

What is with the obsession hn has with vitamin D as a cure-all?

Like clockwork, every single health and diet story here gets vitamin D comments.

It's an extremely common deficiency that has links to a ton of issues, and it's quite easy to correct, so it's an extremely low hanging fruit in terms of reducing your risk for a ton of things.

...eh, it's the fries, trust me ;)

That's indeed the number 1 suspect! All that reused oil everyone is ingurgitating at least once a week XD

Do you know what kinds of oil are commonly used for the frying?

Not really. It used to be a mix of seed oils and animal fat. But I don't think that many fries places do still use the animal fat part for "health reasons".

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